The limitations of central authority in the regions and the implications for the evolution of Russia’s federal system. (original) (raw)
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An indicator of whether President Vladimir Putin's policies will strengthen or weaken Russia's fragile semidemocracy is his reform of federal-regional relations. On assuming the Russian presidency in May 2000, Putin placed at the top of his agenda a policy of strengthening the Russian state's "executive vertical" and reintegrating the Russia Federation's economic and legal space. Many Russian and Western analysts interpret Putin's federal reforms as a course that, intentionally or not, will re-establish a tsarist-style unitary state, even Soviet-style centralization. Nikolai Petrov has argued that although Putin's goal is not the dismantling of either Russian semidemocracy or federalism, his policies are leading to just such an outcome. (1) Leonid Smirnyagin has argued the very opposite: that although Putin's federal reforms have been intentionally "antifederalist," they have functioned to strengthen Russian federalism. (2) In reality,...
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This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, high-quality, research-level work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in humanities and social science subjects.
Putin's struggle for federalism: Structures, operation, and the commitment problem.
Europe-asia Studies, 2007
This article provides an analysis of the institutional mechanisms that are required to ensure the effective functioning of federalism in Russian politics. A common contention in the literature on federalism is that, in addition to fundamental requirements such as the constitutionally defined division of powers between the federation and its constituent units, and the supremacy of the federal constitution, some ancillary structures are necessary. Of particular importance are institutions of intergovernmental co-operation, transparent means for the mobility of officials between the centre and the regions, and integrated systems of national parties. The functioning of these institutions must also reflect the culture and ethic of federalism. This article examines how well these three factors have been implemented in Russia in the course of Putin's reforms. It is shown that a preliminary network of such institutions has been created. However, their operational ethic, and in particular the lack of commitment to federal values, it is argued, could act as an impediment to the successful evolution of the federal state in Russia. THE COMPREHENSIVE FEDERAL REFORMS LAUNCHED BY RUSSIA'S PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin upon assuming office in May 2000 marked a significant turn in the evolution of the country's centre -regional relations. The newly emerged federal structure represented a clear departure from the chaos and 'sovereignisation' of the Yel'tsin era. It introduced greater clarity in the centre -regional division of powers (Smirnyagin 2001), re-consolidated the authority of the federal centre, 1 and attempted to establish the supremacy of federal law across the land (Hahn 2003, pp. 114 -153).
The regions of the Russian Federation are immensely diverse economically and geographically as well as when it comes to their national identity, civic awareness and political activity. We are in fact dealing with a ‘multi-speed Russia’: along with the post-industrial regions with their higher living standards and a need for pluralism in politics, there are poverty-stricken, inertial regions, dependent on subsidies from the centre. As a result of the policy of centralisation pursued by the Kremlin since 2000, the autonomy of the regions has been reduced fundamentally. This has affected the performance of the regional elites and made it difficult for the regions to use their natural advantages (such as resources or location) to their benefit. One of the effects of this policy has been the constantly decreasing number of the donor regions. The current model promotes the role of the region as a passive supplicant, for whom it is easier to seek support from the central government, offering loyalty in exchange, than to implement complex systemic reforms that would contribute to long-term development. Moscow’s control (political, economic and administrative) over the regions is currently so thorough that it contradicts the formally existing federal form of government in Russia.
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