Changing Security Threat Perceptions in Central Asia

This article discusses the current process of securitisation in Central Asia and identifies its convoluted and faulty nature as a factor impeding collective security action in the region. It uses the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) as an explanatory tool and posits that security discourse in - and about - the five former Soviet republics is dominated by geopolitical grand strategy on the one hand and by particularist concerns about lack of democracy or transnational threats on the other. Issues of conventional security involving two or more states, such as territorial disputes or resource management, are pushed aside and rarely securitised at the official level. The article outlines conceptual and institutional reasons for this bias, and argues that unless inter-state tensions are properly analysed, debated and addressed, the prospects for security and stability in the region will remain grim

Saviours of the Nation or Robber Barons? Warlord Politics in Tajikistan

Among all former Soviet Central Asian republics Tajikistan alone has suffered Complete state failure in the course of post-communist transition. The contraction of central government during the final years of perestroika, and especially in the course of a short but brutal 1992 civil war, has produced a situation where large segments of the population have had to depend on various strongmen as far as their livelihood, security and often very existence are concerned. The 1997 Peace Agreement put an end to the civil conflict and led to a degree of stabilisation at the macro-political level, but it did not eliminate a plethora of military cliques who periodically challenged the authority of President Emomali Rahmonov's regime and jeopardised the process of national reconciliation. Headlines in the Western media such as 'Peace lies in hands of brutal warlords' and 'Robber barons flouting the authority of a weak government are tipping the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan back into chaos' adequately reflected the situation on the ground at the time. Seven years later Tajikistan still has plenty of wa rlords fighting 'bitter battles for the control over regional and local economic resources and opportunities'. Arguably, they are not as powerful and ubiquitous as in neighbouring Afghanistan, yet their sheer endurance and continuing influence warrant a closer look into the phenomenon of warlordism in Tajikistan

Bandits, warlords, national heroes: interpretations of the Basmachi movement in Tajikistan

The history of the Basmachi movement has occupied a prominent place in the construction of a collective past in Soviet and post-Soviet Tajikistan. This article traces the evolution of its representations in the dominant narrative from the 1950s to the present day. It argues that official discourse in contemporary Tajikistan situates the Basmachis in the mould of a national struggle against Turkic oppression, rather than portraying them, in the manner of earlier prevalent models, as part of a class-based or anti-colonialist resistance. Among many public counter-narratives, the one focusing on the local appeal of the Basmachi leaders has the greatest potential to challenge the government-sponsored reading of Tajikistan's past and thus the image of a unified nation it seeks to support