Prospects for the Disintegration of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The author examines a series of sociocultural, ethnographic, and socioeconomic indices for the Russian Federation's constituent ethnic-based territorial units to assess prospects for the country's disintegration along ethnoterritorial lines. The sociocultural indices feature measures of linguistic russification, intermarriage, and assimilation; the ethnodemographic ones, measures of relative demographic weight; and the socioeconomic ones, various measures of urbanization, education, and occupational status. Dimensions of a “North-South” divide with respect to national consciousness, resistance to assimilation, and desire for independence/autonomy are investigated. 1 table, 19 references.