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According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, adopted in 1993, local autonomy is one of the fundamental principles of the constitutional system. The Politics of Local Government in Russia aims to provide a dedicated and comprehensive discussion of the pursuit of local self-government in contemporary Russia where "local" refers to the third tier of government beyond federal and regional governments. Some of the ablest scholars in the field focus on the existing institutional and social climate for municipal and district level government in Russia while placing recent reforms in a comparative and historical perspective.
A presentation of political, economic and demographic data on every territorial unit of the Russian Federation, its local government structure and electoral history. Each entry includes a profile of the president, governor or prime minister, and an overview of local trends.
This study is a comprehensive review of fiscal federalism in the Russian Federation. It presents a strong case for greater decentralization. By succinctly surveying the literature on fiscal decentralization and clearly spelling out the main concepts, the volume sets the stage for the subsequent description of the fiscal system in Russia and its evolution through a succession of reforms guided by a desire on the part of Russian policymakers to craft a workable system of fiscal federalism. The authors not only describe the state of fiscal federalism in Russia at its key turning points, but they also provide insightful critical assessments of the reforms introduced at each stage. The book is rich with examples, which makes it an easy and exciting reading. The book's analysis of the history gives perspective to the authors' assessment of the current state of Russia's federalism. The authors make a strong case for greater decentralization in Russia based not only on the traditional economic benefits of fiscal federalism but also on the political benefits from local government competition. The richness of detail and the careful tracing of the reforms over the past nearly two decades also mean that this study will be an invaluable guide to both current observers with academic and policy interest in the recent fiscal federalism reforms as well as Russia's fiscal evolution since the early 1990s and its current fiscal challenges.
This book provides an overview of poverty and well-being in Russia. Increasing poverty rates during the 1990s were followed by greater attention to social policies in the 2000s and increased efforts to engage people in socially oriented NGOs and 'encourage' them to contribute to the fulfillment of social aims. What impact did these developments have on the prevalence of poverty in contemporary Russian society? Tracing continuities from the Soviet system alongside recent developments such as the falling price of oil, economic sanctions, and changes in directions of social policy, this book explores the impact of poverty, inequality and social programmes. The author examines the agency of people living in poverty and those engaged in social policy, using official statistics, survey data and interviews from four Russian regions to explain the reasons and consequences of poverty and people's attempts to get out of it. The approach is based on institutional theory, complemented by Amartya Sen's capability approach highlighting the importance of agency and an institutional framework as a means for change. A timely book that will be of interest to students of contemporary Russian politics as well as those engaged in social policy issues.
The essays in this 1982 volume result from a conference held at Stanford University in 1978, assembled to assess the overall character and significance of the prerevolutionary Russian experiment with the principle and practice of local self-government, the zemstvo, over half of its existence, 1864-1918. The unifying theme of the collection is the rejection of the liberal myth of the zemstvo as an instrument of social integration. The chapters focus on the substantive elements of conflict and tension that existed within the zemstvos, especially between the institutions' two principal groups: the landed gentry, who dominated the zemstvo, and the peasants, who constituted the majority of the population and were intended to the beneficiaries of most of the economic and cultural programs, yet had little part in their formation. Based on the contributors' extensive knowledge of their respective subjects, many of them provide information from previously unpublished materials in Soviet and American archives.
Governing the Locals demonstrates that with the exception of a brief period in 1990-92 when the local soviets fostered mass mobilization, local governments in post-Soviet Russia have actively constrained grass-roots activism. Rather than serving as instruments of the 'schooling in civil society, ' or of 'making democracy work'_as the conventional wisdom holds_local governments have been used by the regional authoritarian or ethnocratic regimes as instruments of top down social control. The author suggests that this tendency has been on the rise under President Putin, whose reforms have served to integrate local government into a centralized power vertical potentially facilitating authoritarian style social mobilization non only on a regional level, but also on a nation-wide scale. The author examines the impact of local self-governing institutions on nationalist movement mobilization in Russia. Using insights from social movement theories, Lankina argues that similar to the soviets in the Soviet system, municipalities in post-Soviet Russia continue to influence local societies through their control over social networks, material resources, and public agenda setting. Accordingly, their facilitating or constraining role crucially affects movement successes or failures. This is the first study identifying the centrality of local government for understanding the nature of state-society relations in Russia, and for explaining the broader questions of social activism or lack thereof in the post-Soviet space.
Local Government Reforms in Countries in Transition explores the impacts that the end of the Cold War and increased globalization have had on government around the world. The decentralization of national governments has led to a greater role for local governments; public administration and democrative representation are the new arena of local governments the world over. Focusing not only on countries from the former Soviet Union, but also on Israel, China, South Africa, and Egypt, the contributors to this volume present a truly global investigation of countries experiencing governmental transformation.
This book focuses on the evolution of federalism and intragovernmental relations in Russia for the period 1992-95 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its main question is whether under conditions of democratisation and marketisation in Russia an authoritarian approach of 'transformation from above' is more favourable to one of granting more autonomy to local governments. The author suggests a scale of various reform implementation policies based on two pioneering case studies of Russian provinces.
This book examines the democratic changes that took place in civil society in Central and Eastern Europe after the break up of the Soviet Union.