The state (national state) system legally represents the internal structure of the country, the legal status of its constituent parts. This concept also reflects the peculiarities of their relations with the central government and with each other.
There are three main types of internal structure: unitary, confederate, and federal structure of the state.
The latter species is characterized as a voluntary association of countries with a certain independence. The federal structure in the union state is carried out at the same time on the basis of a federal agreement. Subjects in the structure can be both state entities and sovereign countries. The federal structure presupposes, as a rule, equal relations between the subjects and the federation. This structure is characterized by the presence of subjective and common territories, state bodies, citizenship, budget, constitutions and other things. The interests of the subjects are represented by the parliamentary chamber.
The federal structure of the Russian Federation is enshrined in the norms of the Constitution of the country and other legislative acts and includes the political structure of nationalities and nations on the basis of their self-determination in one form or another of statehood. The structure of the country has a fairly complex system. It includes not only a federal device, but also a unitary and autonomous one. The Russian state includes autonomous okrugs, territories, regions (including autonomous regions), cities of federal significance, and republics.
Among the constitutional foundations of the federal structure of Russia are:
- consolidation and dissemination of sovereignty throughout the country;
- the supremacy of federal laws and the Constitution throughout the territory;
- territorial integrity and integrity of the country;
- distinction in the powers and subjects of conduct of subjects and bodies of state power;
- self-determination and equality of peoples;
- equality and unity of citizenship.
These and other provisions of the first chapter of the Constitution of the Russian state, providing regulation of issues of state structure, are integral elements of the foundations of the Russian Federation. Changes to these provisions can only be made in constitutional order.
A federated device has a number of principles:
- Volunteering in the unification of nationalities and nations. First of all, the process of adopting the Constitution of the Russian Federation by means of a popular vote by all entities in 1993 testifies to the voluntary nature.
- Equal rights and sovereignty of nations. The essence of the principle is the recognition of the sovereign right of nationalities and nations to freely determine independently the political form of their existence.
- Federalism in conjunction with autonomy and unitarianism. The embodiment of various forms of statehood is due to the multinational nature of the country, its complex historical path.
- The national-territorial principle of the formation of statehood structures in conjunction with the territorial principle of the formation of entities.
- State integrity. The most important legal guarantee of preserving the integrity of the state is the lack of rights to secession of entities from the Russian Federation. The country's constitution also provides for other standards that provide the above guarantees.
- The principle of equality of subjects in the Federation continues the formulated principle - the equality and sovereignty of nations. According to a number of authors who analyzed its essence, subjects do not have absolutely equal rights, due to the different forms of statehood.