John Heathershaw
University of Exeter, Politics, Faculty Member
- Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian Studies, International Relations, Politics, Peacebuilding, and 20 morePeacekeeping, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, Stabilization and Reconstruction, Post Conflict Issues, Critical Geopolitics, Uzbekistan, Liberal Peacebuilding, Conflict Resolution, Small Arms and light weapons, Central Asia, Soviet History, Post-Soviet Studies, Oriental Studies, Social Movements, Political Sociology, Revolts and protests, Colour Revolutions, Former USSR, Secularisms and Secularities, and Christianityedit
- John Heathershaw is Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter. His research addresses conflic... moreJohn Heathershaw is Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter. His research addresses conflict, security and development in authoritarian political environments, especially in post-Soviet Central Asia. He is author of the books Post-Conflict Tajikistan (2009), Dictators Without Borders (2017) and Security After Christendom (forthcoming), and principal investigator of several major research projects on kleptocracy, political exiles, and conflict management. John has lived and worked in West Africa and Central Asia as an aid worker and academic. He is also an English Baptist elder and a member of the Anabaptist-Mennonite Network in the UK. He has been and continues to be educated in history, international relations, and theology, including at Aberystwyth, London School of Economics, the University of Notre Dame, and Bristol Baptist College.edit
'Interrogating Illiberal Peace in Eurasia' (Rowman and LIttlefield 2018) sets out a challenge to mainstream assumptions and framings in the academic literature on peace and conflict. It not merely questions but resolutely dismisses the... more
'Interrogating Illiberal Peace in Eurasia' (Rowman and LIttlefield 2018) sets out a challenge to mainstream assumptions and framings in the academic literature on peace and conflict. It not merely questions but resolutely dismisses the notion that the peacebuilding methods favoured by Western states remain the most salient in Central Eurasia. The studies showcased in the book's chapters shed light on the ways in which local and regional actors contest or transform globally promoted norms of conflict management and promote alternative ones in their place, thereby challenging the Western-led consensus known as the ‘liberal peace’. Instead, we argue that the dominant mode of conflict management in this region can be conceptualised as 'authoritarian conflict management'. This concept refers to a distinct set of norms and practices employed by political elites across three social levels - discourse, space and the economy - with the aim of establishing sustained hegemonic control over a part of society perceived to be unstable or engaged in conflict. Rather than considering local or regional actors merely as passive recipients of globally promoted norms, this framework seeks to give agency to non-liberal actors in their capacity to shape these norms and to take seriously the practices of conflict management they promote.
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Introduction to book published by Pittsburgh University Press in August 2018.
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Published by Yale University Press (2017) Following independence from the Soviet Union, Central Asia’s authoritarian states have consolidated in an era of liberal globalization. The region bears witness to these contrasts. Hard... more
Published by Yale University Press (2017)
Following independence from the Soviet Union, Central Asia’s authoritarian states have consolidated in an era of liberal globalization. The region bears witness to these contrasts. Hard authoritarianism needs liberal finance. Regimes battle opponents in Western courts. Nationalist elites live global lives. Drawing on court records, financial data and investigative journalism, qualitative case studies of transnational elite practice from four of the five Central Asian states demonstrate that contemporary authoritarian regimes utilise liberal legal, financial and criminal justice mechanisms to further their own power. Cases of money laundering and extra-territorial repression are detailed and gaping holes in anti-corruption initiatives are illustrated. Particular attention is devoted to the role of intermediaries such as due diligence consultants, lawyers, lobbyists and real estate brokers in facilitating transnational practices of authoritarianism.
Attached is the introductory chapter of the book for personal use.
Following independence from the Soviet Union, Central Asia’s authoritarian states have consolidated in an era of liberal globalization. The region bears witness to these contrasts. Hard authoritarianism needs liberal finance. Regimes battle opponents in Western courts. Nationalist elites live global lives. Drawing on court records, financial data and investigative journalism, qualitative case studies of transnational elite practice from four of the five Central Asian states demonstrate that contemporary authoritarian regimes utilise liberal legal, financial and criminal justice mechanisms to further their own power. Cases of money laundering and extra-territorial repression are detailed and gaping holes in anti-corruption initiatives are illustrated. Particular attention is devoted to the role of intermediaries such as due diligence consultants, lawyers, lobbyists and real estate brokers in facilitating transnational practices of authoritarianism.
