Russia's Noncovenantal Federalism: Past and Present
Elena Chebankova2009, Journal of Church and State
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Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism:
Past and Present
Elena Chebankova
ELENA CHEBANKOVA (MPhil, University of Oxford; PhD, University of Cambridge) is research fellow, University of Cambridge. She is author of Russia’s
Federal Relations: Putin’s Reforms and Management of the Regions (2009). Her
articles have appeared in Europe-Asia Studies, Journal of Communist Studies
and Transition Politics, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, and Democratisation. Special interests include federalism and political culture.
1. W. Livingston, Federalism and Constitutional Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 9; M. Burgess, Comparative Federalism. Theory and Practice
(London: Routledge, 2005), 28– 32.
Journal of Church and State vol. 51 no. 2, pages 312 – 340; doi:10.1093/jcs/csp066
Advance Access publication November 10, 2009
# The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the J. M. Dawson
Institute of Church-State Studies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail:
journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
312
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The evolution of Russia’s center-regional relations represents a
unique political puzzle. At first glance, the country’s territorial, cultural, and ethnic diversity may well lead to the emergence of a federal
society. This should make federalism the most distinct and natural
structural answer to the problem of territorial governance.1 Yet,
Russia’s path towards federalism has proven to be difficult and
tumultuous. It often seems that federalism is being almost subconsciously rejected by Russia at the cultural and socio-historic levels.
This essay will examine Russia’s socio-cultural, historical, and
theo-philosophical relations to the original idea of federalism developed in the West, and will realize and understand the cultural and
societal constraints that inhibit the successful entrenchment of
Western-type federal structures in Russia. This article departs
from the examination of the original federal thought developed
during the Reformation era by focusing on its central idea of covenant. The discussion then proceeds to analyze the extent to which
Russian Orthodox theology and the subsequent political thought
addressed the same issues that led to the emergence of federal
ideology and practice in the West. The essay argues that Russia
developed some unique answers to the most fundamental questions posed by Western federal thought and theology. First, it
denied the principles of covenant on moral ideological grounds.
Second, it viewed liberty and authority in extreme, unlimited
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
Theoretical and Ideological Considerations
Western Sources of Federalism
Federalism has a long history that is ultimately based on religious
foundations. The initially theological notion of covenant has
become the foremost historical and philosophical principle
behind the idea and practice of modern federalism.2 Covenant sustains the two most important conceptual pillars that are central to
our contemporary understanding of federal systems. First, it generates legalistic, contractual, and ultimately constitutional interactions among the composite units of a federal state. Second, it
supports individual integrities of contracting parties, thus skilfully
combining the principles of unity and diversity, freedom and authority, the creation of a wide social entity, and the preservation of the
uniqueness of its constituent parts.
Daniel Elazar traces the origins of covenantal thought back
through the Hebrew Bible.3 The essence of the original federal
idea was that humans could become God’s free and equal partners
and be dually committed to a relationship of mutual responsibility.
God was brought into this relationship as a partner, which implied
that Man entered into a compact with Him in order to achieve
eternal love and blessing and promises in return to keep faithful
and uphold God’s law on earth. Covenant re-emerged as a central
category of political theology during the Reformation era in the
writings of the most prominent exponents of the Protestant tradition such as Calvin, Bullinger, Luther, Beza, and Zwingli. And
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terms. These answers have transcended religion and become transformed into deep-seated socio-political perceptions, which play an
important cultural role in the evolution of center-regional and
federal relations in Russia.
This essay contains four parts. The first two sections deal with the
origins and nature of Western and Russian federal thought respectively. The subsequent two sections examine the impact of the
Russian socio-cultural standpoint and its attempts to create a
balanced structure of center-regional relations. The discussion
includes some references to Russia’s historic experiences and
focuses on the particularities of the post-Soviet federal model
established during the presidency of Vladimir Putin.
2. The word federal derives from the Latin foedus, which means compact, covenant, or bargain.
3. D. J. Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant: Biblical Origins and Modern
Development,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 10, no. 4 (1980): 7 –9, and
Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1987), 117.
313
Journal of Church and State
4. Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political thought. Volume Two: The
Age of Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 237 – 38,
325– 26; C. McCoy and W. Baker, Fountainhead of Federalism: Heinrich Bullinger
and the Covenantal Tradition (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1991); Daniel
J. Elazar and John Kincaid, eds., The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000).
5. Even though Althusius lived at the age when state and church were far from
separated in practice, he claimed that “it was for him, the political scientist, and
not for the church, theologian, lawyer, or moralist, to interpret and determine
the exact nature of politics.” See M. Burgess, Comparative Federalism. Theory
and Practice (London: Routledge, 2005), 7– 8; Th. Hueglin, Early Modern Concepts for a Late Modern World (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press,
1999), 23– 24. At the same time, full secularization of the covenantal idea
emerged half a century later with political philosophy of Hobbes, Locke, and
Spinoza. See Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant,” 9, 20; Hueglin, Early
Modern Concepts for a Late Modern World, 23– 24; E. Reibstein, Johannes Althusius als Fortselzer der Schule von Salamanca (Karlsruhe: C.F. Müller, 1955); and
Burgess, Comparative Federalism, 181.
6. C. McCoy and W. Baker, Fountainhead of Federalism: Heinrich Bullinger and
the Covenantal Tradition (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1991), 55.
7. Hueglin, Early Modern Concepts for a Late Modern World, 3 – 4, 85 –109;
C. J. Friedrich, Trends of Federalism in Theory and Practice (London: Pall Mall
Press, 1968), 12; R. Nisbert, The Social Philosophers (New York: Washington
Square Press, 1982), 186– 87; Burgess, Comparative Federalism.
8. Friedrich, Trends of Federalism in Theory and Practice, 6.
9. Elazar and Kincaid, eds., The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to
Modern Federalism; Burgess, Comparative Federalism.
10. N. Riemer, “Covenant and Federal Constitution,” Publius: the Journal of Federalism 10, no. 4 (1980): 141 – 42; R. Rothman, “Impact of Covenant and Contract
Theories on Conception of the US Constitution,” Publius: the Journal of Federalism, 10, no. 4 (1980): 151– 55.
314
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the seeds of theological covenantalism had enormous political
implications, in that they raised the questions of the limitations of
power in both church and state and of governmental checks and balances.4 Johannes Althusius made the first comprehensive attempts
to secularize the extant covenantal idea5 and to “interpret all political life in terms of pactum, the bond of contractual union, or covenant.”6 The most important part of Althusius’s thought, however,
was a tentative introduction of the territorial principles of such a
covenant—an idea that became a forerunner of contemporary federalism.7 Therefore, speaking of modern federal systems, Friedrich8
observes that “a federal order typically preserves the institutional
and behavioral features of a foedus, a compact between equals to
act jointly on specific issues of general policy.”
A theological covenant also gives rise to political constitutionalism and legalism in a secular world.9 For “the logic of both covenant
and constitution demands a democratic evolution satisfying legitimate human needs, extending human rights . . . extending popular
participation.”10 A covenant, however, precedes a constitution by
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
11. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: The Viking Press, 1965), 165– 70.
12. Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant,” 10; D. Lutz, “From Covenant to
Constitution in American Political Thought,” Publius: the Journal of Federalism,
10, no. 4 (1980): 101 – 33; B. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 1967), 175 – 81.
13. K. C. Wheare, Federal Government (London: Oxford University Press, 1963),
54; W. H. Riker, Federalism: Origins, Operation, Significance (Boston: Little
Brown, 1964), 11; P. King, Federalism and Federation (London and Canberra:
Croom Helm, 1982), 77; Robert Dahl, Democracy, Liberty and Equality (Oslo:
Norwegian University Press, 1986), 114; Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns
of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 170.
14. Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant,” 25.
15. Ibid., 15; Elazar, Exploring Federalism, 117, 115.
16. Freeman, “The Process of Covenant,” 73.
17. Rufus Davies, The Federal Principle A Journey Through Time in Quest of
Meaning (Berkley: University of California Press, 1978), 3.
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creating the civil society and the moral code embedded in human
behavior and social interactions. Hannah Arendt11 observes the
importance of covenant’s mutuality in guarding against tyranny
and points to the instrumental significance of the U.S. constitutional process. Indeed, American constitutionalism has become
a product of a distinct merger between the theological covenantal
concept and a more secularized idea of compact.12 Constitutionalism, on the other hand, is of paramount importance to federalism,
in that the supreme and binding constitution is a cornerstone of all
federal structures.13 Thus, theological covenantalism, secular constitutionalism, and political federalism form a closely interconnected conceptual-philosophical triangle.
As a result, the question of liberty and preservation of individual
integrities within the given covenantal unity is another fundamental
aspect of covenantalism, in that “the right to contract implies the
freedom of all contracting parties.”14 In theological terms, the
relations between God and humans could not be one of equals.
This problem was, however, resolved through the assumption that
God has “graciously limited” Himself and, by restricting His otherwise omnipotent powers, He has granted a significant degree of
freedom and integrity to humans.15 Thus, a covenantal theological
presupposition is individual legitimacy. For in the Bible, human
beings are created as unique individuals and are given control
over the world.16 Rufus Davis17 writes that “the idea of covenant
betokens not merely a solemn pledge between two or more people
to keep faith with each other, to honor an agreement; it involves
the idea of co-operation, reciprocity, mutuality, and it implies the
recognition of entities—whether it is persons, a people, or a
divine being.” Thus, covenantalism becomes inextricably linked
with federalism through its ability to unite freedom and
315
Journal of Church and State
18. I. Duchacek, Comparative Federalism: The Territorial Dimension of Politics
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1970), 192.
19. Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant.”
20. Elazar and Kincaid, The Covenant Connection.
21. N. Biryukov and V. Sergeyev, Russian Politics in Transition (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 1997), 12– 13; E. Colson, Tradition and Contract: the Problem of
Order (Chicago: Aldine, 1974).
22. Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant,” 13.
23. C. Ross, Federalism and Democratisation in Russia (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2002), 11– 12; R. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, 2nd ed.
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 68.
24. Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant,” 4, 21– 22; Hueglin, Early Modern
Concepts for a Late Modern World, 15– 16; McCoy and Baker, Fountainhead of
Federalism, 21; M. Burgess, Federalism and European Union: the Building of
Europe, 1950– 2000 (London: Routledge, 2000), 6 – 7; Rothman, “Impact of Covenant and Contract Theories on Conception of the US Constitution,” 151 – 52.
316
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authority. For at the heart of federalism lies a drive towards settling
an eternal conflict between “unity and diversity,” which is combined, in Duchacek’s18 view, “with a keen awareness of mutual
dependence.”
This discussion suggests that the theological idea of covenant has
had an important historical influence on the mode of socio-political
and federal integration. Elazar19 and Kincaid20 distinguish between
polities that come about in the covenantal and noncovenantal, primarily organic, traditions. While organic orders are sustained by
an hierarchical system of values based on perpetuating tradition,21
the nature of covenantal polities is invariably federal, regardless of
their supporting institutional structures. In all such systems,
humans are coming together as equals to “establish body politics
that reaffirm their fundamental equality and retain their basic
rights.”22 This also makes such polities republican in character
and links them strongly with democracy.23 It comes as no surprise
that the first political practice of federalism took shape in those
countries of Europe where the Reformed communities were particularly prominent, including the United Provinces of Netherlands and
Switzerland, and having made its way to England and Scotland,
finally settled in North America.24
Subsequent parts of this article will examine to what extent
Russia’s theological and philosophical tradition has addressed the
same questions that laid the foundations for a distinct federal practice in the West and what impact this worldview has had on the
federal integration in Russia. The next section deals with the
Russian view on the theological aspects of covenantalism and its
influence on Russia’s federal thought. Remaining parts will
discuss practical implications of these influences.
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
Theological and Political Debates in Russia
25. A. M. Allchin, “Eastern Orthodox Contribution to the ‘Debate about God,’” in
A. M. Allchin, ed., Orthodoxy and the Death of God (Fellowship of St. Alban and
St. Sergius, 1971), 12– 22, esp. 15– 17.
26. Alexei Khomyakov, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii (Moskva, 1911), 340.
27. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1974).
28. N. Riasanovsky, Russian Identities. A Historical Survey (Oxford: OUP, 2005),
152; J. H. Pain, Sobornost: A Study in Modern Russian Orthodox Theology
(Oxford: Bodleian Library: Unpublished DPhil Thesis, 1967).
29. N. Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy (New York: International Universities Press, 1951), 407.
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Russian Orthodoxy pondered the two most important theological
questions crucial to the development of federal structures. First, it
addressed the problems of reconciling the individual and the collective, and second, it analyzed covenantalism, enforcement, and contractual obligations. Prominent among Orthodox concerns is trying
to reconcile unity and diversity, as well as individualism and social
obligations. On the one hand, Orthodoxy has an ultimately social,
“coming together” character, in which collective religious consciousness plays the most prominent role.25 Leading Slavophil
thinker Alexei Khomyakov26 wrote that faith in its religious sense
“belongs not to the individual as such but to the human being as
a member of an organic community united by love.” Fr John
Meyendorff,27 a distinguished Orthodox theologian of the twentieth
century, continues that “Orthodoxy will always maintain that the
starting point, the source, and the starting point for solving social
issues is found in the uninterrupted, mysterious, and in a sense
transcendent communion of the euchartistic gathering.” On the
other hand, it is important that the “coming together” process
was indelibly marked by the efforts to preserve the uniqueness of
individuals composing the potential religious collective or
commune. Firmly behind these attempts stood a distinctly Orthodox theological concept of sobornost initially introduced by
Khomyakov. This notion is derived from a proposition that Man is
indeed free but cannot develop his potential except through the
membership of society.28 Lossky29 defines sobornost as “the combination of unity and freedom of many persons on the basis of
common love of God.”
In many respects, the incessant search for the combination
between unity and diversity, recognition of entities and communal
existence, between freedom and societal obligation makes Russian
Orthodoxy, and its sobornost concept in particular, fit to provide a
basis for further federalist understanding. However, the chief impediment to the evolution of federal perceptions and processes lies in
317
Journal of Church and State
30. Gillian Crow, Orthodoxy for Today (London: SPCK Press, 2008), 7 – 15.
31. K. Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. 1 (Baltimore: Helicon Press,
1965), 183.
32. J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine.
The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) (Chicago and London: Chicago
University Press, 1974), 10– 11; J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian
Thought (New York: Crestwood, 1975), 21; A. Schmemann, Ultimate Questions
(London and Oxford: Mowbrays, 1979), 58– 64.
33. L. Shaw, “John Meyendorff and the Heritage of the Russian Theological Tradition,” in New Perspectives on Historical Theology. Essays in Memory of John
Meyendorff, ed. Bradley Nassif (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1996), 33.
318
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the absence of the covenantal component. The theological notion of
a human covenanting with God is absent, as are the subsequent
notions of humans contracting with each other to regulate their
civil and political relations, and as a consequence, territorial interactions between composite units and the national center.
More importantly, the absence of the covenantal component is not
an accidental omission. Rather, it is a conscious negation of such
obligatory constraints. It is an undisputable recognition of the
all-encompassing power of God, a recognition that would render
any such contract superfluous. Crow30 describes this approach as
follows: “God is beyond anything that we can imagine, and beyond
any way we try to limit Him . . . . Orthodoxy demands a greater,
bigger, further, wider view of God in the world. And it can only be
a view that is filled with amazement.” There follows a different
dynamic of the Man-God relationship. In contrast to the Protestant
idea of partnership, in which God descends to level Himself with
humans, Orthodoxy assumes an incessant upward movement of
man towards God and the eventual achievement of total unity
with Him through Christ. Karl Rahner,31 supported by a large
number of contemporary Orthodox theologians,32 claims: “a
human being is a reality absolutely open upwards; a reality which
reaches its highest perfection, the realization of the highest possibility of man’s being, when in it the Logos himself becomes existent
in the world.” Thus, it is not a contract but a permanent upward
movement towards Creator that constitutes our relationship with
Him. This movement is called to “unite theology and life, individual
and community, as well as tradition and creativity in the marriage of
human freedom to grace.”33
This expressly noncovenantal logic generated some important
philosophical outcomes. First, it gave Russian theology an ultimately messianic, idealistic, and eschatological character. The theological goals of Russian Orthodoxy were manifest through the
attainment of a perfect world, in which society would find itself in
a full conformity with God. As Meyendorff notes, “the Orthodox
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
34. J. Meyendorff, Living Tradition. Orthodox Witness in the Contemporary
World (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press), 200– 02.
35. O. Kahrkhordin, Main Concept of Russian Politics (New York: University
Press of America, 2005), 48– 51.
36. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1974), 283; Nikolai Petro, The Rebirth of
Russian Democracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 61– 70;
Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (New York: Penguine, 1993); Schmemann,
Ultimate Questions, 41; N. Zernov, The Russians and Their Church (London:
William Clowes & Sons Limited, 1945).
37. Schmemann, Ultimate Questions, 179 – 91.
38. Ibid., 10– 13.
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religion is driven by eschatological expectation of the ideal universe
and by the ultimate knowledge that this universe will arrive. It
denounces the eschatology of inaction, characteristic of the
Western trend, and calls for a permanent perfection and transformation of a human community on the basis of the law of God.”34
Second, the lack of contractual thinking resulted in a unique
approach to the relationship between state and church, as well as
church and society. The “Dostoevsky project,” primarily expressed
through the thought of Ivan Karamazov, seems particularly interesting in this context. In this project, the world and its social
relations had to be recast in accordance with the New Testament.
This process inextricably linked to the deification of Man was to
result in the church occupying all terrains of human life and eventually supplanting the State.35 This vision leaves little space for contractual relations between man and state and church and state, as it
provides the ultimate unification of these estates on distinctly religious, righteous principles that a priori exclude crime, tyranny, and
human suffering. Despite that such thinking somewhat differs from
the initial Byzantine, and subsequently Russian, idea of symphonic
relationship between state and church,36 in which both entities are
institutionally independent and equal, it is completely in line with
the eschatological goals of Orthodox theology.
Finally, the noncovenantal vision led to the ultimate denial of
authority in its secular, legalistic sense. Fr Alexander Schmemann37
claims that the Western dichotomy between freedom and authority
need not exist. The very principle of authority, as Orthodoxy understands it, is something external to man, representing the result of
the fall and alienation from true life. Thus, the church is not an
authority or a combination between freedom and authority, in its
external legalistic and limited sense. The church itself is freedom,
and there is no true freedom outside the Church. Jaroslav
Pelikan38 insists that such unlimited freedom stems from the Christological idea of deification, which endows man with a possibility of
becoming divine and represents the centerpiece of Orthodox
319
Journal of Church and State
39. Ibid., 182 –85.
40. A. Kelly, Views from the Other Shore. Essays on Herzen, Chekhov, and
Bakhtin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 6.
