Scientists in Moscow discuss reasons and consequences of conflicts in Northern Caucasus

On January 20, in Moscow, at the roundtable "Northern Caucasus in Context of Federalism", economists, political scientists and regional representatives discussed the reasons and consequences of major conflicts in the regions of Northern Caucasus.

The main reports were made by Irina Starodubrovskaya, the head of the scientific direction "Political Economy and Regional Development" of the E. T. Gaidar Economic Policy Institute, and Denis Sokolov, the head of the Centre for Regional Studies RAMCOM.

Among the factors contributing to onset of conflicts in Northern Caucasus, the speakers mentioned the scattered demographic population growth and migration processes within the republics, distribution of federal subsidies and, as mentioned in the reports, "degradation of the system of state-building" in Russia.

Ms Starodubrovskaya has especially highlighted the problem of competition of ideologies – the national and religious ones. "In conditions, when the existing state order operates badly enough, it is opposed by the state-building concept based on the principles 'from God'," she said.

Mr Sokolov presented the results of researches of the conflicts that took place in the Stavropol Territory.

"All the interethnic conflicts in the Stavropol Territory did not start as interethnic ones. They began because of loss of land resources, both by the local population and by migrants," said Sokolov.

In his opinion, the economic space of villagers, regardless of their nationality, is shrinking because of large agricultural holdings.

As a solution to all the problems identified at the roundtable, the speakers suggested to conduct a land reform, to support the "bottom-up modernization", to create the cadre pool, to strengthen the negotiating process with the followers of radical viewpoints with participation of federal-level government officials; and in the long term – to accept a possibility of establishment of Islamic parties in the republics of Northern Caucasus.