Republic-level elections incentivized nationalist separatism in collapsing Soviet and Yugoslav states

Evidence

As the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began to come apart, the elites in power did not organize national elections. If they had done so, political leaders would have competed for power at the center and might have attempted to develop multiethnic and multicivilizational appeals to the electorate and to put together similar majority coalitions in parliament. Instead, in both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia elections were first organized on a republic basis, which created the irresistible incentive for political leaders to campaign against the center, to appeal to ethnic nationalism, and to promote the independence of their republics. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 728

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the law-merchant reading on how institutional structure (unit of organization) shapes behavior, and to the earlier chapters on identity crystallization. — connects to: Great-power recognition signaling fueled violent ethnic mobilization in post-Communist Eurasia — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 786
• SEED: An essay angle: how electoral geography—the unit at which you hold the vote—determines whether politics runs to the center or the periphery, with applications to modern secession movements.