In the authors' words, this book is about the experiences of nation building in three countries set against a background of international competition between two international power centers, Russia and the European Union. At first sight the book appears to be a rare and welcome example of a comparative study undertaken from the perspective of cultural sociology and international relations. But some skepticism about the project is bound to arise once the reader delves deeper into the introductory chapter, in which a theoretical framework is elaborated to deal with the “tangled web of interactions” (24) between the ever-changing national and international environments. Inspired by a recently-rising school of Critical Border Studies, well referenced in the footnotes, the construct that emerges is essentially a synthesis of epistemological constructivism and post-structuralism. As such it treats geographical and political entities “not as singular force(s), but as floating signifier(s) in the process of construction,” (30) and holds that “borders do not simply ‘exist’ as lines on a map, but are continually performed into being through what can be called a complex choreography of borderlines in multiple spaces” (36). If not an outright attack on empiricism, this approach is certainly at odds with the conventional method of the social disciplines that seeks generalized explanations by interrelating variations in sets of dependent and independent variables applicable to specific instances of historical change.

Luckily, perhaps, once we leave behind the theoretical introduction we encounter straightforward, engaging, and instructive narratives both of the three borderlands and of the larger, competitive, international environment. The common denominator among the cases is that all three were once republics of the Soviet Union, but in the post-Soviet era they have become a space contested by Russia and the European Union. Notably, the US is all but completely ignored as a power player in the region. There are, of course, significant variations in the character of these societies in terms of location, ethno-demography, tradition, levels of development, and surviving economic ties to Russia from Soviet times, a combination of which, over time, provide variable points of leverage to the outside competitors. Russia, for one, gains much of its leverage from the presence of ethno-Russian minorities in neighboring states (Estonia and Ukraine), from their dependence on Russian raw material sources (Ukraine and Georgia), from cultural linkages via Orthodox Churches (once again in Georgia and Ukraine). As for the European Union, it gains from the Estonian ethno-cultural nexus to Finno-Nordic Europe, from the Polish and Habsburg memories of Galicia (west Ukraine), and from the Georgian identity as a “Black Sea nation” (107), which they view as a cultural bridge to the west. The research enterprise of the study focuses heavily on the presentation and perception of three large international sporting events, one for each country, complemented by an array of targeted interviews and the reading of printed sources in multiple local languages. In reporting about their work, the authors duly note ambivalence and splits of opinion, but they make no attempt to quantify or otherwise weigh the evidence collected.

As to the international scene, great power competitors are presented not just as seekers of power and influence, but also as seekers of self-validation and legitimation. Thus, Russian interventionism on behalf of Russian minorities does not so much increase Russia's international influence, but serves to legitimate its less than perfect democratic order by linking it to nationalist sentiment. By the same token, the EU's policies are more than power projections, for by taking sides against Russia and for democratic institutions they tend to validate the Union's own liberal-universalist essence. It is on this point that we can see a kind of dialectic that the introductory paradigm is struggling with: great powers set out to change the world and in the process are changing themselves.

The text ends in a conclusion where the three countries reappear as rather conventional “subjects on their own,” that is, as state-based political actors “each one carving out its own modus operandi, … and choosing their own modality of freedom of action” (125). As such, Estonia stands tall with “well-articulated” public policies to “integrate with Europe and NATO.” In exchange for membership it “is prepared to give up part of its sovereignty,” (125) and a bit more reluctantly, its less than fully Euro-conform ethnic regime. Georgia, at least “during the time of Mikheil Saakashvili's presidency,” opted for “confrontational relations with Russia,” while Ukraine's “collective will, expressed through the EuroMaidan, was to break its dependency on Russia” and to seek “more intense integration with Europe” (125). Whatever their validity, these conclusions do not emerge from the narratives, just as the narratives do not readily link to the abstractions of the introductory chapter. Overall, this is a fine and informative short book on variable conceptions of collective identity in an age of change. It is one that falls short of true theoretical ambition, however, for the authors fail to pull together their complex categories into a single, coherent scheme, or to show the categories' relevance by using them in organizing the narratives.