Rogers Brubaker’s and Sammy Smoha’s post-communist national projects analysis and Georgia

Abstract

In given article the two prominent scholars from social sciences Rogers Brubaker’s and Sammy Smohas paradigms of understanding of post-communist nationalism and nation-building are discussed and analised on example of post-communist Georgian case.

The article argues that, the understanding of post-communist nation-building and nationality policies according to traditional strong dichotomy of ethnic and civic nations is only a partial vision of the process that in many cases ignores the mixing nature of such projects in reality.

Rogers Brubaker’s and Sanny Smoha’s leading concepts of “nationalizing state” and “ethnic democracy” have been the widespread approaches for understanding of post-communist nationality policies and nation-building in recent social scniences, which are truly effective in interpretation of many cases, but such insights often requires reconsiderations on the light of concrete case studies.

Post-communist Georgia is the good example of such view, where, along with other states of post-soviet space and broader Eastern Europe, ethno-cultural models prevails over civic on nationality issues, but it is only a demonstration of soviet heritage of social interaction of ethnic groups. According to Georgia Constitutional norms, formal codes or regulations, broadly understanding of “citoyen” has been purely based on civic-political rights and not on ethnic ties and dominance.