Politicized Ethnicity in the Russian Federation Dilemmas of State Formation

This book expands and deepens understanding of the complex process of political change in the Russian Federation by examining various dimensions of ethnicity, and specifically the politicization of ethnic identity. The work points toward the advisability of considering alternative modes of political organization beyond conventional patterns of the modern territorial nation-state. It concludes by questioning the facile conceptions of territorial sovereignty that may prove increasingly ineffectual. It examines the genesis and nature of ethnic identity under contemporary political conditions; the politically problematical character of Russian national identity under conditions of post-Soviet political life; and the theoretical literature dealing with the nature of the modern nation-state and its transformation under contemporary conditions.