41. Aleksei S. Khomyakov, “On the Western Confessions of Faith,” in Ultimate
Questions: A Anthology of Modern Russian Religious Thought (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1965), 31– 65.
42. Cited in P. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Russian Slavophilism. Iu. F. Samarin (Oxford: Westview Press, 1991), 224.
43. G. L. Kline, Religious and Anti-Religious Thought in Russia (Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 194.
44. I. Berlin, A. Kelly, and H. Hardy, Russian Thinkers (London: Penguine NonClassics, 1978), xvii– xviii.
320
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theology. Orthodoxy holds that the central tragedy of Western
Christianity is that it has accepted authority as its formative principle and measured freedom against it.39
Following this tradition, many Slavophil theologians viewed the
necessity of legal and contractual obligations as “symptoms of
societies lacking spiritual and moral integrity.”40 Khomyakov41
blamed the West for being governed by compulsion and law and
thus being unable to understand the real faith with its true
meaning of freedom and grace. George Samarin explicitly rejected
the use of faith in enforcing any particular contract: “faith by its
very nature is not accommodating, and one cannot enter into
deals with it . . . faith is not a stick with which one defends himself
and scares others . . . faith serves only him who sincerely believes.”42
Leontyev supported this stance by rejecting the idea of courts and
judicial systems and calling to freeze Russia in its Orthodox noncontractual mentality so as to keep it from rotting. 43
Orthodox treatment of religious and social interactions was significant for the development of Russia’s approach to socio-political
relations in a broad sense and to federal-territorial integration in
particular. Russian federal thought, which had surfaced by the nineteenth century, bore distinctly Orthodox traditional traits. It denied
covenantal legalistic principles and had ultimately eschatological,
messianic, and nationalistic overtones, thus undermining the
ideas of partnership and reciprocity. Russia’s liberal thinkers perceived the world in a structured dichotomous fashion, inadvertently
stereotyping political situations and creating various moral
dogmas. Berlin et al.,44 while admitting certain moral dilemmas of
the Russian thinkers of that period, nevertheless observe their tendency to take “the ideas and concepts to their most extreme, even
absurd, conclusions” and to “discover some monolithic truth
which would once and for all resolve the problems of moral
conduct.”
Furthermore, Russia’s federal thinkers expressly rejected legal
and contractual obligations and proposed to build federations on
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
45. P. King, Federalism and Federation (London and Canberra: Croom Helm,
1982), 45.
46. M. Bakunin, in G. P. Maximoff, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin: Scientific
Anarchism (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1953).
47. C. Berberi, Peter Kropotkin. His Federalist Ideas (London: Freedom Press,
1942).
48. F. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia. From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 89; George Crowder, Classical Anarchism. Political Thought of Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 124.
49. Bakunin, in Maximoff, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, 125.
50. A. Herzen, My Past and Thoughts. The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, vol. 4
(London: Chatto and Windus, 1965), 1661– 64, 1649– 55.
51. Kline, Religious and Anti-Religious Thought in Russia, 25.
52. Cited in ibid., 33; N. Biryukov and V. Sergeyev, Russian Politics in Transition
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 11; Gillian Crow, Orthodoxy for Today (London:
SPCK Press, 2009), 6.
53. A. J. Talmon, Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London: Secker and
Warburg, 1952), 1 –2, 252– 54; N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium
(London: Secker and Warburg, 1957), 307; A. J. Talmon, Political Messianism
(London: Secker and Warburg, 1960), 516; Riemer, “Covenant and Federal Constitution,” 145.
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the basis of a moral force. King summarizes the perceptions of
Russia’s most prominent exponents of federalism, anarchists
Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin: “full human accord is possible and can be achieved by giving full reign either to our instincts
or to reason (or to both), thereby excluding the play of force
together with all arbitrary means of achieving human accord.”45
Both Bakunin46 and Kropotkin47 advocated a free federation of individuals, associations, and nations within the conditions of an
absent state.48 And they specifically stress moral, rather than judicial forms of law.49 Alexander Herzen, another leading nineteenthcentury thinker, also advocated a free “coming together” of village
communes and artels of the artisans as an alternative to the
Western legal institutional practice.50 Leo Tolstoy, Russia’s
eminent novelist and philosopher, also vehemently rejected all
forms of human violence and regarded every rule of law as a rule
of violence. He therefore preached the absolute negation of the
state and its replacement by a universal “law of love.”51
At the same time, the rejection of legal violence and institutions
that places an ultimate emphasis on the triumph of human spirit
expressly denied individual integrities and left no room for
dissent and pluralism of opinions. Such “tyranny of ethics,” in
Frank’s words, “forced men into community of brotherly love, replacing the unsubtle coercion of political and legal systems with the
subtle coercion of the ‘law of love’ understood as a coercive
general norm.”52 The covenantal school of thought53 further
321
Journal of Church and State
54. P. King, Federalism and Federation (London and Canberra: Croom Helm,
1982), 44; A. Kelly, Views from the Other Shore. Essays on Herzen, Chekhov,
and Bakhtin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999).
55. P. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Russian Slavophilism.
Iu. F. Samarin (Oxford: Westview Press, 1991), 402 – 12.
56. Ibid., 406 – 18; P. Duncan, Russian Messianism. Third Rome, Revolution, Communism and After (New York and London: Routledge, 2000), 30 –47.
57. A. Khomyakov, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii (Moskva, 1900 – 1914), 223; Pain,
Sobornost, 118 – 19.
58. Kelly, Views from the Other Shore, 154– 55.
322
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warns that the attainment of such a “perfect” violence-free and
value driven world is not possible without the primary use of
force, aggrandizement of those who are committed to this idealistic
order, and vilification (and in the extreme case annihilation) of
those who hold a different viewpoint.
This moves us to the final point, in which federal integration was
viewed as an eschatological process, a messianic gathering of the
Orthodox lands invariably led by Russia. This approach indelibly
undermined the ideas of partnership, reciprocity, and equality of
federating parties. At the outset, Russia’s federal political thought
had an ultimately decentralizing, “holding together” character
that stemmed from the romantic socialist ideal of relieving the
population from the chains of despotic oppression and creation
on its basis of a new, free union of independent territorial and
social entities.54 Pan-Slavism was an important branch of such
thinking. Advocates of the pan-Slav movement—Ivan and Konstantin Aksakov, Nikolay Danilevsky, Fedor Tiutchev, Yurii Samarin,
Alexei Khomyakov, and Vladimir Solovyov—hoped to liberate Slav
populations from the rule of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires,
establish independent Slav principalities, and launch a voluntary
movement of Slav peoples towards instituting a pan-Slav federation.55 However, the achievement of these federal objectives was a
somewhat different story.
Orthodox, as well as Russian, messianism was an important
driving force behind the proposed unification process.56 Orthodoxy
provided a theoretical underpinning to such a messianic federalization. Despite claiming its universal catholic nature, Orthodoxy rendered nations with certain responsibilities. Thus, Russia, with its
“humble faith” and “true commitment to the inner life of the
Spirit,” was “called to be a light among nations, signalling the way
to universal peace and justice.”57 Following this theological
calling, Russia was considered as a natural leader of the prospective
Slav federation at the political level. Various suggestions came
into existence from Bakunin figuratively inviting the Tsar to head
the new federal union58 to Danilevsky’s outspoken insistence on
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
59. In his later writings, Dostoevsky took a global turn to Europe, albeit in the
traditional messianic style. In The Diary of a Writer, he argued that Russia’s
true destiny was to reconcile Europe’s sinful separation on East and West that
ultimately stems from the religious divide. He believed that Russia, being
somehow better than Europe, should shine an Eastern, or fundamentally
Russian, light in Europe. See V. Weidle, “Russia and the West,” in Ultimate Questions. An Anthology of Modern Russian Religious Thought, ed. A. Schmemann
(London and Oxford: Mowbrays, 1965), 11– 27, esp. 27; Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Russian Slavophilism, 406– 18.
60. L. Boltenkova, Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennost: Sostoianie i Perspektivy Razvitiia (Moscow: Slovo, 1995), 14– 16; A. Meshcheriakov, “Rossiiskii Federalizm:
teoreticheskie I noramtivo-pravovye istoki,” Pravo i Politika no. 12 (2004): 31–
35.
61. R. Sakwa, Soviet Politics in Perspective (New York and London: Routledge,
1998), 242; G. Gleason, Federalism and Nationalism. The Struggle for Republican
Rights in the USSR (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990); R. Pearson, “The Historical
Background to Soviet Federalism,” in A. McAuley, Soviet Federalism Nationalism
and Economic Decentralisation (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991), 31;
Elazar, “The Political Theory of Covenant,” 22.
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Russia’s leadership in a new federation, and Dostoevsky’s pondering the virtues of making Constantinople the center of the Slav/
Orthodox union under the patronage of Russia.59
Interestingly, Lenin’s vision of federalism bore similar ideological
traits. He also hoped to liberate the nations of the Russian Empire,
albeit to build on this basis a centralized unitary state. He regarded
federation as a transitory arrangement lying on the path towards
complete centralization.60 At the same time, his view on the fusion
(sliianie) and the rapprochement (sblizhenie) of nations under the
aegis of socialism was not far from just another manifestation of
Russian messianism. For these notions explicitly rejected federal
contractual relations, casting them aside as concessions to bourgeois thinking, and assumed, in both the Russian and Soviet
contexts, a mere assimilation of nationalities under the banner of
Great Russian chauvinism.61
Drawing on our original observations on Western covenantalism,
we draw two provisional conclusions. First, covenantalism, and as
a consequence legalism and constitutionalism, are culturally alien
to Russia. Second, Russia would feel more at ease with organic political structures, in which recognition of individual integrities is
circumscribed. This makes Western federalism foreign to Russia
in religious, historic, and socio-philosophical terms. It stands to
reason that this political worldview could largely impede the evolution of a Western-type federal practice in Russia. The following
sections will develop these conclusions further and expand on
them with specific historic and contemporary developments.
