(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
Ethnoterritorial Conflict in the
Former Soviet Union
Robert Kaiser
Professor of Geography
University of Missouri-Columbia
Introduction
The former USSR has been the scene of scores of
active and potential ethnoterritorial conflicts. More
than 200 ethnic and territorial disputes have been
identified in this region since 1989, encompassing
nearly all the territory of the former USSR (see
figure 6). However, not all the disputes have erupted
into violent conflict. In Latvia and Estonia, ethnic con-
flict has taken the form of “constitutional nationalism”
or “ethnic democracy,” as Latyian and Estonian politi-
cal elites restructure ethnic relations through the use
of legislation to exclude nonmembers.‘ In Transcauca-
sia, ethnoterritorial conflicts between titular nations
and indigenous minorities began before 1991 and
quickly escalated to open warfare. In Central Asia,
sporadic outbreaks of ethnic violence against nontitu-
lar populations have occurred but have not been orga-
nized by indigenous political elites pursuing the
politics of territorial nationalism. In the Russian Fed-
eration, disputes over the level of territorial autonomy
for non-Russians have risen, but, aside from a few
specific republics, a process of political disintegration
comparable to that which occurred in the USSR does
not appear to be on the horizon.
Rather than provide a descriptive summary of all 200
plus ethnoterritorial conflicts, this paper explores the
factors underyling the regional variation in the ethnot-
erritorial conflicts that have arisen in the former
' The term constitutional nationalismi its use by the political elites
of the dominant nation, the consequences of the new political real-
ity for nonmembers. and reactions leading to violent ethnoterrito-
rial conflict was recently elaborated by Robert Hayden (1992) with
reference to Yugoslavia. According to Hayden, “constitutional
nationalism envisions a state in which sovereignty resides with a
particular nation, the members of which are the only ones who can
decide fundamental questions of state: form and identity." Ethnic
democracy has been defined by Smooha and Hanf (1992, 31) as “a
democracy in which the dominance of one ethnic group is institu-
tionalized." 1
Soviet Union.’ The factors and consequences briefly
discussed are generalizations drawn from comparative
research on nationalism and territoriality and from the
disputes that have emerged in the former USSR. They
are by no means the only important factors, and, to
fully understand why some ethnoterritorial disputes
escalated to violent conflict and others did not, it is
necessary to explore each dispute in detail and to
examine it from each side’s perspective. Nonetheless,
it is also essential to understand the geographic vari-
ability in ethnoterritorial conflict in the former USSR
more generally and to place the events in this critical
world region in the context of a broader conceptual
framework.
Ethnoterritorial Conflicts: Factors Underlying
Regional Differences
The Degree of National Consciousness
The formation of a national identity is one of the most
important, but also one of the most difficult, factors to
grasp. Nationalists throughout this region tend to
depict their nations as “primordial organisms” that
were dormant during the oppressive Soviet period and
were reawakened during the Gorbachev era (for
example, RUKH 1989). However, it is more accurate
to view the Soviet period as crucial to the national for-
mation process, during which time nations became
mass-based communities of interest and belonging
that developed a sense of identity and a sense of
homeland more extensive than their local environment
(Kaiser 1994). However, even though this nationaliza-
tion process during the Soviet era resulted in a higher
and more mass-based national consciousness than
existed before, not all groups are equally national.
Because national consciousness is essentially subjec-
tive, it is difficult to measure the degree to which it has
become mass-based. Soviet censuses did ask a ques-
tion on national identity, and this data provided one
indicator of groups that were losing members as a
1 For such a descriptive summary of the conflicts that had emerged
by 1992, see Kolossor (1992).
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268