In the article, the author undertakes the study of the institutional effects of local self-government’s territorial organization and of its influence on the municipal organs’ functioning and the regional political process. What served as empirical base of the research was the questioning of the heads of municipal formations in two RF subjects (Voronezhskaya and Orlovskaya regions), where a two-level model of local self-government was established as early as the middle of the 1990s. Analysis of the data received, and their comparison with the results of the questionings that were organized in 2001 to 2002 in regions with other models of self-government’s territorial organization (Belgorodskaya region – the district-town model, Kurskaya region – the settlement model) confirmed the author’s hypothesis that as far as the degree of municipal formations heads’ solidarity and influence and the degree of the realization by municipal organs of their powers are concerned, the two-level model exceeds the settlement model, but is exceeded by the district-town one.