The Soviet Multinational State

The Soviet Union is a multinational state, with about half of the country's population being ethnically Russian. The advent of glasnost, and moves toward democratization and decentralization has unleashed the expression of national sentiments and interests in the USSR. This collection of Soviet materials surveys the many ramifications of the "nationality question" in the USSR in the 1980s. The topics covered include ideology, state organization, party recruitment, inter-republican economic relations, demographic factors, education, bilingualism, cultural institutions, religious traditions, military service, and disputes over republican prerogatives (in the Baltic) and over territory (the case of Nagorno-Karabakh). Each topical section includes a detailed introduction by the editor. This anthology provides coverage of the past decade, up to and including the current unrest and the impact of the Gorbachev reforms.

This text provides a survey of the Soviet management of the nationalities question. It traces the conflicts and tensions created by the geographic definition of national territories, the establishment of several official national languages and the world's first mass "affirmative action" programmes.

This study, sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation and the London School of Economics and Political Science, analyzes the ethnopolitical situation in Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union, particularly the southern tier states. Respected Russian scholar Georgiy Mirsky provides an insider's look at the historical nature of the Russian and Soviet empires, the development of ethnic and nationalistic identities within those empires, and the present-day situation with regard to hot and cold ethnic conflicts within and around Russia. This important work will be of interest to scholars and policymakers in comparative politics, international relations, and Russian and Slavic studies.

Asks whether there are lessons to be drawn for contemporary multi-ethnic societies from the experience of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in its last decades. Also asks if ideas about the state/nation relationship from that period of Austrian Social Democracy can have applicability today.

Are Nation-states obsolete? Are multination states viable? Can we really create powerful supranational institutions? These are the questions that celebrated authors and specialists attempt to answer in this important collection of articles. The work contains theoretical essays and case studies by philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and governmental analysts that provide state of the art analyses of the situation of the nation-state as it is developing all over the world in the new millennium. There are different concepts of nationhood and different forms of national consciousness: ethnic, civic, cultural, socio-political and diasporic. There are also different ways for nations to be present on any given territory; as immigrant groups, as extensions of neighbouring national majorities, as minority nations or as majority nations. There are also different policies adopted toward different groups: bilingualism, multiculturalism, interculturalism, collective rights, etc. Finally, there are different sorts of political arrangements: nation-state, multination state, confederation of sovereign states, multinational federation, federation of nation-states, supranational institutions, etc. The enormous complexity of these issues explain why nations, nationalism and nation-states have been so difficult to understand. The theoretical essays contained in this volume are sensitive to all those issues. The authors examine the foundations of nationalist thinking and the justifications behind the nation-state model. They also reflect upon the nation building policies, politics of recognition and issues related to globalization. The case studies investigate countries or regions such as Ireland, Scotland, Catalonia, the Balkans, Russia, USA, Finland, India, Indonesia, the European Union and Canada.

The events of recent years have demonstrated beyond doubt not only that ethnic pluralism presents major problems for the management of political systems, but that it is also a major cause of their failure and disintegration. This timely and topical book discusses the general issue of ethnic pluralism and considers a range of types of multi-ethnic society within a common analytical framework. It then examines the responses of governments to the problems of ethnic diversity and assesses the effects of ethnic conflict on the development and viability of states.