Le retour du Léviathan : la politique de recentralisation en Russie depuis 2000
Vladimir Gelman
During a television appearance on September 13,2004,
Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a series of political reforms
including the cancellation of elections for representatives of the executive
branch of government in the regions of the Russian Federation. This return
to the appointment of governors concludes the re-centralization policy initiated in 2000, in response to the spontaneous regionalization process of the
1990s, which had proved difficult to control. What are the sources of this recentralization policy, and the principles and fundamental interests behind it?
How have these factors influenced its evolution and its effects? How important is this re-centralization process in Russian political development, and
what are its prospects today? To answer these questions, we re-examine the
regionalization process of the 1990s. Next, we consider what ideologies and
interests were driving Russian political protagonists during the recentralization process that followed, as well as their influence upon the course of
federal reform, which we can describe as “new centralism” (as opposed to
Soviet-style “old centralism”). Finally, we analyze the implementation of this
new policy and its effects on the process of State reform.
• La réforme fédérale : les oscillations du pendule
• Idéologies et intérêts
• La fin et les moyens
• Le « nouveau centralisme » : coûts et avantages