The republicanization of Russia

federalism and democratization in transition I

Richard Sakwa

pp. 215-226

in: Chris Pierson, Simon Tormey (eds), Politics at the edge, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

At the end of her study of Russian regional politics Mary McAuley (1997, p. 315) intriguingly suggests that in the epoch of globalization Russia may represent the last attempt to create a democratic nation-state and the first attempt to establish something new. It is the nature of this something "new" that this chapter seeks to explore. In the post-communist globalizing world the distinctively formal nature of borders is beginning to give way to a more fluid environment where all territories, whether formally adjacent to another country or not, are in a political sense "borderlands". The question is not simply one of territorial demarcation but also of political experience: in conditions where the definition of 'statehood" is changing and the concept of sovereignty becoming ever less absolute, new states are forced to advance into the very borderlands of political construction. This is nowhere more true than in Russia, where its history, size and location pose radical challenges to the theory and practice of state construction. We shall examine the problem in three broad sections on theoretical issues, the historical context and principles of republicanisation, and end with some brief general conclusions.