The institutionalization of economic interests in the socio-economic project planning of territorial development

The paper presents an economic theoretical perspective on the project planning of the socio-economic development of a territory in terms of institutionalizing economic interests of project planning subjects andsubjects of project implementation. Thepurpose for the study research is to identify and deploy four phases of institutionalization, as well as propose new principles and criteria for optimal institutional combinations of the project for its successful implementation. The methodological framework of the study relies on the system approach and the method of structural levels as one of its areas in the unity of the functionary and functional aspects. The research novelty includes representation of the structure of a territory’s economic system through a hierarchy of three major levels, a phase-by-phase description of the institutionalization process of economic interests, justification of criteria for optimal institutional combinations in the project planning of territorial socio-economic development. The authors for the first time apply the structure-level approach to the study of the territorial economicsystem which helps systematically assess the mechanism of institutionalization of economic interests of the project subjects. The authors identify the techno-economic, socio-economic, and economic levels of its functioning. The economic level is represented by three sub-levels of fundamental importance in terms of the article’s title development: organizational-economic, institutional and economic sub-level. The identification of the economic sub-level is fundamental in the sense that analysis of economic behavior and interaction of actors of territorial development helps theoretically correlate subjectively created organizational-economic and institutional standards with objective focus of technical, economic and socio-economic processes of territorial functioning and development. We define the main stages of the institutional project design for territorial development: adoption and design of social services commissioning on the draft of the territory’s socio-economic development, record of economic problems of the socio-economic development of a territory as an object of design, highlighting areas of concentrated economic interests and dominant patterns of behavior of the subjects of territorial development, development of institutional design of a territorial development project based on aligning the economic interests of its participants. According to the authors, the project designer must consider, on the one hand, the subordinated mediation of relations of the deeper level during the implementation and exit to the surface levels of the economic life, on the other hand, the opposite effects of institutional structures on basic economic relations. The institutional combination in territorial socio-economic management is considered as a combination of institutional standards (economic, financial, organizational, and legal) generated according to the desired goals of social development. The article clarifies the criteria for an optimal institutional combination of the project: “sensitivity” to the manifestations of territorial problems-irritants at the economic level, “adaptability” to changes and the concentration of economic interests of key subjects of development, “combinatorial theory” as the design of a set of forms and standards contributing to the choice of the most appropriate vector of the territorial socio-economic development, as well as motivating the development of actors for its implementation. The main provisions of the articles have already been tested in a number of development projects in the Tver Oblast; the problematization of some of them has revealed the opportunity of using institutional project design in regional development management.