Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

148 Aleksandr Kynevgovernors and regional elites on the federal centre has increased. This led tothe fact that, as a result of clear federal interference, regional politicalregimes in regions that had previously had a reputation for being veryauthoritarian (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Kalmykia, Adygeya, Tyva, etc.)were now forced to liberalize themselves to a certain extent. An opposition,even if not always very significant, appeared in the previously monolithiclegislative assemblies of these regions. On the other hand, many regions thathad previously possessed developed democratic systems, their own establishedregional parties and interest groups, etc. (Nizhnii Novgorod andSverdlovsk Oblasts, Kareliya, the Primorskii Krai, and others) lost theirdemocratic nature because of the same pressure from the federal centre, andmoved towards strengthening authoritarian tendencies; their autonomousregional groups were forced to move into the background or to pass themselvesoff as federal groups. The domination of governors increased and theindependence of other players was weakened. In other words the level ofauthoritarian rule in the Russian regions largely averaged itself out.On the other hand the variety of interests in the Russian regions and thesquabbles among the regional elites never disappeared. If necessary they simplymutated and vanished from public politics behind the scenes. In the same way,genuine conflicts, contradictions and problems moved from the visible intothe invisible, not just for many outside observers, but for the federal centreitself. By formally standardizing regional political life, leading it to ostentatiousunity rituals and depriving it of many of its channels of self-expression,the federal centre had at the same time deprived itself of objective informationabout what was happening in the regions.It is obvious that formal domination by the ‘party of power’ does not dealwith the real problems that exist in society: the regional groupings and clansthat de facto still exist simply vanish into the background and continue theirfight out of sight inside the officially ‘united’ United Russia. The officialunity of brands and the obvious respect for rank in the federal centre havecreated a situation where in reality structures with differing values andinterests are hiding behind one and the same name in different regions.Imitating unity through an illusion of controllability and good reportscannot replace the country’s variety. By depriving society of open politicalcompetition, federal power has simultaneously deprived itself of objectiveinformation about what is actually happening in the country, and no‘national projects’ will make up for this. At one time the CPSU was also theonly party in the country (and much more united than United Russia), butthis did not prevent the USSR that it ruled from falling apart into completelyseparate countries with political regimes that are at times at oppositeends of the spectrum. All this artificial controllability is in danger of beingswept away by the collapse of this imitation system, and it will then becomeclear that there are no ‘reserve’ institutions, institutions that society trusts. Ofcourse, this will not happen immediately, but by turning elections into amockery, minimizing vertical mobility and destroying the genuine competitive