Central Asia Program Podcast Series

President Shavkat Mirziyoev initiated several constitutional amendments in Uzbekistan at the end of June which have reminded the world about the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, bordering the dying Aral Sea. Efforts to diminish the Republic’s autonomy resulted in mass protests that unfortunately turned deadly. Join us to explore the reasons that prompted Mirziyoev’s constitutional amendments, Tashkent’s difficulties in encouraging further reforms, and the future of Karakalpak people’s autonomy.

Speakers

Navbahor Imamova, Anchor, Editor and Producer, Uzbek Service, South and Central Asia Division, Voice of America, President, VOA Women’s Caucus;

Temur Umarov is a Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the OSCE Academy (Bishkek);

Dr. Akram Umarov is Director of the Afghanistan Research Group and Associate Professor at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy;

Yuriy Sarukhanian, International Relations specialist. Author of analytical Telegram channel Seriya Penalti;

Moderator: Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Director of the Central Asia Program; Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program; Co-Director of PONARS Eurasia; and Research Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University.

An online book launch hosted by the Central Asia Program at George Washington University on February 11, 2022.

This book joins the discussion on foreign aid triggered by the rise of multiplicity of emerging donors in international development and explores the transformation of Kazakhstan from a recipient country to a development aid provider. Drawing on fieldwork in Nur-Sultan and Almaty (Kazakhstan) between 2016 and 2019, this research evaluates the philosophy and core features of Kazakhstan’s chosen development aid model and explains the factors that account for the construction of aid patterns of Kazakh donorship.

Speakers

Nafissa Insebayeva, Author

Nafissa Insebayeva specializes in Kazakhstan's foreign policy, international development politics, foreign aid, and South-South cooperation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tsukuba (Japan) as a MEXT scholar, and currently serves as a Researcher at the Nippon Foundation Central Asia-Japan Human Resource Development Project (NipCA). Nafissa has previously held the position of a Central Asia-Azerbaijan Fellow at the Central Asia Program (CAP). Her studies have been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Eurasian Studies and Europe-Asia Studies.

Sofya du Boulay, Discussant

Sofya du Boulay is a Marie Curie Fellow and PhD candidate in Political Science at Oxford Brookes University. Her main research interests are related to the study of authoritarian regimes, including their political stability and legitimation in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Her research has been published in Problems of Post-Communism and Theorizing Central Asian Politics: The State, Ideology and Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Syinat Sultanalieva, Discussant

Dr. Syinat Sultanalieva is a researcher at Human Rights Watch, focusing on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. She received her PhD from the Special Program in Japanese and Eurasian Studies at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of gender studies and critical postcolonial theories. Previously Syinat has worked extensively on LGBTI and women's rights in Central Asia, helping in the establishment of several initiatives in the region.

Sebastien Peyrouse, Moderator

Sebastien Peyrouse, PhD, is a Research Professor at the Central Asia Program in the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University) and a Senior Fellow with the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China relations. His main areas of expertise are political systems in Central Asia, economic and social issues, Islam and religious minorities, and Central Asia’s geopolitical positioning toward China, India and South Asia.

An online discussion hosted by the Central Asia Program at George Washington University and co-sponsored with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, and RFE/RL on January 10, 2022.

The riots that erupted on January 5, 2021 in Almaty and then spread to Kazakhstan’s other cities have taken the government by surprise, but signals of unrest were present since Nazarbayev left the presidency in 2019. The dismissal of the Cabinet, the removal of Nazarbayev from the Security Council presidency, the storm of the Parliament and the Almaty airport, as well as police violence will, without a doubt, mark a turning point in the history of Kazakhstan. At a more geopolitical level, the impact will be decisive too, as the CSTO has, for the first time in its history, sent peacekeeping troops at President Tokayev’s request.

Who are the protesters? What do they want? What are the genuine grassroots aspects and the instrumentalization of popular resentment by some elites for internal struggles? How can the regime survive such clashes? What will be the regional impact of the crisis in what was until then the most stable and prosperous country of Central Asia?

SPEAKERS

Merkhat Sharipzhanov, RFE/RL's Sr. Central Newsroom Correspondent, former Director of Kazakh Service;

Temur Umarov, Research Consultant at Carnegie Moscow Center;

Pauline Jones, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum at the University of Michigan (UM);

Barbara Junisbai, Associate Professor of Organizational Studies, Pitzer College;

Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on Central Asia at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (Harvard University);

Moderator: Marlene Laruelle, Director and Research Professor, the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), The George Washington University.

An online discussion with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Central Asia Program.

In the span of just a few days, the Taliban has reached the borders of Central Asia, having seized control of large swaths of land in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban’s return and the ongoing escalations have altered the day-to-day lives of locals, with many on the move in search of shelter and hundreds having crossed into Tajikistan so far.

As the Taliban’s offensive continues and Afghan forces and local militia groups prepare to fight back against further escalation, Tajikistan is setting up a camp capable of hosting up to 100,000 refugees. Meanwhile, Central Asian governments have been conducting a massive combat-readiness check and relocating thousands of additional troops and heavy military equipment to the border. In sum, the recent developments in northern Afghanistan have changed realities on the ground, with far-reaching potential implications for residents of the border regions.

Speakers 

Malali Bashir is a journalist and video producer with RFE/RL’s Afghan Service, Radio Free Afghanistan. Bashir, who is from Kabul, has covered a range of topics related to Afghanistan, often with a women’s rights perspective. Along with her work at RFE/RL, Bashir has written for BBC Pashto, Foreign Policy, and The Daily Times, and she has edited Afghan magazines. Prior to her journalistic work, Malali was a Fulbright scholar at Brandeis University, Massachusetts.

