Governing the governors: legitimacy vs. control in the reform of the Russian regional executive

In December 2011, President Medvedev unexpectedly announced that the Kremlin was planning to re-introduce gubernatorial elections. Such elections had been discontinued in the aftermath of the 2004 Beslan terrorist attack. This article traces the new reform: the process of adopting the necessary legislative amendments in spring 2012; implementation through the elections in October 2012 – and partial backtracking in April 2013. The process was framed by a conflict between the wish to increase the legitimacy of the governors through popular participation and the Kremlin's perceived need for control over the outcome. In the 2012–2013 reform cycle, control eventually trumped legitimacy.