Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State

✍ Scribed by Mark R. Beissinger

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 522
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This study examines the process by which the seemingly impossible in 1987--the disintegration of the Soviet state--became the seemingly inevitable by 1991. It provides an original interpretation of not only the Soviet collapse, but also of the phenomenon of nationalism more generally. Probing the role of nationalist action as both cause and effect, Beissinger utilizes extensive event data and detailed case studies from across the U.S.S.R. during its final years to elicit the shifting relationship between pre-existing structural conditions, institutional constraints, and event-generated influences in the massive nationalist explosions that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

✦ Table of Contents

Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
Illustrations......Page 11
Tables......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 15
1 From the Impossible to the Inevitable......Page 19
Structural Facilitation, Institutional Constraint, and Contentious Event......Page 30
Order, Event, and Tides of Nationalism......Page 36
Plan of the Book and Summary of the Arguments......Page 52
Research Strategies and Evidence......Page 59
2 The Tide of Nationalism and the Mobilizational Cycle......Page 65
Historical Background......Page 67
From Institutions to the Streets......Page 75
Defining a Tide Within a Cycle......Page 87
The Diffusion and Normalization of Contention......Page 97
The Mobilizational Effect on Institutions......Page 110
Summary and Conclusion......Page 119
3 Structuring Nationalism......Page 121
Nationalism in Time......Page 122
Nationalism in Space......Page 125
Nationalism in Space-Time (I): The Temporal Spread of Nationalist Contention......Page 141
Nationalism in Space-Time (II): The Systematic Effects of Event-Specific Processes......Page 147
Summary and Conclusion......Page 163
4 “Thickened” History and the Mobilization of Identity......Page 165
The Mobilization of Identity as Political Process......Page 168
Secessionist Mobilization within the Glasnost’ Tide of Nationalism......Page 177
Baltic Nationalisms and the Politics of Emboldening and Persuasion......Page 184
Emulation, Emboldening, Repulsion: The Rise of Georgian Separatism......Page 196
The Gradual Emergence of a Secessionist Consciousness Among Armenians......Page 204
Riding a Mobilizational Tide: The Ukrainian National Revolution......Page 208
Summary and Conclusion......Page 216
5 Tides and the Failure of Nationalist Mobilization......Page 218
Conceptualizing Outcomes Within a Tide of Nationalism......Page 220
The Structural Underpinnings of Failures of Action......Page 226
Exploring Anomalous Cases......Page 240
Tide and Structure in Time and Space......Page 251
Tides, Structure, and Failures of Mobilizational Effect......Page 255
Tides and the Strategic Appropriation of Nationalism......Page 270
Summary and Conclusion......Page 287
6 Violence and Tides of Nationalism......Page 289
The Limits of Structural Explanations of Mobilized Nationalist Violence......Page 294
Tides, the Institutionalization of Mobilization, and Nationalist Violence......Page 302
The State and the Origin of Waves of Nationalist Violence......Page 311
From Mobilized to Organized and Sustained Violence......Page 323
Summary and Conclusion......Page 335
7 The Transcendence of Regimes of Repression......Page 338
The Brezhnevian Regime of Repression......Page 348
Glasnost’ and the Legal Regulation of Revolt......Page 352
First Attempts to Reestablish Order......Page 360
The “Tbilisi Syndrome”......Page 365
The Shifting Mobilization/Repression Relationship......Page 372
Why Severe Force Was Not Seriously Contemplated......Page 384
Why Force Could Not Have Saved the USSR......Page 389
Summary and Conclusion......Page 401
8 Russian Mobilization and the Accumulating “Inevitability” of Soviet Collapse......Page 403
Russians and the Tide of Nationalism......Page 408
From the Streets to Dvoevlastie......Page 419
The Accumulating “Inevitability” of Disintegration......Page 434
The Denouement......Page 443
The Termination of the Soviet State......Page 448
Summary and Conclusion......Page 459
9 Conclusion: Nationhood and Event......Page 461
Appendix I Procedures for Applying Event Analysis to the Study of Soviet Protest in the Glasnost’ Era......Page 478
Appendix II Sources for the Compilation of Event Data in a Revolutionary Context......Page 490
Western News Sources and Publications......Page 499
Official Soviet or Post-Soviet News Sources and Publications......Page 500
Émigré News Sources and Publications......Page 501
Unofficial Soviet, or Post-Soviet, News Sources and Publications......Page 502
Index......Page 507