Sovereignty After Empire

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

Sally N. Cummings is Senior Lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Her publications include Domestic and International Perspectives on Kyrgyzstan's 'Tulip Revolution' (ed.) (Taylor & Francis, 2009), Kazakhstan: Power and the Elite (IB Tauris, 2005), Oil, Transition and Security in Central Asia (ed.) (Routledge, 2003) and Kazakhstan: Centre-Periphery Relations (Brookings Institution, 2000). Raymond Hinnebusch is Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics at the University of St Andrews. His books include The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences, co- edited with Rick Fawn (Lynne Rienner Press, 2006), The International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester University Press, 2003), The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, edited with A. Ehteshami (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Press, 2002), Syria: Revolution from Above (London: Routledge, 2001), The Syrian-Iranian Alliance: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System, with Anoushiravan Ehteshami (London: Routledge, 1997), Syria and the Middle East Peace Process, with Alasdair Drysdale (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1991), Authoritarian Power and State Formation in Ba`thist Syria: Army, Party and Peasant (Westview Press, 1990), Peasant and Bureaucracy in Ba`thist Syria: The Political Economy of Rural Development (Westview Press, 1989) and Egyptian Politics Under Sadat (Cambridge University Press, 1985).