Russian Regional Roulette: Asymmetric Federalism and Economic Reform

Abstract

The simultaneous attempt at building a new democratic society and pushing through economic reform in Russia is complicated by the current turmoil of intragovernmental relations. This is partly due, as discussed in Chapter 1, to the Soviet legacy of an intended assimilation and arbitrary territorialisation of ethnic groups, which had suppressed their feeling of national belonging and regional identity over many decades. Much of the turmoil of intragovernmental relations in Russia, however, is a result of the fact that institutional arrangements remain blurred, administrative competences are not clearly defined and that Moscow did not draw a clear line between central and provincial/local property and taxes which left the struggle for control over economic resources open-ended.