Арктика и Север (Mar 2019)
Strategic priorities and forms of the applying ethnopolitics in the Arctic areas of the Russian Federation
Abstract
The article is dealing with the process of evolution of strategic priorities and practical forms of the realization of the ethnic policy in Russia on the example of the Arctic regions in the post-Soviet period. It is proved that the ethnopolitics of each Arctic region of the Russian Federation has its distinctive features, due to the complex of the reasons of its climatic, socio-economic, political and cultural nature. The differentiation of regional, national practices was more clearly manifested in the 1990s when in the Arctic regions, as well as in the whole country, the processes of sovereignty and politicization of ethnicity were observed. With the normalization of relations between the Federal center and regions, the separation of powers between the center and the entities of the Russian Federation at the turn of XX-XXI centuries, the Arctic regions are starting to build their ethnonational policy according to the strategic vision of the center. However, in the first decade of the XXI century, the ethnopolitics of the Arctic regions was more focused on the demonstration of ethnocultural diversity to the detriment of the ideas of consolidation of Russian society, which created the basis for ethnocultural mobilization and ethnic-egoism. The Strategy of the national policy of the Russian Federation 2012, contains conceptual foundations of nation-building and is biased in favor of the strengthening the unity of the multiethnic people and the state on the principles of civil solidarity. The policy of the Arctic regions begins to integrate into the all-Russian logic of the normalization of inter-ethnic relations. Ethnicity-related issues in the contemporary agenda are intimately connected with the security ones. The results of the sociological surveys and monitoring of the interethnic tensions suggest that regional authorities can control the current situation. Arctic territories are considered as the regions with the low and meager rate of ethnic tensions. However, contradictions between local people and migrants, old-timers and new settlers, Russian ethnic groups and indigenous peoples for similar rights and privileges are in the latent stage.
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