Autocracy-Sustaining Versus Democratic Federalism: Explaining the Divergent Trajectories of Territorial Politics in Russia and Western Europe

Abstract

This article provides a comparative assessment of territorial politics in Russia and Western Europe. The consolidation or deepening of regional autonomy in Western Europe contrasts with the transformation of Russia from a segmented and highly centrifugal state into a centralized authoritarian state in the course of just two decades. The consolidation of territorial politics in Western Europe is linked to the presence of endogenous safeguards that are built into their territorial constitutional designs and most importantly to the dynamics that emanate from multi-level party competition in the context of a liberal and multi-level democracy. In contrast, in Russia, neither endogenous safeguards nor multi-level party democracy play an important role in explaining the dynamics of Russian federalism, but who controls key state resources instead. We argue that under Putin power dependencies between the Russian center and the regions are strongest where regional democracy is at its weakest, thus producing ‘autocracy-sustaining’ instead of a democratic federation. By studying the relationship between federalism and democracy in cases where both concepts are mutually reinforcing (as in Western Europe) with the critical case of Russia where they are not, we question the widely held view that democracy is a necessary pre-condition for federalism.

Extracto En este artículo ofrecemos una valoración comparativa de la política territorial en Rusia y Europa occidental. La consolidación o profundización de la autonomía regional en Europa occidental contrasta con la transformación de Rusia que en tan solo dos decenios ha pasado de ser un Estado segmentado y sumamente centrífugo a un Estado autoritario y centralizado. La consolidación de la política territorial en Europa occidental está vinculada a la presencia de protecciones endógenas que se incorporan en sus diseños constitucionales territoriales, y, lo que es más importante, en las dinámicas que emanan de la competencia de partidos de varios niveles en el contexto de una democracia liberal y de muchos niveles. Por el contrario, en Rusia ni las protecciones endógenas ni una democracia de partidos de varios niveles desempeñan un papel importante a la hora de explicar las dinámicas del federalismo de Rusia, sino más bien la cuestión de quién controla los principales recursos estatales . Sostenemos que bajo Putin las dependencias de poder entre el centro de Rusia y sus regiones son más fuertes donde la democracia regional es más débil, creándose así una federación que ‘respalda la autocracia’ en vez de una federación democrática. Al estudiar la relación entre el federalismo y la democracia en los casos en los que ambos conceptos se refuerzan mutuamente (como en Europa occidental), con el caso crítico de Rusia donde esto no ocurre, cuestionamos la opinión mayoritaria de que la democracia es una precondición necesaria para el federalismo.

摘要 本文提供俄罗斯与西欧地域政治的比较评估。仅仅二十多年的发展历程中，西欧的区域自主性便已加强或深化，恰与俄罗斯从一个四分五裂且高度离心的国家转变成为中央极权国家的路径相反。西欧地域政治的强化，与其领域性的宪政制度设计所建立的内生性自我防卫有关，并且主要关乎自由主义和多层级民主制度脉络下多层级政党竞争所生成的动态关係。反之，在俄罗斯，不论是内生性的自我防卫或多层级的政党民主政治，皆无法解释俄罗斯联邦主义的动态，谁掌握了主要的国家资源反而是其中的关键。我们主张，在普丁政权之下，俄罗斯各区域与中央的依附关係最强，而区域民主最弱，因而造就了‘专制的维系’，而非民主的联邦制度。透过研究联邦主义和民主相互强化的桉例（例如西欧）和俄罗斯的相反桉例之间的关係，我们质疑民主做为联邦主义存在的先决条件此一普遍观点。

Résumé Le présent article cherche à fournir une évaluation comparative de la politique territoriale en Russie et en Europe occidentale. La consolidation ou l'approfondissement de l'autonomie régionale en Europe occidentale contrastent avec la transformation de la Russie en deux décennies seulement d'un État segmenté, hautement centrifuge, en un État autoritaire, centralisé. La consolidation de la politique territoriale en Europe occidentale est liée à la présence des sauvegardes endogènes qui sont intégrées dans l'architecture constitutionnelle territoriale et, surtout, à la dynamique qui émane de la concurrence à niveaux multiples dans le contexte d'une démocratie libérale à plusieurs niveaux. Par contraste, en Russie, ni les sauvegardes endogènes, ni la démocratie à plusieurs niveaux ne jouent aucun rôle important pour expliquer la dynamique du fédéralisme russe, mais plutôt qui contrôle les ressources d’État essentielles. On affirme que, sous Poutine, les dépendances politiques entre le centre politique russe et les régions sont les plus fortes là où la démocratie est à son niveau le plus faible, ce qui produit une fédération qui soutient l'autocratie plutôt que la démocratie. En étudiant le rapport entre le fédéralisme et la démocratie dans les cas où les deux notions se renforcent mutuellement (comme en Europe occidentale), contrairement à la Russie où elles ne le sont pas, on met en doute le point de vue largement répandu que la démocratie constitue un préalable du fédéralisme.

Keywords:

• Federalism
• autocracy
• democracy
• multi-level government
• Russia
• Western Europe

UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF TERRITORIAL POLITICS IN WESTERN EUROPE AND RUSSIA

Recently, Russia has become a comparative object in the studies of federalism. The development of Russian federalism and its different aspects had already inspired comparative analysis with the early USA (de Figueredo et al., 2007 ), Mexico and even with communist Eastern Germany (Gel'man, 2006 , 2008a). The federal structure of Russia of the 1990s has also been compared with that of the new millennium (Burgess, 2009 ; Sakwa, 2010 ). Indeed, the framework of comparative federalism contributes to our understanding of the Russian territorial structure and its future development. However, surprisingly, few scholars have compared Russian federalism with territorial politics in Western Europe's federal or multi-level states. For two theoretical reasons, we think that such a comparison is useful and can develop our understanding of the dynamics of federalism in general and federalism in Russia in particular.

First, Western Europe's federal or multi-level states present a wide variety of federal or multi-level models. Plurinational states (Keating, 2001 ) such as Spain, the UK and Belgium devolved powers in order to accommodate plurinational differences. ‘Coming together’ (Stepan, 2001 ) federations like Switzerland developed organically, out of a more loosely confederal order, whereas the federal character of Austria and Germany is partially home-grown, but also somewhat crafted by outside forces following a period of totalitarian rule (Niclauβ, 1998). In other words, compared with federal states elsewhere, the diversity of territorial politics in Western Europe provides a broader pallet against which the Russian experience can be more meaningfully compared.

Second, in Western Europe, change and continuity in territorial arrangements are linked to a set of endogenous safeguards (Bednar, 2009 ) of territorial politics. These ‘endogenous safeguards’ relate to how embedded the principle of territorial self-rule is within the constitution and the capacity of the sub-state entities to participate in central decisions that affect their competencies or interests (shared rule; Elazar, 1987 ). In tandem, Constitutional Courts or Supreme Courts may operate as adjudicators of central−regional or inter-regional disputes (for an overview of the ‘safeguards of federalism', see in particular Filippov et al., 2004; Bednar, 2009 ).

Usually, these design features go hand in hand with the presence of a multi-level party system. In Western Europe, such multi-level party systems have emerged from organizing elections at multiple levels. Parties have to select candidates, draft party programs, canvas members and govern (or form the opposition) at multiple levels of the state. Multi-level or statewide parties in particular have the potential of providing a strong ‘integrative’ force in the party (and federal) system, as they must strike a balance between satisfying regional demands (self-rule) and projecting polity-wide interests (Filippov et al., 2004; Thorlakson, 2009 ; Fabre, 2011 ; Fabre and Swenden, 2013 ). Thus, in Western Europe, the introduction of territorial arrangements, where they were called for, promoted or even deepened democracy. Federalism assumes a ‘dispersal of political authority’ and, in this sense, the proper functioning of a federal order should allow room for the control of the federal and sub-state governments by different political majorities. This basic requirement of federalism is easier to achieve under conditions of liberal or democratic governance (Filippov) et al., 2004. This is the case as divided political control is more likely where key liberal democratic assumptions hold, such as ‘the rule of law, free and regular elections by secret ballot, an independent judiciary, a free media, the protection of individual freedoms and human rights, and the legitimacy of government opposition’ (Burgess and Gagnon, 2010 , p. 4; Kincaid, 2010 ). In sum, territorial autonomy and multi-level democracy have become intrinsically linked (but see Watts, 2010 for a more historical perspective).

