The phenomenon of «internet-federalism», strictly according to the formal definition of federalism as a form of state structure, already at present claims not only for the role of «the fourth power», but as well for the role of the parallel center of authority and decision-taking. The necessary prerequisites have already been created, but the process is still not fully manageable. Due to this fact, the scientific task, put in this investigation, proposes elaboration and initial implementation of scientific technique for measuring and valuating the extent of liberal forces consolidation, which claim leadership in harvesting the «internet-federalism». Particularly, the paper introduces the notion of «internet-federalism» to the scientific discourse, describes several of its characteristics and distinguishing features, places it into the context of traditional understanding of political structure forms, identifies the liberal movement as the main stakeholder of «internet-federalism» as well as proposes an approach to measure the extent of actors’ consolidation within the Internet-space, based on the social analysis of networks and Big Data.

The strategy of reforming state territorial administration in France has undergone essential changes in the 21 st century. These changes were caused by a new social, economic and political situation. A problem of expansion of powers of local governments and their autonomy, which played the central role in the policy of decentralization at the end of the last century, has gradually given way to other priorities, such as streamlining of organizational structure of territorial administration, integration of territorial units, increasing efficiency of local governments performance. Corresponding changes have found reflection in recent territorial reform of the President F. Hollande in 2014–2015. The scale and importance of these transformations is comparable with the largest reform towards decentralization of public administration in 1980-s. During this period were undertaken important decisions, concerning consolidation and increasing the role of regions and intercommunal communities (metropolis) in social and economic development and also delimitation of competences between authorities of different level. In general in the strategy of reform in 2014–2015 is traced not so much towards decentralization, but rather toward recentralization of territorial administration.

Today, when strategic directions of development of economy of Russia are actively discussed, of particular relevance is the issue of using land as a powerful factor of influence on economic growth and social transformations in the country. Assessment of the current situation and the analysis of theoretical approaches of Russian scientists, allow us to conclude that the current land policy hurts state ownership and poorly protects the rights of private property owners. An overview of the most discussed problems in the sphere of land relations during recent years, the analysis of key items of the conceptual program documents, including the «Growth strategy» and report, devoted to land problems within the materials of the Center for strategic research allows to highlight the main implementation directions, which should be addressed to a new land policy. It can be successfully implemented only in the case, when the system of the management of land resources of the country is will changed and the tools for its implementation are improved. The main items, which require transformation, are: registration system (cadastre and registration of property rights); delineation of state ownership of land; schemes and projects of territorial planning, land management; land information systems. As world practice shows, the land administration system in modern conditions is a multi-purpose tool for ensuring the protection of land property rights, for maintaining actual database of all the objects of taxation and their owners.

Along with the development of sports industry and its commercialization, increasing the effectiveness of its subjects’ activity becomes more important. However, apart to the economic effectiveness of the sports industry, it is crucial to keep in mind social and sport performance results. The author of the article evaluates the effectiveness of this sphere not from the position of revenues, profits & losses, but from the position of the indicators, reflecting sport achievements, as well as the effects over the standards of living, health, labour productivity, crime, etc. A separate emphasis is made on the evaluation of the effectiveness of the sports development at the regional level.

The Union State of Belarus and Russia is the oldest of the existing integration communities within the Eurasian space. The Union state is undoubtedly one of the «fundamental pillars» of the emerging architecture of the Eurasian integration. During 20 years of its existence, the Union state has done a great work on the way towards the unity of the peoples of Belarus and Russia, but even more needs to be done. Special attention in the article is paid to the legal field of the cooperation between two countries — members of the Union state. The undertaken analysis made it possible to identify positive results of cooperation and as well — problematic issues and the possible ways of overcoming them.

Financial provision of mutual delegation of state (municipal) powers of public authorities is the most important legal institution of fiscal federalism. One of the methods, which is used to finance the expenditures of the subjects of the Russian Federation, arising from the transfer of state powers of the Russian Federation, transferred to them, is the method of deductions. However, now this method is mostly the exception to the rule. Basing on the example of using this method in the sphere of education, the author has come to the conclusion that it is possible to expand the areas of its application. The article contains proposals of the changes in the legislation aimed at the detailed legal regulation of the method of deductions.

The regulatory and legal framework of local self-government in Russia is based on the delineation of powers between levels of power and the subordination of legal norms. The article considers the historical aspect of the formation of the system of local self-government, its legal guarantees at the legislative level. Despite the development of the federal legislation, many unresolved problems of financial, economic, personnel and regulatory-legal nature still remain in the issues of local self-government. Basing on the analysis of key problems of the activities of local self-government bodies, the author formulates the main directions for increasing the participation of the population in solving local issues.

