backing the ussr 2.0trols key resources. Formal models show that this propensity for
minority coalitions is enhanced by the ethnic minorities’ sense of
vulnerability to the divide- and- rule policies of the ethnic major-
ity government (Lichbach 1995; Lichbach and Weerasinghe
2007). This logic applies particularly in centralised ethnic major-
ity political systems where the centre becomes the object of
ethnic group competition (Horowitz 1985). It is not necessarily
that minorities would form durable, institutionalised coalitions,
but they would compete harder against the ethnic majority and
form instrumental issue- based intergroup alliances. The reason-
ing here would resemble the logic of mobilise- more- against- the-
leader – as observed in sports when teams play harder against
higher ranked opponents than against similarly or lower ranked
opponents.
The constructivist/social identity approach also begets mutu-
ally exclusive predictions regarding putative minority support
for Russia’s expansion to some form of either a Slavic Union or
a ‘USSR 2.0’. The logic of intergroup bias is that ingroup pride
begets outgroup prejudice, intolerance and hostility (Tajfel 1970;
Tajfel and Turner 1986; Postmes and Branscombe 2010). This is
the logic of ethno- centrism (Levine and Campbell 1972). Faced
with increasing majority ethno- centrism, minorities would have
stronger fears about their identity security (Seul 1999) or even
survival (Waever et al. 1993; Theiler 2003). Thus, the symbolic
enhancement of an already dominant outgroup position under
a Slavic Union scenario – as with Putin’s ethnocentric emphasis
on ethnic Russian culture as the ‘core and the binding fabric’
of the Russian state – would also heighten the sense of threat
among Russia’s ethnic minorities to their identity security. If so,
we would expect ethnic minorities to oppose expansionist ethnic
majority nationalism.
And yet, in the case of Russia’s expansion, the same social
identity logic may also mitigate the majority–minority intergroup
bias. In social psychology, the sense that the heterogeneity of
one’s group decreases relative to others has been linked to a
diminishing sense of outgroup threat (Falomir- Pichastor and
Frederic 2013; Ommundsen et al. 2013). Minority groups may
view the territorial expansion of their state as potentially diluting