Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan
Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan tells how a newly independent oil-rich former Soviet republic adopted at first a Western model of democratic government but turned toward a corrupt authoritarianism.
Audrey L. Altstadt鈥檚 story begins with the 1988鈥94 Nagorno-Karabagh war, which stimulated Azerbaijani nationalism and laid the foundations for a democratic movement, at first successful but soon displaced in a coup. Western oil companies arrived, money flowed in鈥攊ts amount became 鈥渁lmost unimaginable,鈥 says Altstadt鈥攁nd a government anxious to stay in power began to repress the political opposition, media, and civil society. Political Islamism emerged, despite the country鈥檚 long tradition of secularism, as an alternative to the stifled democratic opposition and a critical voice resisting the West鈥檚 continued support for the oppressive regime.
Altstadt鈥檚 work draws on her own experiences in Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani press, publications by in-country experts and nongovernmental and international organizations, and interviews with diplomats and businesspersons.聽It follows her earlier works, The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule and The Politics of Culture in Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920鈥1940.
Audrey L. Altstadt is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was a fellow at 澳门六合彩 in 2014鈥15.
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