Central Asian loyalties ran to clan and Islam, never to nation

Evidence

In Central Asia historically, national identities did not exist. “The loyalty was to the tribe, clan, and extended family, not to the state.” At the other extreme, people did have “language, religion, culture, and life styles” in common, and “Islam was the strongest uniting force among people, more so than the emir’s power.” Some one hundred “mountainous” and seventy “plains” clans have existed among the Chechens and related North Caucasus peoples and controlled politics and the economy to such an extent that, in contrast to the Soviet planned economy, the Chechens were alleged to have a “clanned” economy. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 473

Categorization

• DEFINE: The phrase ‘clanned economy’ — a whole economy organized by clan structure rather than central planning — is the striking coinage here worth defining in context.
• SEED: Essay angle: the ‘clanned economy’ as a forgotten alternative to both Soviet planning and capitalist markets — how clan-based economic organization actually functioned and what it predicts about post-Soviet governance.