Russia, she be Crazy!

Just finished my Russian Politics exam, and so I've got some things on my mind.

First off, I'd just like to say that, regardless of my desires to tinker with the system somewhat, I'm really very happy to live in a country which inherited the Westminster parliamentary system. Looking at the alternative Presidential systems around the world is not, shall we say, encouraging. I'd like to believe that a certain amount of the difference between our sanity up north and the lack thereof down south is partly attributable to our differing political systems. If nothing else, question period prevents us from taking our leaders too seriously.

However, I'm growing more and more disenchanted with any alleged value or virtue to a federal state. The experience of Russian federalism has been a massive, abject, total, depressing failure. US federalism is really a joke these days, with an overwhelming amount of power concentrated in either Congress or the Presidency. Russian Federalism is even more of a joke, with Putin now having the personal (i.e., not the legislature) power to dissolve regional legislatures, dismiss governors, and appoint his own handpicked governors.

Many people have pointed to Putin's actions and said they're anti-democratic. They're right, but not entirely. What Putin's really doing is making Russia a unitary state. There's nothing intrinsically wrong about that - most states are unitary, and I believe most democracies are. The problem, to my eyes, in Russia is that incredible power is being concentrated not in the Federal government in general, but in the executive specifically. If Russia had a parliamentary system, I think people would be a lot less worried. But that's what you get when the legitimacy of your constitution is directly related to the caliber of your tank shells.