Constitution Against Constituent Power: The Fate of 1993 Russian Constitution1 The case with the 1993 Russian

constitution seems to be relatively straightforward. The final draft of the constitution was prepared by president Yeltsins associates after the introduction of the state of emergency and shelling of the Supreme Soviet (Russian parliament) in October 1993. In the words of Lilia Shevtsova, the constitution directly violated the principle of division of power and gave the president enormous executive, legislative, and judicial authority. 2 Colton and Skach point out that according to the modified version of Shugart and Careys index of presidential power, Russian president receives a score of 26, while Frances president has a score of 13 and Weimar Germanys president has a score of 17.3 The new constitution was published for discussion on 10 November, 1993, only a month before the referendum. The results of the referendum showed that 58,4 per cent of voters approved the new constitution, while 41,6 per cent voted against it, with a voter turnout of 53,2 per cent. Thus the constitution was actually supported by less than a third of the Russian electorate, yet even these results are highly questionable due to the numerous allegations of electoral fraud.4

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Paper presented at the conference Bol'shie PNISii: Constituent Power at the European University at Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 28 March 2014. 2 Shevtsova, Liliia. 1999. Yeltsins Russia: Myths and Reality. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Distributor, Brookings Institution Press. P. 94. 3 Colton, Timothy J., and Cindy Skach. 2005. The Russian Predicament. Journal of Democracy 16 (3). P. 126. 4 Shevtsova, Liliia. 1999. Yeltsins Russia: Myths and Reality. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Distributor, Brookings Institution Press. P. 96. !

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In sum, the 1993 constitution was a victors constitution, as opposed to a consensus or social contract-based constitution, according to Alexander Domrin.5 It is our task here to look into the events preceeding and succeeding Yeltsins infamous victory not from the point of view of the division of powers (or lack thereof), but rather from the perspective of constituent power. This concept has rarely been used in the theoretical scholarship on the constitutional developments in Russia. The confrontation between Khasbulatovs Supreme Soviet and president Yeltsin in 1992-1993 and the subsequent violent resolution of this constitutional crisis are usually treated as a failure of the system of checks and balances. However, the Supreme Soviet was not a regular legislature and the criteria for the evaluation of its activities should be different. Its two-tier structure (Congress of Peoples DeputiesSupreme Soviet), its supreme and unlimited power according to the 1978 constitution of the RSFSR were signs of the revolutionary roots of this institution (and not of its stalinist nature, alleged by Ilya Shablinskiy6). The soviets, of course, were an empty shell during most of the USSR period and the real power was in the hands of the Comunist partyand yet their revolutionary legacy was reclaimed during the Perestroika period. The soviets were born anew as revolutionary democratic institutions and at first played the role of the constituent power that would create the new regime, 7 according to Artemy Magun. They embodied the negative energy of the protest against the Communist party. In 1992-1993 they
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 Domrin, Alexander N. 2012. The Limits of Russian Democratisation: Emergency Powers and States of Emergency. London: Routledge. P. 123. 6 Shablinskiy, I. 1997. Predely vlasti: Borba za Rossijskuju konstitucionnuju reformu (1989-1995gg.). Moskva: Centr konstitucionnyh issledovvanij Moskovskogo obshhestvennogo nauchnogo fonda. 7 Magun, Artemy. 2007. The Post-Communist Revolution in Russia and the Genesis of Representative Democracy. Redescriptions: Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History 11. P. 64. !

