Introduction

Drawing on a critical discussion of Wendt and others as a key starting point, this framing chapter reintroduces identity as a multidimensional factor informing state behaviour and, as such, develops a case – including by integrating constructivist nationalism scholarship with International Relations constructivism – for a single conceptual platform upon which exogenous and endogenous channels of state socialisation in post-Soviet Central Eurasia could be examined and studied in synchronisation. The chapter concludes by outlining the ways in which the case studies to follow in the collection build upon, and further expand, the research agenda it stands to frame.