La crisi in Afghanistan: l’intervento militare e il recente disimpegno internazionale in una prospettiva regionale

The paper delves into the Afghanistan crisis in a regional perspective. It frames the regional and international influences in the country emphasizing the interdependence between global and regional interferences. It argues that regional actors tend to gain more freedom of action in Afghan affairs when global actors – empires or superpowers – disengage from the country. Conversely, when global powers are intervening (as during the Great Game, the Soviet occupation or the US intervention since 2001), regional actors lose their sway. Accordingly, the paper investigates the recent crisis in Afghanistan identifying three phases starting from the US mission launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks: the G.W. Bush approach to the military campaign in Afghanistan (2001-8); the Af-Pak Strategy implemented by the Obama administration (2009-14); the years of international withdrawal (2015-19). For each period, the analysis underlines the activism of regional actors in Afghanistan and how it becomes prominent when the global power tends to disengage.

New Trends in Central Asian Connectivity

The main aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of the China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and of Uzbekistan's proactive regional policy to promote regional interconnectivity and to develop an “endogenous” cooperation mainly focused on the strategic interests of Central Asian countries. Within the BRI, Central Asia holds a strategic relevance, because this region is crossed by two of the six main BRI corridor projects – the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor and the Eurasian land bridge – which will contribute to improve regional cooperation and connections among these countries. For Central Asian republics, BRI represents an attractive project benefiting of Chinese huge investments aimed to boost infrastructures and to develop national economies. Under Mirziyoyev's leadership, Uzbekistan has undertaken a proactive and constructive regional diplomacy in Central Asia, based on the improvement of relations and cooperation with other Central Asian republics, which has become a key priority of Tashkent's foreign policy.

Status Seeking in the Steppe

In its 25 years of existence as an independent state, Kazakhstan has had to invent an entire foreign policy. The process was driven by multiple objectives, for a large part aimed at ensuring the success of the broader state-building project: the preservation of national sovereignty, political stability, economic growth, and taking on international responsibilities. This strategy, shaped at once by the nature of the political regime and the constraints of the regional system, was inspired by the convergence of economic, political, and geopolitical considerations. Taking stock of Kazakhstan’s external action, this article finds unexpected correspondence with the key tenets of middle power doctrine, pointing to a widely unacknowledged reading of the country’s external action.

Italian Business in Central Asia

While distant and little-known to the Italian public, Central Asia plays an important role for Italy. Kazakhstan is an important supplier of oil to Italy and Italy is the principal customer for Kazakhstani oil. This article concentrates on Italy-Kazakhstan relations because they represent the lion’s share of Italy-Central Asia relations, while also providing a rationale to explain the diverging pathways that allowed Kazakhstan to interact more proficiently with foreign companies, rather than its close neighbours. By focusing on the energy sector, this article also highlights how trans-national companies (TNCs), such as Italy’s Eni, transfer practices from their global experience in oil and gas to their destination countries in Central Asia. In particular, this article analyses the cost-cutting practices of outsourcing services and outstaffing workforce, for which Italian companies and joint ventures have become instrumental.

Il concetto di sovranità in Asia Centrale

This article studies the interpretation and the practice of sovereignty in Central Asia. By relying on primary and secondary research material, the paper intends to achieve three main objectives: 1) to discuss the extent to which ‘sovereignty’ in Central Asia is interpreted and practiced along the lines of Western legal traditions, or rather presents indigenous traits; 2) to understand how authoritarianism impacts on the interpretation and the practice of sovereignty; 3) to assess the presence of a postcolonial narrative of sovereignty in the region, or the lack thereof. These objectives are meant to contribute to the regional agenda of the English School by exploring the polysemy of sovereignty, providing a better understanding of how authoritarianism intermingling with international society while interacting with postcolonial discourses in processes of regionalisation and interaction with global international society.

Foreign Policy Challenges for a Post-Nazarbayev Kazakhstan

After almost 30 years of rule by Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan is going through a sensitive phase of power transition. Since the "multi-vector" diplomacy of these years represents one of the best legacies of the first President, policy-makers would leave as untouched as possible the sphere of foreign policy. At the same time, a crisis of legitimacy following the Presidential elections together with a number of trends which are changing the social and ethno-demographic structure of the population will also put into question some traditional lines of the country’s diplomacy. This will add to the challenges to which the political class will have to provide innovative responses in order to preserve the stability of the country.

‘Multi-Vectoral’ Central Asia: On the Other Side of Major Power Agendas

In a period of fast-evolving international dynamics over the Central Asian region, it is important to consider the foreign policy choices and exercised agency by the governments of the five states of the region. While the projects and agendas of China, Russia, the United States and other external players over the region have understandably dominated much recent discourse, the ‘inside-out’ perspective – the Central Asian policies and stances toward international affairs and geopolitics involving them – is necessary to draw a more accurate picture of the region’s international affairs. Such a perspective would reveal the evolution and variations of the regional foreign policies of ‘multi-vectorism’ and challenges such policies face today.

Riforme agrarie e mutamenti sociali nell’Uzbekistan dell’era dell’Indipendenza

Cotton farming in Uzbekistan has been thoroughly reshaped by protracted decollectivization aimed at recovering agriculture from the post-Soviet crisis years. Based on a review of extant literature and on data collected over a socio-anthropological research in cotton-growing Khorezm region, this paper offers an overview over the Soviet-era cotton kolkhoz, post-Soviet agricultural reforms and agropolicies, and the transformations in rural society over the second post-Soviet decade. Agriculture in Uzbekistan is now resurfacing from difficult years, but old problems are perduring and prospects and burdens are more unequally distributed among stakeholders.