Nation-building as a process is never complete and issues related to identity, nation, state and regime-building are recurrent in the post-Soviet region. This comparative, inter-disciplinary volume explores how nation-building tools emerged and evolved over the last twenty years. Featuring in-depth case studies from countries throughout the post-Soviet space it compares various aspects of nation-building and identity formation projects. Approaching the issue from a variety of disciplines, and geographical areas, contributors illustrate chapter by chapter how different state and non-state actors utilise traditional instruments of nation-construction in new ways while also developing non-traditional tools and strategies to provide a contemporary account of how nation-formation efforts evolve and diverge.

This book examines how national and ethnic identities are being reforged in the post-Soviet borderland states.

The collapse of the Soviet Union famously opened new venues for the theories of nationalism and the study of processes and actors involved in these new nation-building processes. In this comparative study, Kudaibergenova takes the new states and nations of Eurasia that emerged in 1991, Latvia and Kazakhstan, and seeks to better understand the phenomenon of post-Soviet states tapping into nationalism to build legitimacy. What explains this difference in approaching nation-building after the collapse of the Soviet Union? What can a study of two very different trajectories of development tell us about the nature of power, state and nationalizing regimes of the ‘new’ states of Eurasia? Toward Nationalizing Regimes finds surprising similarities in two such apparently different countries—one “western” and democratic, the other “eastern” and dictatorial.

A fresh look at post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia and at the Soviet historical background that shaped the present.

"Controversial, entertaining and alarmingly topical ... a delight to read."Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph

The USSR’s dissolution resulted in the creation of not only fifteen recognized states but also of four non-recognized statelets: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria. Their polities comprise networks with state-like elements. Since the early 1990s, the four pseudo-states have been continously dependent on their sponsor countries (Russia, Armenia), and contesting the territorial integrity of their parental nation-states Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. In 2014, the outburst of Russia-backed separatism in Eastern Ukraine led to the creation of two more para-states, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), whose leaders used the experience of older de facto states. In 2020, this growing network of de facto states counted an overall population of more than 4 million people. The essays collected in this volume address such questions as: How do post-Soviet de facto states survive and continue to grow? Is there anything specific about the political ecology of Eastern Europe that provides secessionism with the possibility to launch state-making processes in spite of international sanctions and counteractions of their parental states? How do secessionist movements become embedded in wider networks of separatism in Eastern and Western Europe? What is the impact of secessionism and war on the parental states? The contributors are Jan Claas Behrends, Petra Colmorgen, Bruno Coppieters, Nataliia Kasianenko, Alice Lackner, Mikhail Minakov, and Gwendolyn Sasse.

This book discusses the ideological and historical relevance of the term ‘Eurasia’ as a concept in the global geopolitical and ethno-cultural discourse. It focuses on the contested meanings attached to the idea and traces its historical evolution and interpretations. The volume examines the contours and characteristics of power politics in the Eurasian landscape by exploring the dynamics of the contending and competing interests that have come to occupy the region, particularly in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It further examines the multiple narratives that define the socio-political realities of the region and also the policies of the state actors involved, by reflecting upon the multifaceted dimensions of the Eurasian issues. These include nation building strategies, identity, ethnic conflicts, security, democratization, globalization, international migration, climate change and energy extraction. The geopolitical and civilizational aspects of Eurasianism, in which Russia occupies a pivotal geo-political place creates both opportunities and anxieties for other stakeholders in the region. The book also holistically analyses the developmental dimensions of the post-Soviet space and ‘Eurasianism’ as a concept and political practice in domestic, regional and global affairs. The book also analyses the developmental dimensions of the post-Soviet space and ‘Eurasianism’ as a concept and political practice in domestic, regional and global affairs.