Russian Federation

General information about the policy process

The core feature of the Russian policy process is Russia's federal character. As the Soviet Union, a formally federal but a de-facto extremely centralised state, fell apart with its constituent republics claiming sovereignty, new Russian leadership decided to make use of a federal model of Statehood due to Russian multicultural and multiethnic population and large territory. However, after several constitutional modifications the distance between the constitutional texts and the actual power distribution got greater, as numerous issues legally allocated to the regions are decided at the federal level.

Aside from being nominal to a large extent, Russian federalism is also asymmetric. This means that there are different categories of regional entities with different competences and role. There currently exist republics, okrugs and special status subjects.

The Federal actors

Legislation in the Russian Federation is based on the Constitution of Russian Federation, which came into force in 1993.

The President

The President of the Russian Federation is the Head of State, and is given by the constitution the role of Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the guarantor of the Constitution. The President can be impeached by the Federation Council on the basis of charges of high treason or of another grave crime brought by the State Duma.

The Parliament

Also, it is a hierarchical system of different laws with the power all over the country. The legislative power itself is presented by the Federal Assembly; it consists of Federation Council and State Duma. As the Russian legislature, all laws must be voted in the Federal Assembly before they are signed into law. All bills, even those proposed by the Federation Council, must first be considered by the State Duma. Upon adoption by a majority of the full State Duma membership, a draft law is considered by the Federation Council, which has fourteen days to place the bill on its calendar. The Federation Council cannot make changes in bills passed by the Duma and can either approve or reject them. If the Federation Council rejects a bill passed by the State Duma, the two chambers may form a conciliation commission to work out a compromise version of the legislation. If two chambers cannot reach a compromise, or the Duma insists on passing the bill as is, the veto of the Federation Council can be overridden, if two-thirds of the Duma's constitutional composition vote in favour of the bill.

Regional/local actors

On the national level, Russia also gives power to local parliaments.

Sources

https://natoassociation.ca/russian-federation-no-longer-the-decline-of-federalism-and-autonomy-in-russia/

http://duma.gov.ru/en/news/28748/