Ilya Malyakin
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Articles by Ilya Malyakin
THE ‘UNITED RUSSIA’ PROJECT: SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY
by Ilya Malyakin This December, Russia sees the next round of State Duma elections. The "highlight" of this political season takes place in a context of events that is less...
GOVERNORS FOR LIFE
By Ilya Malyakin On June 9 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation had the final word on the two-year struggle by Russia's governors to extend their hold on power....
PUTIN AGAINST THE REGIONS, ROUND TWO
By Ilya Malyakin In 2000, on the strength of his first-round electoral victory and a political deal with the Communists in the Duma, Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed through a...
NEO-FEUDALISM RUSSIAN STYLE II: THE REVOLT OF THE SENESCHALS
By Ilya Malyakin This article continues the theme addressed in "Neo-feudalism Russian-style: Room for one baron only," co-authored with Marina Konnova in an earlier edition of Prism. On May 6,...
THE PUTIN APPRECIATION CLUB IN RUSSIA’S UPPER HOUSE: EVERYONE’S A MEMBER
By Ilya Malyakin In late April one of the most curious products of the reform of the power structures which began with the arrival of President Vladimir Putin reminded us...
MOSCOW AND THE REGIONS: THE WAR IS OVER, BUT THE BATTLES GO ON
By Ilya Malyakin It is more than nine months since Vladimir Putin declared his "crusade" against separatist sentiments in the Russian regions. Having started with the war against the blatant...
THE KREMLIN AND THE REGIONS: FIGHT OR DEAL?
By Ilya Malyakin Center-periphery relations have been a live issue ever since Russia became independent nearly a decade ago. How the Russian Federation will look--whether, indeed, it will continue to...
THE STATE DUMA ELECTIONS: THE NEO-PATRIMONIAL MODEL VERSUS DIRTY TRICKS
By Ilya Malyakin Any election campaign gives rise to a myriad of myths. The dominant myth at the 1993 State Duma elections concerned a radical change of regime and the...
GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION BLOCS: RUSSIA WITHOUT MOSCOW OR MOSCOW WITHOUT RUSSIA?
By Ilya Malyakin Attempts by Russia's regional leaders to intervene in the activities of the federal center and even to take control of it have already enjoyed a fairly long...
VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS IN RUSSIA: THREE OBSTACLE COURSES
By Ilya Malyakin and Marina Konnova Just as the former Soviet Union had no knowledge of de-monopolized political life, it had no experience of social activity free of state control....
SARATOV OBLAST’S LAND PRIVATIZATION LAW
By Ilya Malyakin Article 36 of the Russian Constitution states that: "1. Citizens and their associations shall have the right to private property in land. 2. Owners may freely exercise...
THE “VOLGA GERMAN AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC”: ITS ABSENCE AS A DETAIL OF THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE.
By Ilya Malyakin Stalin liquidated the Volga German Autonomous Republic [VGAR], which existed in the 1920s and 1930s in parts of what are now Volgograd and Saratov Oblasts, when the...