323
Journal of Church and State
Repercussions on Center-Regional Political
Developments
Constitutionalism
62. R. Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society (New York: Routledge, 2008), 82.
63. Sakwa, Soviet Politics in Perspective, 107.
64. N. Dobrynin, Novyi Federalizm. Kontseptualnaia model gosudarstvennogo
ustroistva RF. (Tiumen, Doctoral Dissertation, 2004); M. Gligich-Zolotareva,
Sovershenstvovanie Federativnoi Sostavliaiushchei Konstitutsii: pro et contra
(Moscow: Izdatelstvo MGU, 2004); V. Cherepanov, “Federal’naya reforma v
Rossii: Sovremennoe sostoyanie i perspektivy razvitiya,” in Politiko-Pravovye
Resursy Federalizma v Rossii, ed. R. Khakimov (Kazan: Kazanskii Institut Federalizma, 2006), 65– 75.
324
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It is a logical step to discuss with the issues of constitutionalism
and legalism. As we have shown at the beginning of this essay,
these represent the foremost ideological and structural pillars of
covenantal and federal orders. Richard Sakwa62 observes that “a
constitutional system is a much broader concept than the constitution itself and reflects the ethical basis of society.” He proceeds
to claim that “constitutionalism, together with legalism, is foreign
to the Russian political tradition.”63 Indeed, Russia’s ethical and
cultural tradition of noncovenantal Orthodoxy has had an adverse
impact on the evolution of its constitutional process. The distinct
lack of a contractual mentality has inhibited the emergence of a
real constitutional practice for centuries. Therefore, Russia’s academic constitutional thought has often reflected the traditional
dilemmas of Orthodox political theology. Finally, these problems
have led to the fact that Russia’s existing constitutional provisions
serve as a structural façade that does not reflect the real dynamic
of center-regional, and in a broader scale socio-political, integration. At the federal level, such issues result in Russia’s failure
to develop an appropriate constitutional model of federalism.
The history and tradition of Russian constitutionalism has an ultimately fragmented, limited character. It largely coincides with the
history of the new Russian state.64 Previous attempts to create a
constitutional order have always been unsuccessful largely due to
the lack of ethically accepted and indigenously established legalistic
constraints imposed on the relationship between state and society.
The state embarked on a never-ending array of broken promises and
unfulfilled agreements, which has almost always found social
acceptance, understanding, and nonresistance. The high authority
in Russia represented a political force independent of society and
unwilling to embark on the covenantal mode of governance.
Attempts at conditional governance and constitutionalism failed
under Empresses Anna (1730 – 1740), Catherine II (1762 – 1796),
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
65. A. Medushevsky, Demokratiia i Avtoritarizm: Rossiiskii Konstitutsionalizm v
Sravnitelnoi Perspektive (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1998); Arinin, Rossiiskii Federalizm.
66. Zemstvos (introduced in 1864) were elected bodies of local self-governance
composed of the representatives of three estates: gentry, peasants, and
townspeople.
67. Solomon Schwarz, The Russian Revolution of 1905 (Chicago and London:
The University of Chicago Press, 1967), 32– 34.
68. Kahn, Federalism, Constitutionalism, and the Rule of Law in Russia, 67– 82;
Sakwa, Soviet Politics in Perspective, 241– 42; G. Gleason, Federalism and Nationalism: The Struggle for Republican Rights in the USSR (Boulder: Westview Press,
1992), 131.
69. V. Sinuikov, Rossiiskaia Pravovaia Sistema: Vvedenie v Obshchuiu Teoriiu
(Saratov: Poligraphist, 1994), 238 –39.
70. M. Kovalevskii, Obshchee Konstitutsionnoe Pravo. Lektsii (St. Petersburg:
Pravda, 1908), 102 – 05; see also V. Gessen, Osnovy Konstitutsionnogo Prava
(Petrograd: Pavo, 1917), 66.
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Alexander I (1801 –1825), and Nicholas I (1825 – 1855).65 Russia’s
first constitution of 1906 did not reflect federal parliamentary
ideas of the zemstvo 66 leaders,67 while all four Soviet constitutions
(1918, 1924, 1936, 1977) did not implement most of their declared
principles in practice.68
The lack of a practical tradition of constitutionalism has been
further reinforced by the limited history of Russia’s constitutional
thought, which began to develop as a separate philosophical discipline only by the beginning of the twentieth century. Political scientists of that period (Kokoshin 1912, Lazarevskii 1912, Kotliarevskii
1907, Novgorodtsev 1909, Gessen 1917, Alekseev 1910, Yashchenko 1912) worked to adapt the principles of French and
American constitutionalism within Russia. While discussing the
principles of freedom, liberty, sovereignty, separation of powers,
and federalism, these scholars faced numerous dilemmas generated by Russia’s distinct theo-philosophical tradition. For
example, personal freedom in Russia’s legal and judicial thought
had an ultimately Orthodox theological and cultural meaning. It
was related to a spiritual liberation that could not be limited by
economic and political constraints imposed externally by the
state.69 Kovalevsky claimed that “personal rights originate independently of the state and cannot be created or annulled by any legal act
emanating from the state.”70 This largely echoed the humanistic,
Christological nature of the Orthodox vision in which freedom
was given a universal unlimited character.
Freedom was also regarded as a collective supra-human category.
Russian constitutional thought departed from a proposition that
Man is indeed free but cannot develop his potential except through
the membership of society. This supra-human nature of personal
freedom was called to be a link between Man and a legal system.
325
Journal of Church and State
71. B. Chicherin, Kurs Gosudarstvennoi Nauki (Moscow: Tipographiia Tovarishchestva Kushnerov, 1894).
72. S. Kotliarevskii, Konstitutsionnoe Pravo. Opyt Politiko-ideologocheskogo
Obzora (St. Petersburg: Tipographiia Altshulera, 1907), 9 – 11.
73. P. I. Novgorodtsev, Krizis Sovremennogo Pravosoznaniia (Moscow: Slovo,
1909), 21– 22; F. Kokoshin, Lektsii po Obshchemu Gosudarstvennomu
Pravu (Moscow: Tipographiia Russkogo Tovarishchestva, 1912), 201 – 02;
N. Lazarevskii, Russkoe Gosudarstvennoe Pravo, vol. 1. (St. Petersburg: Slovo,
1912), 107 – 10; S. Kotliarevskii, Konstitutsionnoe Pravo. Opyt Politikoideologocheskogo Obzora (St. Petersburg: Tipographiia Altshulera, 1907),
19– 22.
326
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Chicherin,71 who saw a difference between political and personal
human rights, particularly underscored the social character of individual freedom. He did not view personal freedoms in instrumental
individualistic terms, restricting them to economic and private
matters. Rather he granted them exclusively social, integral character
and claimed that the right to form associations, the right of petitions,
the right of free press and free speech, the right of teaching and education fall in the category of personal, and not political rights.
However, given that these rights are strongly associated with collective political freedoms, the boundary between social and individual
rights have become blurred, ultimately reflecting the collectivist,
Orthodox, soborny character of the Russian cultural tradition. Following a similar logic of traditional humanism, Russia’s constitutional thought also called for the achievement of an integral,
catholic condition of a legal-political system. S. Kotliarevsky,72 for
example, rejected coercion and violence as a means of achieving political stability and social justice. Instead, he advocated a complete
union between people and power and the creation of a coherent “political whole.” Constitutional order and universal suffrage were called
to sustain the integrity of such a “complete political union.” Kotliarevsky viewed this fusion between power and people as a safeguard
against corruption, elitism, unreasonable enrichment, and other ultimately individualistic expressions of human behavior.
Unsurprisingly, Russia’s constitutional thought found the
primary federalist idea of combining liberty and authority the
most difficult. This issue represented an almost irresolvable
dilemma. While praising the idea of people’s sovereignty manifested through the right to control the government, Russian constitutionalists73 refused the American and French constitutional
principles that endorsed an indivisible nature of people’s sovereignty and the republican form of government. Rather, they recognized the dual nature of people and monarchical sovereignty and
insisted that the two could co-exist. The treatment of the supreme
state power by Russian constitutionalists reflected the Orthodox
lack of a contractual, partnership-like relationship with the higher
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
74. Chicherin, Kurs Gosudarstvennoi Nauki.
75. A. Yashchenko, Teoriia Federalizma. Opyt Sinteticheskoi Teorii (Riga: Nauka
i Zhizn, 1912), 29– 30.
76. G. Shershenevich, Obshchaia Teoriia Prava (Moscow, 1908).
77. Khan, Federalism, Constitutionalism, and the Rule of Law in Russia, 26– 33;
Elazar, Exploring Federalism, 109.
