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О пользе неудачи: опыт России для исследований сравнительного федерализма
In the 1990s, Russian federalism was the pride of Russian reforms, a convincing proof of the irreversibility of democratization. Today, only the formal shells of federal institutions remain. However, the lessons of Russian federalism have greatly enriched research on comparative federalism: for the first time, a country of such territorial scale and diversity consciously built federal relations, while in the conditions of an extremely unfavorable heritage, the presence of an ethnic "component" and pronounced asymmetries. The Russian case showed that federalism significantly complicates the transition to democracy if democratic and federal insti-tution-building develop simultaneously. In addition, the case of Russia once again confirmed that federalism could not survive without being supported by other institutions; a necessary condition for the survival of fed-eralism is the development of democratic competition in the direction of strengthening the role of political parties interested in federalism. The lessons of the 90s in Russia may prove useful both to other countries that have chosen federalism and to Russia itself, since any significant reforms will inevitably lead to a change in the nature of relations between the center and the regions.