For the second time this academic year, Professor Audrey Altstadt has published a new book. Written during Altstadt's fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in 2014-15, Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan is a co-publication of the Wilson Center and Columbia University Press.
The CUP website notes: "Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan follows a newly independent oil-rich former Soviet republic as it adopts a Western model of democratic government and then turns toward corrupt authoritarianism. Audrey L. Altstadt begins with the Nagorno-Karabagh War (1988–1994) which triggered Azerbaijani nationalism and set the stage for the development of a democratic movement. Initially successful, this government soon succumbed to a coup. Western oil companies arrived and money flowed in—a quantity Altstadt calls 'almost unimaginable'—causing the regime to resort to repression to maintain its power. Despite Azerbaijan's long tradition of secularism, political Islam emerged as an attractive alternative for those frustrated with the stifled democratic opposition and the lack of critique of the West's continued political interference."