Initial Findings:
As is often the case in a hypothesis testing exercise of this sort, the findings
outlined here not only provide an interesting test of existing ideas, but can also illuminate
alternative hypotheses. None of the hypotheses held in all of the cases, while some of
these hypotheses only held when the level of democracy was considered. Hence, the
findings below take the level of democracy of each state into account when determining
the explanatory power of the hypotheses. When analyzed this way, some of the
hypotheses held in all cases except for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which consistently
militated against every hypothesis’ expected outcomes. This naturally leads one to try to
discover what is different about these cases – such discoveries serendipitously lead to
other hypotheses for future research. In these two cases, diaspora played an important
role.
Though Collier and Hoeffler indicate that diaspora may assist in perpetuating a
civil war, the findings here are the opposite – a large Russian diaspora present in both of
these countries appears to have prevented these states from venturing into civil war,
despite carrying many of the prerequisite conditions for war. This could be simply the
result of an extremely heterogeneous society (these two states rank highest on the ELF
indicators of any successor states), or it may be the result of a strong deterrent from
Russia. Did ethnic Kazakhs or Kirghiz dare attack their Russian population in the face of
Russian military capabilities? Was Russian military behavior in Chechnya an example
that the Kazakhs and Kirghiz took to heart? Whatever the causal mechanism, the large
Russian populations in these countries has managed to make these two states outliers
among their sister states that lived up, or down, to their expectations in terms of civil war.
Because these two states buck the trend in every case, they will not be further discussed
18
Convention