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Secessionism from the Bottom Up: Democratization, Nationalism, and Local Accountability in the Russian Transition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Elise Giuliano
Elise Giuliano
Affiliation:
The University of Miami, [email protected].
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Abstract

Do ethnic federations undergoing democratization promote or discourage regional secessionism? This article argues, based on evidence from the Russian Federation, that when democratization produces a transfer of political accountability from center to region, the incentives of regional leaders shift, forcing them to react to local constituencies in order to retain office. If these constituencies desire autonomy, regional leaders must respond, making separatism not merely an opportunistic strategy but a necessary one for their own political survival. Democratization, then, can transform administrative regions into electoral arenas.

However, the case of Russia also demonstrates that regional demands for autonomy are not inevitable and may dissipate after they have begun. Popular support for nationalism and separatism varied significantly among Russia's sixteen ethnic republics in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period. This variation is explained by showing that mass nationalism, contrary to conventional wisdom, is neither a latent attribute of federal regions, nor a simple function of natural resource endowments, nor something summoned into existence by the manipulations of regional leaders. Rather, it is argued that increasing competition for jobs in the Soviet Union's failing economy allowed particular issues articulated by nationalist leaders to resonate with ethnic populations. Through the framing of issues of ethnic economic inequality, nationalist leaders were able to politicize ethnicity by persuading people to view their personal life chances as dependent on the political fate of their ethnic community. Thus, secession in democratizing ethnic federations can be best understood by directing attention toward the origins of popular support for nationalism and the role that support plays in the elite contest for power within subfederal regions.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , January 2006 , pp. 276 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2006

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References

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14 Similarly, Russia's wealthiest ethnic regions—the autonomous okrugs of Khanty-Mansisk and Yamal-Nenets—also failed to make separatist demands. Though these regions, as okrugs, had fewer institutions, rights, and privileges than republics, they were far richer, producing 80 percent of Russia's oil and gas. Bahl, Roy and Wallich, Christine I., “Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in the Russian Federation,” in Bird, Richard M., Ebel, Robert D., and Wallich, Christine I., eds., Decentralization of the Socialist State (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1995), 326Google Scholar. After federal relations had stabilized in the late 1990s, okrug leaders demanded administrative independence from Tyumen oblast to retain more control over natural resources. See “Khanty-Mansi Avtonomnyi Okrug,” in Regiony Rossii: statisticheskii sbornik (Russia's regions: Statistical handbook) (Moscow: Goskomstat, 1999)Google Scholar.

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18 Leading Russian specialists also identify these republics as the most separatist. See Tishkov, Valery, Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and after the Soviet Union (London: Sage Publications, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 58; Drobizheva, Leokadia, Natsional'noe samosoznanie i natsionalizm v Rossiiskoi Federatsii nachala 1990-x godov (National consciousness and nationalism in the Russian Federation in the early 1990s) (Moscow: Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1994)Google Scholar.

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21 Sheehy, Ann, “The All-Union and RSFSR Referendums of March 17,” RFE/RL Research Report 3 (March 29, 1991), 22Google Scholar. Results of the presidential election in June 1991 indicate the same pattern: Yeltsin won 50.6 percent of the votes in the autonomous regions compared with 58.4 percent in the RSFSR as a whole. Walker (fn. 19), 117,123–24.

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26 In fact, the actions of these four republics convinced Moscow of the need to replace the Federation Treaty with a new federal constitution; Tishkov (fn. 18), 62.

27 Most constitutions asserted control over natural resources and gave both Russian and the titular language official status. See Teague (fn. 22), 43; Kahn (fn. 15), 82–84; and Gorenburg (fn. 16). For the full text of the constitutions, see Dmitriev, Iu. A. and Malakhova, E. L., Konstitutsii respublik v sostave Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Republican constitutions of the Russian Federation) (Moscow: Izdatel'skaia Firma Manuscript, 1995)Google Scholar.