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became once again an embodiment of protest, this time against president Yeltsin and the policies of his government. However, the soviets failed to channel their constituent power into the institution of the a new political order. It was the Congress of Peoples Deputies which gave Yeltsin the decree power for one year and later extended it in order to let him carry out the economic reforms. And it was the same Congress which later used its unlimited power to amend the constitution as a weapon8 against the president and the executive. This indicates that in practice the Congress of Peoples Deputies failed to transform itself into the constituent assembly, even though legally it was analogous to such an extraordinary assembly. Andreas Kalyvas distinguishes between two traditions in the understanding of sovereignty: first, sovereignty as the ultimate coercive power of command, and second, sovereignty as the power to found, to posit, to constitute, that is, as constituent power. 9 Sovereignty as constituent power differs from sovereignty as the higher and final instance of command in the following ways: First, while in the traditional formulation the emphasis is on the moment of coercion, which often occurs within an established order (repressive), in this alternative version, the emphasis is on the moment of the original creation of a new order (productive). <> Second, whereas the criterion of command is based on the model of ruling, the constituent sovereign is derived from that of legislating. <> Finally, instead of stressing the discretionary
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 Shablinskiy, I. 1997. Predely vlasti: Borba za Rossijskuju konstitucionnuju reformu (1989-1995gg.). Moskva: Centr konstitucionnyh issledovvanij Moskovskogo obshhestvennogo nauchnogo fonda. P. 71. 9 Kalyvas, Andreas. 2005. Popular Sovereignty, Democracy, and the Constituent Power. Constellations 12 (2). P. 225. !

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power of a superior command emanating from the top, the notion of the constituent sovereign redirects our attention to the underlying sources of the instituted reality located at the bottom.10 Curiously, in the case of the Russian transition the idea of reform, even democratic and constitutional reform, was associated primarily with the logic of command and not with the logic of constituent power. Victor Sheinis articulated this very clearly: The trap we fell into was that the obvious elements of an authoritarian regime were seen at that time not as an evil, but as a necessary instrument of change.11 Be it a devastating shock therapy which created the new economic order, or the shelling of parliament and the small-scale civil war on the streets of Moscow which created the new political order, the reforms were carried out by violent, coercive means. The executive and the president were in charge of the reforms, while the legislature focused on the criticism of their actions. Finally, there were massive rallies and grassroots activities during the period of transition, but they embodied the negative impulse of protest against the old regime or Yeltsins new order, while the productive aspect of reforms came from the top, from the figure of the leader. Kalyvas notes that The word constit!ere literally denotes the act of founding together, founding in concert, or creating jointly.12 He adds:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 Kalyvas, Andreas. 2005. Popular Sovereignty, Democracy, and the Constituent Power. Constellations 12 (2). P. 226-227. 11 Dresen, F. Joseph, and William E Pomeranz, ed. 2009. The Russian Constitution at Fifteen: Assessments and Current Challenges to Russias Legal Development": Conference Proceedings. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. P. 34. 12 Kalyvas, Andreas. 2005. Popular Sovereignty, Democracy, and the Constituent Power. Constellations 12 (2). P. 235. !

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Thus, contrary to the paradigm of the sovereign command that invites personification and can better be exercised by an individual who represents and embodies the unity of authority the constituent power points at the collective, intersubjective, and impersonal attributes of sovereignty, at its cooperative, public dimension.13 In the similar manner Arendt distinguishes between power, which is the human ability not just to act but to act in concert, and strength, which designates something in the singular, an individual entity [a] property inherent in an object or person.14 Again, the logic of reform in Russia was the logic of personified command and strength, not of acting in concert and constituent power. This led to all kinds of paradoxes, the first of which was that the formal liberal democracy itself was introduced by profoundly undemocratic means. The people obviously recognized this and joked that democracy was the power of the democrats, not the power of the people. The state of exception was the primary mode of existence of this violent, coercive form of sovereignty. In 1991-1993 president Yeltsin already had the authority to issue decrees as well as other extraordinary powers. In March 1993, after the Congress of Peoples Deputies had stripped Yeltsin of those extraordinary powers, he tried to introduce a special regime of rule. 15 Then, in September 1993 Yeltsin finally dissolved the parliament by the paraconstitutional Decree n.1400 and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 13 Kalyvas, Andreas. 2005. Popular Sovereignty, Democracy, and the Constituent Power. Constellations 12 (2). P. 235-236. 14 Arendt, Hannah. 1970. On Violence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. P. 44. 15 Shevtsova, Liliia. 1999. Yeltsins Russia: Myths and Reality. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Distributor, Brookings Institution Press. P. 71. !

