Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Between a rock and a hard place 37For comparative purposes it is also worth noting that although Russiaremains unique among post-Soviet states in opting for a genuine federal statestructure based upon a federal constitution, it is not the only post-communiststate to do so. In December 1995 the Dayton Accord became the basis for anew federal bargain between Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a former republic in the six-state, two-province socialist federationof Yugoslavia. 38 Clearly Titoist Yugoslavia was no more an authenticfederation than the Soviet Union, but the new multinational federal Bosnia-Herzegovina, like the new multinational Russian Federation, has a similarauthoritarian communist past based upon formal single-party unitary governance.In neither case, then, was there a democratic federal political cultureon which to build a genuine liberal democratic federation. The maindifference between the formation of these two recent examples of post-communistfederations is that the former was put together largely by the internationalcommunity and in this regard might constitute a novel federalstate. 39 We might also construe Cyprus and Iraq as contemporary examplesof just this sort of novel international construction.In summary, Riker’s federal bargain can be adapted to explain how andwhy the Russian Federation was formed but only in a limited way.Federation came about as a result of territorial consolidation rather thanexpansion while the notion of a threat to the security of the state came fromwithin rather than from without. Ultimately it is not the concepts of federalismand federation per se that require re-evaluation, but it is Riker’s ownnotion of the federal bargain that needs to be revised and updated.2 Historical legacies of centralizationIn the study of comparative federalism and federation, it is customary forscholars to acknowledge and accommodate historical specificities prior tothe search for patterns of regularities in political systems. In the specificcontext of the Russian Federation, we cannot avoid one of the most outstandingfeatures characteristic of Russian history, namely, the overweeningcentralization of the state.Russian autocracy dates back several centuries in the Romanov dynasty sothat political scientists understandably dwell upon the historical continuitiesof centralization between the Russian state and the Soviet state. After thecollapse of the USSR and the emergence of the Russian Federation, thehistorical legacy of centralization has weighed heavily upon contemporaryattempts to transform Russia into a liberal democracy in conjunction withconcerted efforts to introduce a working market economy. Indeed, it is nowcommonplace to construe the process of federalization as part of the largerprocess of democratization. Federation has not only kept the Russian statefrom falling apart, it has also served to promote liberal democracy. It is asmuch a cultural change as it is an economic transition. But the presence ofthe state that has been so ubiquitous in Russia’s past – the deep-rooted