This paper takes up three related questions: (1) what is the difference between ethnic and religious conflict; (2) are theories of ethnic conflict equally applicable to religious conflict; and (3) can available theories of collective violence explain why the nature of internal conflict changes over time, either with respect to individual conflicts or globally? The author argues that distinguishing among types of internal conflict is more difficult than is often assumed and that theories of ethnic conflict typically explain not ethnic conflict as distinct category but sustained internal violence in general, including "religious" conflict. Further, while these theories typically attempt to explain why conflict breaks out in some multiethnic regions but not others, they do not attempt to explain why conflict when it occurs is "ethnic" rather than something else, why the nature of individual conflicts changes over time, or why certain kinds of internal conflict are characteristic of particular periods in history and not others. The paper investigates these questions by looking at three cases: Afghanistan since 1978, Tajikistan from 1992-1997, and Chechnya since 1994.

This paper discusses why large-scale and sustained violence has not come to Dagestan in the Russian North Caucasus despite many sources of instability, such as territorial disputes, the influence of fundamentalist Islam, and the potential for interethnic violence. It assesses the general risk of large-scale sustained political violence; identifies issues that are most likely to provoke large-scale violence as well as the likely participants; and identifies early warning indicators of impending violence. The core argument of the paper is that the nature of Dagestan's cleavage structure makes it unlikely that in the foreseeable future the republic's chronic instability will lead to a violent mobilization of the population.

This article focuses on religious practices among Muslims in the Republic of Georgia today. It considers relations between Muslims and other religious groups; the influence of religion on everyday life in Georgia; the relationship between the religious and national consciousness; and tensions between supporters of the syncretic forms of Islam that have been traditionally practiced in Georgia and the allegedly "pure" and "alien" forms of Islam that are typically, although not necessarily accurately, referred to as "Wahhabism" in post-Soviet space.

In the early 1990s, energy companies around the world began to realize the enormity of the still-untapped oil and natural gas reserves of the Caspian Sea basin, igniting a scramble to develop new extraction and transport networks to bring these resources to the world market. The result has transformed the region into a fulcrum of geopolitical interaction: Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have formulated long-term plans to use the anticipated windfall of "petro dollars" from their reserves; the United States and Russia have vied to influence the placement of pipeline routes; and attention to the region's resources has increased pressure on disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia and Georgia over Abkhazia, and Russia and Chechnya. And all of these developments are unfolding against a backdrop of deepening ecological problems: the condition of the Black Sea, Turkish concerns over oil tankers travelling through the Bosporous Straits, the legacy of Soviet oil production in Azerbaijan, and the crisis of the Caspian Sea resulting from its unresolved legal status. This is a report from a conference held in 1998 that addressed: the relation between energy policies, ecological problems, and regional political dynamics in the contemporary Caucasus and Caspian Basin. The outcome of these struggles to influence regional energy policies will shape the long-term prospects for energy, ecological, and political stability on a global level.