Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm by Diana T. Kudaibergenova

Abstract

Reviewed by: Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm by Diana T. Kudaibergenova Matthew Blackburn (bio) Diana T. Kudaibergenova, Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm. 240 pp. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020. ISBN 9780822946175. Diana T. Kudaibergenova’s monograph is a welcome contribution to the study of nation-building, nationalism, and minority integration in Kazakhstan and Latvia, cases previously compared in landmark studies by David D. Laitin and Pål Kolstø.1 Kudaibergenova’s contribution moves beyond the paradigms dominant in the late 1990s and into the complex developments of the last two decades. The book’s central framework is “nationalizing regimes” and, with an ambitious and wide-ranging scope, it considers the political uses of nationalism in the two countries. The book brings the fascinating perspective of a researcher with extended experience of living in both countries to tackle challenging and vital questions of power, identity, and politics. With an innovative approach and a variety of empirical data on view, the author has assembled some fascinating insights into the contemporary development of the two countries examined. In conceptual terms, the framework of “nationalizing regimes” is explained in dense and, at times, hard to follow, theoretical language. The author argues that nation-building is “the most powerful space that guides political decision-making mechanisms post-1991” (5) and aims to explore why “the exclusiveness of a certain ethnic or national group” is made “the cornerstone” of political legitimation. By defining “nationalizing regimes” as “the politically defined power field of a regime guided by control and an obsession with nationalism” (6), the author leaves one wondering what is meant by “nationalism” and how this “field” will be accessed. In replacing Brubaker’s “nationalizing state” with “nationalizing regime” we do not move to a more coherent set of actors but toward a vaguer, less graspable “power field”: “the space of interchangeable positions of actors involved in the process of competing for power but also as elites relating to nonelites in the state” (11). This approach may prove confusing for some but may also be well received by others looking for a fresh approach to the study of nation building. If we accept that “nationalizing regimes are formed of the most powerful elites who manage to control and impose the specific discursive and nation-building outcomes” (7), the key question is how to access and examine these power elites. Unfortunately, the author does not include any table of those interviewed, their organizational affiliation, nor dates and locations. The book contains more in-depth quotes from those who are alienated and excluded than from the “powerful elites” determining policy and discourse. [End Page 311] There is some doubt that there was sufficient access to dominant elites to answer the question, “Who influences nationalizing strategies development and who is in charge of controlling and challenging the dominant discourse?” (11). The author explains there were four layers (20) of elites interviewed, but in the analysis does not return to this point or offer reflexivity on which layers she accessed best and how this affected her findings. The way the contextual background to Kazakhstan and Latvia is provided is also an issue in the book. Instead of one contextualizing chapter, developments across 1985–2010 are handled in small sections across the books, jumping across chronologies. This may be confusing for readers not well versed in the recent history of these two countries. The choice of the two countries, despite their extremely divergent pathways post-1991, is also not fully justified (33). While there is visible elite competition and democracy in Latvia; politics is opaque and controlled in Kazakhstan. Latvia as a democracy allows opposition groups far more space than the author argues; the patronal system in Kazakhstan is a very different environment. While comparing the two in the 1990s had a certain logic, the case for doing this today is not made clear. As for the structure of the book, the introduction and chapter 1 are rather heavy-going, conceptually laden sections that argue in favor of “nationalizing regimes” as a solid framework for examining political developments in these countries. Chapter 2 covers the narratives...