Yuzhakov Vladimir
Abstract: The article deals with general problems of the development as philosophical category linked to some applied issues of public administration. The development is analyzed as a specific mode of change with its own particular properties, including particular conditions needed for managing this kind of change, as well as its limits. The authors show where and why public administration faces problems concerning development of the administrated areas, arguing that such problems can be resolved only through elaborating special methods of administration appropriated for managing the development. The article criticizes largely accepted definition of the development as a goal-oriented positive change, arguing that particularities of the process such as irreversibility of the change, the new quality as a result of the development process, the systemic organization of the change, and the major role of the self-organization are more important than the change itself. Analyzing current research on the development as social and economical process, the authors give some theoretical and empirical evidence of the absent distinction between the development and the change in modern literature. Therefore, many isolated examples of more sophisticated attitudes are found in the theoretical research, as well as in the practice of public administration. In addition, research agenda is proposed in order to build interdisciplinary research program concerning development mechanisms, to integrate this special dimension in the planning and strategy building at the national, regional and local level.
Keywords: development; development management; public administration; regional development; change management.