Isaac Scarborough completed his PhD programme in the Department of International History at the LSE in August 2018. His research investigated the collapse of the USSR from a peripheral perspective, demonstrating how the economic and political reforms designed and implemented during perestroika (1985-1991) had a variety of unforeseen and largely overlooked consequences across the whole of the Soviet Union. Working with the case study of Tajikistan, Dr Scarborough’s PhD research considered how these reforms and the Soviet collapse ultimately led to social disintegration, violence, and civil war.