Russian federalism and post-Soviet integration: Divergence of development paths

The paper compares the development of two institutional systems organizing the intergovernmental relations in the former Soviet Union: Russian federalism and post-Soviet regional integration. In spite of common origins, random selections of actors and common development trends in the first decade of their existence, in the 2000s both systems experienced significant divergence. The paper discusses the interaction of four factors explaining differences in the development of post-Soviet integration and Russian federalism: formal vs. informal nature of political property rights of elites; impact of economic asymmetry on political bargaining; role of (potential) federal political arena in terms of interests of territorial elites; and impact of large business groups. It also addresses direct links between the centralization in Russia and the regional integration in the post-Soviet space.