The third (concluding) of a series of reports is published in this issue within the "Federalism and the Public Sphere in Russia and Canada" project. The basic research organizations working at the project are: Political Science Department of the Carleton University (Ottawa) - for the Canadian part; and International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political-Scientific Research (Gorbachev Foundation) - for the Russian part. (For the first two reports of the series see: Polis, 2001, No. 4; 2002, No. 3.) The subject of the first part of this concluding report is the institution of the President's plenipotentiary representatives in Federal districts; both real results of the institution's functioning and the institution's prospects are analyzed in this publication. Socio-economic characteristics of Federal districts (with the Central Federal district as example) are being considered, and mechanisms of such districts' inclusion into the system of executive power investigated, in the second part. The third part deals with regional political regimes and with factors and potential agents of their democratization. In the fourth part, problems of local self-government are discussed, as well as some ways outlined, to optimize interaction of municipalities with the organs of power of the Federation's subjects.