Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia
Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Author: Pauline Jones Luong

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-04-29

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1139432281

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The establishment of electoral systems in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan presents both a complex set of empirical puzzles and a theoretical challenge. Why did three states with similar cultural, historical, and structural legacies establish such different electoral systems? How did these distinct outcomes result from strikingly similar institutional design processes? Explaining these puzzles requires understanding not only the outcome of institutional design but also the intricacies of the process that led to this outcome. Moreover, the transitional context in which these three states designed new electoral rules necessitates an approach that explicitly links process and outcome in a dynamic setting. This book provides such an approach. Finally, it both builds on the key insights of the dominant approaches to explaining institutional origin and change and transcends these approaches by moving beyond the structure versus agency debate.

Social and Cultural Change in Central Asia
Social and Cultural Change in Central Asia

Author: Sevket Akyildiz

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 113449520X

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Focusing on Soviet culture and its social ramifications both during the Soviet period and in the post-Soviet era, this book addresses important themes associated with Sovietisation and socialisation in the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The book contains contributions from scholars in a variety of disciplines, and looks at topics that have been somewhat marginalised in contemporary studies of Central Asia, including education, anthropology, music, literature and poetry, film, history and state-identity construction, and social transformation. It examines how the Soviet legacy affected the development of the republics in Central Asia, and how it continues to affect the society, culture and polity of the region. Although each state in Central Asia has increasingly developed its own way, the book shows that the states have in varying degrees retained the influence of the Soviet past, or else are busily establishing new political identities in reaction to their Soviet legacy, and in doing so laying claim to, re-defining, and reinventing pre-Soviet and Soviet images and narratives. Throwing new light and presenting alternate points of view on the question of the Soviet legacy in the Soviet Central Asian successor states, the book is of interest to academics in the field of Russian and Central Asian Studies.

Identity and Memory in Post-Soviet Central Asia
Identity and Memory in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Author: Timur Dadabaev

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-08-11

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1317567358

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Central Asian states have experienced a number of historical changes that have challenged their traditional societies and lifestyles. The most significant changes occurred as a result of the revolution in 1917, the incorporation of the region into the Soviet Union, and gaining independence after the collapse of the USSR. Impartial and informed public evaluation of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods has always been a complicated issue, and the ‘official’ descriptions have often contradicted the interpretations of the past viewed through the experiences of ordinary people. Identity and Memory in Post-Soviet Central Asia looks at the tradition of history construction in Central Asia. By collecting views of the public’s experiences of the Soviet past in Uzbekistan, the author examines the transformation of present-day Central Asia from the perspective of these personal memories, and analyses how they relate to the Soviet and post-Soviet official descriptions of Soviet life. The book discusses that the way in which people in Central Asia reconcile their Soviet past to a great extent refers to the three-fold process of recollecting their everyday experiences, reflecting on their past from the perspective of their post-Soviet present, and re-imagining. These three elements influence memories and lead to selectivity in memory construction, emphasising the aspects of the Soviet era people choose to recall in positive and negative lights. Presenting a broader picture of Soviet everyday life at the periphery of the USSR, the book will be a useful contribution for students and scholars of Central Asian Studies, Ethnicity and Identity Politics.

Central Peripheries
Central Peripheries

Author: Marlene Laruelle

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2021-07-01

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1800080131

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Central Peripheries explores post-Soviet Central Asia through the prism of nation-building. Although relative latecomers on the international scene, the Central Asian states see themselves as globalized, and yet in spite of – or perhaps precisely because of – this, they hold a very classical vision of the nation-state, rejecting the abolition of boundaries and the theory of the ‘death of the nation’. Their unabashed celebration of very classical nationhoods built on post-modern premises challenges the Western view of nationalism as a dying ideology that ought to have been transcended by post-national cosmopolitanism. Marlene Laruelle looks at how states in the region have been navigating the construction of a nation in a post-imperial context where Russia remains the dominant power and cultural reference. She takes into consideration the ways in which the Soviet past has influenced the construction of national storylines, as well as the diversity of each state’s narratives and use of symbolic politics. Exploring state discourses, academic narratives and different forms of popular nationalist storytelling allows Laruelle to depict the complex construction of the national pantheon in the three decades since independence. The second half of the book focuses on Kazakhstan as the most hybrid national construction and a unique case study of nationhood in Eurasia. Based on the principle that only multidisciplinarity can help us to untangle the puzzle of nationhood, Central Peripheries uses mixed methods, combining political science, intellectual history, sociology and cultural anthropology. It is inspired by two decades of fieldwork in the region and a deep knowledge of the region’s academia and political environment. Praise for Central Peripheries ‘Marlene Laruelle paves the way to the more focused and necessary outlook on Central Asia, a region that is not a periphery but a central space for emerging conceptual debates and complexities. Above all, the book is a product of Laruelle's trademark excellence in balancing empirical depth with vigorous theoretical advancements.’ – Diana T. Kudaibergenova, University of Cambridge ‘Using the concept of hybridity, Laruelle explores the multitude of historical, political and geopolitical factors that predetermine different ways of looking at nations and various configurations of nation-building in post-Soviet Central Asia. Those manifold contexts present a general picture of the transformation that the former southern periphery of the USSR has been going through in the past decades.’ – Sergey Abashin, European University at St Petersburg

