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Paper short abstract:

The study of Chinese-financed infrastructure failure is limited. In the Eurasian context, there have been manifold occasions of such failures. This paper provides a timely theoretical analysis of ‘infrastructure failure’ sympathetic to inter-disciplinary approaches, for multiple stakeholders.

Paper long abstract:

The study of infrastructure failure is limited. Contributions have tended to focus on extant physical infrastructure failures such as collapsed bridges or burst pipelines rather than when and why projects fail and their consequences. This issue has become more important following increases in Chinese-sourced investment in infrastructure projects across Eurasia whether through private or state capital, financing or funding initiatives, with the explicit aim to create a ‘new Silk Road’ linking China to Europe (Eurasia).

In the Eurasian context, there have been multiple occasions of infrastructure project failure such as the light railway transport initiative in Nur-Sultan, and the multiple power station project cancellations resulting from coal phase-out policies since 2014. These examples constitute ‘infrastructure failures’: projects that for various reasons did not deliver their original plan. Presently, too little is understood about when or why Chinese-sourced infrastructure investments fail in Eurasia with the ‘when’ here understood as the temporal/spatial ‘point-of-failure’ within the project: the pre-planning, pre-construction, construction phases or beyond.

To address this shortfall, this paper – part of a Special Issue (SI) for the journal Competition and Change – provides a theoretical analysis of ‘infrastructure failure’ sympathetic to inter-disciplinary approaches (development studies, human geography, political economy etc.). The paper raises questions on what infrastructure failures mean for, amongst other dimensions, Chinese capital variety, geopolitics, labour relations, regional (Eurasian) blocs, and sectoral politics. As a result, it makes a timely contribution to scholarly literature and will stimulate debate on the pressing issue of infrastructure failure across Eurasia and beyond.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the strengthening of regional solidarity that contributes to the stability of Central Asia’s current political authoritarian regimes and argues that a symbolic solidarity built around authoritarian values is reinforced by formal security institutions led by Russia and China.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the strengthening of regional solidarity that contributes to the stability of Central Asia’s current political authoritarian regimes. In this paper, I will look at the January 2022 violence in Kazakhstan and the subsequent intervention of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) led by Russia as well as the enlargement of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, led by China, and argue that a symbolic solidarity built around authoritarian values is reinforced by formal security institutions.

In January 2022 in Kazakhstan, an unprecedented popular uprising and a struggle between elites ended with the intervention of troops from the CSTO, of which Russia provided the largest contingents. Everything suggests that Kazakhstani President Tokayev, not having confidence in his own security forces, called on the CSTO to maintain and consolidate his authority over the state apparatus. Russia, as a dominant member of the CSTO, was presented with a great opportunity to reassert its role as a stabilizing power in a sphere of influence it already dominates. This intervention reveals a drift: authoritarian states weakened by popular uprisings can count on authoritarian regional solidarity that will help to maintain the status quo.

The paper will also address the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), created in 2001 which brings together China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The organization aims to promote cooperation between members in several domains: economic, political and military and regularly conducts military exercises. One important mission of the SCO is intended to combat extremism and terrorism. The organization, which chart does not insist on the defense of democratic rights but on the promotion of political stability, offers an attractive framework for intervention for the countries of Central Asia. Finally, I will argue that this authoritarian solidarity (Ambrioso 2008, 2016) contributes to the worrying phenomenon of the diffusion and consolidation of authoritarianism that has been taking place in the world since the beginning of the 21st century (Foa and Mounk 2016).

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Paper short abstract:

Focussing on state security services in the Russian Federation and Kyrgyz Republic, this paper unpacks the history of Soviet-era state security, its post-Soviet continuation and present-day manifestations to delineate the ‘authoritarian security’ that characterizes political regimes in Eurasia.

Paper long abstract:

Analyses of former Socialist countries’ security apparatuses have remained under-explored in both security studies and Central Eurasian area studies. The proposed paper is situated at this intersection and seeks to unpack the history of Soviet-era state security, its post-Soviet continuation and present-day manifestations. Focussing on state security services in the Russian Federation and Kyrgyz Republic, it offers a case study on (post-)Soviet contexts characterised by centre-periphery relations and is based on relevant English and Russian-language literature while also drawing on available archival and public discourse material. 

The first section examines the building up of the Soviet national security architecture and its specific structures and practices. Section two analyses the developments after 1991 and particularly the divergence between the relative consolidation of the Russian FSB and its political influence vis-à-vis varying degrees of reform and instrumentalization of the Kyrgyz Republic’s GKNB. The third section compares these and other post-Soviet trajectories with Eurasian security apparatuses and their Western counterparts to delineate the ‘authoritarian security’ that is seen to characterize various political regimes in Eurasia. The conclusion maps out further necessary steps in the agenda towards an unpacking of the ethos, imaginaries and cultures of state security in Eurasia and their geographically, culturally and otherwise specific nature.