Implementation Unwanted? Symbolic vs. Instrumental Policies in the Russian Management of Ethnic Diversity

Abstract

The article seeks to suggest a way to explain such cases of minority policies in which deliberate avoidance of implementing certain normative provisions generates no criticism in the given society and goes in combination with the overall silent consent on this state of affairs of all the stakeholders, including minority activists themselves. The author argues that one may regard this as a normal pattern of public politics rather than a deviation, and the lack of implementation as a generally anticipated and accepted outcome rather than a failure. This pattern is labelled as ‘systemic hypocrisy’, i.e., de-coupling public representation of an organization from its actual functions. It is supposed that diversity policies in general are likely to be prone to systemic hypocrisy since the mainstream group-centric approaches to the management of ethnic diversity are not fully compatible with modern techniques of government. The article exposes and specifies two cases of ‘systemic hypocrisy’ in minority policies that are non-territorial autonomy and ethnic federalism within the domain of contemporary Russian diversity management. The framework explanation of why systemic hypocrisy demonstrates persistency is that the symbolic policies aimed at ethnic relations become values in themselves as a non-controversial ground of communication for different social and political actors and thus supersede instrumental policies.