Lots of words have been spilled on this Crimea thing, and so it is reasonable to ask whether our opposition to Crimean self-determination might be more about our feelings about Russia than about secession/irredentism.
Chris Blattman asked:
Bleg: Someone please explain to me why I should accept that the annexation of Crimea is a terrible thing https://t.co/Op7T0aNN7T
— Chris Blattman (@cblatts) March 20, 2014
It raises a legitimate question: shouldn’t people be allowed to choose their destinies? Shouldn’t folks be allowed to engage in self-determination? I responded with heaps of tweets, but let me summarize my twittering here.
It is really hard to ignore the process. That is, the way this thing was conducted taints it entirely–sham referendum, held as a pop quiz, at gun point, with much fraud. Putting that aside, the general argument that I follow is that secession is something that is a last resort (there is a vast literature on the morality of secession–see Allen Buchanan and Margaret Moore). Massive political change has lots of consequences so we should save it for when other solutions have been ruled out. Part of this is because if Crimea gets to change its boundaries, what about groups within Crimea? Quebec is facing that discussion right now–if it secedes, what about the Anglophones of various parts of Quebec? What about the First Nations? Part of this is that democracy only works if those who lose accept losing.
The problem with Ukraine/Crimea/Russia is that the political changes in Kyiv were just a few weeks ago. If the concern is that the new Ukraine government might repress Russians in Crimea, then the first step is to try to encourage the government to restrain itself, to develop new institutions that give Crimea more autonomy and all the other tools in the ethnic conflict management tool box. When the Baltics became independent, they promised new policies that would be harmful to the Russians living there–mostly language laws that would restrict rights. A bunch of international organizations, including the EU, NATO, and OSCE jumped on them to encourage more moderate policies. Things are not perfect in these places, but they are better than what people initially feared.
So, the really big problem with the Crimean situation and Russia’s handling of Ukraine in general is that not enough time has passed to figure out what is likely to happen, for outsiders to pressure, and so on. What separates Kosovo and South Sudan from Crimea is that the former experienced decades of repression, where the host governments of Serbia and Sudan broke many promises despite facing significant international pressure. It is not just that these government repressed, but that they repressed for a long time despite much pressure. Kosovars and South Sudanese had few tools left to improve their condition besides secession. Crimean Russians? None of the usual tools had a chance to work yet.
You don’t have to hate or fear Russia to find the Crimean situation play out in bad ways. Should there be a high bar for secession? Yes. Even higher for irredentism since irredentism usually implies war (the country losing the territory usually gives it up only after a fight).
This does not exactly answer the title of your post: “Are We Russophobes?” If by ‘we’ (not sure who you mean there) you mean Americans/IR theorists then the answer is clearly yes: whatever the wisdom or not of Crimea, the coverage/analysis of it is heavily skewed by an anti-Russian bent. Nothing you say above would not apply in Iraq (sham elections, ya), IR theorists randomly supporting the division of the country, etc., etc. The point is that whatever the wisdom of Russia’s actions, they are being condemned largely for being Russian/for Putin being there. More subtle analyses (like yours) are lacking: so yes ‘we’ have proved to be Russophobes.
Russophobe is a silly term imo, more likely that *as a generalisation* political scientists are ‘non democracy phobes’ (ie they dont think countries without strong representative governments can act legitmately)
Ignoring the problematical nature of any self-defined ‘science’ (leaving aside the nonsense of defining itself thus) having such biases, this argument puts aside the fact that the U.S. is hardly a model democracy (legalising torture, assassinating its own citizens, Bush not actually being elected first time round, etc.), and thus one cannot say that the discipline is biased against Russia solely because of its democratic failings.
I am indifferent to the arguments over the merits of the ‘science’ in political science. Obviously cognitive dissonance also affects ‘scientists’, so someone could quite easily instinctively oppose the actions of non democracies while living in a non perfect democracy. There are also different seasons of this stuff ie the US is still a ‘better’ democracy than Russia. There are also a million other reasons that the US ‘not being a model democracy’ doesnt negate my point. (which I dont think is a particularly good point, tbh, but your response aint convincing and is primarily rhetoric/irrelevant)
Interestingly, PS/IR here is equated with “ones own country” (read: the USA), which is beyond problematic and the cognitive dissonance affecting other disciplines. It is outright bias. The idea that the U.S. is morally or institutionally superior to Russia is based on ideology, not fact. If you want to check that do a simple straw poll around the world and note how many people think the U.S. is a far more dangerous entity than Russia. Also, the U.S. may be a better democracy than Russia internally but external Russian behaviour has always been far superior to external U.S. behaviour: Political Scientists should, in other words, avoid blatant hypocrisy.
When Georgia became independent it threw out a considerable part of its minorities and they have never been able to come back. And just as with the Serbs in Kosovo no international body has been really concerned about that.
I think the main symptom of Russophobia is the lack of will to see things from the Russian perspective. Crimea might have become part of Russia in 1991 if it hadn’t been for US pressure. The regime change in Kiev is seen as a US led coup. Despite all the demonization in the US Yanukovich’s regime was not worse or more corrupt than his predecessors. Yanukovich rejected the EU deal for a very good reason: it was a bad deal and he could get better from Russia. Those EU and US leaders cheering the insurgents on the Maidan were in clear violation of international law regarding non-interference (not to mention Victoria Nuland).
It may take many years before we will hear the true story of why Putin annexed Crimea. My guess is that he saw serious signs that his navy agreement on Crimea was about to be cancelled – on the instigation of the US. For who thinks that unlikely: consider that Ukraine is also blocking its border with Transdniester. Another motive may have been to cool down the hotheads in Kiev.
Finally there is the question of the democratic content of the new Ukraine. Lots of people have been fired, arrested or house arrested by the revolutionaries, but the Western media stay largely silent on that aspect. This context makes it also unlikely that the coming presidential elections will be fair.