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introduced a state of emergency in October 1993. Earlier I have described how these events led to the adoption of the new constitution. The ultimate result of emergency rule in Russia in SeptemberOctober 1993 was, in Alexander Domrins words, the transformation and legitimisation (through adoption of a new Constitution) of naked political power into constitutional power to exercise its will.16 In other words, the constitution itself paradoxically insitutionalized a kind of permanent state of exception in Russia, even though constitutionalism and emergency rule are to a large extent antithetical.17 If all sovereignty according to Carl Schmitt is based on exception, then the Russian constitutional order makes this exception constantly visible. It is presented in a naked, non-sedimented form. According to Giorgio Agambem, the proliferation of rule by decrees, executive orders, law-decrees etc. in the 20th century indicates that the voluntary creation of the permanent state of exception has become a common practice of government. Paradoxically, the state of exception itself has become regular.18 Perhaps nowhere it is more striking than in Russia, where the state of emergency in October 1993 has led to the adoption of a constitution which has traces of this emergency rule in its very text. The article 90(1) of the Russian Constitution states that The President of the Russian Federation shall issue decrees and orders.19 Although the decrees cannot contradict existing federal laws, the sphere of application of decrees is not limited by the constitution. According to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16 Domrin, Alexander N. 2012. The Limits of Russian Democratisation: Emergency Powers and States of Emergency. London: Routledge. P. 130. 17 Domrin, Alexander N. 2012. The Limits of Russian Democratisation: Emergency Powers and States of Emergency. London: Routledge. P. 135. 18 Agamben, Giorgio. 2004. State of Exception. University Of Chicago Press. 19 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION (with the Amendments and Additions of December 30, 2008). http://constitution.garant.ru/english/. !

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Scott Parrish, the Russian president wields decree authority that exceeds that of any other democratically elected chief executive.20 Characteristically, president Yeltsin himself has seen the constitution as a document for a temporary period. 21 And yet this temporary period has lasted more than 20 years. In the words of Oleg Rumyantsev, Precisely this temporary distortion of the system of government has become todays most important problem. Two decades of living under this distorted, simulated constitutionalism compel one to speak of the completely uncontrolled supreme executive power, lack of parliamentary control, inoperative courts and so on.22 What kind of legitimacy has been attached to this temporary constitutional order? Yeltsins support still embodied the negative energies of the Perestroika period; a vote for Yeltsin was a vote against the return to the past. However, during Putins administration a new structure of legitimacy emerged. In order to understand it we should turn to Marx. Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin were both described as Bonapartist rulers. However, in what sense precisely were they Bonapartist? In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Marx laid out the features of the Bonapartist rule. Slavoj Zizek dissected the complex structure of populist-Bonapartist representation according to Marx: standing above all classes; shifting between them; direct reliance on the abject remainder of all classes; plus the ultimate reference to the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 20 Carey, John M, and Matthew Soberg Shugart ed. 1998. Executive Decree Authority. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. P. 63. 21 Rumjancev, Oleg. 2013. Nuzhen sereznyj remont Konstitucii. Neprikosnovenniy Zapas 92 (6). 22 Rumjancev, Oleg. 2013. Nuzhen sereznyj remont Konstitucii. Neprikosnovenniy Zapas 92 (6). !

