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Abstract

Since 2016, Central Asia has experienced an unprecedented intensification of regional interaction. Informal consultative summits of Central Asian leaders, dense bilateral agreements, particularly between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and the expansion of sectoral cooperation in transport, trade, and security have generated renewed debates about regional integration. Simultaneously, the region remains deeply embedded in overlapping external frameworks, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and various “C5+1” formats. This paper examines how internal coordination and external tracks interact to shape the nonlinear dynamics of regional integration in Central Asia.

Drawing on semi-structured expert interviews, qualitative document analysis, and event-based process tracing of key summits and agreements after 2016, the study applies insights from complex systems theory and competing regionalism scholarship. Rather than conceptualizing integration as a linear accumulation of institutions, the paper treats Central Asia as an adaptive regional system structured by feedback loops, threshold effects, and path dependencies.

The central argument is that bilateral “axis partnerships,” especially between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, function as stabilizing cores that generate emergent regional effects beyond formal institutionalization. Internal coordination mechanisms, such as leader-driven consultative summits, create a platform for agenda harmonization, while external tracks provide resources, strategic leverage, and infrastructural connectivity. However, these external frameworks also introduce institutional overlap and strategic competition, producing nonlinear outcomes: periods of acceleration, temporary fragmentation, and adaptive rebalancing.

The findings suggest that competing regionalisms do not necessarily undermine regional cohesion. Instead, they produce a dynamic balancing structure in which internal coordination mitigates fragmentation risks while preserving strategic autonomy. The paper introduces the concept of “nonlinear regional coordination” to explain how Central Asia’s integration trajectory differs from classical models of regional institutional deepening.

By reframing Central Asian regionalism through a nonlinear systems perspective, this study contributes to broader debates on post-Soviet transformation, adaptive regionalism, and the interaction between small-region agency and great-power institutional architectures.

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This paper examines how supranational institutions evolve under authoritarian regionalism by analysing the competition policy of the Eurasian Economic Union. While existing scholarship portrays the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) as a weak and subordinate administrative body, this paper argues that the EEC nevertheless engages in incremental forms of institutional agency. It examines how the EEC adapts, expands, and restraints its competition policy competences under conditions of limited delegation, strong sovereignty constraints, and politically connected market structures. Drawing on historical institutionalism, the paper investigates three episodes of institutional change via the framework of conversion, drift, and layering. It shows that the EEC pursues conversion through activism on extraterritorial jurisdiction, experiences drift in its strategic restraint regarding investigative powers such as dawn raids, and engages in layering through the formalisation of soft law instruments. The paper conceptualises these dynamics as bounded supranationalism and contributes to debates on institutional change in former Soviet and non-democratic regional organisations.

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It has been almost a decade since the five Central Asian states began working more closely together to strengthen regional cooperation by seeking to effectively solve border disputes, addressing the issue of water resources, deepening economic ties, and fostering people-to-people contacts. This study attempts to review the trajectories of the scholarship on Central Asian regionalism. While earlier scholarly works looked to the European experience as a benchmark to gauge regional integration, recent insights have moved beyond using Western functionalist approaches to conceptualize Central Asian regional cooperation, emphasizing idiosyncratic region-building practices. Currently, renewed regional cooperation in Central Asia is driven by local political actors, who deliberately avoid the aim of achieving regional integration and instead prefer flexible practices based on local sociopolitical norms. Although this approach has increased political trust, resolved long-standing border issues, and promoted regional trade and economic activity, social interactions among Central Asians remain limited.

This research is based on the understanding that social sciences are not only about description but also about creating new meanings and possibilities for change. Therefore, we aim to conceptualize and propose ways in which Central Asian cooperation – and, in the future, even Central Asian integration in certain spheres – can be implemented. One of the biggest problems facing Central Asian countries is the existence of social, economic, and cultural hierarchies. From a decolonial epistemological perspective, hierarchy is a form of oppression, and a hierarchical society is an oppressive society. How can Central Asian countries cooperate if they are internally divided? Thus, this research emphasizes the importance of social rights, such as the human right to decent incomes, social payments, pensions, affordable and quality health care, and the right to education, all of which can help create more egalitarian societies in place of stratified ones. The development of social rights will minimize social and economic hierarchies and promote regional cooperation – and integration in non-sensitive sectors – in Central Asia. Importantly, models of a socially oriented but limited Central Asian state can be based on the legacy of Kazakh-Alash and Central Asian Jadid intellectuals, who in principle followed a social democratic model with a division of powers. For example, the creation of a common Central Asian labor market or a Central Asian Water and Irrigation Community can benefit all. Successful regional cooperation and integration projects were initially operationally limited but philosophically ambitious.

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The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is frequently analysed through institutional design, geopolitics, and aggregate trade outcomes, yet less is known about how integration is experienced by firms within member states. This article examines the consequences of EAEU membership for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kazakhstan’s manufacturing sector. Drawing on 17 semi-structured interviews with SME owners and managers and a qualitative analysis of 121 newspaper articles, it traces how integration is translated into everyday business practice. The findings show that outcomes are unevenly distributed and structured by asymmetric power relations within the EAEU. Kazakhstani SMEs face intensified competition from Russian producers, higher input costs linked to tariff harmonisation, and recurrent non-tariff barriers that restrict access to partner markets. These constraints are reinforced by discretionary enforcement and transit dependencies, generating rule-based uncertainty for firms with limited administrative and political capacity. Geopolitical shocks, particularly sanctions-related disruptions and currency volatility, further transmit instability through integrated supply chains and trade routes. By foregrounding firm-level experiences, the article contributes to debates on Eurasian integration and authoritarian regionalism, showing how formal rules interact with informal hierarchies to generate dependency for peripheral member states.