Russian Federation

An interesting example is provided by the Russian Federation. It has inherited its structure from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic that was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union and itself was considered a federation. The RSFSR, however, consisted of " autonomous republics" which had a certain degree of autonomy, at least de jure, and of other types of administrative units (mostly oblasts and krays) whose status was the same as that of oblasts in other - unitary - Soviet republics. In today's Russia, republics, oblasts and krays, cities of federal importance, as well as one " autonomous oblast" and " autonomous districts" are equal in legal terms, save some symbolic features of a republic (constitution, president, national language). Such a federation is quite “asymmetrical”: some regions have concluded agreements with the Federation so as to modify the degree of their autonomy. It is also to be noted that several " autonomous districts" are part of the territory of a kray, a complicated system that is now being gradually abolished through referendums on merging certain regions.

Since 2004, governors of each region, who were previously elected by popular vote, have been appointed by local parliaments upon the proposals by the President of Russia. Local parliaments theoretically have authority not agree with the candidate, but if this occurs twice the parliament must be dissolved and new elections held. This, some argue, means that the RFis not a federation in the strictest sense and that it has rather a government representing a unitary system.

The Former Soviet Union (USSR)

The constitution of the 1922-1991 Soviet Union (USSR) theoretically provided for a voluntary federation or confederation of soviet socialist republics. Each was notionally governed by its own supreme council and had the right to secede. Furthermore, some republics themselves possessed further nominally self-governing units. Two of them, Belarus and Ukraine, were even members of the United Nations, some other republics had their own foreign ministries. In practice, the system of one-party government found in the Soviet Union meant that governance of the Union was highly centralised, with important decisions taken by the leaders of the Communist Party in Moscow and merely 'rubber stamped' by local institutions. Nonetheless, with the introduction of free, competitive elections in the final years of the Soviet Union, the Union's theoretically federal structure became a reality in practice; this occurred only for a brief interim period, as the elected governments of many republics demanded their right to secede and became independent states. Thus the Soviet Union's de jure federal structure played a key role in its dissolution.