Window on Eurasia: Power Vertical ‘No Panacea’ against Russia’s Disintegration, Academy of Sciences Expert Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 22 – Despite the claims of Vladimir Putin and his supporters, the creation of a power vertical is "no panacea” against the possible disintegration of the Russian State, according to a legal specialist at the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Indeed, Mekhti Sharifov argues, the idea that unitarism will save Russia and ensure its greatness reflects a failure to understand that neither the Russian Empire northe USSR were ever "unitary states in the classical sense” (www.peoples-rights.info/2011/03/rossiya-i-nadnacionalnoe-setevoe-federativnoe-soobshhestvo/).
And in fact, the legal scholar suggests, the untrammelled pursuit of a unitary state to prevent the disintegration of the Russian Federation may by ignoring the diversity of the country and the need for horizontal as well as vertical ties create conditions that will lead to precisely the opposite outcome that its backers hope for.
"Ever more frequently,” Sharifov writes in a heavily footnoted, 5300-word article, ...