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class of those who are unable to act as a collective agent demanding political representation.23 The situation in Russia is different from that of Louis Napoleons France in one crucial respect: to a certain extent, there are no politically articulated classes in Russia. Social classes are not represented by political institutions. Therefore Yeltsin and especially Putin had no need to shift between classes. Their rule could be more accurately described as direct class domination, which Marx attributed to the period of bourjois republic in France. As for the reliance on lumpenproletariat, some authors, like Vladimir Pastukhov24, make precisely that claim, yet this seems to be more of a rhetorical denunciation than a rigorous theoretical assessment of the regime. As for standing above all classes, or, in the Russian case, above all political forces, that is true for both Yeltsin and Putin. They have always strived for the position of supreme arbiters in all elite conflicts. This to a certain extent has been registered in the constitution itself, which places the president above all branches of government. However, the most important feature of the Bonapartist regime in the Russian case is its reference to to the class of those who are unable to act as a collective agent demanding political representation. Marxs smalholding peasants live in similar conditions but without entering into complex relationships with one another.25 They lack the wealth of social relationships. 26 Furthermore, they cannot represent themselves, they
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 23 !i"ek, Slavoj. 2012. The Year of Dreaming Dangerously. London; New York: Verso. P. 22. 24 Pastukhov, Vladimir. 2012. Gosudarstvo diktatury ljumpen-proletariata, August 15, Novaya Gazeta. http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/53942.html. 25 Marx, Karl, Mark Cowling, and James Martin. 2002. Marxs Eighteenth Brumaire (post)modern Interpretations. London; Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press. P. 100. 26 Marx, Karl, Mark Cowling, and James Martin. 2002. Marxs Eighteenth Brumaire (post)modern Interpretations. London; Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press. P. 100. !

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must be represented. 27 And finally, Their representative must also appear as their master, as an authority over them, as an unrestricted governmental power which protects them from other classes and watches over them from on high.28 Now, it is certainly not true that Russian people live in conditions of complete atomization and isolation from each other. There are personal ties, for example, friendship ties, which are very important. However, Russian society lacks the kind of ties that leads to collective action which in turn gives voice to collective subjects. In this respect, Russian people are analogous to Marxs peasants. Using Arendts definition we can say that Russian society is powerless, since power arises from collective organization, acting in concert. Political commentators have speculated a lot about Putins majority, a social group of those who support Putin. Yet there are no clear (sociological or otherwise) definitions of this majority. The simple reason for that is the fact that this majority is voiceless, it doesnt manifest itself in any way except by voting for Putin. The situation when there are no visible manifestations of this majority invites all kinds of speculations. Yet the only thing we can definitely say is that, in a rather Hobbesian manner, Putins majority exists only in being represented by Putin. Now that we analyzed the quasi-emergency rule arising from the constitution and the structure of legitimacy attached to it, we should turn to the contradictory nature of the constitution itself.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 27 Marx, Karl, Mark Cowling, and James Martin. 2002. Marxs Eighteenth Brumaire (post)modern Interpretations. London; Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press. P. 101. 28 Marx, Karl, Mark Cowling, and James Martin. 2002. Marxs Eighteenth Brumaire (post)modern Interpretations. London; Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press. P. 101. Another Marxs observation is no less significant: The political influence of peasant proprietors is ultimately expressed in the subordination of parliament to the executive, society to the state (Ibid., p. 101). !

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Victor Sheinis noted that the most important contradiction in the 1993 constitution was the one between the first two chapters, detailing the citizens rights and liberties, and the rest of the document outlining rather undemocratic system of government. 29 Oleg Rumyantsev even calls the first three chapters a constitution within a constitution.30 The importance of the first two chapters, however, is undermined by the fact that the Russian constitution has no direct applicability in court. Stanislav Stanskih explains that In the preceeding years the constitution of Russia has not become an act of direct application, above all in part which deals with constitutional norms declaring the rights and freedoms of man and citizen. Russian courts still dont understand this principle. They dont justify their decisions with constitutional provisions. The old Soviet approach is still dominant in the courts, according to which the Constitution is only a framework for legislation and not a law of direct application, allowing one to take decisions even without specific legal regulations on this or that concrete issue.31 This corresponds to my own experience. In November 2013 the Center for European Studies at the European University at SaintPetersburg organized a press conference on the subject of police response to mass protests in Russia and in Europe. A high-level police official who was invited to the press conference responded to my question about the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 29 Dresen, F. Joseph, and William E Pomeranz, ed. 2009. The Russian Constitution at Fifteen: Assessments and Current Challenges to Russias Legal Development#: Conference Proceedings. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. P. 34. 30 Rumjancev, Oleg. 2013. Nuzhen sereznyj remont Konstitucii. Neprikosnovenniy Zapas 92 (6). 31 Stanskih, Stanislav. 2013. Krizis konstitucionnosti? Neprikosnovenniy Zapas 92 (6). !