Attached is the introductory chapter of the book for personal use.
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Post-Soviet, post-conflict Tajikistan is an under-studied and poorly understood case in conflict studies literature. Since 2000, this Central Asian state has seen major political violence end, countrywide order return emerge and the... more
Post-Soviet, post-conflict Tajikistan is an under-studied and poorly understood case in conflict studies literature. Since 2000, this Central Asian state has seen major political violence end, countrywide order return emerge and the peace agreement between the parties of the 1990s civil war hold. Superficially, Tajikistan appears to be a case of successful international intervention for liberal peacebuilding, yet the Tajik peace is characterised by authoritarian governance.
Via discourse analysis and extensive fieldwork, including participant-observation with international organizations, the author examines how peacebuilding is understood and practised. The book challenges received wisdom that peacebuilding is a process of democratisation or institutionalisation, showing how interventions have inadvertently served to facilitate an increasingly authoritarian peace and fostered popular accommodation and avoidance strategies. Chapters investigate assistance to political parties and elections, the security sector and community development, and illustrate how transformative aims are thwarted whilst the ‘success’ is simulated for an audience of international donors. At the same time the book charts the emergence of a legitimate order with properties of authority, sovereignty and livelihoods.
Providing a radical challenge to the theoretical literature on peacebuilding and a first-ever research monograph of post-conflict peacebuilding in this under-studied Central Asian state, this book will be of interest to academics working on Peace Studies, International Relations and Central Asian Studies.
Via discourse analysis and extensive fieldwork, including participant-observation with international organizations, the author examines how peacebuilding is understood and practised. The book challenges received wisdom that peacebuilding is a process of democratisation or institutionalisation, showing how interventions have inadvertently served to facilitate an increasingly authoritarian peace and fostered popular accommodation and avoidance strategies. Chapters investigate assistance to political parties and elections, the security sector and community development, and illustrate how transformative aims are thwarted whilst the ‘success’ is simulated for an audience of international donors. At the same time the book charts the emergence of a legitimate order with properties of authority, sovereignty and livelihoods.
Providing a radical challenge to the theoretical literature on peacebuilding and a first-ever research monograph of post-conflict peacebuilding in this under-studied Central Asian state, this book will be of interest to academics working on Peace Studies, International Relations and Central Asian Studies.
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The ‘Author–Critic Forum’ format is a relatively recent addition to the journal. It consists of a standard review of a new book plus a number of shorter appraisals of it, and finally a response by the author to all these contributions.... more
The ‘Author–Critic Forum’ format is a relatively recent addition to the journal. It consists of a standard review of a new book plus a number of shorter appraisals of it, and finally a response by the author to all these contributions. The choice of book is agreed upon by the editorship of the journal, the Editorial Board, and the International Advisory Board. Books are selected because they engage pressing and contested theoretical, empirical and/or methodological issues within the broad field of Central Asian studies. The purpose of the format is to provide a lively forum that will acquaint the readership of the journal with the range of arguments, debates and issues within a particular field. The book review editor invites rejoinders to the debate begun by this forum.
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What is the global social context for the insertion of kleptocratic elites into the putatively liberal international order? Drawing on cases from our work on Eurasia and Africa, we sketch a concept of 'transnational uncivil society' which... more
What is the global social context for the insertion of kleptocratic elites into the putatively liberal international order? Drawing on cases from our work on Eurasia and Africa, we sketch a concept of 'transnational uncivil society' which we contrast to 'transnational activist networks' (Keck and Sikkink, 1998). While the latter denotes the liberalising practices of global civil society, the former suggests a specific series of clientelistic relations across borders which open space for uncivil elites. This distinction animates a growing line of conflict in global politics. These kleptocrats eject liberal activists from their own territories and create new spaces to whitewash their own reputations and build their own transnational networks. To do so they hire political consultants and reputation managers, engage in public philanthropy, and forge new relationships with major global institutions. We show how these strategies of reputation-laundering are neither illicit nor marginal, but very much a product of the actors, institutions and markets generated by the liberal international order. We compare and contrast the scope and purpose of civil and uncivil society networks, we explore the increasing globalization of Eurasian and African elites as a concerted strategy to distance themselves from associations with their political oppression and kleptocracy in their home countries, and recast themselves as productive and respected cosmopolitans.
