Hasan H. Karrar – författare

This edited book introduces new research on informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The research presented in this volume is based on recent field research in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Beijing, Guangzhou, Yiwu and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The nine chapters in this book illustrate how informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus have provided space for millions of people across the region to negotiate changes in state and society in the three decades since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of successor states.

Collectively, the book suggests that informality should be seen as a normative order for polities in Central Asia and the Caucasus for three reasons: (1) The inability – or unwillingness – of the states to measure commercial transactions. (2) The highly personalized nature of small business operations that rest on networking and social relations, oral agreements and trust. (3) Markets and bazaars being embedded within states in which clientelism frequently thrives.

This book is a significant new contribution to the study of trade and informal markets in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and will be a great resource for academics, researchers and advanced students of Sociology, History, Politics, Business, Economics, Social Anthropology and Geography.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Central Asian Survey.

This edited book introduces new research on informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The research presented in this volume is based on recent field research in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Beijing, Guangzhou, Yiwu and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The nine chapters in this book illustrate how informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus have provided space for millions of people across the region to negotiate changes in state and society in the three decades since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of successor states.

Collectively, the book suggests that informality should be seen as a normative order for polities in Central Asia and the Caucasus for three reasons: (1) The inability – or unwillingness – of the states to measure commercial transactions. (2) The highly personalized nature of small business operations that rest on networking and social relations, oral agreements and trust. (3) Markets and bazaars being embedded within states in which clientelism frequently thrives.

This book is a significant new contribution to the study of trade and informal markets in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and will be a great resource for academics, researchers and advanced students of Sociology, History, Politics, Business, Economics, Social Anthropology and Geography.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Central Asian Survey.

Pakistan occupies an elevated role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and hosts its ‘flagship’ project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It has attracted the largest volume of investments under the BRI and opened itself comprehensively to its transformative potential. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of CPEC’s impact on Pakistan’s economy, politics, and society, covering its developmental benefits as well as resulting controversies.

Interdisciplinary and international experts capture the complexity of CPEC, presenting new empirical data in the form of interviews, archival materials, and documentary evidence. Covering topics ranging from agriculture to the environment, gender to security, they focus on local outcomes challenging prevalent narratives about the BRI as a strategic, China-driven vehicle to transform other countries in its image. They argue that examples like CPEC should be understood as interactive processes between China and its international partners, which produce interdependent relations between them. Beyond the case of CPEC, these findings contribute to the burgeoning field of ‘Global China’, through a comprehensive yet granular assessment of the first ten years of the BRI’s flagship project.

This book will be of interest to scholars of area studies, regionalization, international relations and development studies, as well as China studies and South Asia studies focused on the most important and far-reaching national-level implementation of the BRI to date.