In contrast, as we will argue, Russian federalism under Putin has been strongest where sub-national democracy was at its weakest. In other words, ‘political authority’ can be dispersed even if the requirements of liberal democracy are not fulfilled. In the pre-Putin era, authoritarian sub-national regimes co-existed with a relatively democratic center, whereas since Putin assumed the Presidency and then Premiership of the federation, Russian federalism has moved in a more authoritarian direction without fully sacrificing the territorial dispersal of political authority. By studying the relationship between federalism and democracy in cases where both concepts are mutually reinforcing (as in Western Europe) with a critical case where they are not, we can shed a clearer comparative light on this relationship. Too often, assumptions about the instability of federal states have focused on cases of democratic breakdown (such as Pakistan or Nigeria) or of secession following democratization (such as Yugoslavia). Conversely, the experience of federalism in Western Europe has been compared most frequently with that of federalism in Canada, the USA or Australia. Yet, these ‘more logical’ comparisons can tell us little about the conditions under which federalism and democracy are mutually reinforcing or those under which they are not.

The article is structured in three parts. In the first part, we illustrate the ‘contested’ nature of Russian federalism and compare it with the dynamics of territorial politics in Western Europe, which, particularly in plurinational states like Belgium, Spain and the UK, also shows elements of contestation. In the second part, we show how that contestation has led to the transformation of Russian federalism from a centrifugal to relatively centralized federation in the span of two decades. This development contrasts with the deepening of territorial autonomy in Western Europe. We attribute the transformation of Russia into a centralized federation to two important factors. The first factor points at the comparative weakness of safeguards endogenous to federalism (self-rule, shared rule and the Court as an impartial umpire). These safeguards are stronger in the West European context, and thus preclude as drastic a rescaling of territorial authority as possible without concurrent constitutional reform. In other words, federal form and practice are more closely interlinked in Western Europe than in Russia, where the transformation into a centralized federalism has been possible without significant constitutional reform. The second factor points to the changing power dependencies between the center and the regions. In the West European context, these changes are closely tied to the working of multi-level democracy itself, in particular the dynamics of regional and multi-level party competition. In contrast, in Russia these are linked to who has captured key resources of state control (Hellman, 1998 ). The capacity of the Russian center to capture these sources has been lowest where it faces authoritarian regional governments. As such, Russian federalism has remained strongest where regional democracy is at its weakest, effectively producing an ‘autocracy-sustaining’ federation. The final part summarizes our key findings and what they mean for how we conceptualize the relation between federalism and democracy.

CONTESTED FEDERALISM

All multi-level systems are dynamic to some extent, but major shifts in authority across time—either from the center to the regions or vice versa—are often linked to the absence of a broad-based consensus at the onset of the federalization process. The nature of the Russian multi-level state was highly contested from the start, as political actors not only mobilized against the constitutional settlement but even preferred to disobey it. There was an uneasy tension between the pro-regionalist and asymmetric logic embedded in the Federation Treaty (1992), the bilateral Treaties which the center negotiated with several Russian Republics throughout the 1990s, and the more symmetric and centrist logic of the amended Russian constitution (1993). Under Yeltsin's Presidency, the balance tilted in favor of the regions, resulting in what Sakwa ( 2010 ) refers to as a state of ‘segmented regionalism’. In contrast, under Putin's Presidency (and Premiership), central authority was reinforced and the principle of regional autonomy undermined. This transformation in the space of just two decades is unique to Russia, and goes against the trend of multi-national states in Western Europe which have seen regional autonomy consolidate or advance.

A Contested Russian Federal Constitution: Which and Whose Constitution, and How Much Asymmetry?

Following the implosion of the Soviet Union, Russia had to draft its own constitution. That process of constitution-building was staggered, and contested, but it stood beyond doubt that Russia was to retain its federal format, initially made up of 89 regions.

The retention of a federal structure was logical in view of the turbulent years preceding the formation of the Russian Federation, and especially in light of the willingness of the center to bargain with regional elites. The sudden ‘democratization’ of Russia meant that ethno-regional elites which were already granted a degree of (formal) self-rule in the Soviet federation found themselves in a strong bargaining position vis-a-vis the center (Brubaker, 1996 ). Russian republics sought to emulate the autonomy-maximizing strategies of the Union Republics vis-a-vis the Soviet central state. In the case of two Russian republics (Tatarstan and Checheno-Ingushetiya), sovereignty was even sought outside of the Russian framework (Zuber, 2010 , p. 558). The Russian regions (republics, national-territorial entities and administrative territorial entities) benefited from a much weakened Soviet center and, after its disappearance, Russian center (Brubaker, 1996 ; Bunce, 1999 ; Roeder, 2007 ). They negotiated separate sub-treaties with the Russian center, which was annexed as a Treaty to the (1978) Russian constitution. This Federation Treaty was signed in 1992 and committed the ‘rump’ of the Soviet Union to form a Russian Federation but in doing so also favored regions with a republican status. In 1993 an agreement on a new Constitution for the Russian Federation followed, but it did not include the Federation Treaty that was signed a year earlier.

The constitution of 1993 is the main document outlining the federal structure of contemporary Russia. However, the inconsistencies between the prerogatives that derive from the Federation Treaty and the actual constitutional text explain some of the bargaining logic and instability of Russian federalism that followed. About a third of the 137 articles of the Russian constitution are dedicated to the federative structure of the Russian Federation (Vaslavsky and Mironiuk, 2010b, p. 40). To circumvent its contested character, particularly in some of the republics which felt they were better off under the Federation Treaty, the new Constitution was only put to a polity-wide popular vote without a requirement for concurrent majorities across a majority of the state legislatures. The results of the polity-wide referendum were contradictory (Vaslavsky and Mironiuk, 2010b, p. 41). Although 58.4% of the population supported the Constitution, it was rejected in 8 republics and in 10 regions.1 In a further five republics, the draft was not passed at all due to low turnout (less than 50% of regional population).2

Russian republics saw in federalism a means to accommodate their multi-ethnic society, and bilateral and asymmetric arrangements with the center were considered a logical consequence of recognizing Russia's plurinational diversity. The latest census also identifies no less than 182 officially recognized nationalities in Russia. Next to the ethnic groups, the center-periphery cleavage manifests itself in the peripheral South of Russia and Siberia, both territories with an increased sense of ‘cultural regionalism’ or identity (Vaslavsky and Mironiuk, 2010a, p. 30). A federal and asymmetric constitution that recognizes these socio-demographic and economic realities on the ground emerged as the most appropriate constitutional form for Russia (Ross, 2010 , pp. 167–168).

However, a large proportion of Russian politicians governing the center—and Russian people in general—considered the need for asymmetry and special recognition to be minimal. Notwithstanding the different types of units in the Russian Federation (Republics, krais, cities of federal significance, autonomous oblasts, autonomous okrugs), some Russian scholars underline what they see as the unusual homogeneity of the Russian population along cultural, religious and ethnic lines. They stress the importance of a ‘Russian ethnic mega-focus’ (Vaslavsky and Mironiuk, 2010a, p. 29). Indeed, data of the last three all-Russia censuses (1959, 1989, 2002) demonstrate little change in the variation of ethnic and cultural self-identification of the population. The main ethnic group—Eastern Slavs—comprises about 84% of the overall population—and about 98% of the population speaks Russian (Vaslavsky and Mironiuk, 2010a, p. 30). The vast bulk (around 80%) of the Russian Federation also lives in more than 50 ‘ordinary’ oblasts and krais, or the main cities of St Petersburg or Moscow which are predominantly ethnically Russian (Stoner-Weiss, 2004 , p. 302). In this sense, the Staatsvolk (O'Leary, 2001 ) is clearly Russian as it represents four out of five citizens in the state.3

The different viewpoints between the dominant Russian titular ethnic group, which preferred a more centralized and symmetric federation, and the ethnic or ‘peripheral’ regions, which propagated a more decentralized and asymmetric federation, is reflected in the ‘inconclusiveness and inherent contradictions’ in the Federative Treaty (1992) and Constitution (1993). Both have been described as incomplete ‘treaties’ (Filippov et al., 2004 , p. 62) due to their lack of secure enforcement or implementation guarantees. The Constitution reflects this ambiguity in part 1, article 5 which states that all regions are equal subjects of the Federation (Vaslavsky and Mironiuk, 2010b), while parts 2 and 4, articles 5, 64 and 68 recognize differences in the constitutional status of different types of regions (e.g. Republics have constitutions not charters, they have presidents not governors, etc.). Even if these differences may simply boil down to ‘constitutional window-dressing’ for what is in essence a symmetric federation (Smirnyagin, 2010 ), the main trend of the 1990s was primarily to keep the federation symmetrical in form but asymmetrical in practice.

