Comparing Regulatory Impact Assessment in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Russia: Lessons Learned

This paper examines the gap between de jure RIA reforms and their de facto implementation in Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Russia, drawing on 433 RIA reports and 23 legislative acts from 2013 to 2023. Using an embedded mixed-methods approach, a quantitative scorecard assessing the quality and analytical depth of RIA reports is combined with qualitative process-tracing based on legislation analysis, semi-structured expert interviews, and participatory observation notes to explain causal mechanisms behind observed outcomes. The findings reveal that socio-political context strongly shapes RIA implementation. Georgia achieves the highest RIA quality, yet it is practiced by a single government body. Overreliance on international epistemic community and close networking of the executive government with the parliamentary deputies resulted in RIA “escapism” in a small country context. In contrast, Kazakhstan and Russia have institutionalized RIA both horizontally and vertically across government bodies, but the quality of RIA reports has not improved over time. Scorecard results indicate moderate analytical quality in Kazakhstan, while in Russia RIA remains largely a perfunctory exercise. Extending Jacobs’ U-shaped model of RIA implementation, the study finds that its trajectory goes through another decline after a consolidation stage in authoritarian countries. This implementation gap is driven by oversight body’s weak enforcement capacity and the absence of external and domestic pressure, preventing adopted international best practices from translating into higher analytical quality. However, a deeper explanation lies in an overly high accountability along the vertical ladder of command in the executive branch and reduced downward accountability to society. The RIA implementation is confined to the political goals of moving the regulation along the legislative process and achieving a ‘satisficing’ quality of RIA requirements. By comparing peer countries that adopted RIA reforms approximately at the same time, this study highlights how institutional and socio-political contexts condition the effectiveness of regulatory reforms. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers and researchers seeking to understand the limits of formal regulatory reform in authoritarian and transitional governance contexts.