CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Garaz, Stela |
|---|---|
| Title | Exploring the Link between Power Concentration and Ethnic Minorities' Mobilization in Post Soviet Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine |
| Summary | In political science literature, power concentration is dominantly viewed as a negative phenomenon that encourages strategies of confrontation and causes protest. The regimes with concentrated power are believed to be particularly dangerous for the states with deep ethnic cleavages. This latter concern is a question of great importance for the post-Soviet region, because since the collapse of the Soviet Union some of the multi-ethnic post-Soviet states had the experience of both ethnic conflicts and concentration of power. Consequently, the main goal of this research is to determine whether power concentration encourages the escalation of ethnic conflicts. For this, I explore three mechanisms that may link the degree of power concentration with ethnic minorities’ mobilization against the state: identity-related state policies, electoral rules, and centralization. The empirical investigation is built on the analysis of three post-Soviet cases – Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – based on the structured focused comparison technique. The data presented in this research reveal that the highest level of ethnic minorities’ mobilization against the state in the three post-Soviet republics occurred in periods with dispersed power, and not in periods with concentrated power. The research further shows that contrary to the common expectation, the reason for this was not the presumed suppressive character of concentrationist regimes over ethnic groups as citizens. Instead, the incumbent elites in the periods with power concentration combined minorities’ cooptation in central and local power with the enhanced control over the regional elite formation and regional access to financial resources, and in some cases, with a gradual de-politization of societal multi-ethnicity. Specifically, the leadership of concentrationist regimes tended to increase the threshold for accessing power through electoral rules with disproportional elements, which prevented the consolidation of ethnic parties and at the same time attracted minority leaders to the ruling parties. In addition, concentration of power tended to augment territorial centralization. This implied an increased control by central level political incumbents over the financial, administrative, and political affairs at regional level, which reduced local potential mobilizers’ access to mobilization resources. Finally, as the leadership of power concentration tended to implement integrationist rather than accommodationist policies towards minorities, this de-emphasized the political importance of multi-ethnicity. The research concludes that at least in the three cases included in the analysis, concentration of power did not trigger, but it rather discouraged ethnic mobilization against the state, due to its intrinsic tendencies to increase the threshold for access to power of potential challengers and also to co-opt minority leaders, to strengthen centralization of power, and to de-politicize ethnicity. Hence, the success of concentrationist regimes in reducing minorities’ mobilization against the state did not consist in suppressing ethnic groups as citizens, but in hindering the formation of a self-standing ethnic minority elite. Therefore, if power concentration is to be avoided in the post-Soviet region, it should be for other reasons than for fear of ethnic instability. |
| Supervisor | Enyedi, Zsolt |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/pphgas01.pdf |
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