The paper considers institutional changes in the sphere of procurement of goods, works and services for public purposes. The goal of the paper is to develop a new conceptual approach to the formation of an institutional model for the contract procurement system. It is shown that basic concepts of the current model of contract system remain outside the framework of the universally binding and formally defined categories in conditions of legal regulation instability. We formulate the task of systematizing the set of concepts and definitions in order to separate and differentiate individual segments of the procurement market. In order to implement this task we analyze fundamental definitions contained in legislative acts of international organizations and countries, review key approaches and principles, and highlight specific national features of procurement regulations. We draw attention to the fact that the greatest volume of purchases is observed in the public sector. In the process of our research we use a method of normalized weighted average indicators to calculate an integral index that characterizes the scale of the public sector and also to obtain expert assessment of the extent of procurement control. Judging by the results of the study, the scope of procurement control correlates to a large extent with the size of the public sector. Our research helps lay out the principles of institutional reform of the contract procurement system. We propose a conceptual approach to the strategy for development of the government procurement institution taking into consideration international experience and structural specifics of the Russian economy and its public sector. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the fact that it discloses the concept of government procurement as a substantive framework of the contract system; it corresponds to modern trends in the development of legal capacity of public legal entities and public companies. The article proposes a corresponding framework for the thesaurus of the contract system. The proposed regulation of a set of concepts and terms acts as a methodological framework for allocating and distinguishing individual segments in the market for procurement of goods, works and services. The new model of contract system will require optimization of legal regulation of contract relations based on restructuring and differentiating the regulatory framework, taking into account strategic goals and objectives of a relevant segment of the government procurement sector
Keywords
institutional reform, public procurement, contract procurement system, government procurement, public sector, new thesaurus, procurement market segmentation