Putin Should Be Challenged To Restore Local Democracy In Russia

By Roger Myerson, Project Syndicate | May 6, 2026

Ever since the American and French Revolutions, which took markedly different paths, democracy has grown most steadily when it has been rooted in local politics. Those who want to see a genuine democracy develop in Russia should begin there.

CHICAGO—As Hungarians celebrate their defeat of authoritarian populism and Americans mark 250 years of freedom, Russians may also look forward to an end of President Vladimir Putin’s corrupt dictatorship. But they would do well to remember that America’s Declaration of Independence, for example, was not just an idealistic proclamation of rights. It was also a practical statement about the importance of empowering local councils elected by the people.

Ever since the American and French Revolutions took such starkly different paths, democracy has been most likely to survive and flourish when it has strong roots in local politics. This message should resonate with Russians who remember their own history. After all, even Lenin recognized the value of calling his regime “Soviet,” following his false promise to empower local councils in 1918.

Of course, it was not until 1990 that the Soviet government, under Mikhail Gorbachev, allowed people to choose among candidates in competitive regional elections. But that decision proved to be transformative. The introduction of local democracy created an irresistible force for popular accountability that pushed upwards into higher levels of government, culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Before the 1990 elections, many experts had assumed that the main effect of local democracy would be to deliver more autonomy for regions populated by ethnic minorities. But ethnic Russians and minorities alike appreciated the value of locally accountable government. Even in Tatarstan, where ethnic Russians made up roughly 42% of the population, a 1992 referendum on regional autonomy passed with over 61% support. Those who would restore democracy to Russia today should recall this crucial lesson about the broad appeal of local self-government.

To be sure, the subsequent course of local politics in Russia was more troubled and often disappointing, with processes tarnished by electoral fraud in many regions. But voters continued to demand political accountability in regional elections, and a substantial fraction of incumbents running for re-election between 1995 and 2004 were voted out.

After Putin ascended to Russia’s presidency in 2000, his first moves to reinstall authoritarian rule focused on undermining and dismantling the institutions of local democracy. After elections for regional governors were suspended in 2004, governors and mayors became dependent on approval from the Kremlin, not from their voters, and local government became an effective instrument of central control. Elected local councils were left with little or no real power, and the last voices of democratic opposition there were silenced after the de facto introduction of martial law in 2022.

Moreover, the early 1990s, when hope was brightest for local democracy in Russia, are unfortunately also remembered as a painful period of central-government weakness amid the vast challenges of the economic transition from communism. But successful democracies throughout the world have shown that the devolution of substantial power to elected local governments is not incompatible with a strong central government.

Among the wealthy OECD democracies, for example, locally accountable subnational authorities generally manage 20-50% of all public spending, leaving most of the public budget under control of elected national leaders. When decentralization reforms in Ukraine after 2015 allocated a significant share of public revenue to a new system of locally elected municipal governments, the effect was to bolster Ukraine’s national resilience against the subsequent challenges of full-scale war.

Thus, Russians today can be reassured that accountable local governments with real power to serve their communities need not come at the expense of a strong, effective central government. Of course, the Kremlin will try to use its control of media to limit the spread of such democratic messages. But such messages can still break through if they speak to people’s hopes for better public services.

It is also true that the viability of local democracy in Russia may depend on reforms to the legal and institutional provisions that incumbents have used to suppress opposition. So, advocates for Russian democracy should develop expert-informed proposals for reforms that could provide a more secure institutional foundation for democratic local government, starting with ways to close the legal loopholes that authorities have used to disqualify opposition candidates.

With reasonable plans for reform in hand, democratic opposition groups should encourage Russians everywhere to consider how electorally accountable local government could improve their own lives. Every message—whether delivered by social media or what Soviet-era dissidents called samizdat—that helps people in Russia to imagine a more democratic future in their local communities would present a much-needed alternative to the current militarized deprivation, which seems to be all that Putin’s regime has to offer its people. It was Putin who destroyed the promise of local democracy in Russia; now, he should be challenged to restore it.

Only a democratically accountable government can provide the public services needed to improve the welfare of Russia’s people. Although a successful rebirth of democracy in Russia may take time, the mounting costs of corruption and war under Putin’s authoritarian rule urgently demand new efforts to push for political accountability in every region. By starting small, advocates of democracy may, like an earlier generation, be able to promote changes that had previously seemed unimaginable.

Roger Myerson, a 2007 Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

Copyright Project Syndicate

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