Экономические науки/13. Региональная экономика

Doctor of Science (Economics) Mitrofanova I. V.

Institute of the Social, Economic and Humanitarian Researches of the South Scientific Center of RAS, Russia

Graduate student Rodionova E. V.

Department of World and Regional Economy, Volgograd State University, Russia

Realities and the necessity of the transformation of the Russian federalism

Real results of the evolution of the federal center and regions relations during the years of market reforms turned out to be far from unambiguous. Federative relations in Russia remain so far insufficiently determined and stable due to the absence of really efficient and effective mechanisms of the agreement of the interests of the center and regions. They need a further improvement, a search of a corresponding model of the Russian federalism and, consequently, of a new paradigm of the management of the territorial (spatial) development.

In the evolution of the relations of the federal center and regions during 25 years of market reforms for convenience four main evolutionary stages can be marked out. The first stage (1987 – mid 1990s) is characterized by an actively developing regionalization of the Russian economy, acquisition of sovereignty of the subjects of the federation, a rise of the role of local authorities in the management of the dependent territories. As a result the balance of power in the relations “federal center – regions” gradually moved towards regions. However in reality each of them tried to develop its so to say their model of the relations with the center. Majority of regions hurried to strengthen these relations by means of bilateral treaties trying to fix the transfer of the possibly largest volume of authority. However as a result of the differentiation of the subjects of the Russian federation according to the level and quality of social and economic development became stronger, positions of the center weakened and in the end the disintegrative tendencies in the legal, economic, information and humanitarian space became apparent.

In 1993-1994 as the result of the radical reforming of interbudgetary relations for the first time single normative assignments from federal taxed into the budgets of the subjects of the Russian Federation were set. The fund of the financial support for the regions was created and its transfers were redistributed on the basis of a single formula. As a result in the structure of the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation the share of regions doubled.

The second stage (1995-1998) was characterized by a further strengthening of the political and economic power of regional elites, the reinforcement of the separatism and positions of the interregional associations of the economic interaction. In the budgetary and financial sphere the balance of power between the center and regions was conserved in general but a baseless withdrawal of revenues of regional budgets at the expense of the changes in the fiscal law, which contradicted the law about the budgetary organization of Russia took place. In the system of the interbudgetary relations the tendency for the increase of the quantity of authority in expedutures of the federative subjects budgets was observed at the moment when their share in the distribution of the fiscal potential of the country reduced. Social expenditures without corresponding support were transferred to the regional level what resulted in the concentration of the regional authorities on the unofficial activity, distribution of expenditures into different off-budget funds and they started actively to take part in the capital of enterprises and banks, situated in regions. Thereby by the beginning of 1999 the conditions for the development of the separatism took place: multinationality of the state, economic problems and inequality of regions in the relations with the federal center, imperfectness of the political and administrative division in the Russian Federation, geographic remoteness of territories.

The third stage (1999-2004) was characterized by the strengthening of positions of the center, reinforcement of federal departments in the subjects of the federation, toughening of the control over the target expenditures of the federal budget funds in the regions with the help of the departments of the Federal Treasury of the Russian Federation. During this period in Russia macroregional economic complexes emerged within the realization of a particular political program of the federal power and namely on the basis of the federal districts, created in 2000 which administratively united neighboring territories. With the goal of the administrative provision of the priority of federal laws seven (since January 2010 – eight) federal districts were created and the plenipotentiary representatives of the President of the Russian Federation obtained the functions of control over the realization, coordination of the activity of federal organs etc.

Active, in a way “euphoric” decentralization of the Russian economic and institutional space in 1990s lead on the one hand to the strengthening of the economic and political independence of regions, on the other – activated disintegration tendencies. Federal power in many positions lost the control over its territorial divisions in regions. Partially it was connected with the absence of the universally recognized conception of the regional development of Russia, partially with the emergence of a large number of subjects of the Russian Federation, whose vital activity according to objective reasons (length of the territory, various economic structures, historic specialization, considerable polarization of social and economic development etc.) was difficult for the control in a prompt and time manner.

The basic task of the federal districts was seen as “the coordination of the activity and the creation of the general economic policy of the economic subjects of different levels” [1]. The creation of the institute of districts was centered on the achievement of the following goals within the frames of the political mission of the state: adjustment of the subfederal and federal law; restoration of the common government vertical, separation of the federal structures of power in the territory from the direct and indirect influence of regional and local political and economic groups. The vector of its formation was given by the necessity of the limitation of the legal and administrative “independence” of the subjects of the federation, removal of obstacles on the way of the movement of capital, information, labour, goods and services that required the recreation of the single institutional space as a means of the solution of the mentioned range of problems.

