Resolving Identity-based Conflicts in the North Caucasus: Pathway to Ethnic Peace and Civic Solidarity

Abstract

Identity-based conflicts as a type of destructive ethnic conflicts have become a considerable obstacle to post-Soviet modernization, socio-political integration and ethnic peace in the current decade. The interest in the concept of identity-based conflict has been increasing worldwide during the first decade of the 21-st century. Identity-based conflicts are a notable phenomenon in the post-traditional world, where rational and irrational motives fancifully intertwine in politics, social structures, culture and everyday life of common people. Ethno-political identity became a prism for studying the problem of security in multi-ethnic communities. A rapid strengthening of hyper-ethnic, competing identities in Russian multi-ethnic regions occurred in two post-Soviet decades. It was manifested in the demands of ethno-political sovereignty, ethno-centrism, national-cultural autonomy, secession, as well as in the substantial growth of tension in ethnic relations, which resulted in protracted identity-based conflicts. The reduction of the role of civic identification, the growth of ethno-religious radicalism, new realities in ethnic and political life, new global rivalries, unstable processes of modernization in Russian regions were significant factors of the emergence of a large number of identity-based conflicts, ethno-political destabilization and social instability. In this case, conflict resolution in the North Caucasus may be built on the principles of civic solidarity and socio-political integration but not on the assimilation policy and suppression of ethnicities.