The course is designed to study the features of the political structure of modern Russia. It contains both general information on the institutional, procedural and value components of the political system and public policy in Russia, as well as a description of the problems, contradictions and prospects for the political development of the country. The course contains three main modules: (1) the political system and regime in Russia: state institutions, political parties, civil society; (2) the public policy process in Russia: the mechanisms for elaborating, adopting and implementing policies and decisions; (3) directions and problems of economic and social policy in Russia: development based on stabilization. The course is aimed at those listeners who want to gain systematic knowledge of politics in Russia, as well as those who are focused on studying Russia's political development in complex and uncertain contexts. Studying the course students can choose the level of the course (general or in-depth), focusing on video material, information, discussions, forums, evaluations and interactive communication with teachers. The advanced level of the course development assumes the active participation of students in discussions, forums and project assignments. The overall mission of the course is to develop students' objective political knowledge about Russia and their ability to make critical scientific analysis and assessment.
Constitutional Principles of the Russian Federation
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From the course by Saint Petersburg State University
Political Governance and Public Policy in Russia
25 ratings
From the lesson
Russian Political System: Constitutional Design and Regime Constellation
Meet the Instructors
Kirill A. NeverovCandidate of Political Sciences
Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Governance
Leonid V. SmorgunovDoctor of Philosophy
Department of Political Governance
Anna V. VolkovaDoctor of Political Science
Department of Political Governance
Aleksandr S. SherstobitovCandidate of Political Science
Department of Political Governance
The first topic is the Constitutional Principles of the Russian Federation.
See please first slide.
I hope you have some background knowledge about Russia.
It is a huge country.
It has the largest territory in the world.
Where is it located on the world map?
It is located in the Eastern Europe and North of Asia.
How many people inhabit this vast territory?
147 million people.
How long is it history?
It dates back to the eighth century
A.D. That is its history is 14 centuries long.
What is the capital of Russia?
Moscow is the capital of Russia.
Modern Russia originated in the 1991 when the Soviet Union
collapsed and 14 independent states were formed on the territory of Ex-USSR.
In its history, Russia had four constitutions.
All of them were Soviet constitutions.
The first Russian Constitution was adopted in 1918.
Although the idea of constitution has been discussed in Russia since the 18th century.
Contemporary Russian Constitution was adopted by popular vote on December 12, 1993.
It received 58.4 percent of votes of those who participated in the referendum.
This constitution is the fifth Russian Constitution.
You need to know that the Russian Constitution of
1993 was adopted after the tragic events of October 1993,
when the previous parliament,
Supreme Council, was dismissed by President Yeltsin.
You can see a movie about this events that is attached to these module materials.
This events came as a result of the opposition between
two main principles according to which state power in the country was to be organised.
The first principle that
the Supreme Soviet defended was the principle of the sovereignty of
the Soviets that dates back to the Soviet time when the legislative
and the executive power belonged to the representative borders of power.
This was of the former Soviet principle on
which the functioning of the state was grounded in the Soviet era.
The second principle enforced by the democratic forces led by Boris Yeltsin,
was a principle of the separation of power,
which suggested that no branch of power could dominate the state.
The current constitutions, although it contains
a number of principles from the previous constitutions for example,
republicanism, federalism, is radically different from those documents.
It is setting new political and social system.
It consists of 2 sections, 9 chapters,
and 137 articles defining the foundations of the constitutional system,
the right and freedoms of man and citizen, the federal structure,
and the power of the supreme borders of the state power, local self-government also.
Fundamentals of the Constitution System of Russia are outlined in
the first chapter of the Constitution that contains 16 articles.
The first article of the Constitution establish that
Russia or Russian Federation is a democratic,
federal, law-bounded state with a republican form of government.
Constitutional grounds provide conceptual outline
for all spheres of public life in Russia.
Political, legal, socio economic, cultural, ideological, international.
The political and the legal sphere of the Constitution
defines the following 10 fundamental principle.
The principle of democracy.
The bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power
in the Russian Federation shall be its multinational people.
The principle of sovereignty.
It surforms the supremacy of the Russian Federation within the country.
The principle of separation of power,
in which legislative, executive,
and judicial authorities are independent,
separated organizationally, have their own competence,
and do not interfere in the affairs of each other.
The principle of constitutional review,
which establish the supremacy of the Constitution in the system of legal acts.
The principle of priority of human rights and freedoms is fixed in the following formula.
Man, his rights and freedoms are the supreme value.
The principle of the rule of law which determines that
the Russian state operates within the legal framework.
The principle of Republicanism emphasize elected and
the revocable nature of the supreme bodies of the state power.
The principle of federalism owns to
the multilevel nature of the state and the two tier system of rights,
power and governance in a country.
The principles of local self-government according to which
the population is entitled to decide local issues and local government.
Local self-government is not included in the system of state authorities.
And last principle, the principle of separation of religion from the state,
which determines the secular nature of the Russian Federation and
the inability to establish any religion as a state or obligatory.
Religious associations shall be separated from
the state and shall be equal before the law.
The constitution of 1993 was significantly changed twice.
In 2008, the lengths of stay in
the presidential office was increased from four to six years.
The term of office of the State Duma was also increased from four to five years,
and a rule was included that mandates
the government to report to the State Duma annually.
In 2015, supreme and supreme arbitrarian courts were merged,
power of the president of the Russian Federation were increased with the respect to
the members and the procedure of establishment of
the prosecutor's office and the Federation Council.
The constitution defines in Article 70 the symbols.
These symbols include the national flag,
coat of arms, and national anthem.
Russian flag was born to galvanize the first Russian warships and
up to 19th century remained belonging mainly to the noble culture.
White, blue, and red stripes were painted on the side of the board of Peter the Great.
And in 1693, a detachment of small ships of the Peter the Great
made the much to the Sovetskiy Iceland already on the flag of equal horizontal white,
blue, and red stripes.
This state flag was used until 1858,
and was reinstated in 1990.
The coat of arms of the Russian Federation,
the iconic identification of our country,
has been in history since
1497 and has served Russia for more than 500 years.
And anthem of the Russian Federation exists since 2001.
The music of the anthem is the legacy of the Soviet anthem.
Only the words of the anthem there changed.
This constitutional principles are the essential foundation
for the integrity of the current political system in Russia.
They establish conditions for the legitimacy of the action of
all governmental and non-governmental organization in policy and governance.
However, there is a contradiction between the fixed principles and
actual practices of functioning of the state and the political system as whole.
On the Valve can, the process of formation of
the order that would be based on the principles of law has not yet been completed.
On the other hand, the legal system of the country
still lags behind the constitutional principles hence there is
a certain contradiction between
the political and constitutional administrative and legal systems,
hence we witness how the existing political regime
in Russia has such radical titles as managed democracy,
mixed political system, or super presidency.
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