Forced marketization reanimates ethnic and religious nationalism in post-Soviet societies.

Evidence

The second factor is the ending of the Cold War. Its main features are the post-1989 breakup of the Soviet Union as a transethnic, transnational formation, the decline of state communism as an alternative model of industrial development, and the waning of the Soviet sphere of influence, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This has had regional effects similar in certain ways to the dismantling of the old imperial systems. The year 1989 has been followed by the attempt, under US leadership, to construct “a new world order.” One aspect of this drive has been the relentless pressure by the West, designed to drag these very different, relatively underdeveloped East European societies kicking and screaming, overnight, into what is called “the market.” This mysterious entity is propelled into old, complex cultures and authoritarian polities as an abstract and denuded principle, without any attention to the cultural, political, social, and institutional embeddedness which markets always require. One result is that the unsolved problems of social development have combined with the resurgent traces of older, still unrequited ethnic and religious nationalisms, allowing the tensions in these societies to resurface in a multicultural form. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 316

Categorization

• XREF: Causal mechanism parallel to orientalism readings: Western imposition as outside force rekindling internal identity conflicts in multicultural form. — connects to: Capitalism’s global unification paradoxically generated nationalism as fragmentation; Capitalism’s global spread spawned nationalism as its historical cost — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 370; Religious nationalism intensifies during social crises regardless of demographic religious decline — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 197 (+5 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: Hall’s claim that markets need cultural embeddedness — connects to embeddedness critiques in economic sociology.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 316

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s global spread spawned nationalism as its historical cost #corroborates (0.90) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 370
• Capitalism’s global unification paradoxically generated nationalism as fragmentation #corroborates (0.85)