The Prospects for Federalism in Russian Constitutional Politics

Abstract

Russia emerged from the breakup of the USSR as an essentially unitary state despite its self-description as a federation. During the long process of drafting the first post-Soviet Russian Constitution (1990–1993), the disputes over separation of powers deflected attention from centerperiphery conflict over the division of powers. In the First Russian Republic, which ended on 4 October 1993 with the military assault on parliament, the country had begun to move unevenly toward an asymmetrical federal structure in which the ethnic republics enjoyed more rights than the administrative regions. This trend was formalized in the Federation Treaty of 1992, which was incorporated into the draft Constitution. However, after the destruction of parliament, President Boris Yeltsin gained full control of constitution-drafting, reversing the federalist trends. While the new Constitution of the Second Russian Republic codified this centrist orientation, the subsequent Russian-Tatar treaty of 1994 may be the harbinger of a renegotiation of center-periphery relations in Russia.