The sequence of the formation of the Federal Council was changed that lead to the decrease of the regional governors’ role in the solution of national problems, whose activity was now centered exceptionally on the solution of the economic problems of their regions and on the search of the inner sources of the regional income. The process of the conclusion of treaties about the division of the authority between the center and the subjects of the federation seemed to be finished but the Tax Code of the Russian Federation still does not balance their interests, having fixed the practice of the distribution of the budget resources in favour of the center.

Creation of federal districts became a rather new phenomenon for Russia, denoting another step in the socialization of the existing system of the territorial management and the management of the regional development. In contrast to economic regions, natural and economic zones and regions within the borders of the regions of the Russian Federation, eve today the districts are just becoming firmly established as integrated units of a newer division of the national economic space [2].

It was the creation of the single institutional field for the successful initiated social and economic development of regions via the vertical integration of federal organs that became the main final goal of the reform of 2000 – 2002. However the probability of its achievement was acknowledged by far from all scientists. Still many of them believe that federal districts in the future may become administrative and territorial structure, within which the organization of an efficient managerial system and the solution of a large number of problems of the state policy in the sphere of the territorial development are possible [3]. There is a high probability that with the lapse of time “the creation of the districts will become a prolog of the reform of the federative organization of Russia with the creation in it on their bas of large and approximately similar in the economic attitude subjects of the Federation” [4]. The problem of the optimization of the territorial management remains unsolved till the end and this leads to further attempts of the unification of political systems of the subjects of the Federation with a common federal political system.

The fourth stage (2005 till today) is connected with the emergence in the system of the state power itself the structures, whose regional vector of activity has the character of outsourcing and is not one of many functions in the system of a large scope of more significant tasks of different offices and departments. It is about in the first place about the creation of the Ministry of regional development of the Russian Federation [5].

Ministry of the regional development of the Russian Federation is a federal structure of the executive power, fulfilling the functions on the elaboration of the state policy, the normative and legal regulation in the sphere of social and economic development of the subjects of the Russian federation, federative and national relations, division of powers on the subjects of the common competences of the Russian Federation and the subjects of the federation, local government, realization of the frontier cooperation, economic development of the South of Russia, Southern Caucasus, Chechnya included, problems of economic development of regions of the Far North and the Kaliningrad oblast, protection of the rights of national minorities and primordial environment and the traditional way of life of indigenous small nations and ethnic communities [6]. At the same time the ministry of the regional development of the Russian Federation undertook a part of functions, relating to the regional development, which used to be executed earlier by other ministries – Ministry of the economic development and trade of the Russian federation, Ministry of the healthcare and social development, Ministry of culture of the Russian federation and some others [7].

Since 2007 Ministry of the regional development of the Russian Federation was given a range of new functions in the provision of the state support to the regions and districts at the expense of the means of the Investment fund of the Russian Federation, in coordination of federal and departmental target programs in the part dealing with the integrated territorial development, and the functions in the execution of the rights of the state client (state client – coordinator) of federal target programs, connected with the economic development of the subjects of the Russian Federation and municipal formations.

However today, despite the measures taken in the search of more efficient forms of government of the territorial development, the necessity of the elaboration and the realization of a new basic model of the Russian federalism has ripened.

Theoretically in the institutional modernization of Russia there may be some variants: formation of a unitary state, confederation, implementation of principles of the democratic federalism or the constitutional asymmetric federalism. So, a unitary state is characterized by the strengthening of the vertical of the executive power, reduction of the financial base of regions in favour of the federal budget supposes a complete administrative and economic subordination of lower power levels to higher levels, centralization of the government according to the type, which existed in the former USSR.

At the weakening of the positions of the federal center the creation of a confederative state is possible which is characterized by the conservation by its subjects a complete sovereignty and independence, legal fixation of the right and the sequence of the exclusion from the subjects of the state. The forecasted results of this scenario can be: disintegration and quick destruction of the structures of the state control and the vertical of government, that can lead to the breakup of the state, anarchy in different spheres of life.

Democratic federalism is based on the denial of the national principle of the federal setup, on the administrative and territorial reform, on the economic liberalism, a relatively developed civil society and is built on the basis of the changes of the well established administrative and territorial division of the country in the direction of the enlargement of the subjects of the Federation as many regions according to their potential are far from economic self- sufficiency and cannot function as subjects of the Russian Federation. The realization of such scenario requires the following: further decentralization of the budgetary system; division of the taxes on federal, regional and local; precise distribution of the profit and expenditure authority between the federal center and the subjects of the Federation; introduction of clear and understandable accounting methods, allowing to show off-budget funds; adoption of the institute of the officials’ failure, responsible for the efficient management of the regional budget; legal assignment of the state minimal standards as the basis of the legal base of the needs in budgetary expenses.