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In this ethnographic vignette the researcher reflects upon his experiences exploring ‘new settlement’ communities on the margins of Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan. It centres on two moments of self-organization in one settlement,... more
In this ethnographic vignette the researcher reflects upon his experiences exploring ‘new settlement’ communities on the margins of Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan. It centres on two moments of self-organization in one settlement, which took place without the knowledge or involvement of the leadership, and which were interpreted by the fieldworker as examples of the role of uncertainty, self-organization and nonviolence in successful protest. Consideration of the period of research enables self-reflections on the risks and limits of the fieldwork, and the privileges and partialities of the part-time political ethnographer himself.
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Esther Somfalvy's book demonsteates how two similar Central Asian authoritarian regimes practice different types of representation.
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Executive Summary Modern kleptocracy thrives on the ability of kleptocrats and their associates to use their ill-gotten gains in open settings. This often takes the form of investing in high-end real estate or other luxury goods, which... more
Executive Summary Modern kleptocracy thrives on the ability of kleptocrats and their associates to use their ill-gotten gains in open settings. This often takes the form of investing in high-end real estate or other luxury goods, which serves to both obscure the corrupt origin of the money and to protect it for future use. But there is also a subtler dynamic at play. The use of kleptocratic-linked funding or other forms of engagement in open societies to blur the illicit nature and source of the donation serves to laun- der kleptocrats' reputations, as well as their cash. This careful cultivation of positive publicity and influence empowers autocrats and their cronies. It also entrenches kleptocrats—and the regimes with which they are associated—in positions of power. Universities and think tanks in open settings are prime targets for reputation laun- dering. The rapid internationalization of the higher education sector, as well as the swelling demand worldwide for Western educa...
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A forthcoming review of Driscoll's excellent recent book
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This article theorises the repressive security practices of authoritarian states in the context of transnationalism and globalisation. While emerging research on transnational repression has identified a range of extraterritorial and... more
This article theorises the repressive security practices of authoritarian states in the context of transnationalism and globalisation. While emerging research on transnational repression has identified a range of extraterritorial and exceptional security practices adopted by authoritarian states, it has not fully studied the implications of such practices on space and statecraft. Using data from the Central Asia Political Exile Database project (CAPE) and interviews conducted with exiled Tajik opposition groups based in Russia and Europe, we theorise the spatial connections between the territorial and extraterritorial security practices using the concept of assemblages. We further outline how these practices escalate in a three-stage model, in which exiles go on notice, are detained and then rendered or assassinated. Such an approach sheds light on the inherent links between the normalisation of security practices and the creation of transnational space with distinct forms of geogra...
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This chapter focuses on the field research of John Heathershaw and Parviz Mullojonov. It illustrates the slippery slope that research in violent and closed contexts can be despite complying with the tight institutional ethics and risk... more
This chapter focuses on the field research of John Heathershaw and Parviz Mullojonov. It illustrates the slippery slope that research in violent and closed contexts can be despite complying with the tight institutional ethics and risk assessment procedures of a UK university. It refers to the case of the detention of a Tajik researcher by Tajik security agencies, which discuss the limits of the procedural approach to research ethics and security currently employed by many universities in the Global North. The chapter looks into the dilemmas of researcher and research participant safety and trade-offs between access and impartiality. It argues that conscious vocational engagement with the field can help make better choices and fully overcome the interlinked dilemmas explored.
