| ID | 090417 |
| Title Proper | Managing ethnic diversity in Georgia |
| Other Title Information | one step forward, two steps back |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Wheatley, Jonathan |
| Publication | 2009. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This article attempts to explain how the Georgian state sought to manage ethnic diversity at the same time as (re-)building state institutions within a (nominally) democratic framework, from the collapse of Soviet power to the present day. It is suggested that the explanation for the slow and uneven progress in accommodating national minorities within the Georgian state derives from four principal factors: first, the collapse of the Soviet state and the consequent inability of the newly independent state to provide basic public goods; second, the lack of a 'civic' model for the accommodation of minorities; third, the continuation of the Soviet norm of arbitrary exercise of power by leaders, which is ill-suited to accommodating diversity and resolving conflict; and, finally, the Soviet legacy of ethnofederalism, which carved out three autonomous territories - Abkhazia, Achara and South Ossetia - from within Georgia that would (violently, in the case of Abkhazia and South Ossetia) resist the encroachments of the new Georgian state, and would later (in the case of South Ossetia) provide a pretext for military conflict between Russia and Georgia. |
| `In' analytical Note | Central Asian Survey Vol. 28, No. 2; Jun 2009: p.119 - 134 |
| Journal Source | Central Asian Survey Vol. 28, No. 2; Jun 2009: p.119 - 134 |
| Key Words | Ethnofederalism ; State-Building ; Nation-Building ; Democratization ; Institutions ; Georgia ; Russia |