ABSTRACT

The sequencing of ethnonationalist mobilization in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chechnya and Moldova makes these federal units ‘late mobilizers’ since the rise of nationalist movements in all three cases followed political liberalization.1 Some comparative politics scholars would argue that such sequencing is more likely to lead to successful democratic transitions than if the opposite was the case. Yet, the late mobilization dynamics not only thwarted the potential for successful democratic transition, but it also led to violent conflicts shortly after ethnonationalist movements gained strength. This chapter will thus trace the reasons behind such developments. Following the theoretical framework and model presented in Chapter 1, the hypotheses relating to late ethnonationalist mobilization in the periphery will be tested (Figure 5.1). Namely, it is expected that the late peripheral mobilization would see a more pluralized polity in which nationalist goals are pursued along with other anti-regime movements. Moreover, it is also assumed that the groups mobilizing late would be influenced by the already established movements from either within the core or other parts of the periphery, and that their mobilization would be a direct response (counter-mobilization) to these pre-existing movements. Thus, the interaction between these phenomena would then determine the likelihood of conflict. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, ethnonationalist mobilization and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina were, to a large extent, products of early core and early peripheral mobilizations in the neighbouring republics of Serbia and Croatia. On the other hand, the nationalist movements in Chechnya and Moldova emerged primarily as a result of political opening, rather than being a response to rival mobilizations. The conflicts that occurred in these Soviet republics were the product of counter-mobilization of the minorities, and to an extent, the core. Moreover, these three cases offer a good variation in terms of scope and magnitude of the dependent variable, since they experienced violent conflicts of different intensities and duration. In all three cases the explanation behind late majority mobilization can be found in the local communist leadership’s tight control of the polity. As soon as it subsided and political pluralism was introduced, nationalist movements in all three cases gained clout. However, the success and durability of the nationalist

alternatives was not at all uniform. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosniak nationalism of the late 1980s was mainly a response to Serb and Croat nationalisms, even though its origins stem from decades earlier. Thus, as long as nationalist rhetoric remained dominant within Serbia and Croatia, and by extension within their communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosniak nationalism presented itself as a counter-mobilizational response. Chechnya and Moldova were similarly prone to nationalist mobilization from within the core, since the former was an autonomous republic within the RSFSR, while the latter was a union republic that had a sizable Russian-speaking community. However, their nationalist movements began primarily as an expression of grievances over repression they experienced in the Soviet era. It was only after these movements gained momentum that Russia responded. In the case of Chechnya, the response was more forceful due to separatism pursued by Dzhokhar Dudaev’s government. On the other hand, the war in Transnistria had arguably fewer implications for Russia, even though the protection of Russian minority and the strategic setting of Moldova were of high importance. Yet, given that moderate forces overpowered the radical nationalist faction within the Moldovan polity, the conflict between Moldovan and Transnistrian forces was relative short and of low intensity (Figure 5.2). This chapter will first trace the origins of ethnopolitical action, after which the dynamics of ethnonationalist mobilization will be analysed in order to better

understand how the radicalization of polity that took place after political opening contributed to conflict occurrence. The sequencing of mobilization and liberalization are presented in an abbreviated version below (Table 5.1), while the concluding section of the chapter will offer a comparative summary of the main findings.