POLITICAL INDIGENIZATION AND HOMELAND-MAKING IN RUSSIA'S REPUBLICS Robert J. Kaiser University of Wisconsin-Madison The National Council for Eurasian and East European Research 910 17th Street, N.W. Suite 30 0 Washington, D .C. 20006 TITLE VIII PROGRAM Project Information* Sponsoring Institution : University of Wisconsin-Madiso n Principal Investigator : Robert J. Kaise r Council Contract Number : 813-18g Date : March 10, 200 0 Copyright Informatio n Individual researchers retain the copyright on their work products derived from researc h funded through a contract or grant from the National Council for Eurasian and Eas t European Research (NCEEER) . 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The work leading to this report was supported in part by contract or grant fund s provided by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, funds whic h were made available by the U .S. Department of State under Title VIII (The Soviet-East European Research and Training Act of 1983, as amended) . The analysis and interpretations contained herein are those of the author . Executive Summar y This paper, part of a larger research project on the geography of nationalization and nationalis m in Russia's republics, offers an analysis of geographic variability in the success of homeland-makin g projects in Russia's republics . Homeland-making is defined as the efforts by the titular elites of these republics to construct ethnically stratified networks of social interaction that privilege members of th e titular group over all others living in the republic . The paper focuses specifically on politica l indigenization within the republics, both at the republic and at the rayon-scale of analysis . Althoug h cultural indigenization and socio-economic stratification along ethnic lines are also part of the process o f homeland-making, political indigenization is the critical first step, which leads to cultural and economi c indigenization programs as institutional projects of the republics. The paper begins with some genera l comments about the process of homeland-making and political indigenization . It then assesses how far these processes had advanced by the end of the Soviet period, followed by a detailed analysis o f homeland-making in the republics during the post-Soviet period . This paper is part of a larger research project on the geography of nationalization an d nationalism in Russia's republics.1 The focus of this broader study is on the way in which place mediate s both inter-ethnic relations in the republics of the Russian Federation, and intra-state relations between th e republics and the central government of the state . In turn, this larger research examines the ways in which the republics themselves are being remade as titular group homelands in the post-Soviet period , and the impact of these changes on inter-ethnic relations in Russia ' s republics . The geographic scale o f this analysis is at the local or rayon level . using newly available disaggregated ethno-demographic , ethno-political and socio-economic data to analyze the relationships between place . politics and identity , and how they are changing in Russia s republics during the 1990s . - In this report. after a brief discussion of the meaning of place and homeland-making as mediator s between power and identity, the analysis focuses on the geographic variability in the success o f homeland-making projects in Russia s republics . Titular homeland-making projects are defined a s efforts by titular elites to construct ethnically stratified networks of social interaction privilegin g members of the titular group over all others living in the republic . This paper examines trends regardin g political indigenization within the republics, both at the republic and at the rayon-scale of analysis . Political indigenization . or the ethnic stratification of political elites favoring titular group members, i s clearly only one as p ect of homeland-making. Cultural indigenization as well as ethnic stratification i n the socioeconomic sphere are also significant dimensions of homeland-making . Nevertheless, politica l indigenization is viewed here as the critical First step in homeland-making, which – if successful – The republics of the Russian Federation include : Adigey, Altay. Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Chechnya, Chuvashia . Dagestan . Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia . Karelia, Kalmykia-Khalm ' g Tangch, Khakassia, Komi. Mari-El, Mordovia, North Ossetia-Alaniya, Sakha, Tatarstan . Tyva, and Udmurtia. Due to the conflict i n Chechnya, no data were available from that republic during the time period of this research project, and so it is no t included in the analysis . 2 As a major part of the NCEEER-funded project. the rayon-level data for Russia's republics were collected , adjusted for territorial comparability, and placed in databases linked to GIS boundary files using Arcview . All of these data and the linked boundary files for the rayons of Russia's republics are available on the internet at: http://polyglot. lss.wisc.edu/creeca/kaiser/ 1 ultimately should result in the creation of cultural and economic indigenization programs as institutiona l projects of the republics . Homeland-making The role of place in mediating the relationship between power and identity, including th e relationship between ethno-national identity and the state . remains an under-studied subject . although i t has received increasing attention during the past decade in the fields of cultural and political geograph y (Agnew 1987 ; Agnew and Duncan 1989 ; Kaiser 1994 ; Paasi 1996 : Massey 1994: Sack 1997). In much of this research, place has been redefined away from the more traditional, static definition as a bounde d land area which is unchanging and reactionary, and toward a reconceptualization as a more dynamicall y constituted, historically contingent network of social interaction . This redefinition of places as networks of social interaction incorporates localized and global actors, events and processes in the continua l making, unmaking, and remaking of places . Viewing place as a "historically contingent process" (Pre d 1984) means that the identity of place Is by necessity unfixed and so "for ever open to contestation " (Massey 1994, 169) . Nationalist efforts at homeland-making may be seen as attempts to fix the identity of places or t o stabilize their meaning "by laying claim to some particular moment/location in time-space when th e definition of the area and the social relations dominant within it were to the advantage of that particular claimant group" (Massey 1994, 169) . Homeland-making is necessarily a contentious process, since th e very act of claiming a homeland signifies that competing exclusionary claims to that place at leas t potentially exist . Seen in this way, homelands are never ethnically or politically neutral places, sinc e they are constructed in an effort to establish political dominance and control by members of one ethni c group (now nationalized) over all others living there or having potential claim to that place . ' Although elections have been used to analyze political attitudes in Russia's republics before, nearly all of thes e studies have focused on elections to Russia's Duma, and no study has systematically examined local elections to 2 National territoriality, or the political geographic strategy through which nationalists seek to gai n control over the future of the nation by gaining greater decision-making authority or sovereignty in a particular place defined as the "ancestral homeland" of the "nation," is the impetus behind the making o f homelands . In other words, although nationalists and analysts frequently depict homelands as ancient o r primordial, in reality homelands do not exist before nationalism, and the territorialization of identity . Nevertheless, the degree to which these nationalistic homeland-making projects succeed (i .e., the degree to which the proclaimed homelands become ethnically exclusionary or stratified networks o f social interaction privileging members of the "indigenous nation" over all others) depends not only o n the creation of preferential institutions that privilege the members of one particular ethno-national grou p throughout the region. Homeland-making is subject to contestation not only by ethnic others, but is als o contested from within the ethno-national community at the local scale . The success of homeland-makin g projects depends on the degree to which the more localized networks of social interaction incorporate d within the area being nationalized are congruent with the more geographically expansive homeland s being constructed. When there is a high degree of congruence, the images of homeland and nation bein g constructed are said to resonate among the general population . Viewing place and homeland in this way necessitates a further redefinition of th e "nationalization of the masses" as a process that involves both their politicization (i .e . the politica l socialization of the masses toward a national consciousness) and also their territorialization (i .e., the territorial socialization of the masses toward a homeland consciousness) . Indeed, in many ways thes e two processes are really one and the same thing, since political socialization toward a national identit y always incorporates a process of territorialization, just as territorialization toward a homeland identity i s always a political process .