Politics and Legitimacy in Post-Soviet Eurasia

Joachim Ahrens, Professor of International Economics, Private University of Applied Sciences, Göttingen, Germany Martin Brusis, Managing Director of the project network 'Institutions and Institutional Change in Postsocialism', University of Munich, Germany Philipp Bürger, Historian and PhD candidate, University of Munich, Institute of Historiography, Germany Fabian Burkhardt, PhD student in political science, Graduate School of East and Southeast European Studies, University of Munich, Germany Adele Del Sordi, Post-Doctoral Researcher in Political Science, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Julia Grauvogel, Research Fellow, GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany Herman W. Hoen, Professor of International Political Economy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Leslie Holmes, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Melbourne, Australia Martin Schulze Wessel, Professor for the History of East and Southeast Europe, University of Munich, Germany Martin C. Spechler, Professor of Economics at Indiana University, USA Alfred Sproede, Professor of Slavonic and Baltic Literatures, University of Münster, Germany Christian Timm, PhD student of political science and researcher, Private University of Applied Sciences in Göttingen, Germany Alexei Trochev, Associate Professor for Political Science, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan Christian von Soest, Senior Research Fellow, GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany Oleksandr Zabirko, PhD candidate in East European cultural studies, University of Münster, Germany

'Brusis, Ahrens and Wessel have assembled a stimulating collection of studies on political legitimation in the CIS. The chapters combine a variety of perspectives and case studies on the challenges regimes face after the economic crises of 2008-10 and the Crimean crisis of 2014. Many chapters are important stand-alone studies.' Richard Pomfret, University of Adelaide, Australia, and The Johns Hopkins University, Bologna, Italy 'This is the remarkable outcome of an inter-disciplinary research network touching upon the fundamentals of Eurasian post-communist states: the different aspects of their politics of legitimation and legitimacy. The volume will be a leading scientific tool for international scholars of post-Soviet countries and their realities.' Jutta Scherrer, Professor of Russian History, L'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, Paris, France 'This inter-disciplinary collection explores the legitimation strategies adopted by ruling elites in post-soviet Eurasia. Combining a Weberian conceptual framework with detailed country case studies, this will be a valuable addition to the debate over the political stability of the post-soviet states in the face of widespread corruption and sluggish economic performance.' Peter Rutland, Professor of Government, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, USA

• List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors 1. The Politics of Legitimation in Post-Soviet Eurasia; Martin Brusis 2. Comparing Legitimation Strategies in Post-Soviet Countries; Christian von Soest and Julia Grauvogel 3. State Capitalism in Eurasia: A Dual-Economy Approach to Central Asia; Joachim Ahrens, Herman W. Hoen, and Martin C. Spechler 4. Legitimation and the Party of Power in Kazakhstan; Adele Del Sordi 5. Legitimacy and State-Led Economic Policy in Georgia; Christian Timm 6. Legitimacy, Accountability and Discretion of the Russian Courts; Alexei Trochev 7. Concepts of the Nation and Legitimation in Belarus; Fabian Burkhardt 8. State Programs, Institutions and Memory in Russia; Philipp Burger 9. Cynics, Loyalists, and Rebels in Recent Russian Fiction. Literary Scenarios of Legitimation and the Pursuit of 'Sovereign Democracy'; Alfred Sproede, Oleksandr Zabirko 10. Comparative Conclusions: Legitimacy and Legitimation in Eurasian Post-Communist States; Leslie Holmes Index