Paradox of Power ─ The Logics of State Weakness in Eurasia

"State weakness" is seen to be a widespread problem throughout Central Asia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, but also is often found more broadly in the developing/post-colonial world. It is typically characterized by widespread corruption, unrestrained power of oligarchs, ineffectual services, poor protection for human rights or even basic policing, etc. This volume focuses on cases in Eurasia, mostly in Central Asia, but also including Ukraine and Russia and even a comparison case from Africa. This results in a volume that tackles a fundamental concept in political theory in an important regional context, but with the meaningful inclusion of a wider context. The contributors are both building toward a new general theory of state weakness and deepening our understanding of the phenomenon in Eurasia, which makes this a valuable volume.

John Heathershaw is associate professor of international relations at the University of Exeter, UK. He has served on the board of the Central Eurasian Studies Society and the European Society for Central Asian Studies. He is the author of Post-Conflict Tajikistan: The Politics of Peace Building and the Emergence of Legitimate Order and Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia.
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Edward Schatz is associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, where he is also director of its Central Asia Program. A former president of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, he is the editor of Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power and the author of Modern Clan Politics: The Power of “Blood” in Kazakhstan and Beyond.