Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Balance in local government reform 275Conflict between municipalities and the state thus tends to be on a one-toonebasis, involving the state at regional rather than federal level, and doesnot directly involve federation-wide collective institutions such as theCongress of Municipalities or the Union of Russian Cities. Although theCongress of Municipalities was closely involved in the process of developingLaw 131, the lack of a tradition of federal lobbying of municipal interestswas to put the municipal point of view at a disadvantage when it came topassing the draft law through the Federal Council, and regional interestsbegan to make their presence felt.The degree to which, in Russian federalism, tensions have been commonbetween federal centre and regions and between regions and the largermunicipalities, but not directly between federal centre and municipalities(until very recently), raises the question of whether a common interest incontaining regional power existed between federal and municipal authorities.In terms of the Robinson model, discussed above, this question takes onconsiderable significance. The federal centre cannot bring about the modernizationof the state and its constituent regions by legislation alone. Itsattempt to compensate for this by using administrative methods runs the riskof undermining the whole modernization project through the accumulationof unaccountable power at the centre. If, on the other hand, pressure wasexerted on the regions through the development of municipalities as acountervailing force, this would lessen the need for administrative methodsto be applied from above, and would enable the reassertion of federalauthority and modernization to take place in accordance with the principlesof pluralism and constitutionalism, rather than risking their abandonmentand with it the integrity of the modernization agenda.Vertical or triangle?The notion of deploying local authorities as a political counterweight againstthe regions dates back to the nineteenth century councils (zemstvos) – seen aspart of a system of ‘constrained autocracy’ 44 – and it may be seen as a naturalconsequence of Russian adversarial political culture and geographicalexpanse. As Sakwa has observed, ‘Local self-government has the potential tobecome a powerful third tier, something fostered by the central authorities asa way of undermining the trend towards the regionalization of Russia.’ 45The drive for greater local self-government has rarely been supported withany sustained commitment from the federal centre, due to the lack of a sufficientlystrong pro-local government group at the federal level, where thereare also groups which are wholly unsympathetic to local autonomy. TheYeltsin administration did attempt to revive the strategy, particularlythrough the localist local self-government law of 1995, but the abolition oflocal councils in 1993, in the wake of the clash with parliament, sapped theability of local government (even once reconstituted) to fulfilthisrole. 46 The ideaof local government as a ‘second front’ in the struggle between the centre