Hardly visible, highly admired? Youth perceptions of the EU in Kazakhstan

Youth have always been one of the central target audiences of the European Union’s (EU) policies towards Central Asia, which was once again emphasised in the recent EU Strategy for the region. This paper scrutinises how youth representatives in Kazakhstan, Brussels’ closest partner in the region, perceive the EU and its policies. By doing so, the paper shifts the focus from the EU-centric assessment of its external activities, which has long dominated the academic literature, and provides a ‘voice’ to the targets of the EU’s various initiatives. Examining data obtained through the method of pictorial test and focus group discussions with students of leading Kazakhstani universities, the paper argues that the issue Brussels faces among youth is not an image problem, rather it is a visibility issue. Although Kazakhstani youth are aware of the EU’s main ‘attributes’ at the basic level, they have little knowledge that goes beyond stereotypical, yet positive, images of it. This stereotyped admiration towards the EU, however, is not necessarily an outcome of Brussels’ successful policies, rather it is partly inherited from the historically idealised image of Europe. The paper suggests that increasing its visibility and better communicating its policies and messages need to be a priority for the EU in Central Asia.

Nationalism and Siberian Archeology of the 19th Century

The article provides a comparative characteristic of the nationally motivated ethnocultural concepts of the 19th century, based on the interpretation of Siberian peoples` history. Finnish nationalism was looking for the ancestral home of the Finns in Altai and tried to connect them with the Turkic-Mongol states of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Under the influence of the cultural and historical theories of regional experts, the Siberian national discourse itself began to form, which was especially clearly manifested in the example of the genesis of Altai nationalism. Russian great-power nationalism sought to make Slavic history more ancient and connected it with the prestigious Scythian culture. If we rely on the well-known periodization of the development of the national movement of M. Khrokh, then in the theory of the Finns` Altai origin, we can distinguish features characteristic of phase “B,” when the cultural capital of nationalism gradually turns into political. In turn, the historical research of the regional specialists illustrates the earliest stage in the emergence of the national movement, the period of nationalism not only without a nation but also without national intellectuals. The oblasts are forming the very national environment, which does not yet have the means for its own expression, but it obviously contains separatist potential. At the same time, both the Finnish and Siberian patriots, with their scientific research, solved the same ideological task—to include the objects of their research in the world cultural and historical context, to achieve recognition of their right to a place among European nations. However, Florinsky’s theory, performing the function of the official propaganda, is an example of the manifestation of state unifying nationalism, with imperial connotations characteristics of Russia.

Decentralization, legitimacy, and democracy in post-Soviet Central Asia

During the 1990s, a conventional wisdom emerged, based on literature going back decades, that political decentralization might be among the most effective forces for democratization. If ordinary people could participate in autonomous local governments, democracy would be built from the ground up, ultimately shaping the entire political system. Once decentralization reforms were implemented across the world, however, the results were disappointing. Authoritarianism not only thrived at the local level, it could also undermine democratization at the national level. Thus, local-national transference still held, but sometimes as a poison. In this context, the case of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan is an anomaly. Here, the relative success of political decentralization—rather than its failure—nevertheless failed to spur democratization at the national level. I argue that this is because decentralization allowed national authorities to appease international donors while they consolidated their own power. Moreover, while decentralization empowered local communities, it did so in ways that personalized local authority and pitted local and national authorities against one another, resulting in intense localism and antagonistic center-local relations that undermined any democratic transference. The case study findings are based on ten months of field research, which includes interviews with local and national officials, ordinary villagers, and representatives of NGOs and international organizations.

Energy, Climate Change and Security: The Russian Strategic Conundrum

Global and regional energy markets are increasingly influenced by policies aimed at climate change mitigation, with possible grave implications for major producers and exporters of fossil fuels – including Russia, which is planning further increases. This article examines the evolution of Russian official thinking on the role of climate change as a strategic factor in policymaking as expressed in key documents on security and in strategic statements made by Presidents Putin and Medvedev (2000–2020). The set of strategic statements examined in this article show surprisingly little attention to this important matter.

