Issue ? 40. October 2013

Territorial Organization and Territorial Reforms in Russia: Principles and Criteria

Ph.D., associate professor, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University.
E‑mail: leksin@spa.msu.ru

The article analyzes the principles of territorial organization of Russia. The author considers historical principles of formation of territorial structure, the principles of its functioning, constitutional and doctrinal principles behind it, the principles of transformation of territorial organization and the criteria for territorial division. The analysis has shown the delusiveness of customary notion of principles and criteria in territorial organization of the state and in territorial reforms. The author proposes updated lists of such principles and corrects the existing ones.

Keywords

Territorial organization, federal system, constituent entity of the federation, administrative and territorial division, municipality, region, reform, transformation, principles, criteria.