Development of the institution of local self-government in Russia: problems and prospects

The relevance of the article is due to the active discussions of a draft federal law on local selfgovernment in Russia in 2022. The purpose of the work is to identify prerequisites for and substantiate promising directions of reforming the institution of local self-government in Russia. To achieve the goal we use key general scientific research methods, a questionnaire survey of Vologda Oblast municipal formations’ heads conducted in 2022, a methodology for grouping municipalities by level of development to identify the specifics of the answers of heads in the context of different types of territories and reveal the attitude of municipalities’ heads toward the draft law. This is what constitutes scientific novelty of the study. It is established that the low financial and economic independence of municipalities remains the main problem of local self-government. In addition, over the past ten years a significant number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation witnessed cases of abolition of the settlement level of government as municipal districts were converted into municipal and urban okrugs. It is revealed that the key controversial and ambiguous points in the draft law under consideration are as follows: abolition of the settlement level of government; strengthening the responsibility of municipalities’ heads to the top official of the RF constituent entity; insufficient attention to specifying the powers and functions of local self-government bodies and resources for their full-fledged and high-quality implementation. We put forward recommendations for improving the text of the draft law for each aspect specified above. The results of the research can be used in the work of federal authorities when finalizing the draft law on local self-government and in the practical implementation of the new reform; they can also serve as a basis for further research on this topic.