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The Transnistrian Republic: A Case of Politicized Regionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Pål Kolstø  and
Andrei Malgin
Pål Kolstø
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Norway
Andrei Malgin
Affiliation:
University of Simferopol in Crimea, Ukraine
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Extract

The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union has opened up a Pandora's box of communal conflicts. In most Western analyses the majority of these conflicts are subsumed under the heading “ethnic.” This is often the case also with the conflict in Moldova between the national regime in Chišinàu and the insurgent regime in Tiraspol that controls the left bank of the Dnestr river. To be sure, there is an ethnic component to this conflict, but ethnicity clearly is not the main driving force behind it. While ethnic Moldovans make up approximately 70% of the inhabitants on the right bank, there is no ethnic majority on the left bank: 40% of the population are Moldovans, 25% Ukrainians, and 23% Russians. In fact, the Chišinàu leadership downplays the ethnic component in its standoff with Tiraspol. The values at stake, they insist, are basically political in nature.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 1998 , pp. 103 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

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