Nation Building in Central Asia: Legacies, Identities, and Institutions

Nation-Building in Central Asia: Legacies, Identities, and Institutions

As part of a wider strategy to expand its research boundaries to areas east of the Middle East, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) launched a new research project to examine some of the central questions relating to nation-building processes as they have unfolded in Central Asia. A foundational underpinning to this research effort is an interest in examining how the Central Asian states have navigated their early dilemmas, what their path towards nation building over the past thirty years has been like, and what the consequences for particular strategies adopted for the different states have been. Among other things, through this project CIRS hoped to broaden and deepen academic understanding of how these young states launched efforts to build their unified, modern nations, in what ways they have managed to establish political and social cohesion, and how they have engaged in the processes of administrative and institutional consolidation.

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Background and Scope of the Project

For many, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was viewed as a positive event, and one which in essence would unshackle millions of people and multiple communities that…
Working Group Meetings

Working Group Meetings

Click here to read about Nation-Building in Central Asia Working Group I Click here to read about Nation-Building in Central Asia Working Group II As part of its Research and Scholarship initiatives,…
Publication

Publication

To cite this publication: Mehran Kamrava, guest ed., “Nation-Building in Central Asia,” CIRS Special Issue of The Muslim World 110, no. 1 (December 2019). As separate political entities, the Central…