China's Soft Power in Central Asia
By Nurlan Aliyev December 19, 2019, the CACI Analyst On October 17-18, 2019, the 7th China-Central Asia Cooperation Forum, was held in Nanning, Guanxi province. The goal of the Forum was to further...
View ArticleNew Strategy, Old Game: The Realigning Geopolitics of Central Asia
By Farkhod Tolipov March 26, 2020, the CACI Analyst Three recent events have recently drawn the attention of the public, experts and official circles in Central Asia: U.S. Secretary of State Mike...
View ArticleCentral Asia Caught in Economic Perfect Storm amid Oil Price Collapse and...
By Azad Garibov May 12, 2020, the CACI Analyst The collapse of oil prices and outbreak of a pandemic seems to catch Central Asia in an economic perfect storm. Some regional energy exporters will suffer...
View ArticleU.S. Presence in Central Asia: Realities and Perspectives
By Nurlan Aliyev May 27, 2020, the CACI Analyst In early February, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He was received by the two heads of states in Nursultan and...
View ArticlePost-COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities for Central Asia
By Bakhrom Radjabov June 4, 2020, the CACI Analyst Since January, COVID-19 (coronavirus) has reached the level of a global pandemic. At first, some Central Asian republics seemed to be virus-free...
View ArticleDariga Nazarbayeva's Political Ambitions Effectively Ended by President Tokayev
By John C. K. Daly June 18, 2020, the CACI Analyst Few processes are more opaque than political succession in the post-Soviet space, which is usually dominated by elite cronyism infighting. The...
View ArticleBorder Problems in Central Asia: Dividing Incidents, Uniting Solution
By Farkhod Tolipov July 16, 2020, the CACI Analyst In May-June 2020, Central Asia experienced several border incidents between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan; Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan; Kyrgyzstan and...
View ArticleManaging Strategic Competition: Kazakhstan's Peacemaking Initiatives
By Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr December 22, 2020, the CACI Analyst In recent years, the security situation on the Eurasian continent has grown increasingly unstable. Great powers are less...
View ArticleHuman Rights Reform in Kazakhstan
Human Rights Reform in Kazakhstan By: Svante E. Cornell Kazakhstan’s leaders have long expressed ambitious goals for the country’s development, and worked to make the country a force in...
View ArticleKazakhstan, Distancing from Russia, Courts Ethnic Russians
By Dmitry Shlapentokh September 13, 2021, the CACI Analyst Kazakhstan is undergoing several contradictory processes that superficially seem disconnected. Relations between Astana and Moscow have...
View ArticleTokayev’s Economic Reforms
By Albert Barro and Svante E. Cornell Deceber 14, 2021, the CACI Analyst While the political aspects of reforms in Kazakhstan have gained considerable attention, economic reforms are an equally strong...
View ArticleTokayev’s Reforms: An Evolutionary Model of Change?
Tokayev’s Reforms: An Evolutionary Model of Change? By: Svante E. Cornell and Albert Barro Much ink has been spilled in recent decades on the failures of democratization in the Middle East and...
View ArticleThirty Years After the Belovezha Accords: Facing Russian Chauvinism,...
By John C. K. Daly December 20, 2021, the CACI Analyst On December 10, 2020, Russian Duma deputy Viacheslav Nikonov claimed that there had been no such country as Kazakhstan in the past, and that the...
View ArticleKazakhstan’s Stress Test: The January Tragedy and its Aftermath
By Ariel Cohen January 24, 2022, the CACI Analyst In the first weeks of 2022, Kazakhstan experienced its most intense protests since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The causes of the turmoil in the...
View ArticleElite fighting and the unrest in Kazakhstan
By Natalia Konarzewska February 11, 2022, the CACI Analyst On January 18, Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev gave a first video-recorded speech to the nation since the deadly unrest...
View ArticleDid Cryptocurrency Miners Crash the Central Asian Power Grid?
By Tony Pizur February 22, 2022, the CACI Analyst On January 25, Kazakhstan experienced widespread power outages that also affected neighboring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Decaying infrastructure and...
View ArticleRussia's War in Ukraine: Implications for Central Asia
By Johan Engvall March 14, 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s economic response to it has put Central Asia in a precarious position. As part of what Moscow perceives as its sphere of...
View ArticleKazakhstan: Evolving Challenges and Opportunties
By Richard Weitz April 11, 2022 The resistance of Kazakhstan’s government to supporting the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine shows that, despite the brief Russian military intervention in Kazakhstan in January...
View ArticleLearning from Kazakhstan's January Crisis
By Svante E. Cornell April 18, 2022 In January 2022, Kazakhstan went through an unprecedented crisis. While it was since overshadowed in the eyes of the world by the events in Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s...
View ArticleKazakhstan’s June Referendum: Accelerating Reform
By Svante E. Cornell and Albert Barro My 31, 2022 The violence of January 2022 exposed both the demand for greater change in Kazakhstan’s society, as well as elite conflicts involving influential...
View Article