Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

4 Vladimir Gel'man• Recentralization of institutional regulation, including a series of federallaws that substantially curtailed the powers of regions, in parallelwith a revision of regional legislation directed from the Centre;• Administrative recentralization, as a result of which territorial branchesof federal agencies were removed from subordination to theregions and control over them passed to the Centre or to the federaldistricts, which also had the task of political and administrativeoversight over regional and local government on behalf of the Centre(the reversion to appointment of governors can be seen as part of thissame trend);• Recentralization of economic resources, leading to a weakening of thecontrol over the regional economy previously exercised by regionalelites, now more dependent on Russia-wide financial-industrialgroups which functioned as conduits for federal power in theregions, 18 as well as an increased concentration of financial resourcesin the hand of the Centre due to the reduction of budget funds underregional and local control. In 2006 the federal share of the all-Russian budget rose to 66 per cent. 19 If at the end of the 1990s Russiahad been the most decentralized federation in the world, then in themid-2000s it occupied an average position among federal states interms of the level of fiscal decentralization. 20• Equalization of the political status of the regions in relation to theCentre and to each other, due to the abolition of bilateral agreements(with the exception of Tatarstan where a new bilateral treaty wassigned in 2007) and an almost complete end to the practice of givingexclusive rights to particular regions. 21• A sharp decline in the role of the regional elites in Russia-wide politicalprocesses against the backdrop of a substantial increase in federalinfluence over regional political processes, attained not onlythrough administrative intervention by the Centre, but also institutionalchanges, leading in a number of cases to changes in the configurationof regional elites and transformation of regional politicalregimes. 22As with the decentralization of the 1990s, the recentralization of the 2000swas part of a larger-scale process of change at the level of the country as awhole. Consolidation of the state and restoration of its administrativepotential, economic growth on the basis of raw materials, and the establishmentof a mono-centric political regime, accompanied by de-differentiationand reduced fragmentation of elites and enforced consensus between theKremlin and the economic and political actors subordinated to it – these arejust a few of the aspects of the transformation that occurred within Russianafter 2000.The result is reminiscent of a pendulum swinging from one extreme typeof consolidation (the Soviet political and economic system) to another