ABSTRACT
On 13 September 2004, speaking in a television broadcast, President Putin announced a set of political reforms, the most important of which was the rejection of direct elections for executive heads of Russia’s regions. From 2005, regional executive heads (henceforth ‘governors’ in this text, except in exceptional cases) would be confirmed in their post by regional legislatures, having first being proposed by the President of the Federation. Putin’s decision, taken in the wake of the tragic deaths of hostages in the
North Ossetian town of Beslan, and announced as an anti-terrorist measure, provoked widespread criticism and was considered by a number of observers as one more step by the Kremlin towards the destruction of democratic institutions in the country. At the same time the switch (or reversion) to appointing rather than electing governors was the logical consequence of the policy of centralization which began in 2000. This policy was in many ways a reaction against the spontaneous and poorly managed process of decentralization in Russia during the 1990s. It included a comprehensive range of measures aimed at placing control over the main levers of power in the hands of the federal authorities (hereafter the Centre). These measures led to the recentralization of institutional regulation of the political ‘rules of the game’, recentralization of resources and administrative recentralization. The abolition of direct gubernatorial elections may be seen as moving the recentralization policy into a new qualitative phase. What are the origins of the policy of recentralization in the Russian
Federation? Which ideas and interests form its basis? How did these factors influence its course and results? How significant is recentralization for the political development of Russia and what is its future? These are the questions which this chapter shall address. In the first section we review the trend towards regionalization against the background of the transformations that were taking place in Russia during the 1990s and 2000s. We then consider the ideologies and interests of the political actors involved in recentralization after 2000, and their influence on the course of federal reforms in Russia, the policy that might be termed ‘new centralism’ (to distinguish it from ‘old’ soviet-style centralism). We then analyze this policy of ‘new centralism’ and its influence on the process of reform of the Russian state. Finally we draw
conclusions on the meaning and significance of recentralization for the Russian political system.1