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Central Asia has seen dramatic yet peaceful change since the end of the Soviet Union as it has once again become a world region of sovereign powers. The relatively low levels of political violence and the concomitant authoritarian... more
Central Asia has seen dramatic yet peaceful change since the end of the Soviet Union as it has once again become a world region of sovereign powers. The relatively low levels of political violence and the concomitant authoritarian stabilization of the region’s postcolonies are both remarkable and poorly understood. This chapter argues that IR theory is of little use in this regard because it is focused on external powers and systemic factors, be they material or normative, and fails to account for the Central Asian actors and transnational processes that have shaped the transformation. This weakness has been mirrored in scholarship that until recent years was produced overwhelmingly by scholars from outside Central Asia and in accordance with debates that have minimal relevance for the region. The largely peaceful decolonization of Central Asia is best understood from decolonial perspectives that emphasize the importance of the region’s particular ideas and practices and how these h...
ABSTRACT This forum brings together five different angles on the question as to whether and how political regimes and forms of order-making can and should be researched through the concept of ‘illiberalism’. The discussion engages... more
ABSTRACT This forum brings together five different angles on the question as to whether and how political regimes and forms of order-making can and should be researched through the concept of ‘illiberalism’. The discussion engages critically with this and associated concepts, such as ‘illiberal peace’ and ‘authoritarian conflict management’, which have been developed out of the Central Asian / Eurasian context and discussed in their wider global ramifications and, within the framing of ‘illiberal peace’, explored in various contexts in and beyond Central Asia. While further assessing the relevance and implications of this approach, this forum also attempts to think beyond ‘illiberalism’ by introducing and discussing the idea of ‘post-liberalism’. This way, the authors engage in an exchange that serves to probe both concepts and to determine their strengths and limitations when it comes to analysing and understanding politics and societal processes in Central Asia.
Research Interests: Political Economy, Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Theory, Corporate Governance, Political Science, and 15 moreLiberalism, Democratization, Governance, Central Asian Studies, Neo Liberalism, Democracy, Central Asia, Multidisciplinary, Authoritarianism, Post Soviet Studies, Postliberalism, Illiberal Democracy, Post liberalism, Illiberalism, and Post Soviet Politics
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Abstract The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics. Although a... more
Abstract The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics. Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably. Instead, this collection advances the concept of ‘state transformation’ as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ most important foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the wider field in IR.
Research Interests: International Relations, Political Economy, Southeast Asian Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, Sovereignty, and 14 morePolitical Science, Politics, Foreign Policy, Southeast Asia, China, Development, World, Emerging Powers, Strategies, Regulatory state, Order, Politics and International relations, Public Administration and Policy, and Rising Powers
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In a contested international order, ideas of liberal peacebuilding are being supplanted by state-centric, authoritarian responses to internal armed conflicts. In this article we suggest that existing research has not yet sufficiently... more
In a contested international order, ideas of liberal peacebuilding are being supplanted by state-centric, authoritarian responses to internal armed conflicts. In this article we suggest that existing research has not yet sufficiently recognised this important shift in conflict management practice. Scholarship in peace and conflict studies has avoided hard cases of ‘illiberal peace’, or categorises them simply as military victories. Drawing on accounts of state responses to conflicts in Russia, Sri Lanka, China, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Turkey, we develop an alternative conceptual framework to understand authoritarian conflict management as a form of wartime and post-conflict order in its own right. Although violence is central to these orders, we argue that they are also dependent on a much wider range of authoritarian policy responses, which we categorise in three major domains: firstly, discourse (state propaganda, information control and knowledge production); secondly, spatial polit...
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Scholars of International Relations have called for the creation of a post-Western IR that reflects the global and local contexts of the declining power and legitimacy of the West. Recognising this discourse as indicative of the... more
Scholars of International Relations have called for the creation of a post-Western IR that reflects the global and local contexts of the declining power and legitimacy of the West. Recognising this discourse as indicative of the postcolonial condition, we deploy Homi Bhabha’s concept of mimicry and James C. Scott’s notion of mētis to assess whether international political dynamics of a hybrid kind are emerging. Based on interviews with Central Asian political, economic, and cultural elites, we explore the emergence of a new global politics of a post-Western type. We find that Russia substantively mimics the West as a post-Western power and that there are some suggestive examples of the role of mētis in its foreign policy. Among Central Asian states, the picture is more equivocal. Formal mimicry and mētis of a basic kind are observable, but these nascent forms suggest that the dialectical struggle between colonial clientelism and anti-colonial nationalism remains in its early stages....
