The Emergence of Ethno-Geopolitics in Post-Soviet Russia

A prominent UK-based political and historical geographer analyzes ethnogeopolitics, a new trend in Russian political discourse that is distinguished by the primary role it assigns to ethnicity (rather than the nation-state) as a geopolitical factor-i.e., recognizing formal (often poly-ethnic) ethno-national groupings on their respective ethnic spaces as important "geopolitical subjects" in their own right with a certain autonomy in world politics. After defining and otherwise setting out the differences between ethno-geopolitics and the more mainstream school of Russian geopolitics emerging after the disintegration of the USSR, the author proceeds to assess the extent to which ethno-geopolitics is shaping current Russian geopolitical thought in two critically important arenas: (1) Russia's relations with other great powers at the global level and (2) the dynamics of ethnicity (and inter-ethnic relations) within its own boundaries as well as in neighboring states. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: Y900, Z190.71 references.