Implementation of Russia's State Ethnic Policy at the Municipal Level in Differentiated Ethnocultural Local Communities (Experience of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia))

The solving of the problems of harmonizing interethnic relations and strengthening Russian identity is directly related to the organizing of the management of Russia's state nationality policy (RSNP) implementation at the municipal level. The analysis of the local self-government (LSG) management in the field of RSNP implementation is becoming very relevant, and the issue of determining LSG's main and secondary activities in the field of RSNP implementation is a primary task, which became the aim of the article. The article is based on the data of the author's expert survey “Features of the Implementation of the State National (Ethnic) Policy in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)”. The author used instrumentalist methodology, the theory of constructing social reality; in parallel, the existence of the relationship between culture, institutional processes, and social development is recognized. In view of the small number of domestic publications on the RSNP implementation at the local level, the author used works of R. Valiev, S. Minyurova about Sverdlovsk Oblast. The LSG of the national republic organizes activities for RSNP implementation very inertly. The author has found that, in practice, the specifics of the ethnic structure, the probability of interethnic interaction and people's immersion in a different environment are poorly taken into account. It would seem that the national character of the region actualizes work on harmonizing interethnic relations; nevertheless, it is not a priority for most of Yakutia's LSG, as well as for municipal authorities of other Russian regions, such as Sverdlovsk Oblast. At the same time, there is a certain dependence between LSG's activities and the importance of the problems associated with the rights of the indigenous peoples of the North. The territories of the minority peoples' predominant residence, in their practice, use means to support native languages and the traditional way of life more often and more actively. The comparative analysis of the experience of Yakutia and Sverdlovsk Oblast showed identical problems in RSNP implementing at the local level: weak interest in solving issues in the field of interethnic interaction; lack of integration with scientific institutions; weak horizontal and vertical interconnection in organizing the exchange of experience; a narrow range of mechanisms for harmonizing interethnic relations and strengthening unity. The limited financial and human resources of local authorities make the search for new forms of work, the importance of research, and the active development of digital technologies urgent. In general, the study and its results emphasize that, if the regional and federal levels have formed the basics of work in the field of RSNP, the local government remains aloof from the process of strengthening civic identity, ethnocultural diversity and interethnic relations.

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