For instance, article 72, which deals with concurrent competences that are shared between the central and regional governments, applies to all units of the federation, irrespective of their status (Smirnyagin, 2010 ). Yet, at the same time, between 1994 and 1998 President Yeltsin signed bilateral treaties with a number of regional executives. The first treaties were justified as privileges to regions which ‘deserve’ them, without formal specification of the criteria meriting ‘special recognition’. All bilateral treaties were signed by the President of the Russian Federation and the regional executives but they were not subject to ratification by the Russian Parliament or regional legislative parliaments (Smirnyagin, 2010 , pp. 47–48). Since the content of these treaties was very different from each other (Smirnyagin, 2010 , p. 47), in practice they resulted in building a highly asymmetric federal state. However, the fact that 42 of the 46 bilateral treaties violated the provisions of the federal Constitution (Ross, 2010 , p. 169) made it easier for Vladmir Putin to terminate all of these treaties once he was elected President of the Russian Federation. Yet, their termination has not fully eradicated the presence of asymmetric practices in the operation of Russian federalism (see Section ‘Explaining Authority Migration II: The Democratic Safeguards Of Territorial Politics In Western Europe Versus Power Dependencies In Russia’).

Federalism in Western Europe: Less Contestation, More Stability?

Compared with Russia few West European states have had similarly contested constitutions from the outset. Switzerland is a classic coming together federation, with the oldest cantons dating back to the Middle Ages (Linder, 2010 ). The formation of modern Switzerland as a federal state in the nineteenth century was not painless: it followed a brief civil war in which a number of Catholic cantons combined against the Protestant dominated majority, but with the latter imposing its will—and in the process a federal state structure—against the preferences of the former, who did not endorse the 1848 constitution. In time, however, the Sunderbund cantons acquiesced in the consolidation of Switzerland as a federation, partly because the state developed power-sharing practices at the center and has retained a relatively decentralized federal structure throughout (the most decentralized of all West European federations).

Although Austria and Germany rebuilt federal structures out of fascist dictatorships, the nature of their federal regimes post–World War II showed a strong resemblance to the federal structures that existed during the interbellum, or in the case of Germany, the Wilhelmine period (1871–1918). For instance, following World War II the Allied Powers insisted on a more decentralized German federation with more clearly disentangled powers between the federal center and the Länder (Niclauβ, 1998). The breakup of Prussia, migration from what was former German territory into post-War West Germany and a strong sense of German identity prevented the centrifugal, ethnic bargaining that emerged in post-Soviet Russia (Conradt, 2004 ). With the exception of Bavaria (which found the federation too centralized), all German Länder endorsed the federal constitution.

The contested nature of Russian federalism, and its rapid evolution since 1990, does, however, exhibit some parallels with the rapidly changing constitutional arrangements of plurinational Spain, Belgium and the UK. The Spanish constitution, like the Russian (and Austrian and German) constitutions, emerged from a non-democratic context, but (unlike the Austrian and German constitutions) also developed without considerable influence from outside forces. However, the Basque Country, Navarre, Catalonia and Galicia could reclaim degrees of self-rule that dated back to the Middle Ages and these territories also benefited from a considerable amount of self-rule during the short-lived pre-Francoist Second Republic (Moreno, 2001 ). Francoist elites, as well as the monarch, played a crucial role in the transition from a dictatorial to a democratic regime. The territorial dimension of Spain was recognized by setting up a system of ‘autonomous communities’. As in Russia, however, where different types of regions were recognized, the Constituent Assembly recognized the special status of the historic regions by entrusting them with a higher and faster trajectory toward self-rule (Agranoff, 1999 ). Although a majority of the Basque people and parties refused to endorse the constitution, it had more widespread support in the other regions of Spain (including the other historic communities). Furthermore, with constitution-making preceding the reinstatement of self-rule, regional level elites in Spain were in a comparably weaker position than those in Russia to project their interest vis-a-vis the center (Linz and Stepan, 1996 ).

Like in Russia, there remains a tension between the notion of the state built around a dominant Castilian-speaking or ‘Spanish’ majority nation and that of Spain as a plurinational state encompassing various nations within it. Article 2 of the Spanish constitution provides a wonderful expression of this ambiguity as it signals the commitments toward an indivisible and unified Spanish state which is simultaneously made up of various autonomous communities and nationalities (Moreno, 2001 ).4 This tension between two visions of Spain—one built around a Spanish nation (at best comprising minority nationalities) and another as a plurinational state—has generated two opposing dynamics. Unlike in Russia, regional autonomy has deepened unmistakably since 1978; but this has not been a linear process, with the center seeking to scale back, reign in and homogenize the autonomy process at various points in time. The contestation of the recently revised Catalan statute of autonomy—in particular by the Popular Party, the party in control of the Spanish government since late 2011 – and the controversial Constitutional Court ruling which followed from this demonstrate the lack of consensus on the future direction of the Spanish state (Colino, 2009 ; Keating and Wilson, 2009 ).

Like Spain, the plurinational states of Belgium and the UK emerged out of unitary or union-like regimes. There were no regional-level elites to bargain with (in the sense of regional politicians rooted in a regional executive or parliament) when the federalization or devolution process started. Rather, in Belgium, central-level elites found it increasingly difficult to find common ground on a range of issues that divided opinions between the French- and Dutch-speaking language communities. Consequently, they started to ‘hollow out’ the center by entrusting an increasing range of powers to Communities and Regions (Hooghe, 2004 ; Deschouwer, 2009a). Yet there is disagreement about whether the language communities (the Flemish preference) or the territorial Regions (the Francophone preference) should form the ‘building blocks’ of the federation. Although these tensions have been partially resolved by setting up an ingenious and asymmetric construction of Regions and Community governments the failure to make a clear choice for either logic has had contradictory effects on the institutional stability of the Belgian federation. At one level it contributed to growing opposition among a Flemish political majority to further commit to the Belgian state; at another level it rendered the practical realization of more Flemish autonomy, let alone independence, more cumbersome given the lack of clear agreement on the future Flemish state boundaries, not least the role of Brussels therein (Brans et al., 2010 ).

UK devolution is even younger than Spanish, Belgian or Russian federalism. Although the UK originates from a set of treaties or unions between Wales and England, between Scotland and England, the state was governed as a union-state which tolerated the distinctiveness of Scotland and Wales by recognizing its legal tradition, language, Church or distinctive education system. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices (the latter only between 1972 and 1999) operated as field administrations, headed by a secretary of state in the UK government (Mitchell, 2008 ). The legitimacy of the center to rule Scotland and Wales declined when the ties that bound these nations to the UK weakened. The decay of the Empire and the encapsulation of these nations within the then European Economic Community made them also less dependent on the UK center for their economic survival (Dardanelli, 2006 ). The de facto scaling back of the autonomy of the territorial administrations coupled with unpopular welfare-state retrenchment policies during the Conservative period in central government (1979–1990) eroded the support of that party in the Celtic nations, and in the process also delegitimized central rule in Scotland and Wales. Ultimately, a UK Labour government introduced devolution in 1998, hoping to consolidate its electoral support and the center's legitimacy in the eyes of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish electorates (Bogdanor, 1999 ). Devolution itself was subject to popular referendums in Scotland, Wales and following a peace agreement, in Northern Ireland as well. Yet, 13 years on, devolution remains a ‘moving target’ (Stolz, 2010 ) with a strengthening of the territorial self-rule arrangements, or the secession of Scotland from the UK, possible outcomes.

The territorial arrangements of Spain, Belgium and the UK are contested and remain prone to instability, especially in the current context of scarce resources following the 2008 global fiscal crisis and the resulting Euro-crisis. The contested nature of the Russian federalism was even more outspoken, given the numerous bilateral treaties which violated the spirit of the federal constitution. Yet, 20 years on, in Russia, these contradictions have led to a more centralized state, which many authors consider as neither federal nor democratic. In contrast, in Spain, Belgium and the UK, these tensions have led to further decentralization—which in all three cases could lead to confederalism or the secession of parts of the state. In the following section, we seek to explain what made these different trajectories possible.

