Картирование этнополитической конфликтности: прогностический потенциал и методологические ограничения

Abstract

The article presents a critical analysis of scientific and practical results of using the mapping method and an analysis of the possibilities created by an analytical assessment model of ethnopolitical conflictivity potential in studying ethnopolitical conflicts in various countries and regions of the world. These approaches are an integral part of the identity research agenda promoted at IMEMO and implemented in the development of the Ethnopolitical Conflict Monitor, a map and a computer application for comparatively analyzing in dynamic and predicting areas of ethnopolitical conflictivity. The Monitor was put together as a result of the 2015-2017 Russian Science Foundation project ‘Regulating Interethnic Relations and Managing Ethnic and Social Conflicts in the Contemporary World: The Potential of Civiс Identity (Comparative Political Analysis)’ executed at IMEMO. Ethnopolitical Conflictivity Monitor as a science project involves a continuous monitoring of conflicts with an ethnic component, where identity serves as a non-material resource of each conflicting side and identity politics is a crucial tool in regulating such conflicts. This type of monitoring is performed with the help of scientists from many IMEMO structures, specialists on the analyzed countries and regions. The work on the Monitor involves an expert selection of conflicts in countries and regions of the world, typology of confrontations in accordance with the formulated classification, analysis and classifying of regulation practices, especially those with identity politics as a regulation tool, estimation of the practices in correlation with the current state of affairs and regulation prospects. Ethnopolitical Conflict Monitor has an evident practical significance. It can help in developing guidelines on interethnic tension mitigation and and promoting civic solidarity important for Russia's social and political development.