"Democracy of small spaces": evolution of the institute of local self-government in Russia in the context of A.I. Solzhenitsyn's ideas

The institute of local self-government in modern Russia stay in a plight of permanent transformation and clarification of its organizational, social, political and legal foundations. These conditions require defining the ideological basis of the local self-government development, which underlies the interaction of local authorities with regional and federal state power, as well as with the folk. The modern Russian system of autonomous local self-government was created as the opposite to the Soviet system of unified state power. A.I. Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Laureate and public figure, defined local self-government as a depoliticized institution based on the settlement principle and personal trust, closest to the residents. Solzhenitsyn's term «democracy of small spaces» is often used in official speeches in relation to local self-government. Up to now, the current task of state policy in the field of local self-government is to involve residents in local self-government and increase the responsibility of local authorities to residents. The authors conclude that the further evolution of the local self-government institution should be determined by the balance of vertical connections in the system of public power and horizontal network interactions.