EXPLAINING AUTHORITY MIGRATION (I): THE ROLE OF ‘TERRITORIAL’ SAFEGUARDS

Constitutionally Entrenched Self-rule

In Western Europe, constitutional arrangements give a relatively adequate reflection of the state of territorial politics. Most territorial arrangements are constitutionally embedded (de jure or de facto). Therefore, shifts in territorial autonomy are linked to constitutional change. For instance, the German constitution was amended in 1990–1992 to accommodate the entry of five new Länder following unification, and again in 2006, to strengthen regional self-rule. Similarly, the Swiss and Austrian constitutions were amended in recent decades to strengthen respectively the fiscal autonomy of Swiss cantons or to secure the participation of Austrian Länder in EU decision-making. The larger the scale of territorial rescaling, the more frequent and drastic the process of territorial constitutional change. For instance, the transformation of unitary into federal Belgium was the result of four rounds of constitutional reform (1970, 1980, 1988–1989, 1992–1993), and additional territorial reforms through constitutional change have occurred since (2000–2001, 2012–). In Spain, the constitution provides different routes to autonomy and the self-rule arrangements for the ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ route autonomous communities have been periodically adjusted as a result of bilateral pacts between the two large statewide parties; the People's Party (Partido Popular (PP)) and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE)); the parties in regional government; and—where necessary—the regional electorates. Notwithstanding UK parliamentary sovereignty, the self-rule arrangements for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland depend on de facto Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliamentary consent. Substantive revisions of the relevant UK parliamentary acts do not take place without their agreement—or as in the case of the amended Government of Wales Act in 2012, the people.

In Russia however, the nature and direction of territorial change is not linked to the nature and direction of constitutional change. Hence the centrifugal direction in which Russian federalism developed during the 1990s occurred despite the limited self and shared rule provisions under the relatively centralized Russian constitution. The centralized nature of the Russian Federation is reflected in the long list of exclusive (Art. 71) and concurrent competencies with federal paramountcy (Art. 72) in the Russian constitution. The Russian center also controls significant redistributive and distributive policies, such as education, health, infrastructure and culture, and raises the most important taxes.5 However, the constitution is only a limited guideline in seeking to understand the dynamics of Russian federalism. The discrepancy between constitutional form and federal practice is important because as Sakwa ( 2010 , p. 602) observed, the ‘dual nature’ of the Russian state implies that the state operates under two parallel systems of law: one in which the ‘normative state’ applies ‘sanctioned principles of rationality and impartial legal norms’; and a parallel ‘prerogative state’ in which ‘the state [i.e. not necessarily the centre alone] exercises power arbitrarily and without constraints, unrestrained by law.’

With the exception of Switzerland, and the Basque Country in relation to Spain, most territorial arrangements in Western Europe have retained important centralized features. For instance, most West European regions depend on the central government for key redistributive policies, reflecting a normative preference for a polity-wide ‘social citizenship’. This preference is linked in turn to the development of welfare regimes that grew out of a pronounced struggle between capital and labor interests or between economically conservative and trade union-supported labour parties (McEwen and Moreno, 2005 ; Obinger et al., 2005 ). Serving this central redistributive role, most important tax levers are usually kept central in Western Europe (corporate income, personal income, VAT or sales taxes), as in Russia, leading to VFIs (Swenden, 2006 , p. 109). Like in Russia, West European governments seek to bridge these imbalances by redistributing money from wealthier regions which contribute more to the federal tax source to the poorer regions which contribute less.

On the other hand, compared with Russia, West European sub-national governments are given a much stronger say in regulating and providing some of the above-mentioned distributive policies (culture and education, below the level of higher education, are usually entirely controlled by the regions, and regions usually also have a stake in—the provision of—health care). Crucially however, compared with Russia, Western European regions have been able to safeguard their autonomy much better than the Russian regions since Putin, narrowing the gap between federal form and federal practice. For some West European states, constitutionally entrenched shared rule and/or a Constitutional or Supreme Courts that adjudicate central−regional or inter-regional disputes of competence have provided this safeguard function.

Shared Rule or the Participation of Regions in Central Decision-Making

Compared with most West European states, Russia has always scored low on the shared rule criterion, with bilateral, informal channels of influence offsetting the weakness of formalized and multilateral channels. However, under President Putin, the capacity of the regions to engage in a bilateral way with the center was much reduced (hence diminishing the scope for bargaining federalism), as was their capacity to project a common regional interest vis-a-vis the center. In this sense, the federation became much more centralized even if the competencies of the regions at home were not constitutionally eroded.

Putin weakened the shared rule dimension of Russian federalism in two ways. The first was by his reform of the federal second chamber. The powers of the Federation Council, created to represent the interests of the regions, relative to the federal lower chamber (State Duma) were always weak (Ross, 2010 , pp. 171–173). However, Putin's reform of the Federation Council's composition, in which elected Governors and the presidents of regional assemblies were replaced by ex officio members with two regional representatives—one representing the regional executive (but not the Governor) and the other the regional legislature—made the Council an even less potent vehicle of regional representation. By removing them from the Council, Governors lost immunity from prosecution, and therefore became subject to central control to a greater degree. Furthermore, although regional representatives are selected by the regional legislatures and Governors, some studies have suggested that about ‘75–80 per cent of the appointments were either recommended by or cleared with the presidential administration’ (Remington, 2003 , p. 674). Most importantly, most regional representatives were not even residents of the regions they were meant to represent but residents of Moscow or St Petersburg (Remington, 2003 ; Ross, 2010 ). By 2002 nearly half the delegates to the second chamber were Moscow insiders or entrepreneurs with a permanent residency in Moscow. The Kremlin also played a crucial role in influencing the choice of speaker and deputy speakers (Ross, 2003, p. 39; Gill, 2007 , pp. 7–8). Finally, senators could be dismissed from the Council with just one-fifth of a Council majority, paving the way for the removal of senators which the Kremlin deemed ‘unfriendly’.

To replace the Federation Council, two new bodies emerged as vehicles for intergovernmental coordination: the State Council and the Council of Legislators. The State Council is made up of chief executives of the regions (presidents or governors) and meets every three months. A smaller presidium, in which one governor or president for each of seven regional districts resides, convenes monthly. Furthermore, the State Council has 22 sectorial working groups in which specific policy issues, such as transport and social policy, can be addressed. Some scholars have argued that regional governors, as members of the State Council, have a direct way of communicating with the Federal President and therefore that ‘[T]he State Council does play an important role in ameliorating disputes that arise between federal and regional executives’ (Ross, 2010 , p. 176). However, the State Council lacks law-making powers and only serves as an ‘advisory’ body to the Federal President (Ross, 2010 ); as a shared rule mechanism it is too weak. The same observation applies to the Council of Legislators which brings together the chairs of regional parliaments but lacks law-making powers. As Ross notes, this is ‘a body that assists the center in monitoring federal legislation in the regions, rather than a body that represents and promotes the adoption of regional legislation in the centre’ (2010, p. 176). The Council's main task is to coordinate ‘the activities of the regions in implementing the president's policies rather than in initiating legislation’ (Ross, 2010 , pp. 176–177). Further sector-specific intergovernmental bodies were set up to coordinate federal equalization programs or to promote integration in socio-economic, political and cultural matters. The seven Federal districts created by Putin have been the drivers of functional co-operation among regions located within their district. Yet, all of the above intergovernmental bodies only operate in an advisory capacity and most, like the State Council, could be unilaterally dissolved by the federal government. Furthermore, the center sets their agendas. Intergovernmental relations that were instigated by Putin's seven centrally established Federal Districts also pushed intergovernmental co-operation in a top-down direction and stalled the activities of inter-regional associations that were built from the bottom up (such as the Great Volga, Black Earth and Siberian Accords).

The second way in which Putin diminished the capacity of regional political actors to influence the center was by diminishing the capacity of Governors or regional assembly members to speak freely. As early as 2000 Putin brought into place legislation that authorized him to ‘sack’ governors and ‘dismiss’ regional legislatures, admittedly only after serious breaches of federal legislation or constitutional principles could be observed (Ross, 2003 , p. 40). Four years later, shortly after the Beslan tragedy, he dispensed with the direct election of governors altogether.

The weakness of shared rule arrangements sets Russia on a different path from some of the West European multi-level states, especially Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. In fact, German federalism has the strongest and most effective shared rule channels of any federation. The German Länder can issue an opinion on all proposed federal legislation and their explicit consent is required for more than half of all federal legislation. The Federation Council (or Bundesrat) which must provide this consent or opinion is composed of key members of each of the regional governments; the principle of regional representation is strengthened by requesting that each region cast a block vote in the Bundesrat. Dozens of intergovernmental forums have developed in parallel to the coordination that takes place in the Bundesrat. These forums often operate under qualified majority voting or even unanimity, making it difficult for the federal government to ignore regional interests (Scharpf, 1994 ; Kramer, 2005 ; Benz, 2009 ; Swenden, 2010).

