ABSTRACT

Local governments are vulnerable in all varieties of state organization, and their autonomy and capacity are especially vulnerable in federal systems.1

Subordinated to two levels of government, the development of local government in the Russian Federation can be constrained by intergovernmental dynamics as well as other political, economic and social forces. Despite the latest round of local government reform – the third such effort in Russia in two decades – at best there are legitimate grounds for only guarded optimism that local governments can gain a minimal capacity to regulate and manage a share of public affairs under their own responsibility and in the interests of the local population.2 This chapter examines the historical, political, economic and social contexts of local government in contemporary Russia with the intent to illuminate dimensions of Russian federalism. Writing in the early twentieth century, British education reformer E. Salter

Davies noted the challenge of finding a balance between central authority and local government. ‘The supreme problem of local government’, he declared, ‘is to achieve the golden mean between over-centralization and excessive decentralization.’ The former may lead to a soulless uniformity and to a lack of interest on the part of those most affected, while the latter, at its worst, leads to chaos.3 This challenge not only captures the conundrum of local government reform in Russia, it also underscores how universal the challenge is in administration generally. Comparative perspectives on local government highlight the various democratic arguments for both centralization and decentralization. Centralized authority, for example, can ensure compliance with the implementation of policy, promote equality of services, provide an antidote to parochialism or local corruption, coordinate administration, offer cost effectiveness, and draw effectively from expert and professional experience. In contrast, it is argued that decentralized authority promotes innovation, improves responsiveness to local interests, provides checks and balances to the abuse of power, and fosters both public participation and opportunities for leadership training.4 Neither centralization nor decentralization are inherently undemocratic. Such debates from public administration theory become more relevant with the realization that erring towards one side inevitably comes at the expense of the other. An apt

metaphor would be Dolittle’s pushmepullyu – the fictional two-headed creature. Unless it walked sideways, movement forward for one half required the other half to retreat.5 In terms of local government, efforts to centralize authority in the name of order or equality require concessions that are likely to undermine meaningful participation or local responsiveness, and vice versa: decentralized authority may provide schools of democracy and innovation, yet foster localism and raise the risk of corruption. Local government reform in post Soviet Russia perpetuates a pursuit for

an elusive golden mean. In all political systems, a perfect balance can only be approached rather than captured. Economic, social and political dynamics constantly impact the equation, and if an effective equilibrium is found at one moment, or in one policy arena, the equilibrium can become quickly outdated or inapplicable in another context. To chronicle the many challenges for Russian local government since 1991, we begin with the recognition that Russia possessed little experience with pursuing such balance, and historically erred on the side of central control rather than local autonomy. Second, the political, economic, and social flux of the past two decades makes it impossible for any one solution to satisfy all interests. The historical context for local government extends well beyond the legis-

lative framework of the post Soviet era. Local government reform has been an enduring theme of Russian politics for most of the past 150 years. Historians often highlight local government reform to cast light on the challenges of reforming autocracy and on Russian social development. Counterfactual history posits the ‘what if ’ question, suggesting that zemstvo reforms of the second half of the nineteenth century, or the Stolypin reforms of the early twentieth century, might have provided a solid foundation for a liberal and democratic Russia.6 Yet local reforms in pre revolutionary Russia were well described by Gradovskii in 1907, when he suggested that in the hands of (state) offices and officials ‘remained power without competence; in the hands of the zemstvo institutions were concentrated competence without power’.7 Although liberal values were part of the motivation for local government reforms, the primary purpose for decentralization was the promotion of state interests, extending and strengthening the reach of the state throughout the territory it purported to govern. The consequences of such reform reflected the tension inherent in extending the reach of the state through decentralization. Reforms were thus matched by counter-reforms, seeking to repair administrative disorder by tightening central authority.8