The Role of International Mechanisms in Promoting the Cultural Rights of National Minorities in a Changing Russian Federation (2000-2011) Federica Prina Thesis submitted to School of Slavonic and East European Studies University College London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Declaration I, Federica Prina, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT The thesis analyses how, if at all, accession to international standards makes a difference to national minorities in Russia in the advancement of their cultural rights, focusing on the period 2000-2011. It further analyses the factors that influence particular forms of implementation of international standards. The study uses data from semi-structured interviews, as well as from legislation, legal judgements and Council of Europe documents. It focuses on three minorities as case studies: the Karelians, Mordovians and Tatars. The research is divided into three parts: 1) Practice and Law, investigating how the specific characteristics of the Russian domestic legal environment and of the relevant international standards generate a particular type of dynamics between the two; 2) Homogenisation, examining whether international standards can suspend or reverse Russia’s culturally homogenising tendencies since the 2000s; 3) Exclusion, investigating to what extent, if at all, international standards may modify the dynamics of majority-minority relations by facilitating the introduction of a form of participation that is effective, in the area of decision- and policy-making on minorities’ cultural rights. The thesis concludes that the role of international standards in the area of minorities’ cultural rights is restricted in scope in Russia. Two sets of reasons are identified. First, specific features of Russian politics and society: (i) Russia’s selective implementation of international law; (ii) the alternation of localism and centralism; (iii) Russia’s homogenising centralisation and ‘managed diversity’; (iv) the absence of guarantees for the upholding of minorities’ participatory rights, resulting in fictitious forms of participation. The second set of reasons relate to the complexities and weaknesses of international standards on minority rights themselves. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ...................................................................... 7 Abbreviations ............................................................................... 9 Notes on Transliteration ............................................................. 10 1. Introduction ....................................................................... 11 1.1 The Thesis: Structure and Purpose ....................................................................... 14 1.2 Definitions: Minorities and Cultural Rights ......................................................... 26 1.3 Methodology ........................................................................................................ 38 1.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 57 2. ‘Transplanting’ International Standards on Cultural Rights to Russia .......................................................................... 59 2.1 The Phenomenon of ‘Legal Transplantation’ ...................................................... 59 2.2 International Minority Rights Law in the Context of International Human Rights Law ....................................................................................................................... 65 2.3 Historical Perspectives: Russia and the National Question and Minority Rights 78 2.4 Conclusion: Russia Between East and West? ...................................................... 87 PART 1: PRACTICE AND LAW ....................................................... 90 3. Selective Implementation: International Law in Russia ....... 91 3.1 ‘Applying’ without ‘Implementing’: Russia’s Selective Implementation ........... 93 3.2 The Views of Public Officials: ‘International Law as Foreign’ ........................... 98 3.3 The Views of Civil Society: ‘International Law as Weak’ ................................ 113 3.4 Mixed Outcomes ................................................................................................ 117 4 3.5 Conclusion: Selective but Valuable ................................................................... 130 4. The Judiciary and International Standards: From Application to Implementation? ............................................... 132 4.1 The Russian Judiciary and the ECHR’s Application ......................................... 133 4.2 Use of Courts to Defend Human and Minority Rights ...................................... 142 4.3 Conclusion: Opportunities without Guarantees ................................................. 155 PART 2: HOMOGENISATION ...................................................... 158 5. Strengthening the State through Homogenising Centralism ................................................................................ 159 5.1 Russia’s Homogenising Efforts ......................................................................... 162 5.2 De-Federalisation as De-Ethnification ............................................................... 170 5.3 Conclusion: Reducing Diversity - Russia for the Russians? .............................. 182 6. Interculturalism or Acculturation? Education and the Media ...................................................................................... 185 6.1 Changing the Rules of the Game: The Three Players in the Education System 188 6.2 Inter-culturalism ................................................................................................. 206 6.3 Conclusion: Tensions between Centralism and Localism ................................. 212 PART 3: EXCLUSION .................................................................. 216 7. Participation through Cooperation? Civil Society and Minorities’ Cultural Rights ........................................................ 217 7.1 The Boundaries of Public Discourse .................................................................. 221 7.2 Civil Society and the Authorities: Working Together, Sometimes ................... 226 7.3 Civil Society’s Vulnerability.............................................................................. 238 7.4 Conclusion: Some Cooperation, No Promises ................................................... 254 5 8. National Cultural Autonomy: Real or Fictitious Participation? ........................................................................... 258 8.1 From Territorial to Cultural Autonomy ............................................................. 261 8.2 NCAs’ Internal Shortcomings: Insufficient Representation and Accountability ................................................................................................................ 265 8.3 NCAs: A Framework ‘From Above’ ................................................................. 274 8.4 Conclusion: More Fiction than Reality .............................................................. 287 9. Ad Hoc Consultation and (A)political Representation ........ 289 9.1 Consultative Mechanisms: Cooperation or Infiltration? .................................... 292 9.2 (A)political Participation of Minorities .............................................................. 299 9.3 International Standards: Towards Substantive Representation? ........................ 306 9.4 Conclusion: No Impact? ..................................................................................... 314 CONCLUSION ............................................................................ 316 APPENDIX 1: List of Interviewees .............................................. 332 APPENDIX 2: Interview Questions ............................................. 341 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................... 346 JUDGEMENTS AND DOCUMENTS CITED .................................... 378 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Most of all, I am very much indebted to my supervisors at SSEES and Birkbeck, Professor Alena Ledeneva and Professor Bill Bowring, for their invaluable advice, support and encouragement throughout the research. My fieldwork would hardly have been possible without the advice and information provided by Dr Alexander Osipov, who made available to me his substantial network of contacts and unmatched expertise. I am very grateful to the respondents, who shared with me their experience and knowledge, finding time in their busy schedules to answer my (ever-increasing) questions. I am particularly grateful to those who volunteered logistical support, and made their contacts and resources available to me: among many, I wish to thank Vladimir Abramov, Galina Arapova, Marat Gibatdinov, Lyudmila Gromova, Gulnara Khasanova, Lilia Sagitova and Zinaida Strogalshikova. I particularly enjoyed the insightful discussions with scholars at the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and the Institute of Education of the Academy of Science of the Republic of Tatarstan in Kazan. I thank my friends, colleagues and teachers in SSEES, particularly Dr Pete Duncan and Dr Eric Gordy, for providing comments to my work, as well as for their support. I am very grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council, which funded