Ryzhkov Vladimir

Empire and its functionary masters

The author criticizes a conception of the civil service establishment that in particular, has underlain the new law “Act of the Federal Civil Service”. To his thinking, this law converts 700 thousand of federal officials to the closed privileged caste. The article contains a detailed description of the hierarchical structure of civil service, dramatic increase of the salaries of clerks, including both reserved and even expanded system of privileges. V.Ryzhkov considers that this system of authority is archaic, it comes from the last centuries and is not adequate to norms of the democratic state. He characterizes the new law as the law for imperial bureaucracy when clerks are actually not civil servants but uncivil masters of society.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2004-33-2-120-128

Pages: 120-128

Authoritarianism and Russia

When answering the question whether the current russian regime is authoritarian we may rather speak about the growing tendency to authoritarianism and the gradual desmantling of democratic principles and institutions. Reviewing the main components of the emerging authoritarianism V. Ryzhkov identifies the establishment of the control over influential mass media, restoration of state propaganda, manipulation of elections, degradation of other public power institutions (parliament, judicial system, political parties system, regional bodies and local self-government.) The article addresses Putin's model of development, possibilities and changes of the authoritarian updating.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2003-30-3-179-189

Pages: 179-189

Parties in Modern Russia

Today the party system in Russia does not represent an influential public institute. The party activities cover the narrow sphere of the public relations and the limited segments of the society. The party system may develop in two ways: 1) as the necessary intermediary mechanism between the civil society and the state or 2) like in the traditional paternalist societies (particularly, the Eastern type), where the parties play the decorative or semi-decorative role as a formal institute, while the other mechanisms are realizing the political leadership.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2000-15-1-36-45

Pages: 36-45

STRANGE FEDERATION: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEDERALISM IN RUSSIA

The author shows that from the viewpoint of constitutional legal system the present Russia doesn't represent a perfected federation. The wide scope of relations between the center and the regions are based not on the law but on the precedent. The author sees in such form of federation both negative and positive features. Among the negative ones he points out first of all the appearance of incompetent authoritarian regional regimes, which concentrate power in their hands, but are not able to solve effectively the regions' problems. The key positive feature of the Russian federalism is the combination of the elements of the simple decentralization, when the government delegates part of its functions to the local agencies of power, and those of the real federalization, which allows to use competitive development models. In the final part of the article the author formulates the positive program of the development of federalism in Russia, that allows to bring the federalism issue settlement to the level of technical problem that is the problem of the territorial democracy formation. This form of democracy would permit to improve the administration system and to manage the optimal results.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-1999-14-4-79-101

Pages: 79-101