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- Convenors:
-
Edward Lemon
(Texas AM University)
Philipp Lottholz (Centre for Conflict Studies, University of Marburg)
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- Theme:
- POL
- Location:
- City View Room, 7th floor
- Sessions:
- Friday 11 October, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Long Abstract:
Central Asia continues to attract the attention of researchers and policy-makers in the areas of security, peacebuilding/conflict prevention and political change. This, and especially the discourse on the region since the involvement of Central Asian migrants in terrorist attacks in different Western metropoles, has put into sharp relief the general public's and expert communities' disregard for the living conditions and ongoing challenges faced by Central Asian societies. These include, but are not limited to, the region's uneven and incomplete processes of economic, political and social change and related resource, territorial and identitarian conflicts. Some recent studies have critically analyzed Central Asian states' policies of countering and preventing violent extremism and terrorism, both with a view to their discursive and practical dimensions of securitization and as part of wider trajectories of political (re-) ordering. Meanwhile, historical studies of Central Asian societies have continuously grown in number but maintained a focus on their idiosyncratic epochs, areas and actors, thus presenting a great potential for an interdisciplinary dialogue on historical and current forms of ordering and securitization. This panel seeks to further unlock this potential and to facilitate a better understanding of the continuities, parallels, path dependencies and possible future scenarios of the development of sustainable peace and security in Central Asia in light of its imperial legacies. Applying various analytical and disciplinary frameworks as well as empirical lenses, participants will make important contributions to the inquiry into historical forms of securitization and their present ramifications.
The panel presents a sub-set of papers from a larger special issue publication project. Two papers focus on the securitization of Islam, which is traced from Soviet times to the present and in terms of its shift from a focus on Wahabbism to Salafism; and, furthermore, in terms of the perceptions that ordinary people have about religion, religious freedom and its implications for social cohesion and stability. The other two papers look at the evolving nature of state-society relations, both in a historical perspective through an oral history of people's perceptions of the state, society and their place in it in times of perestroika, and, secondly, in regard to recent trends of inclusive and participatory decision-making processes in otherwise authoritarian political regimes. This way, the politics of order-making and security/securitization are probed as to their imperial and post-imperial logics and content, and both in their subjective, micro-level and public discourse and policy dimensions.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 11 October, 2019, -Hélène Thibault (Nazarbayev University)
Paper long abstract:
This papers seeks to investigate the recent discursive shift from Wahhabism to Salafism as the main "non-traditional movement" that poses a security threat to Central Asian societies. By looking at past and current official discourses, I argue that the recent reinforcement of political control over the religious sphere operates under a discursive shift that aims at sidelining non-traditional religious movements, mostly Salafism, and legitimating Hanafism, which is officially endorsed by state authorities. Countries of the former Soviet Union exercise a tight control over religious organizations and practices through the Spiritual Direction of Muslims, which stand as official clergies. In Central Asia, a certain securitization of Islam was initiated in the 1990s-2000s (Lemon and Thibault 2018, Omelicheva 2011, Rasanayagam 2006) but the control over religious institutions was still rather limited in most of the states until the mid-2000s. This rhetorical shift should also be seen in light of the emergence and subsequent demise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which thousands of Central Asian nationals joined (Tucker 2016).
This paper will retrace the evolution of the understanding of the Islamic threat on the territory of the former USSR while emphasizing the recent shift from Wahhabism to Salafism. In Soviet times, Sufism was repeatedly characterized as 'non-conformist Islam' that opposed Soviet outlooks. It was later replaced by Wahhabism, which held even more radical and violent views (Knysh 2004). Today, the term Wahhabism has almost entirely disappeared from public discourses and Salafism is now branded as the most hostile branch of Islam. The discursive shift is also accompanied by a series of institutional responses to promote Hanafism and strong actions against public displays of faith such as clothes that cover the head and/or face, certain types of beards and short trousers, which are associated with Salafism (Thibault 2018). The idea is to associate certain religious behaviours with a type of Islam that is considered foreign and incompatible with the values of Central Asian societies. Ultimately, this paper will highlight the debates over the interpretation of religious practices and the expressions of Salafism in the Central Asian context and the equivocal legitimacy of these interpretations.
Medet Tiulegenov (University of Central Asia)
Paper long abstract:
Some of the puzzles of modern day state building in Central Asia still lie
in the moments of the initial post-soviet transition. Although the transition paradigm was viewed as being over (Carothers 2002) it can be argued that, when it comes to the state building processes, past quarter of century has brought slow tectonic shift which is heavily affected how state was imagined and (re-)constructed at the dawn of independence.
This paper focuses on transformation of the parliament as one of the key institutions which reflects relations between society and the state, and on
the case of Kyrgyzstan where the parliament has been playing an important
role throughout its independence. The study looks into various aspects of
this institution, from elections to the functional relations with other state institutions. Timewise it is focused around elections to the USSR Supreme Soviet in 1989, the Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Soviet in 1990 and Zhogorku Kenesh in 1995. The latter is compared to the former two and these few years are analysed as transformative for relations between society and this institution.
Conceptually this work is based on Migdal's work (1998) and uses the critical juncture perspective (Pierson, 2004) to understand how the state was
transformed during the post-soviet transition. Taking into account limits
of making transformation from Supreme Soviet to Zhogorku Kenesh a proxy for
understanding the state transformation, this study conceptually aims to go
beyond the often-used Weberian perspective on these processes. Besides understanding critical moments of transition this work aims to contribute conceptually to understanding the state building process in times of transition.
Empirically the study is based on around 40 oral histories of people's experience
of Perestroika and early independence as well as on a number of interviews with participants of the parliamentary transformation in the late 80s and
the early 90s. It also analyses state and personal archives and print media of that time. While most of the data comes from the national level, some of it is collected in the city of Karakol (Issyk Kul oblast) to elicit also sub-national perspectives on state-building.
Sebastian Schiek
Paper long abstract:
Citizen Participation is a global phenomenon. Participation of citizens in political and administrative processes is propagated in new democracy and governance concepts and in global programs such as "e-participation", "Agenda 2030", or modern urbanity concepts. In these (mostly "Western" or cosmo¬po¬litan) accounts, participation is seen, explicitly or implicitly, as a complement to representation and to autonomous civil society participation. However, participation also plays a role in autocracies, such as Kazakhstan. Although the context differs from the assumptions underlying the global concepts of participation, external actors provide financial, technical and symbolic support to Kazakhstan's policy of "authoritarian participation". These joint efforts raise two questions: What are the common and diverging goals of the regime and the external actors? What is the outcome of these joint efforts to increase participation?
The paper has two sections: First, it examines the similarities and differences of concepts and goals of participation between Kazakhstan and the external actors. While external actors pursue a global agenda out of specific normative and bureaucratic interests, Kazakhstan's participation policy is part of the regime's ultimate goal to prevent regime change by improving economic performance and preventing protests. In this context, participation is supposed to fulfil three functions: Managing and individualizing participation, window dressing and, finally, mitigating structural problems of the authoritarian regime. External actors share some of these goals, while ignoring or accepting other goals of the authoritarian regime. Unintentionally, they support the "window dressing" goal. International organizations differ in how they deal with the authoritarian context. Secondly, the paper offers a first outlook on the extent to which the regime achieves its goals in terms of preventing protests and regime change.
Empirically, the paper is based on a number of interviews with political and societal actors in Astana and Almaty as well as official documents, media reports and social media artefacts. It speaks to the literature on the domestic and foreign policy of autocratic regimes, on the illiberal peace as well as to the global governance literature.