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Democracy in Central Asia. Competing Perspectives and Alternative Strategies

Overall, the volume provides interesting (and also innovative) insights into identity formation in the Central Asian countries. what could have strengthened the book would be the inclusion of more comparative studies within the region, as case contextualisation supports a better understanding of identity-building processes. Most of the studies employ process tracing, investigating a number of Soviet legacies, in order to make sense of the construction of identities today. This leads to both redundancy and generalisation. Soviet legacies on the macro-level apply to all cases under investigation, and identity building seems to be more complex than just responding to the past. Comparison of contemporary identity projects within the region would highlight the unique and diverse aspects of identity-building processes in different Central Asian countries, some of which seem to reflect contemporary rival projects in the political and social spheres rather than responses to the Soviet past. One perspective generally missing is bottom-up research and micro-focus on identity formation. All contributions explore the field top-down from a macroor meso-level analysis.