Asymmetry of Federation: Identification Criteria

The paper raises contemporary issues and peculiarities of building relationships between constituent entities with a center in asymmetric federal states. The authors have identified and revealed the criteria for determining the asymmetry of regions. Particular attention is focused on the problem of the different status of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The Constitution of the Russian Federation proclaims the equality of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, which implies their symmetry. At the same time, there are different views on the presence of the same set of powers among the constituent entities in the Russian Federation, which does not allow us to affirm with certainty that they have equal status. The unconditional definition of the Federation as a symmetrical is rather a statement of the fact of consolidating the principle of equality in the Constitution than the result of an analysis of the real state of things. The results of the research are based on the use of the following methods: the universal dialectical method of scientific cognition, as well as general scientific ones based on it (description, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, analogy, generalization) and private scientific (comparative legal, system-structural and formal-legal).