Institutional Determinants of Ethnic Inequality Reproduction

The article proposes a methodology for ethnic inequality research. Two groups of institutional mechanisms for the reproduction of inequality are singled out: formal (status ones) and informal (economic ones). On the basis of the analysis of social and cultural transformation of the first post-Soviet cycle, the assumption is made that Russian society at the present stage is entering the phase of a new interethnic fragmentation. The leading role of the status differences of languages of peoples of Russia and the regional disproportions of economic development in the reproduction of ethnic inequality is substantiated. 

Keywords: ethnic inequality, institutions, networks, fragmentation, integration, national policy, post-Soviet Russia, state languages, status differences, regional disproportions.