The theory presented in this work's predecessor, Nation-Building and Ethnic Integration in Post-Soviet Societies: An Investigation of Latvia and Kazakhstan (1999), fails to explain why the Dniester war of 1992 broke out in Moldova while Estonia remained free of large- scale violence. Kolsto (Russian and East European area studies, U. of Oslo, Norway) presents six contributions that revisit the question of when ethnic strife is likely to break out after the removal of authoritarian government. After reviewing candidates for explanatory theories, four country studies explore the evidence and one contribution discusses the international setting. The final chapter compares theory to evidence and concludes that theories of resources and opportunities available to various groups are better predictors of violence than theories of grievances and relative discriminations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Religion has become increasingly important in the sociopolitical life of countries in the former Soviet Union. This volume of essays examines how religion affects conflict and stability in the region and provides recommendations to policymakers.

In May 1992 political and social tensions in the former Soviet Republic of Tajikistan escalated to a devastating civil war, which killed approximately 40,000-100,000 people and displaced more than one million. The enormous challenge of the Soviet Union’s disintegration compounded by inner-elite conflicts, ideological disputes and state failure triggered a downward spiral to one of the worst violent conflicts in the post-Soviet space. This book explains the causes of the Civil War in Tajikistan with a historical narrative recognizing long term structural causes of the conflict originating in the Soviet transformation of Central Asia since the 1920s as well as short-term causes triggered by Perestroika or Glasnost and the rapid dismantling of the Soviet Union. For the first time, a major publication on the Tajik Civil War addresses the many contested events, their sequences and how individuals and groups shaped the dynamics of events or responded to them. The book scrutinizes the role of regionalism, political Islam, masculinities and violent non-state actors in the momentous years between Perestroika and independence drawing on rich autobiographical accounts written by key actors of the unfolding conflict. Paired with complementary sources such as the media coverage and interviews, these autobiographies provide insights how Tajik politicians, field commanders and intellectuals perceived and rationalized the outbreak of the Civil War within the complex context of post-Soviet decolonization, Islamic revival and nationalist renaissance.

‘Development and Semi-periphery’ presents a collection of articles that focus on comparative analysis of development trajectories in the semi-peripheral countries of South America and Central Eastern Europe. As opposed to the transitology studies that were prevalent in the 1990s, and that treated the neoliberal context in these two regions separately, the articles in this book instead offer a new comparative analysis focusing on the consequences of neoliberal reforms and the new actors that deal with their results. The essays discuss the various forms of state that have unfolded in different peripheral countries, their role in the social engineering of economic models and social policies, and the impact of state capacities and ideas on institutional innovation. The volume also compares transformations in political culture, collective identities and contentious politics in both areas.

This book explores the transformation and reinvention of conflict-generated diaspora groups’ politics in countries of residence. Numerous narratives link diasporas and conflicts: diasporas are seen alternatively as peace wreckers or peace makers, as products of forced migration related to conflicts, or as targets of securitization policies. “Transported conflicts” occurring within and between diasporas in their countries of residence, however, remain relatively underexplored, tend to be misunderstood, and often associated with “criminal” or “terrorist” activities. The chapters in this volume draw our attention to various interconnected temporalities explaining patterns of conflict transportation, such as the temps long of diasporic mobilisation, the here and now of what is happening in both host and home countries, and micro-temporalities and diasporans’ life trajectories. Finally, the contributions demonstrate that patterns, shapes and even occurrence of conflict transportation vary according to scale and space. Highly politicized forms of confrontation are not necessarily representative of everyday interactions between diaspora groups, which can entail discrete but tangible forms of cooperation and even solidarity. This edited volume calls for nuancing our approach to the links between diasporas and conflicts, to avoid falling into the essentialisation trap. The chapters in this book were originally published in Ethnopolitics.

Contributors analyse the preconditions for and processes of nation-building, while the new element is the focus on values in the largest post-Soviet state, Russia.