Fellowships: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Peter A. Blitstein, History: Stalin's Nations: Soviet
Nationality Policy between Planning and Primordialism, 1934-1953. The Soviet regime managed a multinational state by manipulating
the ethnic identities of its subjects. The measures and institutions
of this "nationality policy" were firmly established only in the
mid-1930s, as Stalin consolidated his personal rule and as the system
which carries his name came into being. From this point forward, the
regime's nationality policy joined a modernist, centralizing strategy
of rationally planning all spheres of social and economic life to an
essentialist and primordialist interpretation of ethnic identity.
This hybrid led to a fatal contradiction between the ideas upon which
nationality policy was based and the institutions which implemented
it, the consequence of which was a distinct path of national
development for the non-Russian peoples. The origins, logic, and
consequences of this hybrid policy are the subject of this
dissertation.
See more information on Peter Blitstein
Susan K. McCarthy, Political Science: Nation-Building
and Ethnic Politics in Post-1949 China. How do ethnic identity and organization influence the goals and
tactics of state builders? Can state-building preclude or limit
nation-building? In what manner do ethnic and cultural identities
override national, state-sanctioned ones in the pursuit of political
interest? Ms. McCarthy will explore these questions through an
analysis of the Chinese Communist Party's attempts to build its
organizations among minority nationalities, and by looking at
minority response to the great social and political transformations
of the post-1949 period. Specifically, she asks whether
state-building among minority nationalities solidified cultural and
ethnic identities; she also considers whether such identities, rather
than ideologically sanctioned ones, were rendered politically salient
for members of these ethnic groups. She will investigate these issues
through a two-case comparison of the Muslim Hui and ethnic Thai (Dai)
of Yunnan province, and will consider minority political activity in
three time periods: the state-building period of the 1950s, the
Cultural Revolution, and the county-level elections of the early
1980s. In exploring the specifics of the Chinese case, she addresses
the larger issues of how ethnic identity may complicate the formation
and cohesion of national states, and how state formation structures
non-national cultural identities.
See more information on Susan McCarthy
David Stuligross, Political Science: Ethnic Pluralism: Institutional Development and Political Dialogue in India. When a sovereign nation-state allows local authorities some measure of autonomy, how does it decide to whom, how much control, and when such control should be granted? This research will investigate why state and central governments in India have responded differently to three similarly articulated demands for sub-state autonomy by groups that construct themselves, incorporating identity as a legitimate political tool, with increasing effectiveness. India's constitution and broader institutional framework anticipates alternative treatments of this variety of political grievance, which revolves around the issue of redrawing state boundaries or creating "autonomous areas." The geographical debate is further constrained by state governments, which face a choice between aligning themsleves with the sub-regions in favor of generating decentralization of political authority over substantive issues. Mr. Stuligross received a Simpson award from the Institute in 1995-96 and spent that year doing field research in India; this year, he will return to India to interview more local political actors, continuing his exploration of how India's constitution, learning at all levels, and instrumental economic and political constraints have shaped both the debate on an resolution of autonomy demands in India.
Samuel Van Leer, Political Science: Linguistic Conflict
and the Politics of Institutional Change in Multi-Ethnic
Democracies. Mr. van Leer's dissertation project focuses on the consequences of
constitutional and institutional choices on inter-ethnic accomodation
in three linguistically-divided Western democracies: Belgium, Canada
and Switzerland. While each of these states has opted for a certain
type of federal arrangement, they have seen different levels of
success in mediating subsequent political tensions between
territorially-bounded linguistic group. This project seeks to
account for this variation, and establish whether it points to a
general weakness of the federal model itself to cope with sharp
divisions or rather to the more specific structural or mid-level
institutional factors or particular aspects of political competition
that distinguish each case.
See more information on Sam Van Leer
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