Changes in official language policies and the trajectories of nation building in post-Soviet republics

Only a handful of currently spoken languages receive some form of legal recognition in state institutions around the world. Such recognition, which may or may not reflect sociolinguistic reality, is predicated on a complex constellation of factors. A symbolic link between languages and group identities and its implications for nation-building feature prominently among them. On the one hand, this makes official language policy choices highly contestable. On the other, once adopted, such policy choices remain "sticky" and difficult to change. What conditions then make official language policy change possible? This dissertation elaborates on the necessary combination of factors that affect the direction and timing of such policy changes. The design of the research is based on the combination of cross-country and within-case historical comparison, which explains the changes of official language policies or the lack thereof by addressing the empirical puzzle of policy divergence in three post-Soviet republics: Belarus, Ukraine and Latvia. These three countries chose similar official language policies at the time of obtaining independence, and two of them (Belarus and Latvia) changed their policies during the first decade of independent nation-building. The findings of the research indicate that changes in official language policies take place when realignments within elite groups dramatically altered policy-relevant resources of different language policy advocacy coalitions. The findings also demonstrate the constraining effects of the dominant discourse on nationhood and understanding of nation on elite preferences and feasible policy options.