Ethnic factor in the regional policy of Russia

Bookreview: Shabaev Y. P., Omarov M. A. Regionalism and ethnicity in Russia: historical evolution and modern political practices. Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities Publ., 2021. 513 p.

Abstract

The monograph under review is devoted to the study of Russian regionalism. The authors consider its various historical forms and come to the conclusion that the formation and expansion of the Russian state inevitably strengthened the regionalist forms of state administration and interaction between the central government and the regions. At the same time, the authors prove that in the history of Russia, regionalization and centralization were not mutually exclusive, but complementary directions of development. The ethnic factor has always played a significant role in regional politics, so the focus of the work is on the consideration of the ideology and political practices associated with ethnic regionalism. A significant place in the monograph is occupied not only by a description of the origins and political evolution of regionalist ideas in Russia, but also by an analysis of the features of Soviet and post-Soviet ethnic regionalism. The need to improve regional policy in modern Russia is convincingly substantiated. Indeed, in modern conditions, there is a need for a new type of partnership between the federal center and the regions of the Russian Federation, and, in fact, the response to the coronavirus pandemic laid the foundation for developing a model for quickly countering new risks, primarily by combining the efforts of federal and regional authorities. The conclusions formulated by the authors are convincingly supported by the study of a number of cases: the republics of the North Caucasus, the Finno-Ugric republics of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tatarstan, the modern Russian "regionalism", the Republic of Crimea.

Keywords:

Russian state, regionalism, regional policy, ethnicity, ethnic federation