Annotation

The present study attempts to critically analyse the most famous stereotypes about the federal structure that have developed in the world doctrine. From the perspective of critical realism, the opportunistic stereotypes associated with cognitive distortions under the influence of the current political agenda are analysed, which include the identification of centralisation with the uncontrollability of central state bodies, ideas about the optimal number of subjects, as well as the normalisation of arbitrary interventions of the higher level of public authority. The problems identified in this way go considerably beyond the issues of federal structure and can be found in other elements of the matter of Russian constitutional law.