The European Union–Azerbaijan high-level transport dialogue: A timely reaction to the structural changes?

The European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan high-level transport dialogue is the continuation of the long period of cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan in the area of transport since the early 1990s. The geopolitical and geo-economic maps of Eurasia, the South Caucasus, and the regions around have significantly changed since then thanks to rise of China, India, and other regional actors. These actors in their turn began to initiate competitive logistical and transportation projects to define terms and conditions of the making of Eurasian transport and trade routes. The ultimate goal is to have a share in controlling global flows passing through the strategic spots of Eurasian landmass. The EU’s recent transport dialogue with Azerbaijan reflects and is reaction to those changes that happened in the wider Europe, in Eurasia, and in the globe. This paper tries to place the EU and Azerbaijan transport dialogue to a broader picture to find out what changes conditioned and necessitated the upgraded dialogue between the EU and Azerbaijan. To do so, it traces the EU and Azerbaijan’s transport policies and cooperation since the early 1990s.

Globalizing local understanding of fragility in Eurasia

The article aims to introduce the underlying motivation and conceptual underpinning to the special issue entitled “Globalizing Local Understanding of Fragility in Eurasia.” The main purpose of this article is to problematize the popular opinion and portrayal of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and more generally the countries of Eurasia and the Caucasus as inherently fragile states which are politically unstable and thus on the brink of collapse. This article also seeks to question narratives of modernity that are singular and constantly out of reach for large swathes of the world’s populations because of the narrowness and hegemonic nature of the architecture of global governance. By carefully considering the ways and means through which international institutions categorize countries as fragile and/or failed, the article aims to provide the theoretical foreground for the special issue which focuses on locating inherent community resilience strategies. We explain how the non-participatory norm making behavior of international organizations privilege certain actors, largely the Global North, and simultaneously ignore the majority of Eurasian states. In other words, a demand predicated in the linear evaluation of institutions and norms dictated by global institutions clash with the Eurasian model of inherent complex adaptive capability and introduce fragility. The focus thus is on understanding the ‘local’ based on the historical analysis of development in the region, nodal points of urban development and community life, forms of social capital, and community resilience strategies in the wider Eurasian region.

Azerbaijani youth in transition: Is the state youth policy effective enough?

This article analyzes the role of the state youth policy of Azerbaijan in supporting young people through their transition from school to work, which is one of the stages when young people can be in particularly fragile situation if not provided with necessary opportunities. The reason for studying the case of Azerbaijan is a considerable share of youth Not in Employment, Education, or Training (NEET youth) among the country’s youth community. The NEET indicator is considered as a comprehensive indicator within the post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda to measure youth exclusion and marginalization. The findings of this research demonstrate that while the government assumes a broad responsibility to provide youth with education and employment opportunities to support their transition, these intentions have not been translated into real actions. An alarming situation of the country’s youth population is at risk of further exacerbation due to poor understanding of local realities by such global advocates for youth development as United Nations. We discuss this considering the flaws in the operationalization and localization of the concept of the “youth participation” promoted by the United Nations to advance youth interests.

Labor unions and institutional corruption: The case of Kazakhstan

In this study, we used the institutional corruption framework to analyze the evolution of labor unions in Kazakhstan. As a research method, we conducted a case study by combining document analysis with survey data covering (n)1,200 respondents across all 14 regions of the country. Our findings suggest that external and internal influences weakened labor unions and diverted from fulfilling their primary purpose of promoting interests of their members. External influences, represented by restrictive regulatory framework and state intervention, create conditions of limited independence of labor unions leaving them extremely narrow scope to operate in. Internal influences are represented by disagreements and conflicts between national-level labor unions. This article stipulates that dysfunctional and institutionally corrupt labor unions in Kazakhstan serve as an indicator of state fragility. The findings confirmed that institutional corruption of labor unions has an adverse impact on public trust, while a frequent occurrence of labor conflicts might impact political risk factors, contributing to increased state fragility.