28 Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Mari-El, Chuvashia, Mordova, and Ingushetia voted against Yeltsin. In Tuva a majority endorsed him in questions one and two, but voted for early presidential elections—a rejection of Yeltsin. Slater, Wendy, “No Victors in the Russian Referendum,” RFE/RL Research Report 2 (May 21, 1993)Google Scholar. However, an anti-Yeltsin vote was not necessarily a challenge to federal authority, since some republics voted against him to signal support for the Supreme Soviet's conservative policies of preserving federal subsidies to the regions. Clem, Ralph and Craumer, Peter, “The Geography of the April 25 (1993) Russian Referendum,” Post-Soviet Geography 34 (October 1993)Google Scholar.

29 Chechnya boycotted the referendum, while Tatarstan's administration discouraged voting, resulting in a 22.6 percent voter turnout, which invalidated the republic's results.

30 Seven republics voted for the constitution, five voted against it, and voter turnout was under 50 percent in two republics. Lapidus, Gail W. and Walker, Edward W., “Nationalism, Regionalism, and Federalism: Center-Periphery Relations in Post-Communist Russia,” in Lapidus, Gail, ed., The New Russia: Troubled Transformation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), 100–101Google Scholar. On local elections, see Teague, Elizabeth, “North-South Divide: Yeltsin and Russia's Provincial Leaders,” RFH/RL Research Report 2 (November 26, 1993)Google Scholar.

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32 This assumption commits the fallacy of retrospective determinism. I use the terms secession, separatism, and autonomy campaigns interchangeably throughout this study.

33 Slezkine, Yuri, “The USSR as Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review 53 (Summer 1994), 433CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Roeder (fn. 1); and Suny (fn. 2).

34 Moshe Lewin describes how these processes transformed the entire Soviet population in , Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenomenon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

35 The same was true of Yakuts in Denisova, Yakutia. G. S., Etnicheskii faktor v politicheskoi zhizni Rossii 90-x godov (The ethnic factor in Russia's political life during the 1990s) (Rostov-on-the-Don: Rostov State Pedagogical University, 1996), 86–88Google Scholar. See also Drobizheva, Leokadia, “Processes of Disintegration,” in Shlapentokh, Vladimir, Sendich, Munir, and Payin, Emil, eds., The New Russian Diaspora: Russian Minorities in the Former Soviet Republics (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 47Google Scholar.

36 These ratios were compiled by the author based on unpublished raw data collected by Goskomstat, the State Statistical Committee of the USSR, as part of the 1989 All-Union census. See Professional'no-otraslevoi sostav intelligentsia naseleniia titul'noi i russkoi natsional'nostei absolytnie znacheniia (Titular and Russian ethnic group composition of white-collar economic sectors). I thank Dmitri Gorenburg for providing the data.

37 Only in Chechnya and Mari-El do Russians dominate white-collar sectors, although Chechens constitute 40 percent of Checheno-Ingushetia's white-collar workforce and 54 percent of its total workforce. Chechens form 55 percent of the republic's total population.

38 Mari El and Tuva are exceptions, although Tuvans still constituted 40 percent of directors in Tuva. See Narodnoe khoziaistvo RSFSR (The economy of the RSFSR) (Moscow: Goskomstat, 1989)Google Scholar.

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40 Gellner (fn. 7, 1983), 1.

41 Working in two Moscow libraries, I culled through five years of at least two newspapers published in each of Russia's sixteen republics. I collected between forty and one hundred articles from each republic that address some aspect of ethnic politics. The articles include standard news reports, official statements by political leaders, editorials, letters to the editors, and statements by nationalist organizations.

42 The social movements literature identifies these dimensions as critical. See Snow, David A. and Benford, Robert D., “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest,” in Morris, Aldon and McClurg, Carol, eds., Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 137Google Scholar; and Snow, David and Benford, Robert, “Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000)Google Scholar.

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46 See Andrew Wilson's discussion of nationalism in Ukraine in , Wilson, The Ukrainians (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and Kotkin, Stephen, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

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51 Only in the union republics of Moldavia, the Baltics, and Armenia, as well as in parts of Ukraine, did independent candidates win a significant number of seats in Supreme Soviet elections.

52 For example, in Tatarstan, nationalists won one-third of the seats in the Supreme Soviet and came to control approximately 120 out of 250 votes by winning over independent deputies. See Terent'eva, I. V., Beliakov, R. Iu., and Safarov, M. F., Politicheskie partii i dvizhenie Respubliki Tatarstan (Political parties and movements in Tatarstan) (Kazan, 1999)Google Scholar; and Gorenburg (fn. 16), 135. See also Helf, Gavin and Hahn, Jeffrey, “Old Dogs and New Tricks: Party Elites in the Russian Regional Elections of 1990,” Slavic Review 51 (Fall 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 See Herrera's discussion (fn. 8) on breaking the Soviet doxa (pp. 98–142).

