Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia, Kathleen Collins, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 376.

The long isolation of Central Asia finally ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Five new independent states emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union, the very first time in history that the peoples of Central Asia gained their own independent states modelled on the modern state. This development caught the world, including Central Asians themselves, by surprise. It changed the geopolitics of the entire Eurasia. In the ensuing years, the Central Asian republics have undergone simultaneous multiple transformations: state building; political regime transformation; and transition from Soviet communism. Thus the new states in Central Asia have provided scholars with new cases of multiple economic and political transitions to study and compare. In recent years, there has been a significant proliferation of English-language publications on Central Asia. Kathleen Collin's book, a comparative historical study of political development in Central Asia, is a major contribution. While its focus is on Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, it often provides examples from the other two Central Asian republics, namely Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It is thoroughly researched and rich in information and details. It also makes a significant contribution to the political science literature on democratization, regime transition and consolidation.