ABSTRACT

The breakup of the Soviet Union led to the creation of new states and territorial conflicts of different levels of intensity. Scrutinising the post‐Soviet period, this volume offers explanations for both the frequency and the intensity of crises in the region.

This book argues that the societies which emerged in the post-Soviet space share characteristic features, and that the instability and conflict-prone nature of the Soviet Union’s successor states can be explained by analysing the post-independence history of the region and linking it to the emergence of overlapping economic, political and violent crises (called 'Intersecting Crises Phenomena’). Transformation itself is shown to be a decisive process and, while acknowledging specific national and regional characteristics and differences, the authors demonstrate its shared impact. This comparison across countries and over time presents patterns of crisis and crisis management common to all the successor states. It disentangles the process, highlighting the multifaceted features of post-Soviet crises and draws upon the concept of crisis to determine the tipping points of post-Soviet development.

Especially useful for scholars and students dealing with the Soviet successor states, this book should also prove interesting to those researching in the fields of communist and post‐communist Studies, Eurasian politics, international relations and peace and conflict studies.

chapter 1|10 pages

Crises in the post-Soviet space 1

From the dissolution of the Soviet Union to an area of ‘intersecting crises phenomena’?

part I|62 pages

Mapping post-Soviet crises

part II|55 pages

Crises of belonging

chapter 5|18 pages

Creating the history of the future

Russian historical memory in the era of the Ukrainian crisis

chapter 6|15 pages

Ukraine

The dynamics of cross-cutting cleavages during quadruple transition

chapter 7|15 pages

Ethnic divides in the Baltic states

Political orientations after the Russian–Ukrainian crisis

part III|72 pages

Crises of resource accumulation

chapter 8|16 pages

Stability’s end

The political economy of Russia’s intersecting crises since 2009

chapter 9|14 pages

The making of Ukraine’s multilevel crisis

Transnational capitalism, neoliberal kleptocrats, and dispossession

chapter 10|17 pages

Ukraine’s frozen transformation

State capture, nationalising policies and shifting geopolitics

chapter 11|14 pages

Decline of the demos

Latvia, the face of New Europe and austerity’s return 1