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Stable Outside, Fragile Inside?
In the wake of Soviet disintegration, Central Asia became an idiom for the ensuing confusion in the post-Cold War climate of international affairs, characterized by inter-state order and intra-state anarchy. Dynamic changes associated with the end of communism, the 'revival' of ethnic, religious and clan mobilization and the gradual involvement of various international actors, have inspired extensive scholarly and policy engagement with the region. Yet most analyses fail to bring Central Asia into the mainstream of systematic interrogation. This timely volume analyzes the quality of statehood in the region by assessing the complex dynamics of Central Asian state-making and focusing on the simultaneous patterns of socialization and internalization in the region. It straddles four different bodies of literature and addresses the systematic lacunae in all of them to investigate the localization effects of Russia, China, the EU and NATO on forms of post-Soviet statehood in Central Asia - placing Central Asia in the study and practice of world politics.
State Erosion
State failure is a central challenge to international peace and security in the post-Cold War era. Yet theorizing on the causes of state failure remains surprisingly limited. In State Erosion, Lawrence P. Markowitz draws on his extensive fieldwork in two Central Asian republics—Tajikistan, where state institutions fragmented into a five-year civil war from 1992 through 1997, and Uzbekistan, which constructed one of the largest state security apparatuses in post-Soviet Eurasia—to advance a theory of state failure focused on unlootable resources, rent seeking, and unruly elites.In Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and other countries with low capital mobility—where resources cannot be extracted, c...
Tajikistan
This book is a historical study of the Tajiks in Central Asia from the ancient times to the post-Soviet period. For millennia, these descendants of the original Aryan settlers were part of many different empires set up by Greek, Arab, Turkic and Russian invaders, as well as their own, most notably during the Middle Ages. The emergence of the modern state of Tajikistan began after 1917 under Soviet rule, and culminated in the promulgation of independence from the moribund USSR in 1991. In the subsequent civil war that raged between 1992 and 1997, Tajikistan came close to becoming a failed state. The legacy of that internal conflict remains critical to understanding politics in Tajikistan a ge...
The Handbook of Asian Intelligence Cultures
As Asia increases in economic and geopolitical significance, it is necessary to better understand the region’s intelligence cultures. The Handbook of Asian Intelligence Cultures explores the historical and contemporary influences that have shaped Asian intelligence cultures as well as the impact intelligence service have had on domestic and foreign affairs. In examining thirty Asian countries, it considers the roles, practices, norms and oversight of Asia’s intelligence services, including the ends to which intelligence tools are applied. The book argues that there is no archetype of Asian intelligence culture due to the diversity of history, government type and society found in Asia. Rather, it demonstrates how Asian nations’ histories, cultures and governments play vital roles in intelligence cultures. This book is a valuable study for scholars of intelligence and security services in Asia, shedding light on understudied countries and identifying opportunities for future scholarship.
Countries at the Crossroads
Travel to criminal underworld of eighteenth-century London in this start to a trilogy that Entertainment Weekly" calls "a rollicking historical adventure." The year is 1763. Gideon Seymour, thief and gentleman, is hiding from the villainous Tar Man. Suddenly the sky peels away like fabric, and from the gaping hole fall two curious-looking children. Peter Schock and Kate Dyer have fallen straight from the twenty-first century, thanks to a faulty experiment with an antigravity machine. Before Gideon and the children have a chance to gather their wits, the Tar Man takes off with the machine--and Peter and Kate's only chance of getting home. Soon Gideon, Peter, and Kate are swept into a journey through the dangerous underworld of eighteenth-century London, traveling the routes of notorious highwaymen and even entering King George's palace. And along they way they form a bond that, they hope, will stand strong in the face of unfathomable treachery. Filled with adventure, intrigue, and plenty of twists and turns, this start to a trilogy is written by a history scholar and wordsmith who makes the extraordinary believable, and will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Politicizing Islam in Central Asia
A sweeping history of Islamism in Central Asia from the Russian Revolution to the present through Soviet-era archival documents, oral histories, and a trove of interviews and focus groups. Few observers anticipated a surge of Islamism in Central Asia, after seventy years of forced communist atheism. Muslims do not inevitably support Islamism, a modern political ideology of Islam. Yet, Islamism became the dominant form of political opposition in post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In Politicizing Islam in Central Asia, Kathleen Collins explores the causes, dynamics, and variation in Islamist movements-first within the USSR, and then in the post-Soviet states of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and ...
Webs of Corruption
Webs of Corruption is an innovative study demonstrating that terrorist and criminal activity intersect more narrowly than is widely believed. Mariya Y. Omelicheva and Lawrence P. Markowitz analyze the links between the drug trade and terror financing in Central Asia, finding that state security services shape the nexus of trafficking and terrorism.
Persuading the Public
In Persuading the Public, Anne Pluta rethinks the established narrative of presidential communication and offers a bold new way of thinking about how presidents have reached the American public. Most presidential scholars claim that the “rhetorical presidency,” in which presidents seek to engage directly with the public and appeal to the nation as the basis for governance, emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, shifting away from the constitutional norms of the nineteenth century when presidential communication was purely ceremonial and exceedingly rare. Pluta challenges this head-on by arguing that even the earliest presidents understood their unique relationship with the public ...
Polygynous Marriages among the Kyrgyz
During Soviet rule, the state all but imposed atheism on the primarily Islamic people of Kyrgyzstan and limited the tradition of polygyny—a form of polygamy in which one man has multiple wives. Polygyny did continue under communism, though chiefly under concealment. In the decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, the practice has reemerged. Based on extensive fieldwork, Polygynous Marriages among the Kyrgyz argues that this marriage practice has become socially acceptable and widely dispersed not only because it is rooted in customary law and Islamic practice, but because it can also enable men and women to meet societal expectations and solve practical economic problems that resulted from the fall of the Soviet Union. Michele E. Commercio’s analysis suggests the normalization of polygyny among the Kyrgyz in contemporary Kyrgyzstan is due both to institutional change in the form of altered governmental rules and expectations and to institutional endurance in the form of persistent hegemonic constructions of gender.
