Phenomenon of regionalism and regional identification in Russia in the 1990-2000s

The current political situation in the early 1990s in Russia led to the revival of regional interests, the fragmentation of political power and the formation of local identities, which ultimately led to the actualization of a “new” model of relations between the federal center and the regions. The purpose of this research is to identify the main stages and factors in the emergence of such a phenomenon as “regionalism” in the 1990-2000s in Russia. In this article “regionalism” is understood as a process of increasing the region’s subjectness (regional political identification) based on taking into account the needs of interested actors. The term “region” is understood as a subject of the federation. The article examines two main stages associated with the transformation of center-peripheral relations. The first stage of regionalization took place in the 1990s, when after the collapse of the USSR 89 subjects were formed within the RSFSR, which immediately declared the rights of autonomy. B.N. Yeltsin was forced to make concessions to regional leaders and give them some of the power. These steps, on the one hand, made it possible to reach a compromise between the center and the regions, shifting the balance of relations towards the latter, on the other hand, they legalized the asymmetric sort of federalism, dividing the subjects of the Russian Federation into unequal groups in terms of the volume of political and economic rights. Some researchers call such federalism “isolated regionalism”, which led to the legal and economic fragmentation of the country. In the 2000s, a new stage in the development of relations along the “Center-region” line began. V.V. Putin’s reforms were mainly aimed at weakening the regional elites and concentrating resources in the hands of the Federal Center, which naturally contributed to the political stabilization and socio-economic situation, as well as to “equalize” the statuses of the subjects of the Federation and make them accountable for violating federal legislation. But, on the other hand, the regions have practically lost the chances for the possibility of further selfdetermination, the formation of regional identity and the adoption of political and socio-economic decisions relevant to their interests. Some researchers call such federalism “controlled federalism”, which is primarily based on economic and political expediency. At present, due to the impact of the pandemic, the analysis of regional policy is reduced only to the economic component, namely, to the justification of the stabilization policy as the main factor in economic growth, efficiency and increase in labor productivity. However, those regions that have already achieved high social and economic well-being and those regions in which the regional community “takes power into their own hands” are changing their priorities towards more and more activation of internal political development, based on a different model of relations, in which It is similar to the model of “detached regionalism”. It is the “regions - growth poles”, where a polarized selective policy based on the interests and competitive advantages of the regions, from the point of view of the liberal theory, is capable of restarting the process of regionalization that stopped in the mid-2000s.

Keywords

Authors

References