The Experience of Reforming the Administrative Division at the Localities’ Level in Modern Russia

Abstract

The article examines the dynamics of the sub-regional administrative and territorial divisions (since 1987 to 1995) and municipal and territorial divisions in Russia (after Federal Law № 131 came into force), with special attention to the localities’ level of local selfgovernment. The authors detect common trends in the reform of the regional territorial organizations, to group regions in accordance with the changes in the AD, and to correlate the trends with those of other countries. The key method of research is cluster analysis of the dynamics of changes, first in the administrative and later in the municipal divisions of the Russian Federation regions. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has inherited the former territorial system of the “soviets”, coherent in conformity with the Soviet models of population distribution and territorial economic structure which were no longer actual. The Russian Federation regions faced the necessity to bring their administrative division into line with socioeconomic reality. On the basis of statistical data, the authors assert that the reforms of the territorial structure of local selfgovernment in some regions of the Russian Federation are unsystematic, or that there is no significant development. Different regions in the different periods made decisions to annul small rural localities settlements or to deprive some settlements of their city status. The only viable federal trend that can be traced over the period under research has been the elimination of urban-type settlements.