78. Yashchenko, Teoriia Federalizma. Opyt Sinteticheskoi Teorii, 197, 276 – 77.
79. L. Boltenkova, Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennost: Sostoianie i Perspektivy Razvitiia (Moscow: Slovo, 1995); O. Kudinov, “Konstitutsionnye Teorii v Rossii v
Nachale XX veka,” Pravo i Politika 7 (2004): 25– 32; M. Zolotareva, Federalizm v
Rossii: Problemy i Perspektivy (Moscow: Problel, 1999).
80. N. Korkunov, Lektsii po Obshchei Teorii Prava (St. Petersburg: Tipographiia
Stasiulevicha, 1909), 78.
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authority. It was reminiscent of the attitude towards the power of
God, which due to its omnipotence, could not be subjected to the
constraints of partnership. For these thinkers, the supreme power
had an unlimited, indivisible character that was not tied to people
by any particular contract but co-existed with them in one indivisible union. We can clearly trace the eschatological overtones of
Russia’s political theology that strove for the achievement of a complete union between God and His people within the conditions of
absent covenant. Chicherin74 wrote that “state is a union of
people tied into one single legal entity and ruled by supreme
power for the achievement of common good.” Having an initially
federalist, almost Althusian approach to the structure of the state
as a union of unions, he still claimed that the difference between
the state and the intra-state unions lies in the fact that the latter
are subordinate to the former. Yashchenko75 further argued that,
from the judicial point of view, no other form of power could
restrict the supreme power. Because it can override its own rules
and if there were a supreme judge, then he would have supreme
power and authority. Shershenevich76 supported this view by claiming that the supremacy of power implies its unlimited character,
and its indivisible nature guarantees its independence.
This vision was transferred to the federal level. In contrast to the
American federal theorists who claimed that sovereignty can be discretely distributed within the state on several, interconnected levels
of governmental authority,77 Russian federal constitutional thought
affirmed one indivisible sovereignty. Yashchenko,78 in a widely
recognized classic of Russia’s federal thought,79 claimed that dividing sovereignty would open doors to disintegration and anarchy.
Standing on the principles of an institutional division of functions
and responsibilities, he claimed, at the same time, that “sovereignty,
as supremacy and complete authority, cannot be divided by definition . . . . Sovereignty is an expression of the unity of power. To
divide sovereignty is to divide unity.” Korkunov80 concurred with
327
Journal of Church and State
81. V. Sinuikov, Rossiiskaia Pravovaia Sistema: Vvedenie v Obshchuiu Teoriiu
(Saratov: Poligraphist, 1994), 4– 6.
82. Medushevsky, Demokratiia i Avtoritarizm, 357 – 58.
83. A. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: OUP, 1997), 288.
84. Kahn, Federalism, Constitutionalism, and the Rule of Law in Russia, 95.
85. A. Sheehy, “The Draft Union Treaty: a Preliminary Assessment,” Report on
the USSR 51 (December 21, 1990): 1 – 6.
328
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these views, arguing that, within the conditions of a divided sovereignty, one or another order of government would have to enforce
compliance with such a division and reinterpret its parameters.
And the order that will assume such supervisory functions will
invariably prevail over the other levels of government.
Subsequent Soviet constitutional thought has been largely stagnant,81 and new ideas began to emerge only with the onset of perestroika. Much attention was given to the federal idea, perhaps against
the backdrop of the imminent dissolution of the union state.
However, the federal thought of that era followed mainly a
utopian Orthodox trend of noncovenantal messianism. Academician Sakharov drafted a sample of the new Soviet Constitution in
1991. His approach to federal relations, though covenantal, was
still utopian, and in many ways, extreme, and viewed the federal
order in terms of confederalism. Sakharov insisted on the creation
of a global world government, based on the ultimate convergence
between socialist and capitalist systems. In terms of the immediate
Soviet problems, he suggested a loosely confederal order for the
future Soviet state, granting the union’s constituent territories the
right to create military units, conduct foreign affairs, and manage
independent financial systems. These ideas were countered by the
Solzhenitsyn proposals, who, also utopian, suggested the pursuit
of Russian messianism and the creation of a highly centralized
Slavic state composed of the Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Russian
nations.82 The Yeltsin-Gorbachev idea of the Union Treaty (the
attempted adoption of which set in motion the process of the
USSR dissolution) was also largely utopian, even though it
emerged as an effort to save the crumbling Union state. Like
Sakharov’s proposals, the draft treaty granted the union republics
unjustifiably excessive rights, such as control over the natural
resources, including mineral deposits,83 the elevation of the autonomous republics to republican status,84 and the supremacy of the
republican legislation over the union law.85
These socio-cultural particularities resulted in Russia’s current
difficulties with constitutionalism, and thereby with federalism.
Russia’s current Constitution, at least a large number of its provisions, serves as a structural façade and does not match sociopolitical and territorial realities. This translates into Russia’s
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
86. Dobrynin, Novyi Federalizm; Gligich-Zolotareva, Sovershenstvovanie Federativnoi Sostavliaiushchei Konstitutsii: pro et contra.
87. “Postanovlenie KS RF ot 18 Ianvaria 1996 No. 2 ‘Po delu o proverke riada
polozhenii ustava (Osnovnogo Zakona) Altaiskogo Kraia,’” Sobranie Zakonodatelstva RF, no. 4, January 22, 1996, 409 – 11.
88. Federal’nyi Zakon No. 159-FZ ot December 11, 2004 “O Vnesenii Izmenenii v
Federal’nyi Zakon ‘Ob Obshchikh Printsipakh Organizatsii’ i v Federal’nyi Zakon
‘Ob osnovnykh garantiyakh izbiratel’nykh prav,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, December
15, 2004; Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii No. 1603 ot December 27, 2004
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failure to determine an appropriate constitutional model of federalism that could accurately reflect the dynamics of its real centerregional integration. Three important themes can be identified in
this context: first, those who determine Russia’s constitutional
process manipulate the existing constitution to serve the purpose
of a political marketplace; second, the Russian Constitution contains a number of clauses that are unclear and contradictory, thus
allowing manipulation and noncompliance; and finally, Russia’s
regional legislative process has a leading character, which is not
reflected in the country’s legal code.
First, the binary nature of Russia’s constitutionalism, seen in the
formula “Constitution plus the Federal Constitutional Law”
accompanied by the Constitutional Court’s power of legal interpretation,86 enabled Russia to indulge its cultural aversion to legalism,
because many legal acts have been reinterpreted in a manner expedient for the current political heavyweights. Thus, instead of enforcing the ethical compact of Russia’s socio-political relations, this
dynamic set in motion a “creeping” constitutional reform that
largely ignored the principles of genuine federalism. A few
examples are in order. The January 18, 1996 Constitutional Court
decision No. 2 “On Constitutionality of the Altai Krai Statutes”
ruled in favor of a strict separation of the legal and executive
branches in the regions. The Court claimed that the regional parliaments do not have the right to elect the heads of regional executives, eject them from power, or influence the appointments of
executive staff ( provisions that were initially embedded in Articles
81.3, 82, 83, and 84 of the regional statutes). The Court also ruled
that no governmental structure at either the federal or regional
level has the right to dissolve a popularly elected regional assembly
(Article 77 of the Altai regional statutes).87 However, when Putin
became president, the resulting change in the country’s political
climate forced the Court to pass a new, contradictory decision No.
13 on December 21, 2005. This decision resulted in the approval
of a new method to select the regional governors, whereby regional
assemblies vote for the executive candidates under the threat of dissolution.88 In this document, the Court also confirmed the right of
329
Journal of Church and State
“O Poryadke rassmotreniya kandidatur na dolzhnost’ vysshego dolzhnostnogo
litsa sub ekta Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, December 29, 2004.
89. “Postanovlenie KS RF ot 21 Dekabria 2005 No. 13 P ‘Po voprosu o konstitutsionnosti novogoporiadka nadeleniia grazhdan Rossiiskoi Federatsii polnomochiiami vysshikh dolzhnostnykh lits subektov RF,’” Rossiiskaia Gazeta,
December 29, 2005.
90. “Postanovlenie Konstitutsionnogo Suda RF ot 9 Ianvaria 1998 goda No. 1-P
‘po delu o proverke konstitutsionnosti Lesnogo Kodeksa RF,’” Sobranie Zakonodatelstva RF, No. 3, January 19, 1998, 429 –31.
91. A. Bezrukov, “Sovmestnaia kompetentsiia i sovershenstvovanie vzaimodeistviia Rossiiskoi Federatsii i ee subektov,” Pravovedenie 4 (2003): 16– 23;
N. V. Varlamova, “Konstitutsionnaia model rossiiskogo federalizma,” Konstitutsionnoe Pravo: Vostochnoe Obozrenie 4, no. 29 (1999): 60– 61; Dobrynin, Novyi
Federalizm; E. V. Riabov, “Dogovornoe Regulirovanie Federativnykh Otnoshenii
v Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Vestnik SamGU 5, no. 2 (2006): 91 –100.
92. Federalnyi zakon RF ot 24 iiulia 1999 goda No. 119-FZ, “o poriadke razgranicheniia predmetov vedeniia ia polnomochii mezhdu organami gosudarstvennoi vlasti Rossiiskoi Federatsii i organami gosudarstvennoi vlasti subektov RF,”
Parlamentskaia Gazeta, June 28, 1999; SZ RF, no. 26, 1999.
330
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the federation president to dissolve regional assemblies.89 This
abrupt change shows an alarming absence of constitutional
values, largely attributed to a well-entrenched cultural tradition of
disregard for the compulsory nature of legal constraints.
