Regional Political, Institutional, and Ethnopolitical Processes in the Republic of Tyva

Abstract

The article introduces the problems of political, institutional, and ethnopolitical processes using the case of the Republic of Tyva. The research featured latent and low-formalized structures that affect the regional political regime and political processes in Russian regions. The research objective was to analyze the influence of such latent structures of power and administration on the regional political regime in the Republic of Tyva. As a general methodological principle, the authors used the polyparadigmatic approach, as well as neo-institutional and poststructuralist methodology. The authors performed a quantitative and qualitative political analysis of five research projects based on questionnaires (2016–2020). The projects belonged to the Department of Applied Sociology and Political Science of the Tyva Institute of Humanitarian and Applied Socio-Economic Research. The analysis also included 23 in-depth expert surveys from 16 focus groups conducted in all areas of the republic. Formal institutions in ethno-national regions of Russia turned out to be incongruous to the modernization processes. They proved to have been replaced by clientele and parantella patterns, where institutional relations are just a by-product of money distribution among the dominant interest groups. However, the authors believe that Sh. V. Kara-ool managed to stabilize internal ethnopolitical processes in the Tyva Republic. The research results can help improve local policy in ethnic regions.