In Belgium, the federal parliamentary executive is composed of an equal number of Dutch- and French-speaking members (save the Prime Minister) and can only decide by consensus. This consociational executive faces a federal Parliament which on Community-sensitive issues is divided between two language groups, with members of each group holding a mutual veto-power. Amending legislation that touches upon Community or Regionally sensitive issues (such as amending the Special Finance Law which regulates how the regions are funded) cannot be accomplished without the consent of the key Regions and/or Communities (Deschouwer, 2009a). Shared rule between the two major language Communities is therefore strongly institutionalized. In turn, a federally anchored Deliberation Committee gives each of the players, including the small German Community government, a stake in resolving intergovernmental disputes (Swenden and Jans, 2006 ).

Finally, Switzerland, like Belgium has a consociational (though not constitutionally mandated) federal executive, though it does not protect the interests of the 26 cantons per se—rather that of the four major Swiss parties which reflect Switzerland's linguistic and religious diversity. Cantons are also equally represented in the federal second chamber, which has equal powers to the lower house, and are heard when federal governments consider submitting legislation to federal parliament (Wälti, 1996 ). Cantonal, in addition to popular, consent is required for constitutional referendums (more than half of the cantons must endorse them), and a minimum of eight cantons can trigger a referendum if they find their interests neglected.

On the other hand, the devolved settings in Austria, Spain and particularly the UK offer fewer opportunities for shared rule. Austria, for instance, which is the most centralized of the West European federations, features a second chamber in which members of Land parliaments are represented, yet its powers vis-a-vis the federal government are relatively weak. Most intergovernmental institutions that bring together Land and federal representatives to discuss issues of mutual concern are at best advisory in nature (Obinger, 2005 ). In Spain, only a minority of senators represent the autonomous communities and most are elected at the sub-regional level. Furthermore, the powers of the Spanish Senate are relatively weak. Strong historic regions, such as the Basque Country and Catalonia, do not necessarily seek to strengthen the Senate as it could mean that on certain issues they have to trade their privileged access as bilateral negotiation partners with the center in return for a collective regional right of co-decision—in which they may be outvoted (Roller, 2002 ). Sectorial conferences bringing together central and regional ministers or civil servants have emerged instead, but only with an advisory capacity (Grau i Creus, 2000; Bolleyer, 2006 ). Shared rule provisions are weakest in the UK. Since devolution applies to only about 15% of the UK, civil servants or ministers from the devolved governments may be given access to Whitehall on some issues, often through bilateral negotiations. They cannot realistically expect a formalized right, however, to participate in the making of all UK legislation or in policies that may affect devolved policy interests (Trench, 2007 ). Since 1999, the secretaries of state for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales no longer have the prominence in the UK cabinet which they had prior to devolution and their capacity to act as intermediaries between the UK and devolved governments has weakened since these administrations are no longer composed of the same parties (largely the case since 2007; McEwen et al., 2012 ). In this sense, the UK stands apart from Spain, where the deepening of self-rule has gone hand in hand with a progressive strengthening of shared rule mechanisms (Aja and Colino, 2014 )

The Constitutional Court and Judicial Review

Limited shared rule provisions can be offset by a Supreme or Constitutional Court that safeguards regional autonomy through judicial review. Yet, in this regard the Russian Constitutional Court has not played an important role. According to Heinemann-Grüder ( 2010 , p. 197), the Court has largely proved ‘dependent, opportunistic and submissive in the face of the wishes of the president’. Given that judges are appointed by the center, criticisms of the Court predate the election of Putin as President. For instance, in a ruling in 1995, the Court did not invalidate a set of presidential decrees legitimating the center's intervention in the Chechen conflict, though members of the State Duma and Federation Council did challenge the president's decision. Furthermore, Court rulings often failed to be implemented. Under Yeltsin, many regions disputed its rulings or simply refused to implement them; under Putin, regions implement Constitutional Court rulings to the extent that they are seen as an extension of the powers of the President who has the mechanisms to enforce compliance (Taylor, 2007 ).

In Western Europe some Constitutional Courts have played a more important role in policing multi-level relations. The role of Courts as custodians of federalism (Bednar, 2009 ) has, however, been less significant in Switzerland, the UK, Belgium and Austria than in Germany and Spain. In Switzerland, the Constitutional Court cannot invalidate federal law for breaching the constitution—a power that only the people can wield by means of a referendum. In the UK, parliamentary sovereignty prevents the Supreme Court from invalidating Westminster legislation for breaching the UK Parliamentary Acts which conferred devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Hazell, 2007 ). In Belgium, on the other hand, the Constitutional Court has only played a marginal role in adjudicating disputes between the Communities, Regions and the federal center, though that role has somewhat expanded since the 2004 regional elections as the federal and Community/Regional governments are no longer composed of the same parties (Alen and Muylle, 2008 ; Erk, 2011). Finally, in Austria the Constitutional Court has not served to curb the centralized character of the Austrian federation (Gamper, 2003 ).

In contrast, the German and Spanish Constitutional Courts have had more input in balancing federal−regional relations. In Germany, while the Constitutional Court may not have stopped the gradual centralization of the (West) German federation, it played a role in strengthening the requirement of Bundesrat consent for federal legislation. This served to safeguard the input of the Länder in media and culture policy and enforce a more impartial system of fiscal equalization (Laufer and Münch, 1998 ; Ziller and Oschatz, 1998 ). In Spain, the difficulty of amending the constitution in practice (due to the de facto requirement of bipartisan consent between the two major polity-wide parties; the PSOE and PP) gave the Court an important role in clarifying the competencies of the center and that of the autonomous communities. For instance, this was evident when it invalidated sections of the LOAPA (Ley Orgánica de Armonización del Proceso Autonómico (trans. Organic Law on the Harmonization of the Autonomy Process)) organic law which sought to scale back and symmetrize the powers of the autonomous communities in the wake of the failed 1981 military coup (Agranoff and Ramos Gallarín, 1997 ). However, in recent years, the Court has been increasingly discredited. Its composition has become subject to political manipulation by the central government and the historic communities increasingly consider it ‘an arm of the Spanish central state’, not least after its highly controversial ruling which invalidated part of the recently reformed Catalan statute of autonomy (Colino, 2009 ).

EXPLAINING AUTHORITY MIGRATION II: THE DEMOCRATIC SAFEGUARDS OF TERRITORIAL POLITICS IN WESTERN EUROPE VERSUS POWER DEPENDENCIES IN RUSSIA

Multi-level Democracy in Western Europe

The above section demonstrates the weakness of endogenous federal safeguards in Russia—limited territorial self-rule, weakening shared rule and a relatively toothless Supreme Court. In Western Europe's multi-level states, self-rule tends to be stronger and more constitutionally entrenched. There are large variations in the shared rule provisions however (strong in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, weaker in Spain and Austria and weakest in the UK) and in the relevance of the Supreme or Constitutional Court as competence adjudicators (moderate in Germany and Spain, weaker in Austria and Belgium and weakest in the UK and Switzerland). Yet, where shared rule is limited or the Constitutional Court is relatively insignificant, constitutional self-rule is not necessarily at risk. This is explained by the fact that territorial autonomy is strongly tied to multi-level party competition and democracy (Filippov et al., 2004; Hough and Jeffery, 2006 ; Hopkin and Van Houten, 2009 ; Swenden and Maddens, 2009 ; Thorlakson, 2009 ; Stepan et al., 2011 ).

The deepening of regional autonomy in Belgium, Spain and the UK can be attributed to the agenda-setting influence of parties with a regional following on the (mostly) polity-wide parties that dominate the central government. In Spain, for example, the polity-wide Social-Democrats conceded territorial reform after they could only muster a central parliamentary majority with the aid of Basque or Catalan regionalist parties (Toubeau, 2011 ). Furthermore, the Social-Democrats often formed coalition governments with such parties at the regional level (S¸tefuriuc, 2009 ). Thus, the party's regional branches could pressure its central party wing into making territorial concessions that were necessary to keep these regional coalitions afloat. In Belgium, the polity-wide parties split along linguistic lines in response to the rise of regionalist challengers (Deschouwer, 2009b). Hence, the federalization of Belgium is the product of federal governments, composed of linguistically split parties, agreeing to carve up the center and in so doing to fight off the electoral threat of these regionalist competitors. In the UK, Labour inserted devolution to Scotland and Wales (and envisaged the same for Northern Ireland following a peace agreement) in its 1997 manifesto for central elections, in the hope of keeping its prospect of a considerable electoral following in Scotland and Wales alive, against the competition of regionalist challengers (Meguid, 2008 ). In Austria, Switzerland and Germany, regionalist parties remain weaker, though polity-wide parties do acknowledge the need to give sufficient autonomy to their regional branches in order to safeguard their electoral performance in regional and national elections (Sciarini and Hug, 1999 ; Dachs, 2003 ). The German polity-wide Christian-Democrats tolerate the presence of a distinctive Christian-Democratic party in Bavaria, while the Social-Democrats allow their branches in the East to work with the former Communists in regional coalition governments (Detterbeck and Hepburn, 2010 ). German polity-wide parties are truly vertically integrated insofar as regional electoral gains influence federal governance prospects, particularly through the Bundesrat which has often served as the ‘breeding ground’ for future federal Chancellors (Detterbeck and Jeffery, 2009 ).