54 Subsequently, several members of the Bashkir nationalist movement joined the republic's interim leadership, RFE/RL Research Report 2, no. 8 (February 23, 1990); and “Plenary Sessions Held,” Current Digest of the Soviet Press 42, no. 6 (1990)Google Scholar.

55 Jeffrey Kahn, interview with Boris Leonidovich Zheleznov, professor of law, Kazan State University, Kazan, June 6,1997. Similarly, the Union of Bashkir Youth marched on Bashkortostan's television station and went on air to denounce the Supreme Soviet's vote to delay presidential elections. RFE/RL Research Report 3, no. 47 (November 22,1991).

56 See Giuliano, Elise, “Who Determines the Self in the Politics of Self-Determination? Ethnicity and Preference Formation in Tatarstan's Nationalist Mobilization,” Comparative Politics 32 (April 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 This began after Gorbachev passed the 1987 Law on Cooperatives. Eric Hanley, Yershova, Natasha, and Anderson, Richard, “Russia—Old Wine in a New Bottle? The Circulation and Reproduction of Russian Elites, 1983–1993,” Theory and Society 24 (October 1995)Google Scholar.

58 As did former nomenklatura political leaders. For example, the oil company Tatneft underwent little restructuring and remained controlled by Tatarstan's Soviet-era managers. See McCann, Leo, “Embeddedness, Markets and the State: Observations from Tatarstan,” in , McCann, ed., Russian Transformations (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Borocz, Jozsef and Rona-Tas, Akos, “Small Leap Forward: Emergence of New Economic Elites,” Theory and Society 24 (October 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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60 Gorenburg (fn. 16), 62–63, 72.

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62 White, Gill, and Slider (fn. 50), 101.

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64 The variables of ethnic demonstrations and ethnic violence are from Mark Beissinger's data set of mobilization events in Soviet Union. I am grateful to him for providing these data. Beissinger defines an ethnic demonstration as a “voluntary gathering of persons with the purpose of engaging in a collective display of sentiment for or against public policies.” All demonstrations had a minimum of one hundred participants. Beissinger defines a mass violent event as “a mass political action whose primary purpose was to inflict violence, either in the form of an attack on people or on property.” Violent events had a minimum of fifteen participants. The data set does not include hunger strikes or general strikes. See Codebook, “Non-Violent Demonstrations and Mass Violent Events in the Former USSR, 1987–1992,” 4, 6. For more on the procedures utilized in collecting the data, see Beissinger, Mark R., “Event Analysis in Transitional Societies: Protest Mobilization in the Former Soviet Union,” in Rucht, Dieter, Koopmans, Ruud, and Neidhardt, Friedhelm, eds., Acts of Dissent: New Developments in the Study of Protest (Berlin: Sigma Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Beissinger (fn. 63); and http://www.polisci.wisc. edu/~beissinger/research.htm.

65 Concerning repatriation issues, Akkintsy clashed with neighboring ethnic groups in Dages-tan, Balkars challenged Kabardins in Kabardino-Balkaria, and Ingush made claims in the Prigorodnn region of North Ossetia. In terms of the regional armed conflicts, North Ossetia supported South Ossetia against Georgia by taking Ossetian refugees and sending aid and volunteer fighters, while Kabardino-Balkaria took the side of Abkhazia against Georgia. See Omrod, Jane, “The North Caucasus: Confederation in Conflict,” in Bremmer, Ian and Taras, Ray, eds., New States, New Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

66 Tomila Lankina discusses ethnic conflict and mobilization in North Ossetia in Governing the Locals: Local Self-Government and Ethnic Mobilization in Russia (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004).Google Scholar

67 I use the diverse-case method and the typical-case method to select cases, according to John Gerring's typology in , Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

68 Moscow appropriated what little gold, uranium, cobalt and coal Tuva, one of Russia's poorest republics, did contain. Anaibin, Zoia, “Ethnic Relations in Tuva,” in Balzer, Marjorie, ed., Culture Incarnate (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995)Google Scholar.