Research Interests: Russian Studies, International Relations, International Relations Theory, Postcolonial Studies, Political Science, and 13 morePolitics, Russian Politics, Russian Foreign Policy, Postcolonial Theory, Central Asia, Tajikistan, Studies, Kyrgyzstan, Mimicry, Post Soviet Studies, Public Administration and Policy, Post-Western IRT, and Postcolonialism
In the aftermath of the June 2010 violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, much scholarly attention has focused on its causes. However, observers have taken little notice of the fact that while such urban areas as Osh, Jalal-Abad, and... more
In the aftermath of the June 2010 violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, much scholarly attention has focused on its causes. However, observers have taken little notice of the fact that while such urban areas as Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Bazar-Korgon were caught up in violence, some towns in southern Kyrgyzstan that were close to the conflict sites and had considerable conflict potential had managed to avoid the violence. Thus, while the question, “What were the causes of the June 2010 violence?” is important, we have few answers to the question, “Why did the conflict break out in some places but not others with similar conflict potential?” Located in the theoretical literature on “the local turn” within peacekeeping studies, this article is based on extensive empirical fieldwork to explore the local and micro-level dimensions of peacekeeping. It seeks to understand why and how local leaders and residents in some places in southern Kyrgyzstan managed to prevent the deadly clashes associated wi...
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As researchers in Central Asian Studies, we discuss the different perspectives our methodological approaches provide to understanding the content and context of Islam, security, and the state in the region. We acknowledge the role of bias... more
As researchers in Central Asian Studies, we discuss the different perspectives our methodological approaches provide to understanding the content and context of Islam, security, and the state in the region. We acknowledge the role of bias in creating narratives that dominate regional and international discourse and question mono-causal explanations of Islamic practice and the roots of radicalism. As such, we offer insights into the challenges and best practices of doing research on Islam and security and posit Central Asian Studies as a case for the value of multi-disciplinary research.
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ABSTRACT This article explores international development space at the micro-level through the career stories and discursive representations of three aid workers—two nationals, one expatriate—who worked together on the same project in... more
ABSTRACT This article explores international development space at the micro-level through the career stories and discursive representations of three aid workers—two nationals, one expatriate—who worked together on the same project in Tajikistan in 2008–9. Findings bear witness to the ‘liminal subjectivity’ of development where professional aid workers are, vocationally and socially, culturally and politically, neither domestic nor foreign. Aid workers’ careers demonstrate the resilience of ‘the international’ in contemporary humanitarian practice. At the same time, their biographies are not easily sutured into emergent cosmopolitanism as they remain encumbered by the boundaries of the national and international. Moreover, the article demonstrates that, while the rhetoric of international development and its putative leaders are criticized within the community itself, the international community may be formed by subordinate individuals in their liminal subjectivities.
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This article examines the concept of sovereignty in elite and popular affection during the violent and turbulent events from April to October 2010 in the Kyrgyz Republic. Nationalist leaders promoted Kyrgyz ethnic values and ideals as the... more
This article examines the concept of sovereignty in elite and popular affection during the violent and turbulent events from April to October 2010 in the Kyrgyz Republic. Nationalist leaders promoted Kyrgyz ethnic values and ideals as the center of sovereignty held by some to be under threat. These events exemplify what we describe as theaffective politics of sovereignty.We explore how emotion, in particular, serves as an important component of the constitution of sovereignty as both an international and popular institution. We explore how Kyrgyz identity has become intertwined with the sovereignty of Kyrgyzstan and clashes with Western multi-ethnic conceptions and practices.
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It is widely acknowledged that Russian peacekeeping challenges conventional notions of impartial, third party peacekeeping that is limited in both scope and duration. While Russian doctrine borrows much from the language of the UN, its... more
It is widely acknowledged that Russian peacekeeping challenges conventional notions of impartial, third party peacekeeping that is limited in both scope and duration. While Russian doctrine borrows much from the language of the UN, its practical interpretation both in Moscow and on the ground bears little resemblance to liberal ideals of the 'international community'. Indeed the Russian term 'mirotvorchestvo', meaning literally 'peace-making'or 'peace-creating', which is used to translate the English 'peacekeeping', implies an ...
