The final chapter relates the evolution of these conflicting loyalties to the global weakening of the nation-state, and distinguishes what is particular to the Soviet state and its demise from more significant questions of analytical importance posed by the collapse of a major contemporary multi-national state.

Political Loyalty and the Nation-State examines the gradual weakening of the state's ability to order the political allegiances of its subjects. At the focal centre of the book lies the question of the extent to which it is possible to invest political principles, such as the rules and procedures of democracy, with a sentiment of loyalty and whether political loyalty can become merely a matter of choice and personal responsibility. The authors consider theoretical issues, problems of loyalty arising from population movement and case studies of conflicts of loyalty from Italy, Northern Ireland, and Russia. It is shown that loyalty can become decoupled from state, territory and nation; that loyalties can be multiple; and that today's loyalties reflect advanced attitudes towards difference.

Commonwealth and Independence in Post-Soviet Eurasia (1998) examines the various attempts to create new forms of integration by the new states of Eurasia. The contributors to this volume analyse in detail how the national elites in the independent states conceived their regional policies. It looks in particular at the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States, feared by many of the newly-independent nations as being the Soviet Union Mark II.

This pathbreaking study brings together international experts to consider security issues and the experience and potential for cooperation in the subregions of the former Soviet Union. Appendices to the volume provide maps, a guide to acronyms, profiles of existing subregional organizations, and a chronology of cooperative agreements signed in the region since 1991.

The war in Georgia. Tensions with Ukraine and other nearby countries. Moscow's bid to consolidate its "zone of privileged interests" among the Commonwealth of Independent States. These volatile situations all raise questions about the nature of and prospects for Russia's relations with its neighbors. In this book, Carnegie scholar Dmitri Trenin argues that Moscow needs to drop the notion of creating an exclusive power center out of the post-Soviet space. Like other former European empires, Russia will need to reinvent itself as a global player and as part of a wider community. Trenin's vision of Russia is an open Euro-Pacific country that is savvy in its use of soft power and fully reconciled with its former borderlands and dependents. He acknowledges that this scenario may sound too optimistic but warns that the alternative is not a new version of the historic empire but instead is the ultimate marginalization of Russia.

Research by social scientists on multicultural and multilingual post-Soviet societies is manifold. However, there rarely exists a dialogue between academic fields, traditions and ideologies. This book critically reunites different academic generations and traditions, different disciplines, and different geographical and cultural backgrounds by keeping the plurality of the approaches. The contributions discuss the roles of ideologies, education, and ethnic, linguistic, and religious identities in the post-Soviet nation-building processes. The included case studies show continuities and discontinuities in the ideological and political aspects of nation-building and identity management in post-Soviet societies. (Series: Freiburg Studies in Social Anthropology / Freiburger Sozialanthropologische Studien, Vol. 47) [Subject: Social Anthropology, Sociology, Politics, Soviet Union]

Special Sections: Russian Foreign Policy Towards the “Near Abroad” and Russia's Annexiation of Crimea II This special section deals with Russia’s post-Maidan foreign policy towards the so-called “near abroad,” or the former Soviet states. This is an important and timely topic, as Russia’s policy perspectives have changed dramatically since 2013/2014, as have those of its neighbors. The Kremlin today is paradoxically following an aggressive “realist” agenda that seeks to clearly delineate its sphere of influence in Europe and Eurasia while simultaneously attempting to promote “soft-power” and a historical-civilizational justification for its recent actions in Ukraine (and elsewhere). The result is an often perplexing amalgam of policy positions that are difficult to disentangle. The contributors to this special issue are all regional specialists based either in Europe or the United States.

The book provides a critical analysis of why peace has been consolidated in Tajikistan, and what role international peacebuilding has had in this. It will be of interest to academics working on Peace Studies, International Relations and Central Asian Studies.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Building on earlier work, this text combines theoretical perspectives with empirical work, to provide a comparative analysis of the electoral systems, party systems and governmental systems in the ethnic republics and regions of Russia. It also assesses the impact of these different institutional arrangements on democratization and federalism, moving the focus of research from the national level to the vitally important processes of institution building and democratization at the local level and to the study of federalism in Russia.

When the five Central Asian republics gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, expectations of violent conflict were widespread. Indeed, the country of Tajikistan suffered a five-year civil war from 1992 to 1997. The factors that the literature on civil wars in general and on the Tajikistan civil war in particular cites as the causes of war were also present in Uzbekistan – but this country had a peaceful transition. Examining this empirical puzzle by isolating the crucial factors that caused war to break out in Tajikistan but not Uzbekistan, this book applies a powerful comparative approach to the broader question of why civil wars occur. Based on fieldwork in both countries, it challenges many common explanations of civil war both generally and in Tajikistan in particular. This includes highlighting the importance of elites’ power perceptions, which have their origins in the interaction of structural-, process-, and network-related variables. Without examining these interactions, macro-structural explanations alone cannot explain the occurrence of civil war in one country and its absence in another. Applying the insights of bargaining theories of war from the literature on international relations to the civil war in Tajikistan, this book will be of interest to students of violent conflict, civil wars, Central Asia and Asian Politics.