Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society

This special issue deals with the phenomenon of violence in the post-Soviet space. It examines both political and legal discourses and practices of internal and external violence, broadly conceived, simultaneously aspiring to situate them in the broader literature on political violence and ethnic and separatist conflict, and to examine these from political, legal, and security studies perspectives. The issue approaches the problem of violence in the post-Soviet space from three perspectives: international-structural, inter-state, and domestic-political. The contributors focus on structural sources of violence, such as the relevance of the self-determination principle, the role of democratization, and the relationship between violent behavior inside and outside the state. They also analyze the role of the Russian Federation in generating, perpetuating, and mitigating political violence. Finally, they adopt a bottom-up approach, exploring how non-state actors contribute to political violence.