Sovereignty after empire : comparing the Middle East and Central Asia / edited by Sally N. Cummings and Raymond Hinnebusch.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Sally N. Cummings, Raymond Hinnebusch -- Section I Histories of Empire and After -- Russian Empires / Dominic Lieven -- The British and French Empires in the Arab World: Some Problems of Colonial State-formation and its Legacy / James McDougall -- Ottoman Legacies and Economic Sovereignty in Post-imperial Anatolia, Syria and Iraq / Fred H. Lawson -- Section II Paths to Sovereignty: Views from the Core and Periphery -- Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire and After / Benjamin C. Fortna -- Mandated Sovereignty? The Role of International Law in the Construction of Arab Statehood during and after Empire / Michelle Burgis -- Reluctant Sovereigns? Central Asian States' Path to Independence / Mohira Suyarkulova -- Section III Empire and Domestic Sovereignty -- The Middle East after Empire: Sovereignty and Institutions / Louise Fawcett -- Sovereignty after Empire: The Colonial Roots of Central Asian Authoritarianism / David Lewis -- Section IV Empire and Popular Sovereignty -- Culture, Colonialism and Sovereignty in Central Asia / Laura L. Adams -- Culture in the Middle East: The 2Western Question3 and the Sovereignty of Post-imperial States in the Middle East / Morten Valbjørn -- Pathways of Islamist Mobilization against the State in the Middle East and Central Asia / Frédéric Volpi -- Section V Empire and External Sovereignty -- Empire and State Formation: Contrary Tangents in Jordan and Syria / Raymond Hinnebusch -- Rentierism, Dependency and Sovereignty in Central Asia / Wojciech Ostrowski -- Tajikistan: From de facto Colony to Sovereign Dependency / Muriel Atkin -- Conclusions / Sally N. Cummings,

A comparative study of empire in the Middle East and Central Asia. Empire matters for post-imperial outcomes, as is shown in this comparative study. The imperial creation of states in MENA and Central Asia explains several similarities in both regions' successor states. Differences in imperial heritages also partly account for the greater instability of the MENA states system and their lesser legitimacy. While eventually the imperial relation to an external metropole came to an end, the social patterns and institutional practices forged in these relationships remained; some only as traces, but others that endured in the transformation of empire into something else, a national sovereignty which should be seen as more than 'neo-colonialism' but less than 'total independence'. This challenges the view of an automatic linear progression from empire to sovereignty and indeed, suggests the two conditions can and do co-exist. Key Features *Combines theory and empirical evidence *Makes systematic comparisons between the Middle East and Central Asia *Includes chapters from leading scholars from history, politics and international relations *Presents the findings of a focused collective research project.