Russian Federalism at the Critical Stage of Development

Transformations in the sphere of federal relations concern the most important directions of the reforming processes in the country. However, not all proposed and actually developing components of the federal reform seem well-argued and corresponding to long-term, strategic interests of the Russian statehood. The basic course of reform should meet the objective requirements of further decentralization of governing economic and social processes and the need to ensure strengthening the responsibility of RF subjects’ executive bodies and local self-management for steady social and economic development of their territories. The solution of these problems calls for a new model of federal policy of regional development, specification of some important components of the municipal reform as well as inserting certain amendments into the system of intergovernmental fiscal relations in order to stir up their stimulating function.