Niches of agency: managing state-region relations through law in Russia

• Published in: Space and Polity
• Main Authors: Fondahl, Gail, Filippova, Viktoriya, Savvinova, Antonina, Ivanova, Aytalina, Stammler, Florian, Hoogensen Gjørv, Gunhild
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2019
• Subjects: VDP::Social science: 200; VDP::Samfunnsvitenskap: 200; Arctic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10037/18162; https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2019.1594752

State-region relations involve negotiations over the power to (re)-constitute local spaces. While in federal states, power-sharing ostensibly gives regions a role over many space-making decisions, power asymmetries affect this role. Where centralization trends may erode regional agency, law can provide an important tool by which regions can assert influence. We examine a case where, in response to a proposed Russian federal law highly unpopular with a regional population, the region's government sought to ameliorate its potential impacts by using opportunities to co-produce the law, amending regional legislation, and strategically implementing other federal and regional laws to protect its territory.