"Why Crimea might be worse off under Russian rule"

[applegrove]

Why Crimea might be worse off under Russian rule

By Tomila Lankina at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/09/why-crimea-might-be-worse-off-under-russian-rule/

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Putin acquired legal powers to dismiss regional governors for law violations and to disband regional parliaments should they violate federal constitutional provisions in their law making. In October 2004, Putin went a step further in the process by pushing through a law abolishing competitive election of regional leaders and making governors subject to presidential appointment. He then set out to reform the Federation Council, which had hitherto served as an important channel for vetoing the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, when it passed proposals that went against regional interests. The body promptly turned into a pro-Kremlin agency swiftly approving government-supported legislation including that impinged on regional interests (Unsurprisingly, it is to the Federation Council that Putin turned for rubber-stamping his decision to offer Russia’s “protection” to residents of the Crimea).

A new local government law was also passed amid much fanfare about genuine local governance and grass-roots rule. The law de jure institutionalised the de facto local government dependence on higher-level authorities that had come to exist in many regions, while also scrapping genuine independence of municipal bodies from regional authorities in the more politically open and competitive regions.

Finally, the Putin regime failed to develop any sensible long-term strategy to tackle the country’s complex inter-ethnic relations. Despite protestations from some of Russia’s most respected nationalities experts, and in what was interpreted as a failure of the Putin administration to appreciate the necessity of a coherent nationalities policy in Russia, the functions of the erstwhile Ministry for Nationalities and Federal Relations became vested with federal agencies in charge of regional economic development and trade.

During the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev in 2008-2012, some momentum was generated to liberalize the Russian federal system and reintroduce elements of genuine federalism. The “modernization” agenda has however remained limited in scope, and the Kremlin has continued to maintain or devise ingenious mechanisms of political control over the regions.




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