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Death by Demography? 1979 as a Turning Point in the Disintegration of the Soviet Union

Death by Demography? 1979 as a Turning Point in the Disintegration of the Soviet Union. Professor Monica Duffy Toft First International Conference on Political Demography and Social Macro-Dynamics Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow

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Death by Demography? 1979 as a Turning Point in the Disintegration of the Soviet Union

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  1. Death by Demography?1979 as a Turning Point in the Disintegration of the Soviet Union Professor Monica Duffy Toft First International Conference on Political Demography and Social Macro-Dynamics Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow December 13–14, 2013

  2. Outline • Background • Argument • Implications

  3. Research on Demography and Ethnic Relations • Seek to understand: • The conditions under which demography shapes national security • Domestic level • Regional level • International level

  4. Why should we care? • Explaining the collapse of one of the largest and more powerful states historically • Most analysis focuses on narrow issues • This analysis shows that you need a proper understanding of domestic, regional and global concerns • What we can learn from this case can help us to understand other historical cases

  5. Argument: Convergence of Three Events in 1979 • Census • Insurgency in Afghanistan • Revolution in Iran

  6. 1979 Soviet Census • Revealed two important developments in the make up the population of the Soviet Union: • Slavic populations were declining, particularly among males • Muslims in Central Asia were largely responsible for population growth—three to four times higher—and mostly in rural areas

  7. Civil War in Afghanistan • Created concerns of a domino effect in demonstrating a failure to support communist allies • Such concerns were intensified by the make-up of the opposition—Islamist insurgents, who were seen as natural allies and potentially destabilizing to the Union’s peripheral population

  8. Revolution in Iran • Revolutionary regime based in Islam • Committed to exporting its revolutionary ideas • Equated the Soviet Union with the United States as “satanic powers” • Seen as a threat to Soviet southern periphery population by Muslims

  9. Implications • Demography can be a critical feature in informing key strategic decisions in a state • Understanding the centrality of demography —for a state that was highly bureaucratic and technocratic—helps to explain why it reacted the way it did to the civil war in Afghanistan and revolution in Iran • Theories that stress only external dynamics or economics miss critical internal social and political dynamics that may better explain the play of events, and perhaps death of state

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