In contrast, multi-level party competition in Russia has done little to safeguard territorial autonomy and fails to explain the changing dynamics of Russian federalism since the 1990s. In fact, the party system reflects rather than shapes relative power dependencies in the federation. Russian parties play a limited role in linking federal and regional arenas of electoral competition, as Russia has lacked a strongly integrated and competitive party system (Busygina, 2010 ), both before and after Putin's presidency. Two major differences distinguish the party system that Putin inherited and that of Western Europe's multi-level states.

First, a well institutionalized party system assumes that candidates who stand for office will do so by rallying behind a party label. In Russia, many candidates preferred to run as independents (Stoner-Weiss, 2002 ; Hale, 2006 ). Low levels of party institutionalization could be observed at all levels. President Yeltsin, for instance, abstained from joining or forming any political party during his eight years in office. Some have explained his behavior by arguing that presidents in fledgling democracies like to be ‘above’ the parties, which they often consider factions. Indeed, beyond Yeltsin, a majority of regional governors ‘frequently destroyed opposition efforts to convey major party substitutes into parties capable of being dominant players in the market for electoral goods and services’ (Hale, 2006 , p. 236). Neither Russia's ‘super-presidential’ system nor its legacy of post-communist patronage networks is conducive to party institutionalization (Hale, 2006 , pp. 237–238). Well-entrenched parties with their own organizational bureaucracies tend to develop logics of their own, and ‘leaders often avoid institution-build[ing] because strong institutions impede the power of individual, personalistic rule over policy and politics’ (Stoner-Weiss, 2002 , p. 142). Similarly, entrepreneurs with the resources to build parties (often wealthy oligarchs who benefited the most from the initial transition to a market economy) were not interested in building parties for fear that in time these would weaken their privileged access to the state. In the 1990s, the refusal to build strong party networks extended to the regional level where governors built their own patronage networks, often running as independent candidates or occasionally even pledging membership of more than one party at a time. Stoner-Weiss ( 2002 ) noted that of the 153 candidates who took part in 73 gubernatorial races between 1995 and 1997 only about a third had a clear party affiliation.

Second, in Russia parties were not only weakly developed but those that competed at the state-wide level (presidential or Duma elections) also performed poorly at the regional level (gubernatorial or regional parliamentary elections). In the 1990s, the first and often crucial decade of a regime transition, political parties did not contribute to the integration of a democratic state or the establishment of a competitive political party system (Stoner-Weiss, 2002 ). Hence, in the 1990s, parties were not genuinely polity-wide but territorially bifurcated (Thorlakson, 2009 ).

Power Dependencies and Autocracy-Sustaining Federalism in Russia

If multi-level electoral competition did not safeguard federalism in Russia, which factors did? In the 1990s, the power of a regional governor was defined regardless of his/her belonging to a political party. Political parties were weak and intergovernmental relations were not developing through political parties. Of greater significance were the personal relations of the governor with President Yeltsin and the economic position of the region. Powerful governors could afford to violate federal law. Through bilateral treaties with the center, governors of some republics gained privileged access to central resources in exchange for supporting the president. A system of ‘segmented regionalism’ emerged (Sakwa, 2010 , p. 204) in which governors were given a free reign, and even allowed to disregard federal law, so long as they supported Yeltsin in federal presidential elections. In determining the balance of powers between the center and the regions bargaining and power dependencies played a more important role than multi-level democracy.

Some governors considered their region as a ‘personal fief’ and attempted to control ‘regional procurators and police chiefs’ because they could serve as ‘important weapons to be deployed against local and political economic rivals’ and therefore help to consolidate their grip on regional power (Taylor, 2007 , p. 429; Obydenkova and Libman, 2012 ). Regions asserted their power in the Russian Federation, but not necessarily in a democratic manner. Through their control of the local procuracy and the MVD (Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del or internal ministry), they prevented the center from implementing federal law through regional state agencies. Consequently, the center was unable to guarantee the observance of civil rights and secure the rule of law. About 44,000 legal acts were said to violate the constitution or federal legislation (Sakwa, 2010 , p. 207).

Regional support for the federal president in presidential elections was contingent upon certain favors being extended to the individual regions (Yeltsin's presidency alone concluded 42 individual treaties with the republics). Indeed, studies have shown that in the 1990s there was a high positive correlation between the fiscal subsidies which the federal government allocated to the regions and the percentage of voters supporting president Yeltsin within that region.6 Regions also engaged in foreign relations, often sidestepping the preferences of the federal government, or through their economic policies, undermined a common Russian market.7 In sum, political authority was certainly divided, but unlike in Western Europe this was not always the result of open party competition. Rather it was the product of a sheer power struggle between the center and the regions for dominance in the federation (with only some of the regions, e.g. Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Samara and St Petersburg, possessing a relatively democratic nature). As Sakwa ( 2010 , p. 206) put it, ‘the autonomy of sub-national government may well be the hall-mark of federation, [but] the rich profusion of regimes and institutions in Yeltsin's Russia [with some regions governed as authoritarian or super-presidential fiefs, and others as relatively democratic governments] cannot automatically be considered hallmarks of a federation.’

The election of Putin to Russian President changed the dynamics of the power struggle. Putin, a former head of the security service prior to becoming Prime Minister (under Yeltsin) and President, built his political reputation by projecting a hard-line approach against Chechen terrorists. His popular standing also benefited from the upsurge in the Russian economy, particularly through higher oil revenues for the Russian state, around the time of his election and his capacity to broker a ‘polity-wide’ party ‘United Russia’ (Gel'man, 2008b, p. 52). However, ‘United Russia’ was less central to his strategy of establishing a ‘power-vertical’ than his progressive recapturing of coercive state institutions. Only the latter allowed him to impose a polity-wide party from above. Here is how Putin achieved this objective.

In 2000, shortly after he was elected President, Putin decided to establish seven super-districts (Federal Districts), the borders of which match Russia's military districts, rather than pre-existing inter-regional associations or socio-economic regions. As Ross asserts, although Putin's decision complied with article 83 of the constitution which authorizes the president to appoint and remove ‘plenipotentiary representatives’, the reform violates the ‘federal idea’, especially since the super-districts ‘monitor’ regional executive and legislative behavior (Ross, 2003 , p. 35). The seven polpredy (presidential envoys or heads of the special districts) have a high status, which is reflected in their membership of the Russian Security Council and the right to attend cabinet meetings of the federal government. They receive direct funding from the federal government and have a staff of about 100. Among their set of extensive powers is the right to monitor federal funds earmarked for regional authorities of their district, and the task of overseeing the collection of taxes. Polpredy can also recommend the president suspend regional laws or decrees that are found to contradict federal laws and to dismiss governors or dissolve regional assemblies perceived to be responsible for such constitutional or federal legislative breaches. Furthermore, Polpredy appoint the personnel of agencies in charge of implementing federal policy within the regions. Due to the extensive list of competencies of the federal government this constitutes an important power. Regional authorities—governors in particular—should have been consulted on such matters, especially on judicial appointments and appointments to law enforcement bodies (Ross, 2003 , p. 36). Importantly, the boundaries as well as the choice of personnel for these federal Districts suggest that Putin was seeking to regain control over the coercive agencies of the state. The boundaries of the seven regions coincided with the districts of the internal troops of the MVD, while five of the seven districts were headed by so-called ‘siloviki or men of force’ including two former army generals, two former KGB colleagues and one MVD general (Taylor, 2007 , p. 431).

