Event: Old Wine in New Bottles? Cooperation in Central Asia compared with the 1990s

Date of Recording: 05/12/2018 Description: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independent republics of Central Asia have constantly tried to create a form of regional order that would preserve their sovereignty while enacting purposeful and pragmatic cooperation over economic, security, and political issues. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, discourses of ‘brotherhood’ and of ‘century-old ties’ underpinned the creation of several regional organisations were created to serve cooperation and integration, leading scholars and analysts to speculate of a potential ‘Central Asian bloc’ within the post-Soviet space. Yet, these organisations faded away and were dismantled in the light of very limited results and tangible outputs. In the words of many analysts, regionalism ‘failed’. In fact, from the mid-2000s onward, relations between the Central Asian states have been strained and rather cold, despite the avoidance and the absence of outright conflict. With the death of Uzbekistan’s first president Islam Karimov in 2016 and the subsequent ascension to power of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, regional cooperation and Central Asian diplomacy seem to have been rebooted and have received new lymph. Enthusiastic commentaries on the chance of a ‘return of Central Asia’ are now back to the fore once again, and parallels with the 1990s are being drawn. Yet, one may ask: to what extent are international, regional, and local political conditions allowing for such parallels? What is old, and what is new, in the current Central Asian regional order? And finally, how is this order going to develop? Bio: Dr Costa Buranelli has a PhD from the Dept of War Studies, King's and is now a lecturer in the Dept of International Relations at the University of St Andrew's. His research looks at how norms, rules and institutions within international society are localized, understood and practiced in different regional contexts. Dr Buranelli's research has been published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Global Discourse, and the Journal of Eurasian studies. He has conducted fieldwork in Central Asia, and in particular Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. __________________________ For more news and information on upcoming events, please visit our website at kcl.ac.uk/warstudies