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Paper short abstract:

This paper may help us test the explanatory power of three major research programs of international relations to explain the places and roles of Central Asian states in which they have and play at regional and international levels and how dealing with Russia.

Paper long abstract:

Theories on international relations have always been in the spotlight and consider as a solid base for understanding and explaining different security and economic issues and why the states take certain positions and have either common or competitive interests and policies. Interests and policies of states may cause cooperation or competition among the states. The debates on how to deal with each other have been generalized and found in research programs in theories of international relations. Therefore, IR schools or research programs – a series of theories that share similar assumptions – have emerged. As none of the schools can embrace and explain all the diverse issues of world politics, thus, they formed a symbiosis to simplify the reality and give a rational explanation for particular events. Therefore, in some cases, the core assumptions of these theories have common features that explain the logic of events in the same manner.

It is worth attempting to understand motivations that states decide in cooperation or competition with each other and understand what conditions international relations theories can explain this process. In this paper, I am taking the Central Asian states as my case and will try to apply three major research programs of international relations (realism, liberalism, and constructivism) to the common security and economic issues related to the Central Asian states when they deal with Russia, a hegemonic power of the region.

The application of different theories likely helps us to understand the current foreign policies of Central Asian states. This is because the power, political regimes, perceptions, identities, economic capacities of the Central Asian states influence their place in the international system and define their roles in regional world politics. Therefore, applying one theory to specific state policies is essential to understanding security and economic issues. However, on the other hand, theories may do a good job separately covering economic and security concerns.

This paper may help us test the explanatory power of three major research programs of international relations to explain the places and roles of Central Asian states in which they have and play at regional and international levels and how dealing with Russia.