Critical Reader in Central Asian Studies

Rico Isaacs is an associate professor of politics at the University of Lincoln where he teaches courses in politics, nationalism, and Central Asia. His research interest concentrates on the political sociology of authoritarianism with an emphasis on the post-Soviet space focusing on Central Asia. Isaacs is the author and/or editor of five books and has published in world-leading peer-reviewed academic journals, including Europe-Asia Studies, Third World Quarterly, Contemporary Politics, Problems of Post-Communism, Nationalities Papers, and Electoral Studies, among many others. Isaacs has extensive fieldwork experience in the Central Asian region and has received funding from the European Union, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, and the British Council. He has provided consultancy for international research projects and political risk companies and has provided commentary on political developments in the region to various international media outlets. He has been serving as the editor of Central Asian Survey since 2019.

• Introduction: 40 Years of Central Asian SurveyRico IsaacsSection One: HistoryIntroductionMikhail AkulovExcerptsThe Russian conquest of Central Asia (1982), Mehmet SarayThe role of the pristavstvo institution in the context of Russian imperial policies in the Kazakh Steppe in the nineteenth century (2014), Gulmira SultangalievaThe creation of Soviet Central Asia: The 1924 national delimitation (1995), Steven SabolHumans as territory: forced resettlement and the making of Soviet Tajikistan, 1920–1938 (2011), Botakoz KassymbekovaMarriage, modernity, and the ‘friendship of nations’: interethnic intimacy in post-war Central Asia in comparative perspective (2007), Adrienne Lynn EdgarSection Two: Identity and NationalismIntroductionKristoffer ReesExcerptsThe politics of identity change in Soviet Central Asia (1984), S. Enders Wimbush Creating national identity in socialist Mongolia (1998), Christopher KaplonskiImagined communities: Kazak nationalism and Kazakification in the 1990s (1999), Azamat Sarsembayev Nationalism as a geopolitical phenomenon: The Central Asian case (2001), Farkhod TolipovGlobal Astana: nation branding as a legitimization tool for authoritarian regimes (2015), Adrien FauveSection Three: IslamIntroductionGalym ZhussipbekExcerptsIslam in Soviet central Asia, 1917–1930: Soviet policy and the struggle for control (1992), Shoshana KellerSoviet Islam since the invasion of Afghanistan (1982), Alexandre BennigsenIslamic revival in the central Asian Republics (1994), Mehrdad HaghayeghiThe logic of Islamic practice: a religious conflict in Central Asia (2006), Sergei Abashin Islamic discourses in Azerbaijan: the securitization of ‘non-traditional religious movements (2018), Galib BashirovSection Four: Governing and the StateIntroductionAssel TutumluExcerptsSharaf Rashidov and the dilemmas of national leadership (1986), Gregory GleasonAuthoritarian political development in Central Asia: The case of Turkmenistan (1995), John AndersonTajikistan amidst globalization: state failure or state transformation? (2011), John HeathershawDisorder over the border: spinning the spectre of instability through time and space in Central Asia (2018), Natalie KochSection Five: Informal InstitutionsIntroductionDina SharipovaExcerpts‘Tribalism’ and identity in contemporary circumstances: The case of Kazakstan (1998), Saulesh EsenovaNeopatrimonialism, interest groups and patronage networks: the impasses of the governance system in Uzbekistan (2007), Alisher IlkhamovTheories on Central Asian factionalism: the debate in political science and its wider implications (2007), David GullettePolitical and social networks in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan: ‘clan’, region and beyond (2009), İdil Tunçer-KılavuzSection Six: Contentious PoliticsIntroductionAsel DoolotkeldievaExcerptsCentral Asian riots and disturbances, 1989–1990: Causes and context (1991), Yaacov Ro'iNetworks, localism and mobilization in Aksy, Kyrgyzstan (2005), Scott RadnitzPoetry of witness: Uzbek identity and the response to Andijon (2007), Sarah KendziorThe dynamics of regime change: domestic and international factors in the ‘Tulip Revolution’ (2008), David LewisPost-violence regime survival and expansion in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan (2016), Erica MaratSection Seven: GenderIntroductionNodira KholmatovaExcerptsThe politics of gender and the Soviet paradox: neither colonized, nor modern? (2007), Deniz KandiyotiMaking the ‘empowered woman’: exploring contradictions in gender and development programming in Kyrgyzstan (2018), Elena Kim, Asel Myrzabekova, Elena Molchanova & Olha YarovaWomen of protest, men of applause: political activism, gender and tradition in Kyrgyzstan (2019), Judith Beyer & Aijarkyn KojobekovaWhat's in a name? The personal and political meanings of ‘LGBT’ for non-heterosexual and transgender youth in Kyrgyzstan (2010), Cai Wilkinson & Anna KireySection Eight: Everyday LifeIntroductionRano TuraevaExcerptsHousehold networks and the security of mutual indebtedness in rural Kazakstan (1998), Cynthia WernerStaying put? Towards a relational politics of mobility at a time of migration (2011), Madeleine ReevesWedding rituals and the struggle over national identities (2011), Sophie Roche & Sophie Hohmann‘How can I be post-Soviet if I was never Soviet?’ Rethinking categories of time and social change – a perspective from Kulob, southern Tajikistan (2015), Diana Ibañez-TiradoSection Nine: Regional and Global PerspectivesIntroductionZhanibek ArynovExcerptsVirtual regionalism, regional structures, and regime security in Central Asia (2008), Roy AllisonRegime security, base politics, and rent-seeking: the local and global political economies of the American air base in Kyrgyzstan, 2001–2010 (2015), Kemel ToktomushevBlurring the line between licit and illicit: transnational corruption networks in Central Asia and beyond (2015), Alexander Cooley & J.C. Sharman'Thoroughly reforming them towards a healthy heart attitude’: China’s political re-education campaign in Xinjiang (2019), Adrian Zenz