In the wake of Soviet disintegration, Central Asia became an idiom for the ensuing confusion in the post-Cold War climate of international affairs, characterized by inter-state order and intra-state anarchy. Dynamic changes associated with the end of communism, the 'revival' of ethnic, religious and clan mobilization and the gradual involvement of various international actors, have inspired extensive scholarly and policy engagement with the region. Yet most analyses fail to bring Central Asia into the mainstream of systematic interrogation. This timely volume analyzes the quality of statehood in the region by assessing the complex dynamics of Central Asian state-making and focusing on the simultaneous patterns of socialization and internalization in the region. It straddles four different bodies of literature and addresses the systematic lacunae in all of them to investigate the localization effects of Russia, China, the EU and NATO on forms of post-Soviet statehood in Central Asia - placing Central Asia in the study and practice of world politics.

The international politics of fusion and fissure in the awkward states of post-Soviet Central Asia, Emilian Kavalski; Part 1 Analytical Perspectives on the Post-Soviet Statehood of Central Asia: Applying the democratization literature to post-Soviet Central Asian statehood, Paul Kubicek; The problems of the 'clan' politics model of Central Asian statehood: a call for alternative pathways for research, David Gullette; The international political economy of Central Asian statehood, Martin C. Spechler and Dina R. Spechler; Central Asian statehood in post-colonial perspective, John Heathershaw. Part 2 Insights from the Processes of Localization in the Dynamics of Central Asian State-Making: International democratic norms and domestic socialization in Kazakhstan: learning processes of the power elite, Kirill Nourzhanov; International agency in Kyrgyzstan: rhetoric, revolution and renegotiation, Claire Wilkinson; The limits of international agency: post-Soviet state building in Tajikstan, Lawrence P. Markowitz; Turkmenistan: flawed, fragile and isolated, Steven Sabol; Stalled at the doorstep of a modern state: neopatrimonial regime in Uzbekistan, Alisher Ilkhamov; Bibliography; Index.