Engaging Central Asia
Engaging Central Asia

Author: Bhavna Dave

Publisher: CEPS

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 929079707X

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"In July 2007, the European Union initiated a fundamentally new approach to the countries of Central Asia. The launch of the EU Strategy for Central Asia signals a qualitative shift in the Union's relations with a region of the world that is of growing importance as a supplier of energy, is geographically situated in a politically sensitive area - between China, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan and the south Caucasus - and contains some of the most authoritarian political regimes in the world. In this volume, leading specialists from Europe, the United States and Central Asia explore the key challenges facing the European Union as it seeks to balance its policies between enhancing the Union's energy, business and security interests in the region while strengthening social justice, democratisation efforts and the protection of human rights. With chapters devoted to the Union's bilateral relations with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and to the vital issues of security and democratisation, 'Engaging Central Asia' provides the first comprehensive analysis of the EU's strategic initiative in a part of the world that is fast emerging as one of the key regions of the 21st century."--BOOK JACKET.

Regime Transition in Central Asia
Regime Transition in Central Asia

Author: Dagikhudo Dagiev

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-30

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1134600690

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Presenting a study of regime transition, political transformation, and the challenges that faced the post-Communist republics of Central Asia on independence, this book focuses on the process of transition in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and the obstacles that these newly-independent states are facing in the post-Communist period. The book analyses how in the early stages of their independence, the governments of Central Asia declared that they would build democratic states, but that in practice, they demonstrated that they are more inclined towards authoritarianism. With the declaration of independence, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, like many other former Soviet national republics, were faced with the issues of nationalism, ethnicity, identity and territorial delimitation. This book looks at how the discourse of patrimonial nationalism in post-Communist Tajikistan and Uzbekistan has been the elites’ strategy to address all these issues: to maintain the stateness of their respective countries; to preserve the unity of their nation; to fill the ideological void of post-Communism; to prevent the rise of Islam; and to legitimize their authoritarian practice. Arguing against the claim that the Central Asian states have undergone divergent paths of transition, the book discusses how they are in fact all authoritarian, although exhibiting different degrees of authoritarianism. This book provides a useful contribution to studies on Central Asian Politics and International Relations.

Soviet and Post-Soviet Identities
Soviet and Post-Soviet Identities

Author: Mark Bassin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-04-26

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1107011175

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A fresh look at post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia and at the Soviet historical background that shaped the present.

Globalization on the Margins
Globalization on the Margins

Author: Iveta Silova

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2011-01-01

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1617352020

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The essays in Globalization on the Margins explore the continuities and changes in Central Asian education development since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Reflecting on two decades of post-socialist transformations, they reveal that education systems in Central Asia responded to the rapidly changing political, economic, and social environment in profoundly new and unique ways. Some countries moved towards Western models, others went backwards, and still others followed entirely new trajectories. Yet, elements of the “old” system remain. Rather than viewing these post-Soviet transformations in isolation, Globalization on the Margins places its analyses within the global context by reflecting on the interaction between Soviet legacies and global education reform pressures in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Instead of portraying the transition process as the influx of Western ideas into the region, the authors provide new lenses to critically examine the multidirectional flow of ideas, concepts, and reform models within Central Asia. Notwithstanding the variety of theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and conceptual lenses, the authors have one thing in common: both individually and collectively, they reveal the complexity and uncertainty of the post-Soviet transformations. By highlighting the political nature of the transformation processes and the uniqueness of historical, political, social, and cultural contexts of each particular country, Globalization on the Margins portrays post-Soviet education transformations as complex, multidimensional, and uncertain processes.

Understanding Central Asia
Understanding Central Asia

Author: Sally N. Cummings

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-01-25

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1134433190

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Since Soviet collapse, the independent republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have faced tremendous political, economic, and security challenges. Focusing on these five republics, this textbook analyzes the contending understandings of the politics of the past, present and future transformations of Central Asia, including its place in international security and world politics. Analysing the transformation that independence has brought and tracing the geography, history, culture, identity, institutions and economics of Central Asia, it locates ‘the political’ in the region. A comprehensive examination of the politics of Central Asia, this insightful book is of interest both to undergraduate and graduate students of Asian Politics, Post-Communist Politics, Comparative Politics and International Relations, and to scholars and professionals in the region.