Pre-tsarist and Tsarist Central Asia: Communal Commitment and Political Order in Change

Whereas in previous studies scholars have evaluated Central Asia politics from the perspective of their own political values, in this study, Central Asian political order is studied in its own terms by analyzing its perseverance and discontinuities with regard to its involvement with Central Asian community structures. This study, written from the perspective of political sociology, represents the first comparative examination of Central Asian communal and political organization before and after the tsarist conquest of the region. It covers Turkman, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and other tribal societies, analyses the patrimonial state structures of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanates of Khiva and Khokland, and discusses the impacts of the established tsarist civil military administration on communal and political orientations of the Muslim population.

Paul Georg Geiss is a Research Fellow at the German Institute for Middle East Studies, Hamburg.