New States, New Politics

Book excerpt: Since its publication in 1993, Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor-States edited by Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras has established itself internationally as the genuinely comprehensive, systematic and rigorous analysis of the nation- and state-building processes of the fifteen states that grew out of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations was first published in 1997 and succeeds and replaces the editors' earlier book with a fresh collection of specially commissioned studies from the world's foremost specialists. Far from eradicating tensions among the former Soviet peoples, the disintegration of empire saw national minorities rediscovering long-suppressed identities. The contributors to New States, New Politics bring together historical and ethnic backgrounds with penetrating political analysis to offer an intriguing record of the different roads to self-assertion and independence being pursued by these young nations.