The municipal authority as a political phenomenon: Russian interpretation

The Federal Law «On general principles of local self-government in the Russian Federation» № 131 adopted on October 6, 2003, as well as a number of federal laws passed in 2014-2015, set different methods of forming municipal authority in local territories, which enabling to select multiple models of public-power relations. The article considers the methodology of the study of the municipal authorities. The authors argued and concluded that the previous analysis of the available tools of the Russian local government was insufficient. The necessity of an integrated consideration of the phenomenon of the municipal authorities in relation to the political system and political regime for more objective assessment of the real processes taking place in the Russian political arena is substantiating in the article. The authors carried out a comparative analysis of the concepts of local government, local authorities and convincingly prove that the category of municipal authority is a category of political science discourse.