Sirojiddin Tolibov is the Managing Editor of RFE/RL’s Tajik Service. Having reported on operations against Islamic militants from the main hot spots in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan throughout his journalistic career, he is an expert on security matters, Islamic groups, human rights, and social and economic issues in Central Asia. Prior to RFE/RL, Tolibov spent 20 years with the BBC World Service’s Central Asian unit as a reporter, manager, news anchor, and editor. In 2001, he has announced the Service’s Best Reporter. He has also performed leading roles in award-winning BBC radio dramas.

Mélanie Sadozaï is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the Center for Europe and Eurasian Studies (CREE) at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO/Sorbonne Paris Cité) in Paris, France, and a Visiting Scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University. Prior to becoming a doctoral student, Mélanie graduated with a B.A. in Persian linguistics and civilizations from INALCO, and two M.A. in International Relations and War Studies from Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. Her research is based on long-time fieldwork and focuses on cross-border activities as resources in the remote areas of Tajikistan and Afghanistan in the Pamirs. Through an empirically oriented methodology, she challenges the widespread perception of the Southern border of Tajikistan which associates it with images of violence and danger. Since 2018, Mélanie has presented her research during academic events in France, Ukraine, Kirghizstan and the United States. She has namely published in the Journal of Borderlands Studies and the Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies.

Marlene Laruelle, Moderator

Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., is Director, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Director, Central Asia Program; Director, Illiberalism Studies Program; Co-Director, PONARS-Eurasia; and Research Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. Marlene’s research explores the transformations of nationalist and conservative ideologies in Russia, nationhood construction in Central Asia, as well as the development of Russia’s Arctic regions.

As Talibans are progressing in retaking control of Afghanistan, Central Asian states and border communities found themselves in a situation of neighboring Taliban-government regions, with potential implications for their own territory. On this episode, Mélanie Sadozaï, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, Antonio Giustozzi and Marlene Laruelle discuss the situation and insights from the field as well as academic and geopolitical perspective. 

Speakers

Mélanie Sadozaï is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the Center for Europe and Eurasian Studies (CREE) at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO/Sorbonne Paris Cité) in Paris, France, and a Visiting Scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University. Prior to becoming a doctoral student, Mélanie graduated with a B.A. in Persian linguistics and civilizations from INALCO, and two M.A. in International Relations and War Studies from Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. Her research is based on long-time fieldwork and focuses on cross-border activities as resources in the remote areas of Tajikistan and Afghanistan in the Pamirs. Through an empirically oriented methodology, she challenges the widespread perception of the Southern border of Tajikistan which associates it with images of violence and danger. Since 2018, Mélanie has presented her research during academic events in France, Ukraine, Kirghizstan and the United States. She has namely published in the Journal of Borderlands Studies and the Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies.

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili is Associate Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of the award-winning book, Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan  and her second book,  Land, the State, and War: Property Right and Political Order  is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. She has more than twenty years working across the region and has done extensive ethnographic and survey work across both sides of the Afghanistan-Central Asian border.

Dr. Antonio Giustozzi is an independent researcher born in Ravenna, Italy, who took his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is the author of several articles and papers on Afghanistan, as well as of seven books, War, politics and society in Afghanistan, 1978-1992 (Georgetown University Press), Koran, Kalashnikov and laptop: the Neo-Taliban insurgency, 2002-7 (Columbia University Press), Empires of mud: war and warlords in Afghanistan (Columbia University Press), Policing Afghanistan (with M. Ishaqzada, Columbia University Press, 2013), The army of Afghanistan (Hurst, 2016), the Islamic State in Khorasan (Hurst, 2018) and Taliban at war (OUP USA, 2019). He also authored a volume on the role of coercion and violence in state-building, The Art of Coercion (Columbia University Press, 2011), one on advisory missions (Missionaries of modernity, Hurst, 2016) and edited a volume on the Taliban, Decoding the New Taliban (Columbia University Press, 2009), featuring contributions by specialists from different backgrounds. He is currently senior research fellow at RUSI.

Marlene Laruelle, Moderator

Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., is Director, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Director, Central Asia Program; Director, Illiberalism Studies Program; Co-Director, PONARS-Eurasia; and Research Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. Marlene's research explores the transformations of nationalist and conservative ideologies in Russia, nationhood construction in Central Asia, as well as the development of Russia’s Arctic regions.

On this episode, David Markey and Tim Winter address important questions based on two monographs they recently published on Chinese foreign policy toward Central Asia and the Silk Roads. (Adapted from a virtual double book launch hosted by the Central Asia Program at the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University on March 25, 2021.)

President Xi Jinping has initiated major economic development programs within China and beyond its borders, including through the controversial Belt and Road Initiative which is forging worldwide connections in infrastructure, trade, energy, finance, culture and tourism. This places China at the center of a geography of overland and maritime connectivity stretching across more than sixty countries and incorporating almost two-thirds of the world’s population. However, despite China’s wide ambition, its engagement abroad and the Belt and Road Initiative will be shaped and redefined as they confront the ground realities of local and regional politics outside China. Essentially, what does it mean to revive the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century? What are the implications for U.S.-China competition and cooperation in the region? 

Speakers: Daniel Markey, Author, China’s Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia; Tim Winter, Author, Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty-First Century; Rodger Baker, Senior Vice President for Strategic Analysis for Stratfor.

Chair: Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., is Director, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Director, Central Asia Program; Director, Illiberalism Studies Program; Co-Director, PONARS-Eurasia; and Research Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Moderator: Sebastien Peyrouse, PhD, is a Research Professor at the Central Asia Program in the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University) and a Senior Fellow with the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China relations