Book Review: Comparative: Party Strategies in Western Europe: Party Competition and Electoral Outcomes
| Date | 01 May 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1478-9302.12053_73 |
| Published date | 01 May 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
293
appointees?
Altogether,
by
combining
case-based
same time, the thematic breadth and methodological
knowledge with detailed and cross-nationally compa-
variety of the case studies do not facilitate exploring
rable data, the authors and editors have done those of
in-depth the role and interplay of different conceptual
us interested in particularistic politics a great service.
factors presented in the case studies. For example, some
of them attribute the agency of identity formation to
Kim Sass Mikkelsen
the elite (Zeniewski, p. 53), whereas others focus on
(Aarhus University)
the population (Best, p. 72). The book could have
taken this question further to demonstrate how these
Elites and Identities in Post-Soviet Space by
two dimensions interact.
David Lane (ed.). Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.
Another interesting aspect of the book is the analysis
214pp., £85.00, ISBN 978 0 415 50022 7
of nation-building in the examples of Chechnya and
The construction of new identities in the post-Soviet
Afghanistan. However, if Anderson’s idea of ‘nation’
space has been one of the most significant societal
as being an imagined community and a product of
processes occurring in the region following the dis-
modernity explains some of the processes taking place
mantling of the Soviet Union. Drawing on Anderson’s
in these largely pre-modern societies, the study might
work, David Lane has edited a collection of essays with
have gone further and asked whether these processes
the aim of examining the role played by external and
are identical or if they have been modified by local
internal elites in the construction of local, national,
structural conditions and contingencies. Such lingering
regional or international identities.
questions are perhaps an unavoidable feature of any
The first part of the book looks into the external
collective research exercise, but...
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