Yusupov Arthur

№ 1, 2018

• Conceptualization of the Center and Centrality in the Theory of Federalism

  The main purpose of this paper is to construct a new conception of federalism by reinterpreting the logical-theoretical relationship between the categories of the federal center, the subjects of the federation and the federal whole. In the author’s opinion, the task of comprehending the factual material, despite the importance of this procedure, is of secondary importance in comparison to the task of identifying a common plan, or scheme, hidden in the existing empirical foundation. The author starts with discussing the phenomenon of the federal center, which becomes the logical and theoretical point of intersection of all basic categories of the theory of federalism. On the basis of the phenomenological analysis of the center as a general category, the author formulates a non-trivial justification why it is necessary to distinguish between the center and centrality as an ontological content of the system, which allows the author to rethink the relationship between the real political centers and centers of social unification. The author concludes that the federal political unity represents an integral expression of a united (political, social) center, which dialectically reflects the unity of the federation itself. Therefore, the fundamental problem of the theory of federalism consists not so much in answering the question “who is more important?”, but rather in searching for a way of describing the special unity of the political center of the federation, which manifests itself in the federal center and the political centers of the subjects of the federation, while preserving an arbitrarily wide variety of elements of a federation.

  DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2018-88-1-100-116

  Pages: 100-116