Having gained greater control over state coercive agencies, Putin silenced critical media channels and economic oligarchs with political ambitions, often through nationalizing media or businesses or instigating court cases against oligarchs who challenged his authority. However, at least initially, governors and economic oligarchs were offered what Gel'man ( 2008b, p. 33) refers to as an ‘equidistant approach’: left alone provided they did not undermine or participate in central policy-making.

The abolition of direct gubernatorial elections in 2004 plus the appointed nature of the Council of Federation left little room for party competition, thus strengthening the power of the President and his party in the polity. United Russia should be seen as a polity-wide party, which did not develop organically, but was intentionally brokered from above. In the view of the Kremlin, the ‘power-vertical’ needed to be extended across the constitutional and bureaucratic structure of federalism, but also across its party system. Therefore, it brokered United Russia as the merger between the Fatherland–All Russia and the Unity Party (the former made up of a large group of powerful governors who, nearly defeated the party supporting the President in the Duma elections of 1999). Some scholars have argued that the survival of a regional governor is dependent on his/her loyalty to the President and, thus, to United Russia as a party of the President (Busygina, 2010 , p. 147). However, powerful regional governors often only joined United Russia in exchange for significant concessions.

Finally and concurrently, the center sought to nationalize and institutionalize the party system through electoral legislation. A federal law on political parties (enacted in 2001) requires that parties must have established branches in more than 45 regions of the federation and count at least 100 members in each branch. This measure ruled out the presence of parties with a distinctive regional following, a core feature of the UK, Spanish and Belgian multi-level party systems. In 2002, another law prescribed that half the regional parliamentary members must be elected through party lists, reducing the number of regional MPs that can run as independents. The abolition of constituency seats for Duma elections further increased the leverage of party organizations in the process of candidate selection. Party lists were also introduced for regional elections, with the same result.

Yet, has this strengthening of the center vis-a-vis the regions and weakening of central democracy also killed federalism, by stripping the regions of their powers? For five reasons, we believe the answer to this question is not a clear-cut yes.

First, the reassertion of Presidential and federal powers reduced the scope for asymmetric federal practices and intergovernmental bargaining, but did not eliminate it. Since 2000, redistributive grants have been allocated to a greater degree on the basis of common formulae, reflecting less arbitrary implementation of central policies across the regions of the federation (Smirnyagin, 2010 , pp. 50–54). Equalization payments now flow mostly to regions with below average levels of economic development and republics no longer receive preferential treatment compared with other regions in the state. Some republics do, however, still enjoy a disproportionate share of federal transfers for reasons that have nothing to do with their ‘special status’ as republics (Zubarevich, 2010 , p. 91). For instance, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan still receive a disproportionate amount from discretionary federal funding streams. Both republics rank 5th and 19th in terms of per capita regional fiscal capacity but they receive the bulk of regional development funding. This reflects the privileged partnership between both republics and the center (Deryugin and Kurlyandskaya, 2007 , pp. 252–253). Tatarstan is a net recipient of federal transfers and has multiple investment programs for which dubious explanations have been given (e.g. the ‘unexpected celebration of 1000 years of its capital Kazan’) or no explanation at all (Zubarevich, 2010 , pp. 91–93).

Second, regional actors sometimes had good reason to endorse the centralization by the Kremlin, other than fear of federal coercion. Regional governors have often been complicit in sanctioning the abolition of their electoral mandate. In the lead up to the 2004 decision to abolish gubernatorial elections, several incumbent governors, who enjoyed Kremlin support, were ousted from office by emerging regional elites and entrepreneurs (Kynev, 2010 , p. 113). The defeat of incumbent governor A. Surikov (Alta Krai) against popular actor M. Evdokimov forms a case in point. According to Kynev, the appointment, rather than the elections of gubernatorial positions, provided a more secure way for many incumbent governors to retain office—even if this meant they had to establish friendly relations with, or became members of, the party of power, United Russia (Busygina, 2010 , p. 144; Kynev, 2010 , p. 121).

Third, the center has been unable to recast Russian federalism where the constitutional requirement for gaining regional popular consent has proven difficult to circumvent. Putin and the Kremlin, through their ‘amalgamation project’ may have preferred to reduce the number of units in the Russian Federation considerably below the current 83, given that the regions are largely unequal in size and economic capacity. Yet, the proposed merger of two ordinary regions (for instance St Petersburg and the adjacent Leningrad region or Pskov and Novgorod) came to nothing. Apart from the merger of some national autonomies with the compound region, the prospect of reducing the ‘matryoskha’ element of Russian federalism even further was stopped by the protest of the affected regional elites (Kosikov, 2008 ). Successful mergers, where they succeeded, often resulted from referendums in the affected regions and required the approval of the Federal Assembly—a process which Sakwa ( 2010 , p. 217) describes as ‘thoroughly democratic’.

Fourth, the capacity of the one dominant party, United Russia, to control its regional ‘agents’ (Konitzer and Wegren, 2006 ) is questionable. Darrell Slider has argued that ‘[P]atronage systems in most regions [remain] largely under the control of regional leaders, independent of United Russia's national or regional party organizations’ (Slider, 2010 , p. 263). Regional governors with well-developed clientelistic networks, economic (e.g. industry concentration), ethnic and geographical resources were also more reluctant to join United Russia (Reuter, 2010 , p. 310). United Russia is still considered to be a weak political artifact as it still ‘lacks an effective patronage system’ and it is ‘subject to pressures from governors who are only formally subordinate to the party’ (Slider, 2010 , p. 257). Some observers even go as far as to say that informal politics, clientelistic relations and ‘the myriad of informal relations’ still remain benchmarks determining center−regional politics (Ross, 2010 , p. 170), though they may no longer result in the ‘Treaty federalism’ of the 1990s. Regions found ways to maintain power and leverage in negotiations with the federal government. According to Chebankova ( 2008 , p. 997): ‘the Kremlin was unable to appoint the regional leaders unilaterally’ and ‘regional economic elites developed a number of effective ways of influencing gubernatorial appointments’ where ‘the centre is forced to account for the multiplicity of regional interests and act in a certain, decentralised manner’. However, the most powerful regional elites are also the most autocratic ones (such as Mintimir Shaimiev from Tatarstan who managed to retain great leverage with the center). The lessons for other regions may well be that the increased penetration of family clans into regional politics and businesses strengthens rather than weakens a region's negotiating power with the center.

Finally, Putin's reforms should be described as a success in re-centralizing the Russian Federation but as a failure in unifying loyalties or improving regional performance (Slider, 2008 ). Under the new system established by Putin, a governor is expected not only to be an effective vote puller for the party of power, United Russia, but also as a mediator of regional and federal industrial elite interests (Chebankova, 2008 ). Yet, in those regions that have the most autocratic culture of governance regional economic elites often prefer to collaborate with appointed governors (Obydenkova and Libman, 2012 ). In this way, strong governors have become indispensible for United Russia and the Kremlin because of their capacity to ‘destroy opposition groups and dissent, and control [the] media, police, courts and election commissions’ (Slider, 2010 , p. 271). In sharp contrast, weak regional governors remain under constant pressure and total control of the central government (Slider, 2010 , p. 271). Strong, but autocratic regions provide a counterbalance to the federal government and, in this sense, prevent the state from becoming unitary. They generate lasting asymmetric intergovernmental relations, in which some regions are subordinated to the center and others retain considerable influence vis-a-vis the Kremlin and the President. Paradoxically, the more autocratic the regional regime, the stronger the division of authority between the center and the regions, and therefore the more federal the intergovernmental relationship.

CONCLUDING REMARKS: AUTOCRATIC VERSUS DEMOCRATIC SAFEGUARDS OF FEDERALISM

This article has provided a comparative analysis of Russian federalism by confronting it with the experience of several West European states. This forms a logical comparison, given the plurinational and redistributive nature of both Western Europe's multi-level states and Russia. Furthermore, like Russian federalism, contemporary Spanish, German and Austrian federalism emerged from an authoritarian or dictatorial past. Table 1 provides a summary overview of where Russian federalism stands (pre- and post-Putin) in comparison with the multi-level polities of Western Europe.

Table 1. Territorial design and dynamics in Western Europe and Russia (pre- and post-Putin) (√ indicates presence of characteristic(s) listed in the left column).

