The design and principles of successfully functioning democracies and federations vary widely and are largely a compromise shaped by the specific circumstances of their emergence, subsequent evolution, and accumulated institutional path dependency. What matters is not so much devising the best recipe for Russian democracy as identifying the key goals of reform and the problems of institutional design around which the main debate is unfolding today and is likely to continue in the future.

The design and principles of successful democracies and federations vary widely and are largely a compromise of the particular circumstances of their emergence, subsequent evolution, and accumulated institutional “dependency.” It seems important not so much to write the best recipe for the institutions of Russian democracy, but to identify the key goals of reforms and those problems of institutional design around which the main discussion is unfolding today and, most likely, will continue in the