In the 90-s the conflict between the legislative and executive branches of power in Kuzbass became an impediment to the development of local self-government. With the overcoming of this conflict in the early 2000-s full-fledged legislative base was created and the system of local self-government was formed. Coordinated actions of all levels of power allowed Kuzbass to emerge from a protracted and deep crisis. Without departing from the scope of the federal legislation, the authorities of Kemerovo region has designed a specific model of local self-government. This model insured consistent reform of local government. While, on the one hand, local authorities on the legislative basis were given autonomy; on the other hand, the control of regional executive power over all the processes in the region was completely preserved, including over the competencies of local self-government.

A combination of sharp drop of oil prices at the end of 2014, the significant devaluation of the ruble and the tightening of economic sanctions have proved the fairness of experts’ position regarding the danger of growing dependence of the Russian economy on the export of raw materials and the import of technologies. In recent years the depth of this dependence revealed turned out to be prohibitive. It forms a real danger of suspension of a number of industries, on which the stake was made in the modernization of regional economies. Under these conditions, becomes obvious the need for a new strategy of social and economic development, first of all, for domestic industry. One of its basic blocks in this strategy should come up regional modernization strategies. This will require an assessment of the resources, which the subjects of the Russian Federation possess for solving this problem and the characteristics of the development trends of their economies. The proposed article is devoted to answering to the last question.

In the first quarter of 2017 in the domestic economy took place business recovery as result of positive oil prices’ dynamics. Emerging growth of industrial production and external turnover together with low inflation rate has lead to the growth of budget revenues. The increase of oil and gas budget revenue was most significant (following oil prices’ increase). But also it was the increase of the non-oil and non-gas budget revenue. Under the condition of the budget revenue growth it was seen as well expenditures’ increase, mostly for social purposes and for retirement benefits. Despite the essential revenue increase, the federal budget balance is still negative. But the size of deficit was significantly reduced in comparison with the first quarter of 2016. The system of social funds deficit is remaining mainly due to Pension Fund deficit. In general, the balance of all consolidated sub-federal budgets in Russia was positive, but the situation varies essentially among regions.

Migration of the population is one of the most important demographic processes. Migration renders a significant impact on the changes of the structure of the population and as a result – on the general economic indicators of the country. One of the driving factors of migration is the search for more attractive work. Namely this factor during recent years, under the conditions of transformations in the Russian economy, has become the dominating one in migration processes. However, the economic difficulties of moving to a permanent place of residence to another region, cause the fact that in Russia of decisive meaning is pendulum or seasonal labour migration. Many people, who live permanently in one region and work in another, do not change the region of their permanent residence. This phenomenon is very difficult to measure and evaluate statistically. The given paper presents an approach to the statistical evaluation of labour migration in Russia. The microdata of the labour force survey were taken as a source of information for the research. Within the framework of this survey, one million people are interviewed, and the latter ensures the representativeness of the final data. The article presents a statistical analysis of labour migration in Russia and indicates the points of attraction of labour migrants, as well as the most depressed regions.

The adoption of the 172^d Federal law on the strategic planning has given a powerful impetus to further intensification of the work on the formation of strategies of socio-economic development of the subjects of the Russian Federation. A specific feature of these strategies currently is their particular attention to the institutional conditions of regional economic development, to the justification of those institutions and tools, which actually make possible to achieve the priorities of regional strategies. Particularly important is the integration into regional strategies the mechanisms of public-private partnership (PPP) practice with the aim to achieve the priority goals of economic and social development of territories. However, today it would be premature to proclaim full scale practice of strategic PPP development at the regional level. Actually there are a number of limitations, setting obstacles for the subjects of the Federation on the way to reflect in their strategies long-term prediction of the total scale and specific areas for PPP projects’ implementation in economic and social development of the territories.

With the outbreak of World War I, Smolensk police and gendarmerie faced the activation of revolutionary and anti-war elements in society. The military situation was taken as an advantage of not only by revolutionary organizations, but also by enemy intelligence. The use of mass agitation and propaganda in the rear of the Russian army allowed not only to receive intelligence information, but also to destabilize the state of Russian troops at the front and in the rear. The activity of revolutionary propaganda made it possible to achieve the set goals in the form of undermining the fighting efficiency of Russian troops and mass surrender of soldiers.

The abolition of serfdom resulted, in particular, in the need of reforming the judicial system. Namely during this period was formed the institute of magistrates. The article discusses the features of the social composition of magistrates in Smolensk province during the second half of the nineteenth century. The operation of magistrates’ courts was due to the effective zemstvos’ personnel policy and to elected, democratic backgrounds. The article shows property and education level of the precinct and honorary magistrates and indicates the prevalence of middle nobility in ensuring magistrate’s justice personnel.