A well-publicized Constitutional Court decision on January 9,
1998 is another case in point.90 In this ruling, the Court placed
the center-regional division of powers under the jurisdiction
of the federal constitutional law—a decision, which virtually
granted the federal center the right to “delegate” certain responsibilities to the regions. This decision contradicts article 76.2 of the
RF constitution, which states that the federal law can only regulate
the principles of joint jurisdiction and not the division of powers.
The latter, in accordance with article 11.3 of Russia’s constitution,
falls under the jurisdiction of the RF Constitution or bilateral treaties.91 Law 119-FZ from June 24, 1999 corrected the balance by
including the regional order of government into the process of
drafting federal legislation pertaining to the center-regional division of powers.92 The document instituted compulsory reading of
all proposed legal acts by the regional parliaments and provided
for the creation of a reconciliatory commission should one-third
of the regions find the draft law unsatisfactory. However, it did
not outline the principles of this commission’s functioning and
the methods of its formation, leaving such issues to the discretion
of the State Duma. Moreover, Article 4.13 of the Law grants regional
representatives just a consultative voice within the State Duma legislative committees which draft such laws. Similarly, from a strictly
constitutional point of view, the drive towards cancellation of
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
93. Federalnyi zakon RF ot 04.07.2003 N 95-FZ, “O vnesenii izmeneniy i dopolneniy v federalnyi zakon ‘Ob obshchikh printsipakh organizatsii zakonodatelnykh ( predstavitelnykh) i ispolnitelnykh organov gosudarstvennoy vlasti
subyektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, July 8, 2003.
94. V. Cherepanov, “Federal’naya reforma v Rossii: Sovremennoe sostoyanie i
perspektivy razvitiya,” in Politiko-Pravovye Resursy Federalizma v Rossii,
ed. R. Khakimov (Kazan’: Kazanskii Institut Federalizma, 2006), 65– 75, esp. 72.
95. R. Sakwa, “Federalism, sovereignty and democracy,” in Regional Politics in
Russia, ed. Cameron Ross (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 1–
22; A. Stepan, “Russian Federalism in Comparative Perspective,” Post-Soviet
Affairs 16, no. 2 (2000): 133 – 76; Kahn, Federalism, Constitutionalism, and the
Rule of Law in Russia; V. Lysenko, “Dogovornye otnosheniya kak faktor obostreniya protivorechii kraev i oblastei s respublikami,” in Asymmetrichnaya federatsiya: Vzglyad is tsentra, respublik i oblastei, ed. L. Drobizheva (Moscow: Institute
of Ethnology and Anthropology RAN), 12– 15; Arinin, Rossiiskii Federalizm,
165– 76.
96. Putin’s Address to the Federal Assembly, July 8, 2000, Ofitsialnoe Internet
Predstavitelstvo Prezidenta Rossii, available online at http://president.kremlin
.ru/text/appears/2000/07/28782.shtml.
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bilateral treaties, initiated by the federal center upon the accession
of Vladimir Putin to power, violated Russia’s constitutional structure. Federal Law No. 95-FZ adopted on July 4, 2003 stipulates
that the treaties can only be decided within certain regions and
grants these documents a federal law status.93 This contradicts
Article 72 of the Russian Constitution, which assumes that the treaties are open to all regions regardless of their cultural or national
characteristics. Moreover, the document “demoted” the treaties to
federal law status, thus depriving them of their rightful constitutional rank.94
Apart from the federal authorities, regional leaders also manipulated constitutional statutes, which was particularly true during the
Yeltsin presidency. The regional leaders had their unique, noncovenantal view of federal principles, loosely interpreting the bounds of
the federal constitution and legislation and adopting highly selective criteria for following federal fiscal and economic regimes. The
general philosophy behind this view was that some regions and
republics were entitled to special rights and privileges due to
their specific ethnic, economic, and territorial characteristics. This
logic served to elevate many of these regions legally and politically
above the center and ultimately led to numerous violations of the
1993 federal Constitution.95 In his May 2000 address to the
Federal Assembly, Putin claimed that by the end of the 1990s,
more than 3,500 regional laws contradicted the country’s basic
law,96 and in May 2000 alone he issued eighteen decrees overriding
the regional legislation that contradicted the federal law. The
regions, nevertheless, continued to violate the federal law during
the first term of Putin’s presidency with hundreds of newly
331
Journal of Church and State
97. E. Chebankova, “Putin’s Struggle for Federalism: Structures, Operations, and
the Commitment Problem,” Europe-Asia Studies 59, no. 2 (2007): 279– 302;
G. Hahn, “The Impact of Putin’s Federative Reforms on Democratisation in
Russia,” Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 2 (2003): 147 – 49.
98. V. Lysenko, “Dogovornye otnosheniya kak faktor obostreniya protivorechii
kraev i oblastei s respublikami,” in Asymmetrichnaya federatsiya: Vzglyad is
tsentra, respublik i oblastei, ed. L. Drobizheva (Moscow: Institute of Ethnology
and Anthropology RAN), 34– 35.
99. I. A. Umnova, Konstitutsionnye Osnovy Sovremennogo Rossiiskogo Federalizma, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Delo, 2000), 60; B. Ebzeev and L. Karapetian, “Rossiiskii
Federalizm: ravnopravie i asimmetriia konstitutsionnogo statusa subekta,”
Gosudarstvo i Pravo 3 (1995): 3; A. Meshcheriakov, “Rossiiskii Federalizm: teoreticheskie I noramtivo-pravovye istoki,” Pravo i Politika 12 (2004): 31 –35.
100. The Constitution of the Russian Federation, Chapter 1, “The Fundamentals
of the Constitutional System,” Article 66.1 and 66.5; and Chapter 3, “The
Russian Federation.”
101. A number of authors including Stepan, Huges, Cashaback, Sharlet,
Shakhrai, Boltenkova, and Arinin, argued that asymmetry is an appropriate solution for many multi-ethnic federal states. However, a large number of Russian
experts including Ebzeev and Karapetian, Umnova, Gligich-Zolotareva, and
Dobrynin, argued that asymmetry could be harmful within the conditions of legislative uncertainty and the lack of legal political culture.
102. Lysenko, “Razvitie Federatsii i Konstitutsiia Rossii,” 17; V. Chirkin, Konstitutsionnoe Pravo: Rossiia i Zarubezhnyi Opyt (Moscow: Zertsalo, 1998), 320– 30;
A. Bezrukov, “Sovmestnaia kompetentsiia i sovershenstvovanie vzaimodeistviia
Rossiiskoi Federatsii i ee subektov,” Pravovedenie 4 (2003): 16– 23.
332
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enacted and existing regional legal acts contradicting the federal
constitution.97
Second, the federal Constitution also contained a large number of
serious contradictions that engendered regional and national noncompliance and allowed legal manipulations.98 The constitution
has not resolved the problem of equality of federating parties—a
tradition that stemmed from the messianic ideology of Soviet federalism which constructed a confederal institutional façade.99 By
granting a different name or status to each group of administrative
units and by permitting change in a subject’s status through a constitutional amendment “and mutual consent of the Russian Federation and the subject of the Russian Federation,”100 Article 5.2 of the
Russian Constitution implies asymmetry between the federation’s
subjects.101 The document does not outline the principles in
order to include regional legislation in the unified federal legal
system and mechanisms of federal interference in regional legislation when that legislation violates the federal constitution. The
number of constitutional clauses pertaining to the sphere of joint
jurisdiction seems excessive, opening the way to manipulation
and abuse. Article 72 of the Russian Constitution contains some
fourteen joint jurisdiction clauses, while Canada allows only
three.102 Furthermore, the Russian constitution does not outline
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
103. Federalnyi Zakon, “O vyborakh deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy Federalnogo Sobraniya Rosiiskoi Federatsii Ot 18 May 2005,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, May
25, 2005.
104. R. Turovsky, “The Mechanism of Representation of Regional Interests at
the Federal Level in Russia: Problems and Solutions,” Perspectives on European
Politics and Society 8, no. 1 (2007b): 80– 82.
105. Zakon “O poryadke formirovaniya Soveta Federatsii Federalnogo Sobraniya
Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Sobranie Zakonodatelstva Rossiiskoi Federatsii 20, May 15,
2000, 4319– 24.
106. T. Remington, “Majorities without Mandates: The Russian Federal Council
since 2000,” Europe-Asia Studies 55, no. 5 (2003): 667– 91; M. Hyde, “Putin’s
Federal Reforms and their Implications for Presidential Power in Russia,”
Europe-Asia Studies 53, no. 5 (2001): 719– 43; Chebankova, “Putin’s Struggle
for Federalism.”
107. This problem began with the USSR. During the period of the Soviet state
formation, Union republics adopted their laws and constitutions prior to the
enactment of the USSR’s first constitution in 1924. This necessitated the
process of legal harmonization. The RSFSR had to enact a new version of its constitution in 1925, in which a range of rights within the military, foreign relations,
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electoral methods for the formation of executive branches of
regional governments. Neither does it spell out the rights of citizens
to be elected to the post of a regional executive and to take part in
electoral campaigns for regional executive offices. The federal
center, supported by the Constitutional Court, used these loopholes
to grant the Russian Federation president the right to appoint the
regional leaders de-facto. Moreover, given that the constitution
does not outline the mode used to form the Federation Council
and the State Duma, the national center was able to introduce the
proportional representation system at the expense of the plurality
mandates.103 The single mandates system, however, traditionally
enabled the regions to defend their interests in the lower house of
the national legislature.104 Similarly, the May 2000 reform of the
Federation Council105 resulted in the regional interests becoming
underrepresented at the national level.106 In addition, following
the reconstitution of the gubernatorial elections, Russia’s population has become virtually excluded from selecting the federal
chamber deputies. The de-facto president appoints the regional
governors who then proceed to appoint their representatives in
the upper chamber.