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three pages dedicated to summarising the argument and providing a brief glimpse of post-EU accession politics in each state. Mole misses the chance to outline the theoretical or policy implications of his work for states still burdened by... more
three pages dedicated to summarising the argument and providing a brief glimpse of post-EU accession politics in each state. Mole misses the chance to outline the theoretical or policy implications of his work for states still burdened by Soviet legacies or potential future EU members such as Ukraine. Mole’s work provides a compelling discussion that deepens our knowledge of European security and identity politics and the theoretic and empirical implications offer scholars at any level a range of issues for further research.
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ABSTRACT Heathershaw provides an interesting study of post-conflict Tajikistan, which raises broader questions about the constitution of political order in societies that have been torn by violent conflict. In the conclusion he suggests... more
ABSTRACT Heathershaw provides an interesting study of post-conflict Tajikistan, which raises broader questions about the constitution of political order in societies that have been torn by violent conflict. In the conclusion he suggests that the country is characterized by ‘order [which] is not coercive but is weakly and contingently legitimate’ (p. 173). Tajik society is undergoing peacebuilding, and has developed a new framework of governance; but this ‘legitimate order’ has mainly ‘emerged because it has been deemed legitimate by an International Community ready to tolerate retrenchment whilst representing it as progress’ (p. 173). This internationally brokered settlement has been accepted not because there has been widespread endorsement for it, but in the space created by a government opposition that ‘is unable to find political space for alternative discourse’ and a citizenry who ‘lack hope of an alternative and thus resign to the status quo’ (p. 173). This characterization may sound familiar to scholars who study other post-conflict settings.
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The extent and significance of violence and conflict potential in the contemporary Ferghana Valley borderlands has become one of the most intense subjects of debate in the study of Central Asia over the last decade. Christine... more
The extent and significance of violence and conflict potential in the contemporary Ferghana Valley borderlands has become one of the most intense subjects of debate in the study of Central Asia over the last decade. Christine Bichsel's new book provides a richly detailed and analytically sophisticated supplement to this work that is attentive to the social construction of conflict historically, materially and symbolically.
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The situational and subjective difficulties of conducting fieldwork have not gone unnoticed in the scattered methodology literature of Central Asian studies. Contributions, which have included some excellent published fieldwork reports... more
The situational and subjective difficulties of conducting fieldwork have not gone unnoticed in the scattered methodology literature of Central Asian studies. Contributions, which have included some excellent published fieldwork reports and conference papers, have addressed the special challenges facing scholars in a region in which prior fieldwork has until recently been extremely limited. However, Wall and Mollinga's Fieldwork in Difficult Environments is, to this reviewer's knowledge at least, the first book-length study, the ...
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This paper offers a preliminary and contemporaneous interpretation of the armed conflict in the Kamarob Gorge of Tajikistan between the national government and a local ‘mujohid’ group in late2010. It does so via insights from ethnographic... more
This paper offers a preliminary and contemporaneous interpretation of the armed conflict in the Kamarob Gorge of Tajikistan between the national government and a local ‘mujohid’ group in late2010. It does so via insights from ethnographic research prior to the violence, communications from local observers during the violence, and through the conceptual lens of local politics. A local politics approach analyses conflict neither in terms of global Islamic-secular confrontation nor national or international ethnopolitics. Rather, it draws attention to the specific dynamics of governance and business, which brought violence to this particular part of Tajikistan. We find a basis for centre-periphery conflict over political control and lootable resources but a lack of widespread support for the armed resistance. In such circumstances the relatively rapid breakdown of the ‘Islamist insurgency’ against the state should be of no surprise. We argue that this does not indicate the relative str...
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But the state, no more probably today than at any other time in its history, does not have this unity, this individuality, this rigorous functionality, nor to speak frankly, this importance; maybe, after all, the state is no more than a... more
But the state, no more probably today than at any other time in its history, does not have this unity, this individuality, this rigorous functionality, nor to speak frankly, this importance; maybe, after all, the state is no more than a composite reality and a mythicised abstraction, whose importance is a lot more limited than any of us think. [...] It is the tactics of government which make possible the continual definition and redefinition of what is within the competence of the state and what is not, the public versus the private, and so on; thus the state can only be understood in its survival and its limits on the basis of the general tactics of governmentality.
