Determinants of the reproduction of ethnic diversity: market, state, informal institutions
Elena ErokhinaThe article is dedicated to the role of institutional determinants in the reproduction of ethnic diversity. Ethnic diversity is considered in two aspects: as a result of personal identification (nominative aspect) and as a supra-individual phenomenon (normative aspect). The aggregate of ideas about "what means to be someone" and "who is called to be someone" by nationality (ethnicity) is the basis for the reproduction of ethnicity as a set of rules that includes membership rules and borders management mechanisms. However, the ethnicity itself is inscribed into broader social context from which these rules and mechanisms have been growing. Objectified structures which together constitute a social order are the institutional determinants of ethnicity. As such ones, the article stands out the State, the market, and some informal structures: family, kinship, and community. The author notes the distinction between the economic-cultural types and economic structures of different peoples as the basis of ethnic inequality. The article highlights the role of the State in strengthening or mitigation of status inequality of ethnic groups and reveals the significance of informal institutions in the reproduction of ethnic diversity. Informal institutions can relieve the tension caused by social barriers, can guard the society from rifts, and can prevent excessive polarization of its various segments. Another aspect of informal institutions is their ability to create new barriers and constraints. The author concludes that an activity of formal institutions creates prerequisites for ethnic stratification, while informal institutions represent self-organization. Ethnicity exists in both fields: in the field of managed modernization and in the field of spontaneous self-organization. At the intersection of formal and informal modes of social institutions work, special conditions for ethnicity reproduction are formed. The author provides examples of how the status of separate classes of Russian Empire patrials determined the specificity of ethnicity reproduction in the Russian Empire. On the examples of individual cases, the paper considers the specific occurrences of reproduction of ethnic diversity at the intersection of activities of informal structures, the state, and the market in the conditions of modern Russia.