69 Sheehy, Ann, “Russians the Target of Interethnic Violence in Tuva,” RFE/RL Research Report 2, no. 37 (September 14, 1990)Google Scholar.

70 According to one Russian analyst, Tuva's Popular Front represented a serious force in republican politics due to its mass popular support. Muzaev (fn. 61), 186–89.

71 A question exists as to whether the violence was Tuvan on Tuvan rather than interethnic. It was nevertheless perceived by the press and the general population as ethnic violence. Alatalu, Toomas, “Tuva: A State Reawakens,” Soviet Studies 44, no. 5 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, “From Ethnicity to Nationalism: Turmoil in the Russian Mini-Empire,” in Millar, James R. and Wolchik, Sharon L., eds., Tie Social Legacy of Communism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

72 Overall, by the mid-1990s, approximately ten thousand Russians, including highly skilled engineers, teachers, and doctors, were estimated to have migrated out of Tuva. Sullivan, Stefan, “Inter-ethnic Relations in post-Soviet Tuva,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 18, no. 1 (1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Khostug Tuva went a step further, calling for the republic to hold an immediate referendum on secession from Russia; Drobizheva (fn. 18), 125.

74 Tuvans formed 65 percent and Russians 32 percent of the population in 1989. Tuva was nominally independent from 1921 to 1944, when it was incorporated into the USSR. Before 1921 it held the status of a Russian protectorate. Balzer (fn. 71), 124.

75 Anaibin (fn. 68), 104,110.

76 The popular vote took place on December 12,1993. Tuva's Supreme Khural had voted to adopt Tuva's constitution earlier that fall, in October, while Yeltsin was busy bombing the federal parliament. Kuzhuget, A. and Tatarintseva, M., Etnopoliticheskaia situatsiia v Respublike Tyva, Research Monograph, no. 74 (Moscow: Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1994), 9Google Scholar.

77 Ann Sheehy, “Tuva Adopts New Constitution,” KFE/KL Daily Report no. 203 (October 26,1993), 2.

78 I address the decline of mass nationalism in my book manuscript, in Giuliano, “Why Secession Fails: The Rise and Fall of Ethnic Nationalism in Russia.”

79 See, for example, Kempton, Daniel R., “The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia): The Evolution of Cen-tre-Periphery Relations in the Russian Federation,” Europe-Asia Studies 48 (June 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, “A State within a State: The Sakha Republic (Yakutia),” in Kotkin, Stephen and Wolff, David, eds., Rediscovering Russia in Asia (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995)Google Scholar.

81 After declaring sovereignty, Yakutia changed its name to The Sakha Republic (Yakutia).

82 Zykov, F. M., Etnopoliticheskaia situatsiia v Respublike Sakha do i posle vyborov 12 dekabria 1993 g. Research Monograph, no. 71 (Moscow: Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1994)Google Scholar. Khazanov (fn. 12) writes that Nikolaev “liked to point out [during negotiations with Yeltsin] that he acted under heavy pressure from Sakha Omuk and that some decisions of Yakutia's parliament were made against his will” (p. 183).

83 Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Vinokurova, Uliana Alekseevna, “Nationalism, Interethnic Relations and Federalism: The Case of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia),” Europe-Asia Studies 48 (January 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 Drobizheva (fn. 18) notes that this threat indicated a very radical mood among Yakuts since it would have meant replacing a Yakut with an ethnic Russian (pp. 135–52).

85 Ibid., 137; see also Muzaev (fn. 61), 206–10.

86 Mari-El passed a language law in 1995. Shabaev, Iurii P., “National Movements in the Eastern Finnic Republics of Rossiia,” Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia 37 (Fall 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 Muzaev (fn. 61), 159–63; Sharov, V. D., Etnopoliticheskaia situatsiia v Respublike Marii El, Research Monograph, no. 63 (Moscow: Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1994), 5Google Scholar.

88 Sharov (fn. 87), 15.

89 Muzaev (fn. 61), 160–61.

90 Ronald Wixman and Allen Frank, “The Middle Volga: Exploring the Limits of Sovereignty,” in Bremmer and Taras (fn. 65).

91 Muzaev (fn. 61), 162