The Russian Minorities in the Former Soviet Republics: Secession, Integration, and the Homeland, by Anna Bata, Routledge, 2022, 234 pp., $128 (hardback), ISBN 9781032070957.

Abstract

This is an ambitious book. It develops a theory of why the same ethnic minority is treated better in some countries than others. It analyzes 11 cases of countries that seceded while especially going in depth in five of them: Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, and Kazakhstan. The book utilizes information from over 100 interviews with government officials, editors of newspapers, academics, and party officials of Russian ethnic parties conducted by the author from 2013–19. The main contribution that this book brings to the literature is its key conceptual finding – that discrimination against the minority group is more likely if it is perceived that the given minority represents a moderate threat to the state. The first two chapters introduce the authors’ framework for this book. Bata opens it with a puzzle focusing on the surprising Russian reaction regarding the treatment of Russophones inUkraine and Kazakhstan: even though the Russian-speakers were relatively more integrated in Ukraine, Russia intervened. Meanwhile, even though discrimination against the Russian-speakers has increased in Kazakhstan over time, there has been no Russian intervention. This timely and vivid example helps Bata to set the scene for her main argument later on – that the effect of threat on ethnic discrimination andmarginalization is not linear – and that discrimination against ethnicminorities is the greatest when they pose a moderate threat to the state and when the kin state is moderately threatening (7). The author argues that in extreme situations when different domestic and international threats are at their highest, governments are likely to be more accommodating to their minorities. More broadly, this book seeks to assess how states treat minority populations after secession and why we see significant differences in how suchminorities are treated across countries and time periods (7). In the second chapter, the book develops an interesting conceptual framework that can be used to analyze treatment of minorities by the government after a secession. It is grounded in social science literature and should be applicable to contexts outside of the post-Soviet sphere as well: for example, when analyzing developments in areas with secessionist movements such as Kashmir or Kurdistan (17). The author identifies several domestic and international variables that aim to explain how a state would treat its minorities. Essential in this framework is the perception of the level of threat that the government sees the given minority (as well as its external kin state) as representing. The perception of threat is measured throughmany different factors including several different variables linked to the perceived threat of secessionism and the kin state’s (in this case, Russia’s) willingness to intervene (57–58). These factors include perceived level of domestic threat that the minority represents, threat of further succession, and international threats. Hypotheses are stated under each of these factors, and they later receive mixed support through the qualitative case studies in the empirical part of the book. The author touches on the role of the external actors (such as the EuropeanUnion) in influencing decision-making aminority treatment, yet the book does not articulate a hypothesis regarding the role of such external actors. The empirical chapters that follow (3–5) are structured around the factors identified in the theoretical part. While they are rich in substance, at times they could offer just a little bit more analysis as opposed to descriptive material. Overall, there is much to like about this book. It utilizes a cross-regional approach, which is underutilized when studying the developments in the post-Soviet space. It articulates a clear research framework and a new theoretical/conceptual insight (discrimination is more likely if