RUSSIA

Russia

Russia

Introduction

Over the course of his first term, Putin transformed centre-regional relations and restricted the regions' political power. The changes he implemented—too great in number to be described here—greatly strengthened the central executive's oversight and control of regional administrations and limited the governors' capacity to make policy without the Kremlin's consent. Among the many steps he took in his first term, he created the so-called super-governors (polpredy) to oversee regional governors. The institution of the polpred allowed for greater central coordination and oversight of the regional governments' policies, including their international activities.

Such supervision prioritized the interests of the centre in areas where regions might have different agendas. Moreover, in usurping the role of interlocutor with other states and the regional administrations of border countries, polpredy presented a more unified Russian foreign policy to the outside world. Putin also changed the structure of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament. Governors and regional legislative chairmen were stripped of their ex officio right to seats in the chamber; instead, each would be allowed to appoint a representative. This step deprived the governors of immunity from prosecution and denied them a veto on federal legislation. Putin's reform of the Federation Council thus removed the governors' most direct channel of foreign policy influence—their seats in the legislature, from which they could (and often did) exercise oversight of federal policies.

Discussion& Analysis

Putin also reduced the governors' control over economic resources by enforcing the use of the federal treasury system established in 1998—a method of depriving governors of access to money flows, which they frequently diverted for their own purposes. Putin's tacit encouragement of national big business to penetrate the regions has resulted in a curtailment of the governors' use of soft budget constraints, since non-regional businessmen are not interested in subsidizing regional patronage systems (Starobin 2006). The regional governments thus lost economic power and, by extension, the capacity to implement their own foreign economic policies.

Now, after the Kremlin-initiated campaign to harmonize regional with federal laws, everything in this sphere has been centralized under the aegis of the central state, and the region's representative offices overseas are only permitted to handle purely humanitarian matters. According to one senior Kremlin official, the regions were barred from independently participating in foreign financial market transactions, and every aspect of their foreign economic policy now needs Kremlin approval (Sakwa 2008). In Moscow, Luzhkov was forced to cut back substantially on foreign activities and focus on the city's economic development. Chastened by a Ministry of Internal Affairs investigation of the city administration's activities in this sphere, the mayor took a far less confrontational stance on foreign policy matters.

It is important to note Putin's renewed recentralization effort in the wake of the hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia, in September 2004 (Powell, Albats and Matthews 2000). In the new balance of power that has emerged from these changes, the centre has significantly augmented political authority: regional executives have been far more likely to follow the centre's ...