Research Project: Regimes of Ethnicity: A Global Survey and Database of Ethnic Demography and State Policies on Ethnicity
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Contributors
Funders
ID
EC.00019
Authors
Aktürk, Şener
Faculty Member
Publications
Regimes of ethnicity: comparative analysis of Germany, the Soviet Union/post-Soviet Russia, and Turkey
(Cambridge University Press, 2011) Aktürk, Şener; N/A; Department of International Relations; Yes; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
How do state policies that regulate the relationship between ethnicity and nationality change? This article examines the dynamics of persistence and change in state policies toward ethnicity. In order to better comprehend the nature of political contestation over these state policies, the author first develops a new typology, “regimes of ethnicity,” and categorizes states as having monoethnic, multiethnic, and antiethnic regimes. These regimes are defined along dimensions of membership and expression. Second, he develops a theory of ethnic regime change. He explains the persistence and change in policies related to ethnicity and nationality in Germany, the Soviet Union/post-Soviet Russia, and Turkey since the 1950s by reference to the presence or absence of three independent variables: counterelites, new discourses, and hegemonic majority. He argues that if counterelites representing constituencies with ethnically specific grievances come to power equipped with a new discourse on ethnicity and nationality and garner a hegemonic majority, they can change state policies on ethnicity. These three factors are separately necessary and jointly sufficient for change. Reform in the German citizenship law, removal of ethnicity from Russian internal passports, and the beginning of public broadcasting in Kurdish and other minority languages on state television in Turkey are examined as major changes in state policies.
Passport identification and nation-building in post-Soviet Russia
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2010) Aktürk, Şener; Department of International Relations; Yes; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
From 1934, ethnicity in the internal passport was a key feature of the USSR's ethnicity regime. Following Stalin's death, all attempts to abolish ethnicity from the Soviet internal passport failed. This article examines the removal of ethnicity from the internal passport in the post-Soviet period as a key indicator of the new state policy on ethnicity. Grounded in the scholarly literature on ethnicity in post-Soviet Russia, drawing on the media, interviews, and the work of a key actor, Valeriy Tishkov, ethnologist and Yel'tsin's Nationalities Minister, this paper traces the process of passport reform. The central government's policy towards ethnicity outside the federalism framework is analyzed.
