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As Cold War battle lines are seemingly re-drawn, Russia's various 'frozen' war zones (ongoing separatist conflicts) are often cited as particularly volatile and assumed by some Western commentators and policymakers to be 'next' on Putin's 'wish list'. But, as Helena Rytövuori-Apunen demonstrates here, this is a gross (and dangerous) oversimplification that will only serve to fuel the vicious circle of reciprocal military escalation. Drawing on a range of empirical research and across separatist conflicts in Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia), Moldova (Transnistria and Gagauzia) and Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, her timely book provides a balanced assessment and critique of the assumptions and misunderstandings that inform mainstream discussions, as well as placing the conflicts in their proper and complex historical contexts. At a time when there is an increasing tendency to view Russia as the source of all instability in Eastern Europe, Power and Conflict in Russia's Borderlands is essential reading for anyone interested in the geopolitics of post-Soviet Russia, as well as policymakers and practitioners of peace/conflict resolution studies.

Western military presence wanes in Afghanistan and a transformed security environment challenges borders and stability in Central Asia. This book examines how the tensions relating to the reorganization of external military presence interact with regional states' ambitions and challenge the borders already contested by numerous dividing lines. It studies a complex political landscape across which radical Islam connected with international terrorism is feared to spread as the international mission initiated in the wake of the 9/11 attacks winds down

"Western military presence wanes in Afghanistan and a transformed security environment challenges borders and stability in Central Asia. This book examines how the tensions relating to the reorganization of external military presence interact with regional states' ambitions and challenge the borders already contested by numerous dividing lines. It studies a complex political landscape across which radical Islam connected with international terrorism is feared to spread as the international mission initiated in the wake of the 9/11 attacks winds down. As Western military presence wanes in Afghanistan a transformed security environment challenges borders and stability in Central Asia. In this region former Soviet republics seek to consolidate their position by extending their control over politically problematic borderlands, setting up borders in areas where livelihood connections and transborder communities belie such bounding, and by seeking to maximize the independence of their foreign policies in relation to the integration processes led by Russia. This collection examines how the geopolitical tensions relating to the reorganization of external military presence and the opportunities to gain resources from the region-wide economic cooperation initiated with 'new Silk Roads' ideas interact with regional states' policies and actions. It explains how state borders are challenged by the practices of both non-state agencies and groups of people as well as the policies of extra-regional powers to pursue spaces for defense, resources and influence. Applying pragmatist insights, the contributions discuss the complexity of borders in the region and argue that the predominant role of the state border in all discourse and policies on borders eclipses other border-making practices, and that this limitation of perspectives deepens the security problems in the region's troubled border spaces." (author's abstract)

Western military presence wanes in Afghanistan and a transformed security environment challenges borders and stability in Central Asia. This book examines how the tensions relating to the reorganization of external military presence interact with regional states' ambitions and challenge the borders already contested by numerous dividing lines. It studies a complex political landscape across which radical Islam connected with international terrorism is feared to spread as the international mission initiated in the wake of the 9/11 attacks winds down.

The relationship between critical international relations (IR) and the conventional mainstream or alleged 'orthodoxy' needs to be better articulated. Without connecting to previous theory it cannot logically seek to introduce new 'turns' for disciplinary development, and intellectual movement remains isolated choreography contributing to a field that is global only in the scope of its dispersion. Proceeding from this argument, the article undertakes some of the 'groundwork' so often neglected in the interests of coming up with new theory and approaches or of presenting the 'next stage' for disciplinary discussion. A reexamination of 'post-positivism' as a corporate self-definition of critical IR produces an identification of the disciplinary mainstream that highlights the legacy of IR theory in theory-centred approaches and universal taxonomy, thereby providing a locus for a pragmatist turn in the study of IR. Although pragmatist approaches have already won a place in the field, the challenge remains of transcending the dichotomies of the episteme that leaves this research at the margins of the mainstream. Pragmatism is a way of inquiry opposed to dogmatism and can facilitate communication through which a more global discipline can be created. The way proposed by the author combines Deweyan ethics with C. S. Peirce's logic of the sign.