CITIZENS’ SAFETY PERCEPTIONS OF LEGALLY PROTECTED VALUES AS AN INDICATOR OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STATE CONTROL (SUPERVISION)

• Published in: Public Administration Issues no. 4; pp. 7 - 43
• Main Authors: Южаков, Владимир, Покида, Андрей, Зыбуновская, Наталья
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 22.12.2024
• ISSN: 1999-5431; 2409-5095
• DOI: 10.17323/1999-5431-2024-0-4-07-43

State control and supervision activities should aim to minimize risks of potential harm to the legally protected values caused by violations of legal norms. All citizens are interested in protecting such values as life, health, rights and lawful interests, environment, cultural heritage. However, neither the Federal Law of 31 July 2020 No. 248-FL nor the practice of its implementation provides for the systemic identification and monitoring of the achievement of this result by the citizens as an indicator of the effectiveness of state control (supervision). The authors argue that this gap may be addressed by using the citizens' safety perceptions of legally protected values. This indicator has been estimated and analyzed in the framework of sociological surveys conducted by RANEPA in the past several years. In order to substantiate the feasibility of employing this indicator, the article explores the data obtained from the All-Russian Sociological Survey conducted by RANEPA in 2024 and compares the results with those derived from similar surveys carried out in 2018 – 2023. Furthermore, the article identifies the factors determining public perceptions regarding the safety of legally protected values. The regression analysis results demonstrate that certain factors, such as the effectiveness of citizens' appeals to state control  bodies, the frequency citizens’ encounters with the necessity to safeguard legally protected values from potential harm, and the level of citizens’ trust in regulatory and enforcement authorities have a statistically significant impact on the citizens’ safety perceptions of legally protected values. Therefore, this indicator may be recommended for evaluating the performance of regulatory and enforcement bodies from the public perspective. The authors propose recommendations for defining the official status of this performance indicator and improving public perceptions of the safety of legally protected values.