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DOI: 10.18413/2408-9338-2025-11-4-1-2

Subjectivity of the municipal environment: from the balance of interests to the conjugation of logics

Vasily I. Demyanenko (State Academic University for the Humanities 26, Maronovskiy Lane, Moscow, 119049, Russia)

Relevance. The effective resolution of social problems at the municipal level is increasingly associated with the development of constructive interaction among government bodies, the non-profit sector, and business. However, practice often demonstrates a gap between the existence of formal partnership institutions and their actual productivity: collaboration often proves fragile, initiatives stall, and participants report mutual misunderstanding. This necessitates the search for new analytical tools to understand the factors that determine the constructiveness of interaction. Research problem. Dominant approaches in the study of municipal practices rely on actor-centered models, where outcomes are explained by the intentions, interests, and communication quality of the participants. However, the persistent, recurring nature of interaction failures, often occurring despite the declared goodwill of the participants, presents a research puzzle. The question arises: what mechanisms, beyond declared interests and communication quality, determine the final outcome of collaborative activity – its productivity or stagnation? Methods. The study was conducted within a qualitative methodology framework using an inductive design. The empirical basis consisted of 25 semi-structured interviews with representatives of administrations, NGOs, socially oriented businesses, and resource organizations in six municipalities across four constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The sample was expanded based on the principle of theoretical saturation. The analysis involved multi-stage coding and a comparative analysis of narratives to reconstruct the underlying mechanisms of interaction. Research results. The study revealed the existence of stable “institutional logics” (external systems of rules and meanings that actors are pragmatically compelled to follow). These logics were operationalized through three analytical dimensions: a basic code, a key “currency” and operational practices. A map of six key logics was reconstructed: administrative, civic, economic, political, professional, and media. It is shown that constructive interaction is enabled by a “coupling mechanism” (the creation of interfaces that are simultaneously “legible” to different logics). Two methods of coupling were identified: situational “manual coupling” and more stable “unified coupling”. The dynamics of the environment's development from an absence of coupling to the accumulation of interfaces were reconstructed, leading to an increase in diversity and the emergence of an emergent property: the “emergent agency of the environment”. Conclusions. An operational model was developed in which the constructiveness of the municipal space is determined not by the balance of actors' interests, but by the quality and density of couplings between institutional logics. The environment's development is morphogenetic in nature: tension between logics stimulates the search for new interfaces, and their crystallization changes the state of the environment. The emergent agency of the environment appears as a bottom-up result of accumulating couplings, rather than a top-down design. The model refines the institutional logics perspective by shifting the focus from competition to compulsory coupling.

Keywords: institutional logics, coupling mechanisms, emergent agency of the environment, collaborative activity, municipal context, municipal governance, developmental environment, diversity, unification.

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Demyanenko, V. I. (2025), “Subjectivity of the municipal environment: from the balance of interests to the conjugation of logics”, Research Result. Sociology and management, 11 (4), 213-227

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