Democratic Government in Multiethnic Communities in the CIS Countries
…There is a deep breach in Russia between the declared reality (laws, regulations, decisions, public opinion polls, etc.) and the everyday practice, built on informal connections, strict dependencies, and purely personal or corporate interests, which make the final assessment of local self-government much less optimistic. It should be acknowledged that, in modern Russia, many political, ideological, and cultural foundations of local self-government are simply absent. Moreover, in many regions, there are no conditions for the functioning of local authorities at all. We have at hand a transitional situation, where at least two ways of development are possible. The next step might become the return to the unitarian system of government management (incorporating the local authorities) or a further movement towards the development of self-governed communities that precondition the creation of a democratic and socially successful state. In my opinion, the second forecast is more difficult to achieve, but in the end it has more chances of succeeding.
V. Tishkov
From June 1, 2000 to June 1, 2001, EAWARN worked on a project titled Democratic Government in Multiethnic Communities in the CIS Countries. The project was realized within the framework of the(Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative — LGI), a program of the Open Society Institute (USA) (Open Society Institute — OSI). The project was financed by the Open Society Institute and coordinated by its East European branch with headquarters in Budapest.
The project examined the local self-government systems in multiethnic CIS countries.
Its goal was to study specific conditions and the process of the local government reform with the point of optimizing the system by the local communities in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Ukraine.
While studying the Russian local government system, we looked at nine regions of the Russian Federation.
The project was headed by Valery Tishkov. The examinations within the framework of the project were carried out by EAWARN experts: Tatyana Polyakova (Adygeya), Ildar Gabdrafikov (Bashkortostan), Enver Kisriev (Daghestan), Vladimir Sharov (Mari El), Vasily and Elena Filippov (Moscow), Venaly Amelin (Orenburg Oblast), Larisa Khoperskaya (Rostov Oblast), Alexander Dzadziev (North Ossetia), Rafik Abdrakhmanov (Tatarstan). CIS countries were represented by Igor Savin (Kazakhstan), Nurbek Omuraliev (Kyrgyzstan), Muzaffar Olimov (Tajikistan) and Tatyana Senyushkina (Ukraine, Crimea).
The project resulted in a multi-author monograph titled Local Government in Multiethnic Communities in CIS Countries, edited by Valery Tishkov and Elena Filippova, and published in Russian and English. Application studies included in the book encompass a wide range of methods and practices used in local politics. The monograph became the fourth book in the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative book series LGI Books. The series editor is Petra Kovac.
О. Kulbachevskaya