The Makeup and Breakup of Ethnofederal States: Why Russia Survives Where the USSR Fell

Abstract

Why do some ethnofederal states survive while others collapse? The puzzle is particularly stark in the case of the former Soviet Union: the multiethnic Russian Federation has managed to survive intact the transition from totalitarian rule, whereas the multiethnic USSR disintegrated. The critical distinction between the USSR and Russia lies in the design of ethnofederal institutions. The USSR contained a core ethnic region, the “Russian Republic,” a single region with a far greater population than any other in the union. This core ethnic region facilitated dual sovereignty, exacerbated the security fears of minority-group regions, and promoted the “imagining” of a Russia independent of the larger Soviet state. In place of a single core ethnic region, the Russian Federation contains 57 separate provinces. This feature of institutional design has given Russia's central government important capacities to thwart the kind of centrifugal forces that brought down the USSR. This holds important lessons for policy makers crafting federal institutions in other multiethnic countries.Henry E. Hale is an assistant professor of political science at Indiana University (hhale@indiana.edu). His book on the development of a national party system in the Russian Federation will be published by Cambridge University Press. The author is indebted to many who provided helpful advice and support, including Andrew Buck, Mikhail Filippov, Edward Gibson, Yoshiko Herrera, Juliet Johnson, Pauline Jones Luong, Daniel Posner, Olga Shvetsova, Jack Snyder, Ashutosh Varshney, the anonymous reviewers of earlier drafts, and participants in the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security workshop and a seminar at the Russian and East European Center, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

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