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relevance and applicability of article 31 of the constitution (on the freedom of assembly) along the following lines: the constitution is only a framework for concrete laws and regulations; if someones actions contradict these laws and regulations, then police intervenes, and the constitutional provisions are irrelevant here. In fact, this approach to the constitution drastically undermined the freedom of assembly in Russia: specific laws and bylaws gradually transformed the notification procedure for demonstrations and marches into the authorization-based procedure. In this way clearly unconstitutional notions such as nonauthorised mass action crept into the official discourse and even into the laws and regulations themselves. This of course had a domino effect. Recently several websites have been blocked by the authorities on the grounds that the federal law requires an immediate shutdown of websites which contain calls for mass actions conducted with the violation of established procedure.32 First, constitutional right to assembly falls victim to the established procedure. Then constitutional right to free expression falls victim to this distorted understanding of the freedom of assembly. The constitution is undone step by step. However, if the constitutional guarantees mostly dont work in practice, they do work as a powerful symbol. A political movement Strategy-31 has used the same article 31 of the constitution as a justification for its actions (monthly demonstrations). These demonstrations have regularly been dispersed by the police. This created a vicious circle: demonstrations intended to protect the freedom of assembly in Russia have always been dispersed, thereby signifying the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 32 Federalnyj zakon ot 28.12.2013 # 398-FZ O vnesenii izmenenij v Federalnyj zakon Ob informacii, informacionnyh tehnologijah i o zashhite informacii. http://pravo.gov.ru:8080/page.aspx?83523. !

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lack of this very freedom. It is not clear whether this result should be judged as a victory or a defeat for the movement. We must return to the question of constituent power in relation to the constitutional process in Russia. I have shown that the current constitutional order is a result of the failure of constituent power during the Perestroika period. However, is it possible to say that the protest movement which erupted in 2011 in Russia signifies a return of constituent power and a possibility of changing the constitutional order? The movement is deeply ambivalent in this regard. The dynamic of the movement is the dynamic of power in the Arendtian sense of coming together and acting in concert. The movement definitely broke the spell of political apathy at least in some sectors of the population and had a significant impact on the mood of the Russian society. It contributed to the de-stigmatization of the political and social activism in general.33 Finally, the question of the constitution was repoliticized again.34 Yet some characteristics of the movement indicate deep ambivalence towards the issue of constituent power. On the one hand, the fact that the protesters mostly refused to articulate any particularistic demands and placed the unity of the movement higher than any concrete claims35 might be interpreted as a sign of constitutional politics, during which, according to Bruce Ackerman, citizens are less focused on their private concerns than they are in the course of normal politics, and more attentive to the general

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 33 Politika apolitichnyh, NLO, forthcoming 34 For example, the demand for a new constitution was included in the Manifesto of the Free Russia, one of the programmatic documents of the movement: http://echo.msk.ru/blog/nemtsov_boris/897379-echo. 35 See Yerpyleva, Kulaev, Politika apolitichnyh, NLO, forthcoming !

