Discerning the Determinants of Ethnic Repression in the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union brought undeniably drastic changes to the stability of the ethnic landscape across the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Consequently, in the effort to establish new national ideas, FSU states have largely promulgated policy centered around the promotion of the state's historical ethnic group. As a result, states have begun to repress ethnic groups under various pretexts. The onset of state sponsored ethnic repression has been relatively ignored in modern conflict scholarship. Accordingly, this project constructs a theoretical framework to analyze the determinants and consequences of repressing ethnic-Russians repression in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine. The ethnic make-up, strength of democratic institutions, and human rights track records of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) states provide preliminary evidence as to how the treatment of ethnic-Russians has evolved over the last thirty years. Current findings suggest, that even strong democratic institutions in the FSU may not protect ethnic groups from experiencing violations of physical integrity rights or linguistic and cultural repression. Additionally, the FSU states inability to reconcile their Soviet era grievances has led to the development of anti-Russian sentiments embedded into their national ideas.