Regional Cooperation in Central Asia

Abstract

The world continues to get smaller, and the neighborhoods that it is composed of are becoming more dependent upon one another. Today's threats to stability are trans-national in nature and rarely contained within the borders of one country. In most cases the consequences of a major terrorist action or environmental disaster will quickly overwhelm the management capability and response assets of the affected nation. When that occurs the maintenance of stability relies on effective regional, and if required, international assistance. A government that attempts to "go it alone" in today's environment runs the risk of losing the confi dence of its citizens and, as a result, its viability. As part of the United States' active efforts to forge new, productive international relationships to meet the challenges of the 21 st century, encouraging stronger regional ties where few currently exist is a key policy initiative.

The foreign policy of Uzbekistan: sources, objectives and outcomes: 1991–2009

“…With encouragement from outside donors, Karimov has often endorsed economic cooperation among Central Asia's sovereign states, but without much concrete follow-up (Spechler 2002). 12 In practice, Uzbekistan has preferred to deal with water problems, threats of terrorism, and smuggling by itself.…”

The Economies of Central Asia: A Survey

“…To a greater or a lesser extent, the trade and investment sectors remain state-controlled in preference to the multilateralism of the WTO, to which only Kyrgyzstan has acceded, with little effect, or to regional cooperation. Encouraged by the ADB and others, numerous regional preferential trade agreements have been signed by heads of state to considerable fanfare, but governments have so far failed to implement them (Spechler, 2002).…”

The region that isn't: China, Russia and the failure of regional integration in Central Asia

“…As a legacy from Soviet times, Central Asia's infrastructure is still heavily oriented north rather than connecting the five regional countries with each other (Kubicek 1997). Moreover, the countries are interested in access to Russian finances, discounted energy prices and free movement of labour, which leads to high remittances flows from emigrants (Bobokulov 2006;Spechler 2002).…”

“…Thus, Kazakhstan supported Eurasian integration together with Russia from the start. In fact, it was Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev who aired his grand vision of a 'Eurasian Union' as early as 1994 (Konopelko 2018;Spechler 2002).…”

“…Finally, liberals concentrate on domestic interests within regional states in order to explain the success or failure of regional cooperation (Moravcsik 1998). In this respect, the authoritarian political structures in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are problematic for regionalism, because political elites and especially the presidents avoid regional cooperation to avoid opening up their countries and losing political control (Bohr 2004;Collins 2009;Spechler 2002).…”