	Belgium	Switzerland	Spain	Germany	Austria	UK	Russia pre-Putin	Russia since Putin
Origins	Holding together	Coming together	Holding together	Coming and putting together	Coming and putting together	Holding together	Putting together	Forcing together
Two orders of government, each with capacity to make final decisions	√	√	√	√	√	(SC, Wales, NI, no self-rule England)	89 regions	83 regions
	Regions and communities
Supreme written constitution only to be amended with consent of both orders of government (entrenchment)	Supreme constitution but only de facto involvement of regions in amendment	√	Weak regional input in amendment	√	Weak regional input in amendment	No supreme constitution but de facto regional input in amending relevant parliamentary acts	√	Generally yes, but seven Federal Districts and abolition gubernatorial elections imposed from above
(Self-rule)	√	√	√	√	√	Asymmetry	Asymmetry; Constitutional and Treaty Federalism generate numerous incompatibilities	Central government dominates (exclusive and concurrent competencies)
Shared rule (second chamber)	Sufficiently powerful but weak territorial connection	√	Weak in powers and weak territorial connection	√	Weak in powers and weak territorial connection	Weak in powers and weak territorial connection	Weak in power but strong territorial connection	Weak second chamber and weak territorial connection State Council no real substitute
Mechanisms for intergovernmental relations	√	√	Weak	√	√	Weak	Mainly bilateral + Federation Council	Weak (State Council), still mainly bilateral
Umpire	√	Supreme Court and the people	√	√	√	Supreme Court with limited powers	√	√
Democracy	√	√	√	√	√	√	Federal center relatively democratic; democratic levels regions variable	Center less democratic, most important regional office no longer directly elected
Source: Swenden ( 2006 , p. 12) (based on Watts, 1996 ; Stepan, 2001 ); reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. Russia added by the authors.

Scholarly work on federalism makes a distinction between federal form and federal practice. There always exists some dissonance between both, but the extent to which the constitutional principles of federalism are also observed in practice usually depends on a number of safeguards (Bednar, 2009 ). To an extent, these safeguards are endogenous to federalism. The allocation of administrative and fiscal competencies plus the presence of a regional political class to put these competencies into use demonstrates substantive levels of regional autonomy. The federal encroachment of regional competencies can be halted where regions benefit from procedural and structural mechanisms to influence central decision-making, i.e. the shared rule dimension of this paper or a Court that can adjudicate on central−regional or inter-regional disputes of competences.

Yet, in Russia, the dissonance between constitutional federalism and federal practice is greater than in any of the West European multi-level states. The meaning of self and shared rule cannot be read from the Russian constitution. Crucially however, it cannot be read from the dynamics of party competition either. In Western Europe, multi-level electoral party competition, more than the shared rule provisions or judicial safeguards, has played a role in sustaining or deepening territorial autonomy. In Spain, Belgium and the UK the challenge and bargaining power of regionalist parties propelled the state into a more decentralized trajectory. Hence, the practice of federalism is closely linked to a process of open, fair and multi-level electoral competition. In sum, it is closely tied to democracy, with both processes reinforcing each other.

Conversely, in Russia, the emergence of a one-party dominant system reflects rather than causes the changing dynamics of Russian federalism. In Russia, the practice of federalism is tied more closely to the degree of power-equivalence between the central and regional elites, and that relationship is not tied to the dynamics of party competition. In the period of ‘segmented regionalism’ (between 1992 and 2000) governors, some of whom lacked democratic credentials, wielded enough power to resist centralization or to gain concessions from a relatively weak but more democratic center (Stoner-Weiss, 2006 ; Obydenkova, 2011 ). In the current period of ‘central authoritarianism’ (since 2000), shared rule mechanisms were certainly weakened, to which the reduced weight of the Federation Council and its partial replacement by an advisory State Council attest. Furthermore, the creation of seven federal Super-Districts, headed by powerful presidential envoys and the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections jeopardizes the ‘democratic’ quality of Russian federalism. In this article, we have argued that this fundamental recalibration of Russian federalism in a centrist and authoritarian direction is not so much the outcome of creating a one-party dominant system ‘from above’. Rather, the emergence of United Russia illustrates the center's relative success in recapturing state instruments of domination and control.

Paradoxically however, this at best semi-autocratic system has not killed federalism. ‘Political power’ remains vertically divided, especially where the center meets regional governors with a strong power-base linking the economic and societal interests of their region. Authoritarian rather than democratically challenged governors are more likely to possess such a power-base. Hence, under Russian federalism, regional democracy has weakened the position of governors and regional executives vis-a-vis the authoritarian center, whereas regional authoritarianism has strengthened their role. The outcome is a state that is at best half democratic, yet federal—where central and regional authoritarianism meet—but centralized and unitary—where central authoritarianism faces regional democracy. A quasi-federal central−regional balance has often come at the expense of, and not as a result of, democracy. This ‘adaptive’ or ‘disguised’ federalism has significant implications for federal theory. In Russia federal relations are strongest where they are the least democratic, upsetting the prevailing view that federalism flourishes best where multi-level democracy is strongest (Kincaid, 2010 ).

Realizing the serious deviation from the model of ‘democratic’ federalism, Russian scholars often highlight that ‘the idea of an interconnection between federalism and democracy […] is meaningless’ (Ivanov, 2006 , p. 16). This approach implicitly points in the direction of federalism without democracy. Indeed, if the idea of a multi-level democracy—democracy at the national, regional and local levels—is taken out of federalism, some form of federalism can certainly be found in the Russian Federation (Obydenkova, 2011 ). The coming years will prove crucial for testing the stability of this ‘autocracy-sustaining federalism’ that Putin and his entourage have created. Indeed, in the aftermath of parliamentarian and presidential elections and massive demonstrations in Moscow and other regions against supposedly falsified electoral results Putin has promised to re-introduce direct gubernatorial elections. This would be a first and crucial step toward territorial decentralization of political power in Russia. The potential unraveling of centralized federal structures in their current form would almost certainly create further instability, but it could also herald the opportunity for Russia to become a truly democratic federal state.

Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to two anonymous reviewers and to the editor for their insightful comments and feedback. The usual disclaimers apply.

Notes

Support for the Constitutional Draft was as low as 38.2% in the Republic of Adgeya, 40.7% in Bashkortostan; 39.9% in Chuvashia; 24.8% in Dagestan, 48.5 in Kalmykia; 27.4% in Karachaevo-Cherkessia; 36.1% in Mordovia; 29.7% in Tuva (Vaslavsky and Mironiuk, 2010b, p. 41).

Fewer than half the electorate showed up in Ingushetia (46%), Khakassia (45.6%), Komi (47.2%), Mari-El (46.8%), Udmurtia (44.2%) and Tatarstan (13.4%). The Republic of Chechnya announced unilaterally its independence and sovereignty in 1991 and ignored the constitutional referendum (see, for example, Kahn, 2002 ; Ross, 2002 ).

The design of the Russian Federation is not ethnically homogeneous or plurinational in a sense that the territorial boundaries of the ethnic entities, i.e. the Republics, autonomous okrugs and autonomous oblast (Jewish), rarely coincide with the boundaries of the ethnic groups comprising the federation. These boundaries were often ‘put together’ (Stepan, 2001 ) by Stalin in the 1930s and hardly changed thereafter (Stoner-Weiss, 2004 , p. 302). For instance, two-thirds of the Tatars live outside of Tatarstan and a majority of the citizens living in Tatarstan are ethnically non-Tatar. In fact, in nearly half of the autonomous Republics the titular ethnic group constitutes a minority.

As in Russia though, the ‘ethnic’ homogeneity of the territories comprising the minority nations is not complete: a considerable share of Basques live outside the Basque Country (including in France), and although a majority of citizens who live in the Basque Country identify with the Basque nation, less than half master the titular language (Conversi, 2002 ). Similarly, Castilians represent a large share of the Catalan population, whereas the Catalan language is also widely spoken in Valencia and the Baleares.

On average, regional and local taxes only account for 9–10% of subnational government revenues. Furthermore, even taxes that have a regionally set rate are still administered by federal tax services (Deryugin and Kurlyandskaya, 2007 , pp. 247–250). Large vertical fiscal imbalances (VFIs) emerge that need to be closed by federal grants or so-called ‘shared’ federal taxes. The receipts of these taxes accrue in part or in their entirety to the regional governments. For instance, the regions receive the entire receipts of excises on alcohol products and beer, inheritance tax, enterprise property tax, transport tax and taxes on gambling businesses. Federal transfers to sub-national governments are the third largest federal expenditure item overall (after pensions and defense).

Other studies stated that transfers were motivated purely by different regional needs (Smirnyagin, 2010 , p. 48; Stewart, 1997 ) and therefore aided to increase symmetry across the regions in terms of their economic development and well-being.

On foreign relations of sub-national regions of Russia with the EU, see Lankina and Getachew ( 2006 ) and Obydenkova ( 2008 , 2012).