Published version produced with permission of the publisher. The ebook is available to University of Exeter students and staff through MyiLibrary (or search the Library catalogue).
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This paper explores how support to the security sector has contributed to the simulation and concomitant dissimulation of Tajikistan’s sovereignty. The nature of sovereignty in post-conflict spaces requires detailed empirical study... more
This paper explores how support to the security sector has contributed to the simulation and concomitant dissimulation of Tajikistan’s sovereignty. The nature of sovereignty in post-conflict spaces requires detailed empirical study combined with theoretical insight. In Tajikistan, if we see both security and sovereignty as fixed, objectively existing phenomena which are deduced rationally from ideal-type concepts we lose the ability to see how they constitute the very things they seek to protect (the state and its community). If we recognise security in terms of processes of (de-/re) securitisation, and sovereignty (and the state itself) as simulated, then we begin to grasp how practices of security can simulate or dissimulate the state itself. The unintended or indirect consequences of international assistance (in terms of ‘sovereignty’) are more significant than cosmetic changes that may be achieved in border management (in terms of ‘security’). I focus on an increasingly securiti...
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This article theorises the repressive security practices of authoritarian states in the context of transnationalism and globalisation. While emerging research on transnational repression has identified a range of extraterritorial and... more
This article theorises the repressive security practices of authoritarian states in the context of transnationalism and globalisation. While emerging research on transnational repression has identified a range of extraterritorial and exceptional security practices adopted by authoritarian states, it has not fully studied the implications of such practices on space and statecraft. Using data from the Central Asia Political Exile Database project (CAPE) and interviews conducted with exiled Tajik opposition groups based in Russia and Europe, we theorise the spatial connections between the territorial and extraterritorial security practices using the concept of assemblages. We further outline how these practices escalate in a three-stage model, in which exiles go on notice, are detained and then rendered or assassinated. Such an approach sheds light on the inherent links between the normalisation of security practices and the creation of transnational space with distinct forms of geogra...
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ABSTRACT This contribution considers ‘illiberal peace’ in post-colonial Eurasia in the aftermath of the Soviet Union and in the shadow of Russia and China as ‘emerging powers’. Authoritarian modes of conflict management – which have... more
ABSTRACT This contribution considers ‘illiberal peace’ in post-colonial Eurasia in the aftermath of the Soviet Union and in the shadow of Russia and China as ‘emerging powers’. Authoritarian modes of conflict management – which have economic, spatial and discursive aspects – are oriented towards regime consolidation and the creation of a particular type of political economy. We should understand these as a form of authoritarian interventionism which had three main goals in this context: (1) to end violence conflict by preventing rebels from influencing public discourse; (2) to control the resources; and (3) to shape the political space. Despite the fact that liberal actors do illiberal things, and vice versa, this contribution argues that in order for this complexity to make political sense the distinction between liberal and illiberal should be maintained. Furthermore, in order for these illiberal practices to make historical sense we must situate them in their regional, colonial and post-colonial contexts.
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Esther Somfalvy's book demonsteates how two similar Central Asian authoritarian regimes practice different types of representation.
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A review (forthcoming in Central Asian Survey) of Suzanne Levi-Sanchez's remarkable book
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A forthcoming review of Driscoll's excellent recent book
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Central Asia has seen dramatic yet peaceful change since the end of the Soviet Union as it has once again become a world region of sovereign powers. The relatively low levels of political violence and the concomitant authoritarian... more
Central Asia has seen dramatic yet peaceful change since the end of the Soviet Union as it has once again become a world region of sovereign powers. The relatively low levels of political violence and the concomitant authoritarian stabilization of its postcolonies are both remarkable and poorly understood. This article argues that IR theory is of little use in this regard because it is focused on external powers and systemic factors, be they material or normative, and fails to account for the Central Asian actors and transnational processes which have shaped the transformation. This weakness has been mirrored in scholarship which until recent years was produced overwhelmingly by scholars from outside the region according to debates which have minimal relevance for the region. The largely peaceful decolonisation of Central Asia is best understood from decolonial perspectives which emphasize the importance of the region's particular ideas and practices and how these have been formed in conditions of globalization.
