Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

152 Petr Panovmajoritarianism (‘the victor wins all’), when the interests of few (or only one)influential actors can be represented in bodies of power. Such actors extendcontrol over the public sphere and dictate their own interpretation of thepublic interest to society. Another problem is that there is always a probabilityof ending up in a political deadlock, when several influential actorswith roughly equal resources enter into conflict, and neither is able toachieve victory by way of ‘aggregating interests’.Hence, the political community requires additional institutional structuresto eliminate these weaknesses. Goodin, in particular, considers two possibilities.5 The first one is a system of the division of powers, including checksand balances mechanisms, which protects the political sphere from beingmonopolized because neither political group controls all branches of power.The second one is institutionalizing representation and providing guaranteesto various interest groups while making decisions (proportional representation,the right of veto, etc.). These options are consistent with Lijphart’swell-known Westminster and Consensual patterns of democracy. 6It is quite clear that yet another crucial precondition for the effectivenessof this type of representation lies in a high level of development of civicassociations, i.e. strong self-organized and self-governed groups representinga whole range of voices, not only financial or business interests. 7Such structures can help a political community achieve high efficiency andrepresentation even though certain political actors are predominantly drivenby private interests. In other words, this type of representation withoutimposing strict requirements as to the actors’ motives and intentions setstough constraints on political institutions.It should be emphasized that such an institutional context gives rise to asituation of interdependency, and making public decisions becomes not somuch a process of aggregating private interests regarding a particular issue,as negotiating (bargaining) the positions of various actors. As rightly notedby Sened, this is a sign of a true democratic process. 8The second type of representation is based primarily on public interests.This means that political discussions primarily focus on issues with publicrepercussions. As was noted above, the actors’ perception of public issues isinevitably influenced by their particularist interests, but in this case what isimportant is that actors represent their positions on a wide range of issuesthat are definitely part of the public domain. This type of representationclearly corresponds with the communitarian tradition in the history of politicalthought, and the deliberative concept of democracy. 9It is common knowledge that the first political communities – the Greekpolis and the Roman res publica – were based on the concept of citizenship,involving citizens in public activity, and politics was perceived as solvingproblems of public significance (common good), which, according to Arendt,were not even related to satisfying material needs. 10 It is not by accident thatAristotle drew a clear demarcation line not only between polis and oikos(household), but also between polis and ethnos – communities he did not