Central Asian Survey 

About: Central Asian Survey is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Islam & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 0263-4937. Over the lifetime, 1354 publications have been published receiving 15041 citations.

Virtual regionalism, regional structures and regime security in Central Asia

Abstract: The failures of regionalism and regional structures for cooperation between the five CIS Central Asian states are well studied. However, explanations so far do not convincingly account for the apparent enthusiasm of these states for the macro-regional frameworks of the Eurasian Economic Community, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This article argues that, as with previous efforts at Central Asian regional self-organization, these broader organizations still largely represent a form of ‘virtual regionalism’. But for the Central Asian states they offer a new and increasingly important function, that of ‘protective integration’. This takes the form of collective political solidarity or ‘bandwagoning’ with Russia (and China in the SCO) against processes and pressures that are perceived as challenging incumbent leaders and their political entourage. A primary motivation for Central Asian leaders' engagement in the EAEC, CSTO and SCO, therefore, is the reinf...

‘Thoroughly reforming them towards a healthy heart attitude’: China’s political re-education campaign in Xinjiang

Abstract: Since spring 2017, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China has witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented re-education campaign. According to media and informant reports, untold thousands o...

Neopatrimonialism, interest groups and patronage networks: the impasses of the governance system in Uzbekistan1

Abstract: What makes non-democratic regimes enduring and long-lasting? Is it only a reliance on coercion and fear? The use of coercion and intimidation as an exclusive means of control can serve authoritaria...

The politics of gender and the Soviet paradox: neither colonized, nor modern?

Abstract: This article examines scholarly debates that cast Soviet policies for the emancipation of women in Central Asia as instances of colonial domination, as the modernizing endeavours of a revolutionary state or as combinations of both and takes them to task for overlooking the gendered consequences of the ‘Soviet paradox’. This paradox is evident in the combined and contradictory operations of a socialist paternalism that supported and legitimized women's presence in the public sphere (through education, work and political representation), with a command economy and nationalities policy that effectively stalled processes of social transformation commonly associated with modernity. Post-Soviet gender ideologies do not represent a simple return to national traditions, interrupted by Soviet policies, but constitute a strategic redeployment of notions of cultural authenticity in the service of new ideological goals. The politics of gender, thus, plays a crucial role in signalling both a break from the So...