Managing Ethnic Diversity in Post-Soviet Context: The Cases of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

The article considers the designs and institutional frameworks of ethnic and linguistic diversity policies in Northern Eurasia by comparing Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The authors focus on the modes of framing diversity, formal institutional settings, and the practices of government. The research questions concern the meaning and the origins of common policy patterns and institutional features. The authors interpret the commonality and resilience as the outcomes of institutional inertia and a flexibility of policy patterns that secures their acceptance by different segments of the elites and populations across ethnic divides.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We employ “Northern Eurasia” and “post-Soviet countries” as synonyms and as merely geographic denominators without hidden implications.

2. Below we omit analysis of the Russian and Ukrainian developments after February 24, 2022.

3. We use word “nationality” interchangeably with “ethnicity” and employ the designations “diversity governance” and “nationalities policy” as synonyms.

4. Later data is not available.

5. Within its internationally recognized territory.

6. For example, in the Federal Law on National-Cultural Autonomy of June 15, 1996, No. 74-FZ.

7. For example, Subprogram 3, “The Russian Language and the Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation,” of the State Programme “The Realization of the State Nationalities Policy”; adopted by the Resolution of the Russian Government of December 29, 2016, No. 1532 (with subsequent amendments).

8. For example, the Constitution of Dagestan acknowledges all its languages as state languages; the Constitution of Karachaevo-Cherkessia grants this status to Abazin and Nogai along with Karachai, Cherkessian, and Russian.

9. Article 71 “f” of the constitution mentions “federal policy and federal programmes” concerning “national development”; contextually, the latter means ethnocultural development.

10. The English version of the APK official website refers to the “interests of all the ethnic groups of the country.” https://assembly.kz/en/activities-assembly-people-kazakhstan (Accessed May 28, 2023).

11. Articles 44 (20) and 51(1) of the constitution.

12. Law of Kazakhstan on the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan of October 20, 2008, No. 70-IV ZRK.

13. The percentage of schools run in the Ukrainian language rose from 47.9% in the 1990/91 school year (Aref’yev 2018, 1094) to 95.4% in the year 2021/22 (Richnyi zvit 2023, 125).

14. The list of such bodies in the USSR and the Russian Federation is available at the following site: https://ria.ru/20111215/517534894.html (Accessed May 21, 2023).

15. We borrow this notion from Andrei Zakharov (2012).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.