Mark R. Beissinger - Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State

Mark Beissinger totally concentrates on the case of the Soviet Union, analyzing the interplay of the post-Soviet nationalisms, structures and agencies, through which mobilization of ethnic groups were made possible. Pointing to the absence of analysis of agencies in the literature around nationalism in general, and in those researches, appearing after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in particular, he stresses the deficiency of the idea considering nationalism as a result of interaction of historically supported social interests and identity position, where structure, not an agency is referred as the major substance of analysis: “the idea that identities could be defined in the context of agency or nationalism, both, structured and structuring phenomenon, has not received sufficient attention yet”.[1]
Probably the most important part of his theoretical viewpoint about the general study of ethnic conflicts is expressed by pointing to the existing difference between the study of nationalist events and the eventful study of nationalism, i.e. nationalism needs to be understood not only as a cause of action, but also as the product of action. The cause-effect relationship serves to be the major theoretical issue in need to be thoroughly addressed.[2]
Bringing the post-Soviet conflicts into his theoretical considerations, Beissinger notes: “Precisely because political controls were so extensive and exaggerated in the Soviet Union, one can more clearly isolate the effects of altering these constraints on the role of agency, than where political constraints operated with less force”.[3]
[1]Mark R. Beissinger. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 9.
[2]Ibid., 11.
[3]Ibid., 36.