Friday, March 14, 2014
Forum (Omni Shoreham)
What is the impact of identity as a variable in explaining regime change and what role identity plays during the regime change processes? While the concept of identity is widely used in social sciences, especially in the study of nationalism, ethnic conflict, and violence, in the field of democratization and regime change studies, collective identity, in general, and national identity, in particular, are missing variables. Instead, rational choice institutionalist, elite, and societal explanations predominate. This paper argues that the field of democratization and regime change studies will benefit from greater attention to the concept of collective identity. We will show that national identity is both a constrained choice and a choice that defines the goals political actors pursue and hence greater attention to collective identity and its construction is important in analyzing regime change events. Building on our previous work on the impact of identity on post-Soviet politics (Brudny and Finkel 2011; Finkel and Brudny 2012) the paper will consider the role identity in two regime change events: the period that followed the WWI and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989-91. The paper will discuss how the insights, derived from incorporating the concept of identity into the analysis of the post-WWI period helps us to better understand the political processes of 1989-91.
