Central Asian Regionalism or Central Asian Order? Some Reflections

What is it about?

The paper argues that the category of regionalism is not helpful to analyse regional politics in Central Asia, as it is often used with Eurocentric assumptions of pooling of sovereignty and liberalisation of the economy in mind. Rather, the paper suggest to adopt the concept of order, which is less deterministic, less normative burdernsome, and more flexible. Rather than emphasising integration and coalescence around formal institutions, the concept of order stresses the importance of coordination, coexistence, pragmatism and compromise while at the same time accounting for both cooperation and conflict. The paper thus makes the argument that the concept of order is more faithful to the politics of Central Asia and that, while not dismissing that regional dynamics may well take off in the future, at present the concept of regionalism may obscure rather than clarify specific Central Asian discourses and practices of multilateralism and regional behaviour.

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