Beyond the Geopolitical Chessboard: New Ways of Theorizing the International Relations of Central Asia

Trailović, Dragan (2024) Beyond the Geopolitical Chessboard: New Ways of Theorizing the International Relations of Central Asia. In: Geography, Identity, and Politics: Concepts, Theories, and Cases in Geopolitical Analysis. Faculty of Security Studies, University, Belgrade, pp. 113-129. ISBN 978-86-80144-67-2

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Abstract

For a long time, Central Asia has been seen as a region divided by conflict, insecurity, and competition, lacking comprehensive cooperation between its countries. Writings on the region often focused on the influence of external powers, institutions, and norms they created. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of the Central Asian republics, discursive framing of the region has repeatedly relied on the notion of the Great Game/New Great Game, a competition between major powers for regional influence. This portrayed Central Asian nations as passive participants in international relations, objects of international relations, pawns on a geopolitical chessboard. Now, with the intraregional process of power transition and the internally initiated process of strengthening regional integration through consultative meetings of the heads of state of the Central Asian republics, there have also been changes in the theorizing of regional international relations. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate the main emerging ways of re- theorizing Central Asia in this field. To this end, the article will present the primary approaches for reconceptualizing the region, with a particular emphasis on several theoretical frameworks and concepts. These include Buranelli's perspective on Central Asia as an "international society", Dadabaev's advocacy for the "decolonization of Central Asian international relations," Fazendeiro's concept of “power as togetherness”, and Dzhuraev's "3-i's model."

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