Finally, the inability of Russia’s constitution to adequately reflect
the country’s political realities results in a situation whereby the
regional legislative process has a leading role, while the national
legislation is reactive. Ideally, however, regional legislation should
play a secondary role, thereby reflecting a general compliance
with the legal norms of the national law. In Russia, many laws and
institutions have been adopted prior to their induction in the
federal legal code.107 The treaty conclusion process perfectly
333
Journal of Church and State
transportation, and telecommunication spheres had been transferred under the
Union jurisdiction. See Meshcheriakov, “Rossiiskii Federalizm: teoreticheskie.”
108. Boltenkova, Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennost: Sostoianie i Perspektivy Razvitiia; Riabov, “Dogovornoe Regulirovanie Federativnykh Otnoshenii v Rossiiskoi
Federatsii”; Khan, Federalism, Constitutionalism, and the Rule of Law in Russia.
109. Stepan, “Russian Federalism in Comparative Perspective”; Khan, Federalism, Constitutionalism, and the Rule of Law in Russia; Lysenko, “Dogovornye
otnosheniya kak faktor obostreniya protivorechii kraev i oblastei s
respublikami.”
110. Federalnyi zakon RF ot 24 iiulia 1999 goda No. 119-FZ “o poriadke razgranicheniia predmetov vedeniia ia polnomochii mezhdu organami gosudarstvennoi vlasti Rossiiskoi Federatsii i organami gosudarstvennoi vlasti subektov RF,”
Parlamentskaia Gazeta, June 28, 1999; SZ RF, No. 26, 1999.
111. Boltenkova, Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennost.
112. Chebankova, “Putin’s Struggle for Federalism,” 1001 –2.
113. Federalnyi Konstitutsionnyi Zakon No. 1-FKZ ot 31 dekabria 1996, “o
sudebnoi sisteme Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” SZ RF, no. 1 (1997): 1 – 3.
114. N. V. Varlamova, “Konstitutsionnaia model rossiiskogo federalizma,”
Konstitutsionnoe Pravo: Vostochnoe Obozrenie 4, no. 29 (1999): 112 – 21.
334
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illustrates this fact. Launched with the signing of the first RussoTatar Treaty on February 15, 1994, the process involved some fortysix subjects of the federation, with Moscow federal city being the
last to sign a treaty on June 16, 1998.108 The process, however,
remained beyond the competence of the Russian parliament109
until June 24, 1999, when the State Duma enacted law No 119-FZ
on the division of responsibilities between national and regional
governments.110 Interestingly, following the enactment of this law,
the regions and the center have not signed any new treaty,111 with
the single exception of the second Russo-Tatar treaty, which was
signed into law in July 2007.112 Although the Russian constitution
does not provide for the existence of the regional judicial systems
(articles 71.3, 118, 124, 128), regional constitutional courts, small
claim courts, and other courts existed independently of such constitutional provisions on the judicial level. Russia’s Federal Constitutional law No 1-FKZ on December 31, 1996 responded to this
situation by allowing the establishment of regional constitutional
and small claims courts.113 Nevertheless, certain discrepancies
within the financial regulations created a number of constitutional
contradictions.114
Having said this, the emergence of leading regional legislation is
almost inevitable in a country such as Russia, with its extremely
diverse ethnic population, large territories, and varying culturalterritorial requirements. Therefore, the federal law has a duty to
create appropriate mechanisms for accommodating these sociopolitical realities in order to safeguard popular rights and freedoms. The lack of a covenantal approach was particularly evident
at this point. The country’s legislation did not make any effort to
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
reflect the realities of the regional legislative process. Law 119-FZ,
for example, has not provided the regions with an opportunity to
join the leading legislation process in selected circumstances.115
Neither has it described the mechanisms for determining such circumstances and the mechanisms of harmonizing leading regional
legislation with the federal standard.
Another important aspect of this discussion pertains to Russia’s
socio-cultural difficulties in recognizing the individual integrity of
federating parties and endorsing a pluralism of opinions. This is
closely related to Russia’s lenience towards the organic, instead of
covenantal, political order. Organic polities are strongly linked to
“political messianism,”116 and aim to find a sole and exclusive
truth in human, religious, and political interactions. They strive to
establish a state of total harmony, in which the use of legal force
and violence will be avoided. In these polities, an informal means
of political dialogue prevail, and individual integrities are respected
only inasmuch as they can contribute to the achievement of a
common goal.
Russia’s traditional search for an absolute truth, seen in the
eschatological character of the theo-philosophical Orthodox tradition, has manifested itself through the evolution of its political
process. During the Putin period, the goal was to achieve a more
stable, more manageable, and more secure state. It is important
that this was viewed in the traditional Orthodox style of reaching
an ideal and perfect solution. A course of action was implemented
to completely overtake the management of the political system,
and those who did not agree with such an objective were excluded
from the decision-making process. Legal violence has been largely
avoided and a greater emphasis has been placed on the establishment of societal and moral forms of control. Of particular importance was the creation of the youth movement Nashi for the
purpose of vilifying those who opposed the current policies. The
Yukos affair represented a single selected strike to enforce compliance within the business community by moral psychological means
without substantially changing respective economic laws regarding
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Organic Conduct of Politics, Informal Relations, and
Lack of Recognition
115. Federalnyi zakon RF ot 24 iiulia 1999 goda No. 119-FZ.
116. Talmon, Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, 1 – 2, and 252 –54; Cohn, The
Pursuit of the Millennium; Talmon, Political Messianism, 516; Riemer, “Covenant
and Federal Constitution,” 145; Biryukov and Sergeyev, Russian Politics in
Transition, 2 – 3.
335
Journal of Church and State
117. Chebankova, “Putin’s Struggle for Federalism,” 2009.
118. A. Dakhin, “Vlast kak Bolshoe Mysliashchee,” Kazanskii Federalist 1 – 2,
nos. 17– 18 (2006): 36– 37.
119. L. Shevtsova, Russia—Lost in Transition: the Yeltsin and Putin Legacies
(New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007).
120. S. Mikheev, “Tsentr-Natsional’nye Respubliki: Otnosheniya na Novom
Etape,” Moscow Centre for Political Technology, October 30, 2002, available
online at http://www.politcom.ru/2002/p_region31.php, last accessed March
20, 2008.
121. “Ziazikov Stal taki Prezidentom Ingushetii,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, April
30, 2002; “Tolko ia i Gosudarstvo,” Vedomosti, January 24, 2002.
122. “Vybory v Iakutii: Tretia Popytka Nikolaeva,” Parlamentskaia Gazeta,
September 28, 2001; “Respublika Kalmykiia,” Kommersant Vlast, October 14,
2002; “Respublika Bashkortostan,” Kommersant Vlast, December 1, 2003.
336
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transfer pricing and taxation.117 Finally, as Dakhin notes,118 the
state has embarked on the creation of a new nomenklatura class
that will be responsible for the completion of goals identified by
the government. Shevtsova supports this view by claiming that
Russia has begun to develop a new class of bureaucratic oligarchy
that occupies key positions within economic and political structures and influences a wide spectrum of political processes taking
place within the country.119
At the federal level, this dynamic was translated to the establishment of informal, shadow methods of the center-regional dialogue
that relied on moral rather than legal rules. The first term of Putin’s
presidency (2000 –2004) exhibited a clear political favoritism
towards a large number of territories. This particularly concerned
the Kremlin’s dialogue with the national republics. The center’s
relationship with these territories has been highly selective and
dependent on a range of subjective factors such as the personality
of a regional leader, the political and economic situation within the
republic, its natural resources, and other politico-economic considerations.120 In a number of cases, where regional leaders were
unacceptable to the Kremlin, the center embarked upon aggressive
campaigns for their dismissals. During the first term of Putin’s presidency, this could only be achieved through active federal interference in regional electoral processes. This was done in Ingushetiya
(2001) and Adygeya (2002), where the center managed to push
through its favored candidates Murat Zyazikov and Khazret
Sovmen.121 In those regions, where compromises were possible,
the center chose pressure and intimidation followed by a subsequent inclusion of “tamed” leaders into the existing power structure. This took place in Yakutiya (2001), Kalmykiya (2002), and
Bashkortostan (2003).122 Finally, the center openly supported
some of the most amenable leaders during their electoral campaigns and incumbencies in exchange for clearly demonstrable
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
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political loyalty. Tatarstan, North Osetiya, and Kabardino-Balkariya
could serve as the most illuminating examples.123
During the second term of Putin’s tenure (2004 – 2008), the
center continued to exploit its noncontractual relationship with
the regions within the financial, budgetary, and investment
levels. Various donor-regions, such as Khanty-Mansi Autonomous
Okrug, St Petersburg, and Moscow Federal Cities, retained a substantial amount of their income within their own territories,
depending on their political importance and personal connections
within the Kremlin.124 By 2007, 61 percent of all the existing
federal transfers to recipient regions were distributed on the
basis of shadow negotiations, in which political factors, such as
the amount of votes cast for the pro-Kremlin United Russia
party, became defined.125 Regarding investments, the level of
direct regional inflows was largely dependent on the local administrations’ relationships with important officials at the federal
center, where the Kremlin was able to direct investors into politically loyal territories.126
Difficulties in recognizing the integrity of federating parties are
revealed by the cyclical fluctuations of Russia’s center-regional
policy. As a unitary state since the fifteenth century, Russia was
composed of large divisions of provincial or local administrations,
which were decentralized in practice and even demonstrated
occasional separatist tendencies. The center had to react to
various autonomous pressures from these units and conduct different regional reforms in order to improve governance and display
leniency towards greater liberalism. Such concessions, however,
were short-lived, as the promises for devolution were conducted
on a noncontractual basis. The center quickly betrayed its initial liberalizing intentions and reset regional dialogue back to the unitary
rails. More importantly, such cycles of promise-and-reneg were not
minor fluctuations incapable of reversing the general vector of political development, similar to what we see in the center-regional
relationships in the West. Rather, these were important policy milestones that seriously affected the evolution of independent regional
initiatives.
