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Abstract

Central Asia’s role as a site of geopolitical importance and foreign influence is not new, but the form that influence takes has shifted significantly in the past decade. For youth, foreign engagement is no longer a distant geopolitical abstraction; it appears in everyday life through education programs, cultural exchanges, migration networks, and social media. As today’s youth represent future decisionmakers and voters, they undergo a critical period of political identity and belief formation. Yet despite Central Asia’s strategic importance and youth’s unique position as recipients of soft power initiatives, there is limited quantitative research examining how young people are willing to engage with initiatives carried out by actors such as China, Russia, and the United States.

This study examines how different mechanisms of U.S. soft power—particularly direct interpersonal contact and media exposure—shape Afghan and Tajik youths’ perceptions, trust, and intended engagement with the United States and international organizations. Using original pilot survey data collected from Afghan and Tajik youth residing in Tajikistan, the study quantitatively maps relationships among perceptions, trust, and both immediate and future intended actions.

Findings indicate that trust has a stronger and more statistically significant correlation with future action (r = .615, p = .004) than perception alone (r = .510, p = .021). Perception and trust are not significantly correlated (r = .376, p = .103), suggesting that favorable attitudes do not necessarily translate into institutional confidence. Direct interpersonal contact demonstrates a stronger association with trust and with higher-commitment behavioral intentions than media exposure, which is more closely linked to familiarity and affective responses. These findings suggest the presence of a “Familiarity–Action Gap,” in which positive perceptions do not consistently translate into active engagement.

By providing rare quantitative data on Afghan and Tajik youth residing in Tajikistan, this study contributes to Central Eurasian scholarship by shifting analysis from elite geopolitical strategy to youth-level political socialization.

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For those researchers interested in Central Eurasia, locals’ hospitality has long ago become proverbial, almost a truism. Perhaps so obviously so that it has gathered only very little direct scholarly attention despite being such a central value to those who live in this region, not to mention to those abovementioned researchers who come to rely on locals’ traditions of welcome. At the same time, the soft power implications of hospitality remain unexplored, particularly in relation to Central Eurasia, despite evidence that this region’s geopolitics are shaped by relational forces of attraction, legitimacy, and influence by both hosts and guests. How then can the hospitality paradigm help analyse how host countries manage the political diversity of guest countries and generate soft power in this central region? This article aims to dialogue with these points through the onto-epistemological nexus of space, hospitality, Central Eurasia, and soft power, by exploring how these four concepts can work hand in hand to further theorise the relational politics that shape the centre of the Eurasian continent. To reach this aim, the paper first theorises or rather spatialises Central Eurasia as a historical, geographic, and geopolitical space of soft power hospitality. The second part then empirically presents and discusses in the interdisciplinary perspective of the local paremiological fund, the broad travel literature (religious missionaries, diplomatic envoys, foreign travellers), international relations, and geopolitics, some of the most salient data of soft power hospitality past and present collected in the region. Synthesized together, these sections will provide a useful analytical tool to map out the dynamic soft power relations and exchanges that take place in this region, and reinforce the epistemic justice, openness and semantic sensitivity called for by the emerging decolonial strand of Central Eurasian studies.

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This paper intends to shed light on and analyze the soft power strategy initiated by Uzbekistan since 2017. Tashkent has set a roadmap to increase its political capital and visibility by forging an Uzbek soft power. This strategy is primarily focused on culture and tourism. By focusing on these two areas, Uzbekistan's strategy not only aims to strengthen its recent multilateral shift but also enables the construction of a 'national brand'. In this process of steady 'nation-branding' efforts, it can rely on the experience and cooperation with the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula who already possess credentials in the targeted fields. The Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation—established in 2017—has skillfully proceeded to apply the toolkit used by its three main partners: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Key demonstrations of the implementation of the 'Arabian Peninsula model' include the establishment of art biennales and the materialization of 'shared desired futures' through the construction of museums and civilizational centers. The scheduled opening of the Islamic Civilization Center in Tashkent to mark the end of Ramadan (March 2026) exemplifies what STS scholar Sheila Jasanoff terms 'sociotechnical imaginaries'.

The sociotechnical imaginaries produced by Arabian Peninsula countries in the fields of art and culture are firmly rooted in Western museological models—particularly American, British and French institutions. While this framework enabled the production of relatively homogeneous definitions of nationhood across the Arabian Peninsula, its adoption remains uneven among Central Asian states. Whereas Uzbekistan has comprehensively embraced this cultural model since 2017, Kazakhstan initiated similar nation-branding processes earlier but focused primarily on the educational sphere rather than cultural institutions. Kazakh higher education institutions—particularly Nazarbayev University—have produced a distinct version of Kazakh modernity, suggesting that sociotechnical imaginaries can manifest through different sectoral pathways across Central Asia.

This paper contributes to the emerging field of Arabian Peninsula-Central Asia cultural relations by shifting focus from religious dimensions to strategic cultural diplomacy and nation-branding. While existing studies have examined energy partnerships, the deliberate transfer of Gulf soft power models to Central Asia remains understudied. Drawing on field observation (Sharjah-Samarkand exhibition, April 2024) and institutional documents, this paper demonstrates how sociotechnical imaginaries manifest through sector-specific pathways. The asymmetric adoption reveals how heritage endowment and developmental priorities shape distinct modernization trajectories across post-Soviet Central Asia.

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This article is devoted to analyzing the role of the spiritual and ecological heritage of Nowruz in promoting green diplomacy in Tajikistan. Nowruz, as one of the oldest celebrations in human history, rooted in the millennial civilization of the Persian and Tajik peoples, embodies not only a cultural phenomenon but also a system of values that reflects a harmonious and responsible relationship between humanity and nature.

The article, using qualitative analysis methods, including discourse analysis, a review of scientific sources, political documents, and official speeches, as well as a study of the cultural experiences of the Tajik people related to Nowruz, examines the spiritual and ecological aspects of this celebration. At the same time, the Nowruz traditions of the mountainous people and the forms of transmission of ecological knowledge from generation to generation are used as important sources of analysis.

The article argues that Tajikistan, relying on the spiritual and ecological values of Nowruz, develops a unique form of green diplomacy, leveraging culture as a tool of soft power and cultural diplomacy to promote environmental sustainability, foster social cohesion, and enhance regional and international cooperation. Unlike traditional models of diplomacy, which rely mainly on political and economic interests, this approach uses intangible cultural heritage as a key element in shaping the country’s international image and as an effective mechanism for environmental governance

The results of the study show that the values embodied in Nowruz, such as respect for nature, environmental purification, social cohesion, and rational resource management, can strengthen the solid foundation of Tajikistan’s environmental policy and international diplomacy. These values strengthen both national policies and regional cooperation within Central Asia and beyond.

From an academic perspective, the article contributes to the development of contemporary debates on the relationship between intangible cultural heritage, ecology, and diplomacy, demonstrating how folk and historical traditions can serve as a source of policy innovation for addressing global challenges, including climate change and sustainable development.