External Shocks and Multi-Level Governance Adaptation: the Case of Russian Housing Policy

International sanctions imposed on Russia in recent years, along with associated economic hardships, have had a significant impact on many socially important sectors. The quality of governance in these areas is crucial for maintaining economic growth, living standards, and the position of the ruling elites. Based on the policy analysis of the Russian housing policy, this article demonstrates how the governance system in socially significant sectors retains its capacity to meet the demands and achieve the goals of various actors amid external shocks – shaping both the quality of governance and the distribution of public goods. The study draws on an analysis of open data on the Russian housing policy and the functioning of the construction market, as well as semi-structured interviews with representatives of government, business and the expert community in the housing sector. Focusing on the timespan 2022–2025 we argue that after the imposition of sanctions in 2022, the housing policy subsystem initially demonstrated coping behavior, and later began to show elements of adaptation. The initial coping measures, reflected in the chaotic implementation of deregulating tools aimed at assisting developers, conflicted with previous priorities. Subsequently, several institutional innovations were introduced, and attempts were made to resolve the policy contradictions caused by the coping phase. We also argue that the multi-level structure of governance ( MLG ) in the housing policy subsystem has an ambiguous impact on adaptation to the crisis. On the one hand, MLG was a source of policy inconsistencies caused by the divergent goals of actors involved in policy-making. On the other hand, MLG , as well as the market-oriented nature of the subsystem, provided opportunities for the formation of informal horizontal networks among construction businesses and for access points to the decision-making process, enabling the resilience.