Theoretical Perspectives on Ethnic Political Behavior in the Soviet Union

A plural society is defined as one which is ethnically diverse and whose ethnic divisions are politically relevant. Extant theories of politics in plural societies focus primarily on democratic political systems— that is, societies which, during some period of their recent political history, have been characterized by Western-style democratic political and governmental institutions. As a consequence, there has been little effort to formulate and apply analytical or theoretical frameworks which are specifically relevant to nondemocratic systems such as the Soviet Union. The principal objectives of this article are: (1) to augment, modify, and reformulate existing theoretical ideas on ethnic political behavior in plural societies so that their scope includes nondemocratic political systems; and (2) to assess the applicability of these ideas to the Soviet Union.