ABSTRACT
The Russian Federation makes a unique case among post-Soviet successor states. The Soviet Union comprised 15 ethnically defined republics, of which the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was the largest. Republics, initially delineated to recognize strong ethnic groups, typically have their own legislatures and most have their own presidents. The federal constitution grants republics the right to formulate their own constitutions. Present-day republics within Russia are either former autonomous republics or former autonomous oblasts who have elevated their status. The period of authoritarian decay in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s witnessed first wave of decentralization in the RSFSR accentuated by an increasing ethnopolitical mobilization in Russia’s autonomies. No issue in the uncertain days of Russian democracy was more prominent than that of federalism, especially as it touched on the status of Russia’s ethnic republics. The late 1991- early 92 was the period of intensive center-periphery bargaining.
