This article argues that, unlike other Central Asian states, the official response in Kazakhstan to its Islamic revival is distinctively ambivalent and even contradictory. The Nazarbayev government has rhetorically embraced the Kazakh qoja-centred Sufi heritage and the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam as the 'traditional' forms of Islam among Kazakh nomads and perceived them as constituent elements of the nationbuilding process. However, the representatives of the political elite have in reality unknowingly absorbed much of 'untraditional' Salafi Islam and ignored, marginalised or even suppressed the revival of Kazakh Sufism. This is in part because of their limited knowledge of the indigenous Kazakh Islamic tradition and in part due to the younger generation's greater exposure to a range of Salafi-dominated influences emanating from abroad. The article begins with a brief historical perspective on the relationship between qoja-centred Sufism and 'Kazakh-ness' which is essential for establishing an analysis of the fissures in the current religious and political ideology pertaining to Kazakh nation-building.
The economic and political pressures which eventually led to the collapse of the communist system between 1989 and 1991 also contributed to the disintegration of all three of the multinational socialist federations-the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The political vacuum caused by the demise of the communist political systems triggered a wave of demands for "national self-determination," which led to the formation of a number of new states. This desire for independent statehood followed the predictable and indeed only legitimate model of statehood in Europe, the nationstate, namely one in which the state is associated with one people (nation). In practice, however, like most states, these new states had to contend with a different reality, namely one of ethnic diversity rather than homogeneity. Moreover, belated state-and nation-formation processes mixed together with frequent border changes account for the particularly complex and sensitive nature of ethnic diversity in the region. Clearly, imperial rule was a major contributor to the ethnic and regional diversity of the region in Eastern Europe (EE). In Western Europe, stable dynastic states, such as Britain, France and Spain, emerged with relatively fixed boundaries, which, when allied to their centralizing tendencies, tended to subdue regional differences. In these cases, nations formed within existing states. In contrast, in EE the dominant political form was an empire comprising many different ethno-national groups, cultures and religions. According to Hroch, in the process of "national awakening" of EE, the nationalism of the so-called non-dominant ethnic groups developed in opposition to the host state (empires).' In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, there was a mosaic of ethnic groups, often living side by side, which were mobilized by different national movements. In the process, ties based on common kinship, ethnicity, neighbourhood, religion, language, customs and "mentality," rather than common political institutions and territory, became the basis for nationhood.
This article examines how the so-called post-Soviet de facto states are conceptualized and discussed within the wider context of Western English-language social and political sciences, including inter-disciplinary Russian, Slavonic, East European and Eurasian area studies. It outlines the main theoretical models and methodologies utilized in the analysis of this phenomenon, and identifies their respective benefits and shortcomings. The article posits that there is considerable unevenness between various theoretical paradigms in terms of their explanatory clarity and their relationship with empirical reality. I argue that Western academic discourse on the post-Soviet de facto states, and on post-Soviet politics more generally, has been increasingly shaped by mono-theoretical determinist models with heavy reliance on deductive quantitative research methods and secondary sources in English language and non-academic analytical reports. A corollary has been a considerable deterioration in the epistemological quality of the discourse on de facto states, and on occasion its politicization.
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