After empires: beating swords into ploughshares

Abstract. The topic of nationand state-building in the former emperial spaces is relevant. According to many researchers, the path “from empire to nation” is far from complete, although until recently the formation of nation-states has been perceived as a natural desire of peoples for self-determination and independence. In fact, it turned out that the empires themselves mimic nation-states (China, Iran), the former imperial centers think about restructuring their “lost” spaces (Istanbul / Ankara), Moscow), and the new nation-states find it difficult to develop state capacity.
The authors focus on the so-called continental or contiguous empires (AustroHungarian, Russian, Ottoman), since they were based on the idea of an inclusive political space, and the empire’s collapse meant the destruction of its state structure. Considering that, the article determines the problems of stateand nation-building in post-imperial political entities. The authors also focus on the extent the imperial institutional legacy is relevant for these problems, and on possibilities of “reconciliation” of “old” and “new” institutional orders in the case of conflicting consequences of their interaction.
Reflection on these issues required (a) detecting the idealtypical features of the empire and the nation-state in an international context, (b) defining the problems that arise with interaction of both institutional orders, and (c) identifying approaches to the solution of the problems.
To illustrate the depth of the problem, the authors have chosen the extreme cases of confrontation between the principles of the organization of imperial space and territorial borders (ethnopolitical conflicts and secessions). Since that imperial models of cultural-symbolic, military-political and economic interactions take a long time to form and to disintegrate, a number of respective conflicts have been analyzed in the logic of violation of spatial dependence between the elements of imperial structures correlated with ethno-cultural segments.
The study showed that the imperial centers can not always be replaced by emerging national state ones. That requires their “return” in an updated form. At the same time, modern political mechanisms aimed at maintaining the manageability of the segments’ interactions under conditions of a weak center (consociationalism, autonomization, etc.) can be used to stabilize, at least formally, the boundaries of post–imperial polities. 

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