Cooperation, Compromise, or Conflict: Three Models of Center-Regional Bargaining in Ethnofederal States.

This paper compares bargaining between the center and minority regions since 1991 in four postcommunist ethnofederal states: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia and Serbia-Montenegro. Two factors emerge as critical in explaining whether minority leaders accept the status quo, demand significant autonomy, or try to leave the state. The first is whether minorities have access to weaponry, and the second, which has considerable explanatory power, is the outcome of struggles for political power within the region. Where the communists maintain power, minority leaders request at most limited change, and center-periphery relations are peaceful. Where the communists win over a strong nationalist opposition, the result is compromise. Here, minority leaders demand and win significant economic, political and cultural autonomy, and the region remains within the state. Finally, where the nationalists defeat the communists, minority leaders try to secede from the state, and the center uses violence to stop them. If cooperation describes the first dynamic and compromise the second, the third is conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]