Central Asian Regionalism or Central Asian Order – Comprehensive Study Notes

Article: "Central Asian Regionalism or Central Asian Order? Some Reflections" by Filippo Costa Buranelli (2021, Central Asian Affairs, Vol. 8, pp. 1–26).
Reacts to renewed talk of “regionalism” after Shavkat Mirziyoyev became president of Uzbekistan (late 2016) and thawed intra-regional relations.
Links Central Asia’s situation to the wider erosion of the liberal international order (LIO), intensified by great-power rivalry, U.S. retrenchment, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paper is self-reflexive, not purely empirical; aims to rethink analytical categories.

Regionalism: Cooperation/integration among proximate states, often institution-centred and normatively teleological. In much Western literature it equals formal regional organisation + shared identity.
Order: “Relatively stable and predictable set of relations between social actors allowing basic goals to be achieved through rules and institutions protecting common interests.”
- Social actors = sovereign states (author takes state-centric stance).
- Elementary goals (after Hedley Bull): preservation of life, control of violence, observance of promises.
Institutions (English School meaning): Durable, socially recognised practices (not just IOs) that uphold order—e.g., sovereignty, diplomacy, international law.
Authoritarianism as an institution: Accepted regional norm of strong rule / regime stability.
Great-power management: Special rights/obligations of major powers to manage security externalities.
Samarkand Spirit: Label for Mirziyoyev’s informal, consensus-based multilateralism launched via UN RES 72/283.

Literature diagnoses Central Asia as “pathologically non-cooperative” (Spechler).
Common labels: “impossible”, “virtual”, “failure”, “gloomy picture”, “the region that isn’t”.
Pandemic commentary: A coordinated COVID response would be “miraculous” due to lack of institutions.

Neo-patrimonial regimes resist pooling sovereignty & border softening → blocks deep economic/security integration (Collins).
Regime-preservation drives securitisation of basic coordination; fear of extremism/terrorism impedes trust (Allison).
Divergent levels of economic development & nation-building; water/energy disputes; external dependency on Russia/China hamper integration (Kubicek; Bohr; Rumer).
Centrifugal economic pull is exogenous—trade & investment asymmetrically tied to great powers (Krapohl & Vasileva-Dienes).

Regionalism = formal organisation ± exclusive identity.
Regionalism as teleology: Becoming a region is seen as a natural/economic inevitability.
Prescriptive bias: Regionalism viewed as “right course”; its absence → abnormality.
Eurocentrism: EU/NAFTA (or ASEAN) are implicit benchmarks; scholars expect Central Asia to “emulate” Europe.

Order is a lighter, non-teleological category that tolerates coexistence + selective cooperation + conflict.
Table-style comparison (verbal):
- Regionalism: software; prescriptive; needs identity & IO; integration-oriented.
- Order: hardware; descriptive; may lack IO; focuses on basic survival & predictability.
Addresses critique that regionalism “must” happen; instead asks, “How do states coexist if they don’t integrate?”

Avoid Caucasus/Yugoslavia-style warfare after independence.
Secure borders & identities inherited from USSR (uti\ possidetis).
Ensure regime survival and prevent alternative power centres (e.g., pan-Turkism, ISIS).

Non-intervention / non-interference: Respect each other’s sovereignty; no “big-brother” hegemony.
Territorial integrity: Inviolability of Soviet-era borders; cautious view of Crimea precedent.
Balanced great-power engagement: Omnibalancing / multivectorism (engage Russia, China, US, etc.).
Avtoritet & stabil’nost’: Mutual legitimation of rulers; avoidance of regime-threatening behaviour.

Sovereignty: Central rhetorical & legal principle; sometimes obstructs deeper cooperation.
Diplomacy: Inter-presidentialism, foreign-minister meetings, local cross-border practices; preference for peaceful settlement (e.g., Rogun Dam handling).
International Law: Usage of UN treaties, Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone treaty; mix of formal treaties & flexible ‘soft’ agreements.
Authoritarianism: Shared acceptance of strong-man rule; Kyrgyz revolutions viewed as deviant cautionary tales.
Great-power management: Acceptance of Russia/China security roles, albeit negotiable; recent CSTO mediation offer on Kyrgyz-Tajik border rejected, showing negotiated hegemony.

1994 Central Asian Union → CAEC 1997 → CACO early 2000s: early EU-inspired but fizzled.
Two Consultative Meetings of Heads of State: Nur-Sultan 2018, Tashkent 2019; non-binding dialogue (“sync their watches”).
COVID-19 cooperation: Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan sent humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan; health ministries shared data; exception = Turkmenistan.
Border diplomacy: Community elders & local officials mediate Ferghana Valley clashes.

Explains coexistence despite absence of a purely Central Asian organisation.
Captures Turkmenistan’s “positive neutrality” and occasional inclusion of Afghanistan without forcing them into a regionalist straitjacket.
Reveals illiberal peace: stability prioritised over liberal norms; institutions sustain authoritarian order.
Shows how formal Eurasian bodies (SCO, CSTO, EAEU) interact with, but do not define, the specifically Central Asian layer of order.

State-centric lens risks ignoring societal contestation & alternative orders.
Order does not mean absence of conflict—skirmishes persist (Kazakh–Kyrgyz trade tiffs, Kyrgyz-Tajik border violence).
Potential tension between sovereignty & great-power management; contested when mediation appears intrusive.
Need to examine local, pre-colonial norms sustaining cross-border peace (e.g., customary law).

Interdisciplinary bottom-up studies: Anthropological work on community-level cooperation, identity and order-making.
Legitimacy & localisation: How global institutions (UN, WTO, human-rights regimes) are adapted to Central Asian order.
Epistemic decolonisation: Recover indigenous concepts of order; utilise Central Asian scholarship; shift from positivism to interpretive, thick-description methods.

Supports English School’s layered international society; Central Asia illustrates regional orders nested in global order.
Speaks to debates on post-LIO world: rise of pluralistic, region-based orders (Acharya’s Global IR, Buzan & Schouenborg’s embedded pluralism).
Demonstrates negotiated hegemony vs unilateral primacy (applicable to Sino-Russian interactions elsewhere).

Policymakers should align with the grain of existing order rather than impose Eurocentric integration models.
Supporting informal, flexible mechanisms may be more effective than pushing for EU-style institutions.
Acknowledging authoritarian stability raises normative dilemmas for democracy promoters and human-rights advocates.