CULTURAL AND VALUE DIMENSION OF FEDERALISM IN RUSSIA

Abstract

The author of the article joins a long-standing debate about the relationship between the current sociocultural context and institutional changes, during which a clear answer to the question under discussion was never obtained. The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the perception and use of the main institutions of federalism, determined by the main characteristics of the political culture and political attitudes of the Russian elites. The author proves that when studying ethno-federalism in general, and Russian ethno-federalism in particular, one cannot limit oneself to an exclusively institutional and functional approach, since the cultural and value component plays an important role in its success or failure.

Thus, a brief excursion into the history of federalism in Russia showed that the central elites, both in Soviet times and the modern period, perceived federalism as a value, using its institutions purely technically, as useful tools for bribing ethnic elites and maintaining their loyalty. At the same time, the political elites, like the “indigenous population” of ethnic regions, considered and continue to consider their status as a “titular ethnic group”, their “original national territory” and their republican territorial autonomy as important political values. This “cultural dissonance” results in the ethnicization of regional political identity and the politicization of ethnic identity, and leads to the opposition of ethno-regional and national identities. As a result, the ethnic factor serves as an effective political resource used in the process of “bargaining” with the federal center by elite groups of the “ethnic region,” which leads to further fragmentation of Russian society and a weakening of the sense of civic solidarity.

Keywords:

Russian, ethno-federalism, political culture and political values of the elites, institutional and functional approach, unity and diversity