Interethnic Relationship Optimization In The Republic Of Dagestan: Modern Projections

Abstract

The article studies processes of post-Soviet political transformation in Dagestan, the role of political technologies for optimizing inter-ethnic relations. The authors study the issue by overcoming long-standing and simplified interpretations of local politics which consider the republic as a battlefield of various ethnic groups for power and resources. Key factors that prevent primitive ethnicization of complex conflicts were identified. The article aims to identify and analyze political technologies for optimizing interethnic relations in the Republic of Dagestan in the atmosphere of development of two trends. The article analyzes conditions that keep Dagestan in a continuous mode of "unstable stability". The theoretical basis of the study is constructivism which assumes an understanding of inter-ethnic relations as a plastic phenomenon susceptible to the influence of political technologies. This approach requires targeted modeling based on the state national policy. Identification and analysis of political technologies for inter-ethnic relationship optimization are based on an empirical basis. The method of in-depth interviews with heads of urban and rural administrations, leading political experts of the republic and leaders of local public opinion identified the most promising areas for optimizing interethnic relations in Dagestan. Within the state national policy, political technologies for optimizing interethnic relations involve the most efficient technological mechanisms: from predictive to socio-economic, from socio-cultural and legal to traditional. Most of these mechanisms are efficient within the partnership model of interethnic relations. This model makes it possible to implement the potential of power structures and civil society to prevent interethnic conflicts in the republic.