After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Caucasus was wracked by ethnic and separatist violence as the peoples of the region struggled for self-determination. This book asks why nationalism emerged as a dominant political current, and why, of the many nationalist movements tha…
"After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Caucasus was wracked by ethnic and separatist violence as the peoples of the region struggled for self-determination. Vicken Cheterian, who spent many years as a reporter and analyst covering the region's conflicts, asks why nationalis…
Caucasus, state building, conflict resolution, negotiations, transition processes, mediation, area studies, gender, history, borders.
'Symbolic politics', that is how existing beliefs about neighboring ethnic groups are used to justify violence, are traced in case studies arguing the following conditions as essential for communal violence: use of a preexisting reservoir of myths; the fear of being swamped by a…