Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Leviathan’s return 19that informational symmetry, far from being reduced, is actually increased.The development of alternative mechanisms for central control of regions,primarily via the penetration of all levels of the system by the ‘party ofpower’ United Russia, has yet to bring the Centre any substantial dividendsin regional policy or governance. In principle, the Kremlin’s drive to constructits power base in the regions and the country as a whole on partymechanisms rather than personalities is a rational strategy with reasonablechances of success, 79 but at the time of writing the balance between costs andbenefits under the ‘new centralism’ remains as difficult as ever to ascertainIn place of a conclusion: out of the frying pan into the fire?The transformation of Centre–regional relations in Russia in the 2000s maybe summed up under the heading of ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’. Thepace and results of the recentralization policy in Russia was pre-determinedby the genesis of ‘new centralism’ and the managerialist ideology thatdominated throughout its creation and early stages of implementation. In the1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian governmentunderwent such a high degree of fragmentation (not least regarding centre–regional relations), that the result bore comparison with the Hobbesiannotions of the ‘state of nature’ and ‘war of each against all’. 80 After 2000 thesituation in Russia rapidly changed so that the more apposite comparisonwas with Hobbes’s Leviathan: the country’s fragmentation had been haltedand reversed thanks to a reassertion of the administrative capacity of thecentralized state. 81 The Centre, having lost control of the levers of power fora decade, was once again able to establish its supremacy over the regions,rising above them and drawing them in, just as in Leviathan. However,unlike with Hobbes’s model, here it is not a question of sovereignty beingdelegated from below, on the basis of a social compact, but a victory by theKremlin ruling group in a zero-sum game which has been implemented fromthe top down via an ‘obligatory consensus’ of elites. The fragmented and weakCentre of the 1990s was replaced after 2000 by a Centre that possessed sufficientadministrative capacity to impose new ‘rules of the game’ on the regions.However the low level of autonomy in Russian governance, the weak ruleof law and the preference of Russian elites for rent-seeking from naturalresources, all create the conditions for a predatory state 82 which has becomea political instrument in the hands of the ruling groups, and is used by themfor short-term ends. The presence of these characteristics of the Russian statecreates new challenges for all dimensions of Russian politics, including theregional dimension. The Centre has succeeded in minimizing the autonomyof the regions, but it is not yet clear whether it will be able to derive anybenefit in terms of the country’s overall development, or whether there hasmerely been a division of power and property, for private benefit.It is not given to history to operate in the subjunctive mood, and wecannot therefore know whether an alternative approach to that of ‘new