123. “Kreml Podderzhit Dzasokhova na Vyborakh Glavy Severnoi Osetii,” Nezavisimaia Gazeta, July 25, 2001.
124. Emiliya Kazumova, “Bednye Rodstvenniki,” Novye Izvestiia, March 15,
2007.
125. N. Zubarevich, “Sshit Prostranstvo,” Ekspert, December 27, 2007.
126. R. Turovsky, “Regionalnye Ekonomiki i Regionalnyi Separatizm,” Moscow
Centre for Political Technology, October 23, 2007, available online at http://
www.politcom.ru/article.php?id=5246, last accessed February 5, 2008.
337
Journal of Church and State
127. A. Pavlov and M. Perrie, Ivan the Terrible. Profiles in Power (London:
Longman Press, 2003), 73– 75.
128. R. Robbins, Jr., The Tsar’s Viceroys. Russian Provincial Governors in the
Last Years of the Empire (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1987),
6–7.
129. Ibid., 18; M. S. Conroy, Emerging Democracy in Late Imperial Russia. Case
Studies on Local Self-government (The Zemstvos), State Duma Elections, the
Tsarist Government, and the State Council before and During World War I
(Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1998), 66– 69.
130. A. Arinin and G. Marchenko, Uroki i Problemy Stanovleniia Rossiiskogo Federalizma (Moscow: Inteltekh, 1999), 77.
131. Lysenko, “Dogovornye otnosheniya kak faktor obostreniya protivorechii
kraev i oblastei s respublikami,” 16– 17; R. Khakimov, “Ob Osnovakh Asymmetrichnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” in Asymmetrichnaya federatsiya: Vzglyad is
tsentra, respublik i oblastei, ed. Drobizheva (Moscow: Institute of Ethnology
and Anthropology RAN, 1998), 37– 48.
338
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The 1550 launch of the regional self-governing estate (soslovie)
system by Ivan IV,127 the introduction of the ten gubernias by
Peter the Great,128 the first attempts towards instituting local selfgovernance by Catherine II, and the failure of the zemstvo institutions during the counter-reform of the late 1880s and early
1890s129 are examples. The Soviet government in particular
pursued the policy of the cyclical centralization-devolution development. The state immobilized for the implementation of major
economic tasks, such as industrialization and collectivisation,
and devolved power during brief periods of liberalization—
examples being the New Economic Policy, sovnarkhozy, and perestroika. Arinin and Marchenko130 have observed that the Soviet
phases of centralization and devolution followed each other
within a thirty-five-year period (1922, 1957, and 1992), as
though indicating the capacity of central government to sustain
devolution within certain unitary limits. The establishment of
the Russian Federation in the early 1990s represented, with
certain reservations, yet another phase of decentralization, which
was in line with the larger cycle of the post-Soviet centrifugal
trend. This process was gradual and took place over a period of
five to six years.131 However, due to the inability of both parties
to follow the decentralization compact, Russia began to exhibit a
clear lenience towards reaffirmation of central control by the
end of the Yeltsin era.
Statistical evidence exhibits a consensus among the regional leaders
on the necessity to reform their relationship with the federal center to
a more transparent, legal, and equal partnership. Opinion polls conducted at the Center of Sociology of Ethnic and Regional Relations
(RAN) in 1999 claimed that a majority of regional elites (50–60
percent) negatively evaluated the weakness of the federal center’s
Russia’s Noncovenantal Federalism
132. V. Ivanov and O. Iarovoi, Rossiiskii Federalism: Stanovlenie i Razvitie
(Moscow: Institute of Socio-Political Research [RAN], 2000), 43– 54.
133. “Rossiiskie Regiony: Put v Novoe Tysyacheletie,” Rossiiskaya Federatsiya
Segodnya, no. 13 (1998).
134. “Rossiiu Neobkhodimo Razdelit’ na Respubliki,” Eduard Rossel interview,
Izvestiia, June 19, 2001. Alexandr Lebed interview, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 2,
1998; Farid Saphiullin interview, Radio Liberty Russia, June 1, 2000.
135. Lysenko, “Razvitie Federalnykh Okrugov i Budushchee Federativnogo
Ustroistva Rossii,” 40.
136. Kommersant Vlast, 2008.
137. “Polpredov perevodyat v Moskvu,” Vedomosti, October 4, 2007.
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policy towards their respective territories.132 Many governors (Orel,
Samara, Orenburg, Sverdlovsk regions, Moscow Federal City,
Krasnoiarsk Krai) emphasized the need to review the existing mechanisms of center-regional relationships. They wanted transparent
equal dialogue with the Kremlin and equal treatment in all territories
under the law.133 More importantly, they wanted to preserve their
existing political autonomy and pursue the relationship of an equal
partnership with the Kremlin. The governors of Sverdlovsk and
Iaroslav regions, as well as Krasnoiarsk Krai and Tatarstan, were particular exponents of such views.134
However, the Kremlin was under no obligation, ethical or otherwise, towards the regions and thereby had no incentive to account
for regional political preferences. Its vision of reforming the existing pattern of center-regional dialogue assumed the traditional
path towards centralization. Yeltsin’s centralizing efforts135 were
inhibited by the center’s weakness and the absence of regional
cadres capable of counterbalancing the influence of the governors.
The May 2000 arrival of Vladimir Putin changed this situation. The
Kremlin openly embarked on the creation of a tightly vertical integrated structure. The new policies somewhat redefined the existing
federal contract and placed the center above the regions, both institutionally and politically. Yet again, the newly erected rigid system
began to create many difficulties for effective regional governance
and went, perhaps, too far in its centralizing hierarchical component.136 This brought about some tectonic political moves
towards devolution. Dmitry Kozak, minister of regional development, insisted in October 2007 that the regions should be given
more responsibilities in the socio-economic spheres.137 In late
2007, Putin also underscored that it was the Kremlin’s current priority to provide the regions with higher levels of responsibilities.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has made a number of devolutionary gestures removing unpopular governors (Ingushetiia),
appointing opposition members to gubernatorial positions (Kirov
region, Altai Krai), and expressing his general willingness to
339
Journal of Church and State
embark on a more intimate dialogue with representatives of civil
society.138
Conclusion
138. “Krizis Uskorit Rotatsiiu,” Vedomosti, March 12, 2009; “Belykh Pomogut
Bankiry,” Vedomosti, January 19, 2009; “Gubernatory na Vylet,” Vedomosti,
October 29, 2008.
340
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This article examined some important traits of Russia’s cultural,
theological, and socio-historic relationship with federal ideologies
and infrastructures, concluding that federalism is alien to the
Russian cultural and socio-political experience. Russian Orthodox
theology, which impacts Russia’s political thought, interpreted the
main principles of Western federal thought in a profoundly different way. It purposefully rejected covenantal societal constraints
and established largely hierarchical ideals of social interactions.
In conclusion, it is not the focus of this essay to attribute all the
current problems of Russia’s center-regional relations solely to
socio-psychological and cultural constraints, as the role of economies and institutions vary in the evolution of political relationships
and should not be overlooked. However, cultural aspects, of which
religion remains one important component, remain significant as
to the way and style that political actors understand and operate
particular institutional settings.
Thus, Russia’s noncovenantal cultural mentality has seriously
influenced the evolution of the country’s center-regional relations
and contributed to the inability of the national center to maintain
its continuing promises of devolution and recognition. This
resulted in the prevalence of informal methods of center-regional
political interaction, and impeded the development of genuine constitutionalism. More importantly, these dynamics can be found in
one way or another in all historical stages of Russia’s evolution to
a single independent state.
These theoretical and practical findings suggest that Russia’s path
toward a Western-type federalism will be difficult and tumultuous.
At the same time, given the multiplicity of the country’s composite
nationalities, its size, and the generally decentralized nature of
center-regional politics, Russia’s only choice is to persevere with
its quest to build an effective and functional federal democratic
state. Fulfilling the terms of a federal contract on the basis of
mutual recognition of federal entities must become one important
goal. To what extent Russia will be able to fulfill these aspirations
and break the traditional mode of noncovenantal socio-political
interaction remains to be seen.
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Hellenistic Nomoi. Bibliography on ancient Greek laws (3rd -1st cent. BC) Supplement 2022
www.sfu.ca/nomoi, 2022
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Effects of a catechin-free fraction derived from green tea on gene expression of gluconeogenic enzymes in rat hepatoma H4IIE cells and in the mouse liver
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The Effect of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation Program Related Teaching on Problem Behavior and Communication/Social Skills with a Blind and Autistic Child
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Modular Bifurcation Endoprosthesis for Treatment of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms
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