The model of the asymmetric federalism, repeating in many aspects the principles of the democratic federalism, implies that the number and the borders of the existing at the present moment regions do not change, or the enlargement of the subjects of the Russian Federation concerns only oblasts and regions and national republics conserve their privileged status. Thereby if at the federative organization the basic notion is the national and territorial principle, and being constitutional, the federation is characterized by asymmetry and inequality of its subject types. This variant of the federative organization of the country can be realized as an interim one at the transition to the democratic federalism.

The most important principles of real efficient federalism are: in the mechanism of the functioning of federative relations the priority must be given to constitutional, legal and not contractual bases; the question about the equality (or inequality) of the status of a subject of federation acquires a special character, that’s why it is necessary to equalize real rights and competences of the subject of the Russian Federation; conservation of the unity and territorial integrity of the state; decentralization of the power by means of the efficient distribution of authority between its federal and regional organs, capable of ensuring the protection of interests of both the Federation as a whole and its independent subjects (regions, districts).

The model of the federalism functioning today can be characterized as a unitary asymmetric federalism, whose distinctive features are: the strengthening of the centralization, budgetary and tax sphere included; concentration of the based authorities in the solution of regional problems on the regional level, excessive dependence of regions on the federal power; appointment of the heads of regions by the President of the Russian Federation; asymmetric and contradictory mechanism of transfer distribution; subjective approach and voluntarism in the decision making on the questions of the regional development and so on. As A. N. Shvetsov points out, “the grimaces of centralization have many faces and are connected not only with the diktat of central ministries and departments; regions are forced to search favour at federal state monopolies; … the main beneficiary is the federal budget and a large number of cities and other centers of population remain outside the zone of the state attention and do not have chances for the development within a centralized regional policy” [8].

The schemes and the order of the elaboration of strategic documents of the territorial development that are in force today in the Russian practice, are mainly oriented not on the most important social and economic goals with the determination of the necessary for their achievement of “points of growth” and the most optimal resource distribution but on the parallel and practically independent solution of the existing problems of different origin, scale and character on the basis of the summative and mechanistic use of resources at too general and insufficiently concrete determination of goals of social and economic development.

The conditions of the realization of the principles of the efficient federalism in its economic aspect are: the freedom of the movement of labour force and capital between regions and districts, that will allow to have a coordinated economic policy, otherwise there arises an opportunity of the monopoly to determine the economic policy and to form the institutional sphere; the development of the reciprocal trade that allows to produce goods taking into account the whole market of the federative state and give the producers a wider access to the resources: financial, labour, material and to newest technologies; the protection from the competition from foreign firms within a federative state, a skilful combination of the elements of the protectionism policy and liberalization; a combined solution of acute social problems; establishment of unequivocally definite relations between regional authorities and federal budget by means of introduction severe budgetary restrictions; a real, not formal integration of the subjects within a macroregion; the adoption of efficient tools of the strategic management of the spatial development via an organic combination of market and planned principles.

The course for the formation of a new model of the Russian federalism or regionalization denote the increase of the freedom of action at all levels of the state and managerial hierarchy, coming from the availability of alternatives in a present situation and the enlargement of the field of a possible range of the political and economic choice; implies the transfer to a new type of the complexity of social relations, determined by the changes of rules of social and political game, where gradually the barriers to strategic management are leveled and, before all, on the mesolevel of the economic space.

References

1. Inshakov O.V. About the strategy of the Southern macroregion of Russia (Methodological and methodical problems of formation). Scientific report. Volgograd: Edition of the Volgograd State University, 2003. P. 4.

2. Mitrofanova I.V. Strategic programming of the macroregion development: ways of modernization. Saarbrucken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG., 2010.

3. Seliverstov V.E. Federalism and regional policy in Russia under the condition of the power vertical strengthening // Region: economy and sociology. 2004. №1. P. 26-27.

4. Nekrasov S.I. Federal districts – a new chain in the vertical of the Russian power // Journal of the Russian law. 2001. № 11. P.56-57.

5. Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated 13^th September 2004 № 1168 “About the ministry of the regional development of the Russian Federation” [Electronic resrouce]. URL: http://nalog.consultant.ru/doc49305.html.

6. Enactment of the Government of the Russian Federation № 501 dated 28^th September 2004. “Questions of the Ministry of the regional development of the Russian Federation” [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.garant.ru/hotlaw/mon/48494.htm.

7. Naryshkin N. Ministry of the regional development will get a part of functions of different ministries [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.c-society.ru/wind.php?ID=309333&soch=1.

8. Shvetsov A.N. Improvement of the regional policy: conceptions and practice. M.: Krasand, 2010. P. 20.