Transnistrian Nation-Building: A Case of Effective Diversity Policies?

This article explores nation-building processes in the Transnistrian imagined community. While some scholars describe Transnistria’s nation-building strategy as a civic, multicultural project, the analysis of recent demographic and educational data corroborated with the close examination of local media content and official discourses—all point to the emergence of a distinct political culture marked by the increasing use of the Russian language in the public sphere, and the politicization of the Moldovan identity. Discourses about ethnic and national identity in the region have evolved as the Transnistrian elites reimagine the political community as part of the Russkii Mir. These circumstances suggest that, in the long run, the breakaway region might function as the southeastern frontline of Russian irredentism with the elites of the Pridnestrovska͡ia Moldavska͡ia Respublika continuing to call on the Russian Federation to annex the parastate instead of seeking a peaceful reintegration into Moldova.

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 93%

Multiethnic Parastates and Nation-Building: The Case of the Transnistrian Imagined Community

Marandici

2020

“…The Russian language dominates all spheres of life in Transnistria, though there are three official languages: Russian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian (Dembińska and Danero 2013; Osipov and Vasilevich 2019). Transnistria adopted a distinctive flag and coat of arms reminiscent of the Moldavian ASSR symbols and its own Transnistrian ruble.…”

Section: Supra-ethnic Transnistrian Nationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That, together with pragmatic reasons – social mobility and job opportunities – convinced most Moldovans to attend Russian-speaking schools (Dembińska and Danero 2013). According to official Transnistrian statistics, Russian is the language of instruction in 82 percent of the schools and Moldavian (written in Cyrillic) in 13.5 percent (Comai and Venturi 2015; Osipov and Vasilevich 2019). In line with the official position of Tiraspol on the equal promotion of the ethnicities that make up Transnistria, in 2014 the Minister of Education Svetlana Fadeeva asserted that “preventing further reduction of the number of pupils obtaining their education through Moldovan and Ukrainian [was] a priority […].…”

Section: Supra-ethnic Transnistrian Nationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legitimizing the Separatist Cause: Nation-building in the Eurasiande factoStates

Dembińska

2022

This article compares the nation-building processes in four well-established Eurasian de facto states. Although all four pursue a set of identity politics that would legitimize the separatist cause, comparing them reveals important differences in boundary-making strategies. While maintaining the image of the enemy parent-state and of an imminent external threat is a common endeavor, they face different challenges and thus have pursued different strategies of identity-building. Transnistria and Abkhazia are two ethnically heterogeneous entities while Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia are more homogeneous since (forced) displacements, mostly of non-titular ethnicities, took place. The Abkhazs, Ossetians, and Armenians claim titular status in their respective regions, but only the latter two have kin in neighboring countries with whom they want to unify. Meanwhile, the “Transnistrian people” is a newly invented construct. Despite their lack of international recognition, the article demonstrates that – apart from a special emphasis on cultivating the image of the “enemy parent-state” – the nation-building mechanisms in the de facto states do not substantially differ from the processes at work in other post-Soviet states presented in this Special Issue.

Enhancing the Robustness of Causal Claims Based on Case Study Research on Conflict Zones: Observations from Fieldwork in Donbas

Wolff¹

2020

Focusing on process tracing and using the example of fieldwork in Donbas, I develop an argument on what theoretically grounded and empirically detailed methodological solutions can be considered to mitigate the challenges of research on conflict zones and assure the robustness of any causal claims made. I first outline my assumptions about process tracing as the central case study method and its application to research on conflict zones, and then discuss in more detail data requirements, data collection, and data analysis. Using two examples of case studies on the war in and over Donbas, I illustrate how three standards of best-practice in process tracing—the need for a theory-guided inquiry, the necessity to enhance causal inference by paying attention to (and ruling out) rival explanations, and the importance of transparency in the design and execution of research—can be applied in the challenging circumstances of fieldwork-based case studies of conflict zones. I conclude by suggesting that as a minimum threshold for reliance upon causal inferences, these three standards also should align with a standard of evidence that requires both the theoretical and empirical plausibility of any conclusions drawn.