The Double-Edged Sword of Ethnofederalism: Ukraine and the USSR in Comparative Perspective

Ethnofederalism has been blamed for secessionism in the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, yet it is also touted as an important way of preventing ethnic conflict. Indeed, ethnofederalism is a double-edged sword, potentially generating both centrifugal and centripetal dynamics. Which way it ultimately cuts depends not only on context and institutions, but also on the undertheorized factor of leadership strategy. A focused process-tracing comparison of four time periods in the most challenging case of Ukraine, each corresponding to a different Soviet leadership strategy, confirms the theory and challenges the common wisdom that secessionism was inexorably rising in the USSR during the year of its disintegration.