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The exposition is based on an analytical framework covering all ?building blocks? of fiscal federalism: size and structure of jurisdictions, expenditures, revenues, transfers, and borrowing. The application of this framework to Russian settings results in a comprehensive assessment of the state of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Russia.

On April 19, 2016, in The Case Concerning the Resolution of the Question of the Possibility to Execute in Accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation the Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 4 July 2013 in the Case of Anchugov and Gladkov v. Russia in Connection with the Request of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation (Anchugov & Gladkov (Russ.)), the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (Constitutional Court) held that decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) are binding on Russian courts, in accordance with Article 15(4) of the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the Constitutional Court stressed the necessity of ensuring a reasonable balance between the obligation to implement ECtHR judgments and respect for the fundamental principles of the Russian Federation's constitutional system. The Constitutional Court found that because the ECtHR judgment in question implicitly conflicted with provisions of the Russian Constitution, Russian courts are not obliged to comply with the judgment regarding issues that remain in conflict; however, other means are available to the Russian legislature to give effect to the judgment. While the decision marks an important development in Russia's relationship with the European system of human rights, it is not inconsistent with the approach taken by a substantial number of European domestic courts in holding that treaty obligations to enforce decisions of international courts cannot justify violating domestic constitutional norms.

"How do Russian leaders balance the need to decentralize governance in a socially and politically complex country with the need to guarantee political control of the state? Since the early 2000s Russian federal authorities have arranged a system of political control on regional elites and their leaders, providing a "police control" of special bodies subordinated by the federal center on policy implementation in the regions. Different mechanisms of fiscal federalism and investment policy have been used to ensure regional elites' loyalty and a politically centralized but administratively decentralized system has been created. Asking clear, direct, and theoretically informed questions about the relationship between federalism, decentralization and authoritarianism, this book explores the political survival of authoritarian leaders, the determinants of policy formulation, and theories of federalism and decentralization, to reach a new understanding of territorial governance in contemporary Russia. As such, it is an important work for students and researchers in Russian studies and regional and federal studies."--Provided by publisher.

In strict texts, the general rhetoric of past and present can acquire certain spe­cific meanings. Their choice is determined by the historical size of events and time intervals. In our case, we can talk about the maximum distances, up to the ideologies of postmodernity and even the search for a way out of post­modernity into the hypothetical perspective of Supernovae. If in the great history of civilization Modern is considered the time of ideologies, then Russia has also turned out to be a globally chosen place for the practical and forceful implemen­tation of total megaprojects. These super-large and revealing works of the ideo­logical introduced Soviet Russia into the category, if not the leaders, of all the life-giving pathos of the New Age and the High Modern in particular. The Russian paradox is the unconditional triumph of Marxism as a state, institu­tionalized worldview, but based on absolute criticism of the ideological one. These features require a consistent distinction between ideology as a system of ideas and a system of institutions. Like the constitution of politics by Carl Schmitt through the binary opposition friend – enemy, ideology is constituted in the opposition faith – knowledge, in the spectrum between almost religion and near philosophy. If the task of philosophy is to reveal the non-obviousness of the allegedly obvious, then the mission of ideology is the manual or mass pro­duction of obviousness. Overcoming narrowly political reductionism opens up ideology in its ultimate expansion, distinguishes between systems of ideas and systems of institutions, as well as formats of shadow, latent, diffuse, penetrating, etc. ideology.

The far-reaching invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022 poses the greatest threat to international peace and security in Europe since the end of World War II. The unjustified attack also impacts the relations between Russia and other Arctic nations, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Canada, and the United States of America (USA), all of which are members of the European Union (EU) or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or both. In this text it will be shown how the international governance of the Arctic can be conceptualized without Russia. It will be shown that there will still be some role for the Arctic Council (AC), which is currently chaired by Russia, but that the future of international cooperation for governance in the Arctic is likely to be dominated an extended version of Nordic cooperation, here referred to as Nordic Plus, including also the like-minded partners Canada and USA. Arctic governance still has a future, but it will be a future that is very different from the experience of the last three decades. Half of the Arctic will be apart from the Nordic Plus approach to Arctic governance, at least for the foreseeable future. While this change does not have to be permanent, it is currently difficult to see how Russia will be able to return to international cooperation in the Arctic after the current complete disregard for the core idea that is the fundament for international Arctic governance: the acceptance that international relations are based on rules that equally apply to all.