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good.36 However, this might also indicate that the protesters express an individualistic disavowal of any collective claims. The issue of identity of the protesters demonstrates the same kind of ambivalence. On the one hand, there is a tendency to identify with the people, as Artemy Magun has shown.37 This broad popular identification could make the movement more inclusive and politically effective. On the other hand, there is an opposite tendency towards narcissism and selfaggrandizement of the liberal intelligentsia, which is especially strong among the cultural elite.38 To a certain extent the movement is a place of struggle between populism and anti-populism. Finally, the movement manifests a deeply ambivalent dynamic of individualism and collectivism. On the one hand, the collective experience itself (or, we might say, the experience of constituent power) made a lasting impression on the participants of the movement. The desire to recreate this experience compelled some of the protesters to organize into local activist groups and engage in various social and political activities. On the other hand, the individualistic tendencies, the refusal to adopt collective goals and submit to collective discipline affected the activities of these local groups and ultimately blocked their proliferation and development. Antonio Negri wrote in relation to Kantian formalism: In this figure, in fact, the relation between multitude and strength is interrupted and strength is resolved in the set of individuals, that is, in the category of individualism. What is lost here is the essence
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 36 Barshack, Lior. 2006. Constituent Power as Body: Outline of a Constitutional Theology. University of Toronto Law Journal 56 (3). P. 216. 37 Magun, Politika apolitichnyh, NLO, forthcoming. 38 Matveev, Ilya. 2014. The Two Russias Culture War: Constructions of the People during the 2011-2013 Protests. South Atlantic Quarterly 113 (1). See also Matveev, Politika apolitichnyh, NLO, forthcoming. !

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itself of constituent power, that historical effectiveness of constituent power that always and only presents itself as collective action. Only a pale liberal image of it is left, whereas instead the strength of constituent power is always and only democratic. Constituent power is entrusted to ethics and therefore taken away from politics given to the individual, taken away from the collectivity. Constituent power is neutralized in individualism.39 This tension between individualism and constituent power fully affected the dynamic of the protest movement, since it was composed of liberal subjects thrown into the event of collective action who for the first time felt their collective power. Yet in the absence of victories, torn by individualism and suffering from repression, this constituent power practically lost awareness of itself and relegated itself to the background, while the logic of sovereignty as command again took to the stage. This return of sovereignty as command manifests itself in the constitutional process as well. In December 2013 the constitution was amended by liquidating the Supreme Arbitration Court and integrating the prosecutors office into the presidential vertical of power. 40 In November 2013 several members of parliament created a parliamentary group for the defence of Christian values and proposed to include the mention of the Orthodox Church as the basis of national and cultural distinctiveness of Russia into the preamble of the constitution.41 Another member of parliament proposed to exclude from the constitution a ban on government ideology and a reference to international legal standards. In
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! $*!,-./01!23453051!6!789/0:08!;5<=8.>0?!"***?!!"#$%&'"()'#*+,-"#.).$'".+/-0'%+1"2+ .3'+4-2'%"+5.1.'?!7033-8@5>0<A!B30C-/<04D!5E!7033-<548!F/-<<?! 40 Stanskih, Stanislav. 2013. Krizis konstitucionnosti? Neprikosnovenniy Zapas 92 (6). 41 Stanskih, Stanislav. 2013. Krizis konstitucionnosti? Neprikosnovenniy Zapas 92 (6). !

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some sense this was a response to the repoliticization of the issue of constitution by the protest movement in 2011-2013. Contemplating the possibility of real constitutional change, Igor Shablinsky wrote in 2013: Never has such a regime of personal power been dismantled by the one who created it. And never has the recovery of the principles of constitutionalism been done without the participation of mass social movements in defence of liberties. Such movement is the proper basis and guarantee of the constitutional order. In Russia it has yet to take shape and flow into the renewed party system. This itself would mean the change in the political regime. And this quite possibly is the next page of the Russian history.42 If the adoption of the Russian constitution in 1993 signified the failure of sovereignty as constituent power and the triumph of sovereignty as supreme command, the fate of this constitution and the possibility of constitutional change fully depend on the return of constituent power onto the scene. Ilya Matveev, EUSPb, Department of Comparative Political Studies NWIM RANEPA, Public Sociology Laboratory (Russia).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 42 Shablinskiy, I. 2012. O russkoj konstitucionnosti v XXI veke i poterjannom desjatiletii. Sravnitelnoe konstitucionnoe obozrenie 88 (3). !

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