Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Leviathan’s return 5(dominant power politics and state capitalism), passing through the equilibriumof democracy and a market economy. 23 In terms of Centre–regionalrelations, this pendulum, having started from a position of extreme centralizationafter a series of zigzag movements in the 1990s, reached thefarthest point of decentralization during the of economic crisis in 1998, whenthere loomed the threat of extinction of the Centre as a significant actor.However, the pendulum then began to move swiftly in the opposite direction,passing the equilibrium between centralization and decentralization andreaching, by the mid-2000s, a new equilibrium of recentralization in the formof ‘new centralism’. 24The establishment of the ‘new centralism’ of the 2000s was partly dependenton certain objective processes such as the formation of a nationwidemarket in Russia and the expansion of Russia-wide economic actors into theregions, 25 but to a substantial extent it was the result of political strategy.The development and realization of this political strategy depended on aconstellation of political actors at the federal and regional levels, whorepresented particular ideologies interests and approaches. The interplay ofthese factors had many repercussions in terms of the course taken by thefederal reforms of the 2000s.Ideologies and interestsThe question of why, after 1998, the direction of Centre–regional relationsmade a 180-degree turn may be separated into two parts. First, why did theCentre make such a decisive change in its strategy and how was it able successfullyto introduce a whole series of federal reforms? Second, why did theregional elites, until 1998 active political rent-seekers in their negotiationswith the Centre, so humbly agree with the imposition of new ‘rules of thegame’? It would be naïve to suggest that this turn-around was brought aboutmerely by a change in the balance of power, which forced the regions toforgo continued decentralization and enabled the Centre to win back theground lost in the 1990s. In considering Centre–regional relations, it is worthviewing these political actors as a coalition united by ideologies as well as byinterests. Ideology in this context refers to the actors’ perception of problemsfaced, their view of the existing social reality and the social reality theywould prefer. The membership, resources and motivation of these coalitionschanged radically in the 2000s.In the 1990s the federal Centre consisted of a motley conglomerate ofdifferent organizations, clans and cliques entering into coalitions and conflictsamong themselves and with regional elites. The interests and ideologiesof these actors were markedly different. The divergence of interests lay in theattempt of some departments of state to centralize management, concentratingresources in their own hands (the Ministry of Finance was theclearest example of this) whilst other departments and politicians sought topass onto the regions the responsibility for those problems, primarily social,