Prospects for reforming local self-government in the light of the bill “On general principles of organizing local self-government in a unified system of public authority”

The article uses general scientifi c research methods to analyze theoretical approaches to improving the territorial reform of local self-government in Russia, laid down in the framework of the fi rst reading of the bill “On general principles of organizing local self-government in a unifi ed system of public authority”, which was held in the State Duma. We have shown that in the bill, the concept of “local self-government” is interpreted not as a form of democracy, but only as a form of citizens’ selforganization. We pay particular attention to the analysis of arguments regarding the consolidation of municipalities, the formation of a single-level system of local self-government in the Russian Federation, the reduction in the number of municipalities and the assessment of the consequences of the proposed new responsibility system for the municipalities’ heads. We have shown that the rejection of the multilevel system of local self-government, laid down in the bill, does not allow moving to the new principle of formation of local self-government authorities declared in the bill in relation to the population, overcoming problems associated with a chronic defi cit of local budgets or eliminating the practice of transferring powers between municipalities of different levels. The main reason for the identifi ed situation is the weak elaboration in the bill of the economic effi ciency issues of municipalities’ integration (merger). The analysis shows that legislative initiatives implemented in Russia under the slogan of improving the local self-government effi ciency, in the case of implementation, can lead to the weakening of this institution and the strengthening of the power vertical. After the adoption of the bill, the institute of local self-government will be subjected to further “creeping unitarization” demonstrating the strengthening of the tendency to eliminate the autonomy, independence and independence of Russian local self-government. The scientifi c novelty of the work consists in substantiating theoretical and practice-oriented proposals for improving the socio-economic component of the reform.