| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the aftermath of the demise of the three communist federations, Western scholars have engaged in a debate on the role of ethno-federal arrangements in the process of disintegration. Some, such as Snyder (2000) and Bunce (1999), argue that the communist rulers 'created their own grave diggers', to paraphrase Marx, by introducing ethno-federalism. Brubaker (1996) argues that an unintended consequence of Soviet ethno-federalism was the reinforcement and politicisation of ethno-national identities. Others claim that communist ethnic 'federalism' was a facade for the unitary organisation ('democratic centralism') of party-states and that suppressed national identities returned with a vengeance in the 1980s. According to this latter view, the end of communist federalism was not a failure of genuine federations, but a failure of authoritarian, unitary, and excessively centralised states.
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