Year: 2001
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: The vast majority of the new states that were established in 1991 on the territory of the former Soviet Union have proclaimed themselves as 'nation-states'.This is the term by which democratic states in the Western world are designated, and among former Soviet citizens transition to national statehood is often regarded as inseparable from democratisation and decommunisation.Instead of the communist dictatorship they have suffered for most of the twentieth century their country shall now shall be ruled by the people itself, by the 'nation'.A major problem with this kind of reasoning, however, is that the concept of 'nation' is ambiguous.While it may indeed be conceived as being synonymous with 'the people itself', the demos, in Eastern Europe the nation is at the same time very often seen as identical with 'the ethnic community'.In ethnically homogeneous countries like Iceland such an ambiguity would have few practical consequences, but hardly any states in Eastern Europe belong to this category (which is the exception rather than the rule among the states of the world).At the time of the collapse of the USSR, all the former Soviet republics except Armenia had sizable ethnic minorities among their population (between 17 and 60 per cent).When political independence was proclaimed in the name of the 'people' and 'the principle of national self-determination', the status of these minorities was unclear.In some documents and declarations, in particular those that were designed for an international audience, they were spoken of as full-fledged members of the nation.When it came to practical policies, however, the situation was somewhat different.Nation-building --that is, the actual policies that are pursued to bring about the desired nationstate --took the language, culture, and traditions of the majority population as its starting point. 1 Up to a point, this was hardly avoidable.As Will Kymlicka has pointed out, a state may well tolerate a plethora of religions and other cultural identities among the population, but when it comes to such a crucial matter as language, it can hardly remain completely neutral.It is impractical and costly to institutionalise more than one language for government business (the 'state language' or 'official language'). 2 In the vast majority of states there is only one official language which is also the language of the majority population.3 With the exception of Belarus, all former Soviet republics conform to this pattern.4 In addition, nation-building is geared towards the identity and interests of the titular nation also in a number of areas in which ethnically neutral solutions could have been found.Given the lack of congruity between demos and nation in post-Communist states, there is an inbuilt tension between what Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan have called the 'conflicting logics of 1 Pål Kolstø, 'Nation-Building In The Former USSR', Journal Of Democracy 7, 1 (1996): 118--132; Pål Kolstø, Political Construction Sites: Nation-building in Russia and the post-Soviet States (Boulder, Colorado: Westview press, 2000).2 Will Kymlicka, 'Introduction', in Will Kymlicka, ed., The rights of minority cultures (Oxford: Oxford University press, 1996, 10.To be sure, exceptions do exist, such as bilingual Belgium, quadrilingual Switzerland, and so on.3 A few states of the world have chosen either a minority language (Indonesia) or the language of the former colonial power as official language, precisely in order not to favour one major group over the others.
Author: Pål Kolstø
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2234662811