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One of the defining features of our age is the long-coming but now undeniable disenchantment with the political. In Why We Hate Politics, the British political scientist Colin Hay (2008: 5) argues that elite practices of neoliberalism... more
One of the defining features of our age is the long-coming but now undeniable disenchantment with the political. In Why We Hate Politics, the British political scientist Colin Hay (2008: 5) argues that elite practices of neoliberalism with their " tightly delimited political sphere " and globalization's discourse of " the increasingly anachronistic nature of political intervention " have generated disdain for politics in general and liberal democracy in particular. Given that politics, with its concern for the construction and realization of the public good, was the erstwhile solution to the recurrent wars of kings and the untrammeled capital of merchants, the pervasive sense of hating politics should cause alarm both in the West and in those states that have been called upon to imitate Western democracies. Apropos, Central Asians, it increasingly seems, also hate politics. The question we face is whether the political transformation that so disenchants Central Asians is the same that is observed elsewhere by Hay and countless others, or whether it has its own contextual form which is clearly distinct.
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Twenty-five years since independence, Tajik nationalism stays highly consistent in content with the nationalist discourse of the late-Soviet era. It remains primarily ethno-linguistic and exclusive of the other Central Asian... more
Twenty-five years since independence, Tajik nationalism stays highly consistent in content with the nationalist discourse of the late-Soviet era. It remains primarily ethno-linguistic and exclusive of the other Central Asian ethno-nationalist projects which sprung out of a shared milieu in the early twentieth century. What has changed is the almost complete capture of nationalist discourse by the state elite and the tendency of this elite to direct this discourse against its political enemies, not just overseas, but within the state. The conflict with the nationalism of the Uzbek republic is long-term but the denigration of political opponents, particularly those representing political Islam, who were once part of a general agreement with the regime, as essentially non-Tajik is a new and potentially destabilising discursive strategy. This framing in terms of security is a function of the increasingly authoritarian character of the regime and the context of being a post-conflict state. The reception of state-authored nationalism in the social life of Tajiks within the motherland and beyond is difficult to observe. However, it is correct to say that the Tajik nationalism that is produced in the independent republic’s media and culture disregards the experience of many Tajiks who live transnational lives as labour migrants in Russia and elsewhere. Exploring non-state and diasporic challenges to this hegemonic discourse remains a question for further research.
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This is the original version of the Chatham House paper. The intertwining of financial globalization and deregulation with the post-Soviet transition has, since the 1990s, created a new international political and economic environment.... more
This is the original version of the Chatham House paper.
The intertwining of financial globalization and deregulation with the post-Soviet transition has, since the 1990s, created a new international political and economic environment. In this context, the UK’s relations with Russia and Eurasian states are characterized in part by features of transnational kleptocracy, where British professional service providers enable post-Soviet elites to launder their money and reputations.
The intertwining of financial globalization and deregulation with the post-Soviet transition has, since the 1990s, created a new international political and economic environment. In this context, the UK’s relations with Russia and Eurasian states are characterized in part by features of transnational kleptocracy, where British professional service providers enable post-Soviet elites to launder their money and reputations.
Research Interests:
Following the banning of Tajikistan’s leading opposition party the Islamic Renaissance Party in 2015, and the widespread crackdown on dissenting voices in the country, hundreds of citizens have fled the country and sought asylum in the... more
Following the banning of Tajikistan’s leading opposition party the Islamic Renaissance Party in 2015, and the widespread crackdown on dissenting voices in the country, hundreds of citizens have fled the country and sought asylum in the European Union. The government in Dushanbe cooperates with its allies to have activists detained and returned to the country from Russia and Turkey, but when targeting exiles in the EU the government it has fewer options. Faced with these limitations, the authoritarian regime of Tajikistan is increasingly trying to silence its dissidents abroad by threatening and targeting family members on the basis of their association with the individual in exile. The government has subjected them to public humiliation, detained them, confiscated their passports, and seized their property. Given the situation, it is imperative that foreign governments place greater pressure on the government of Tajikistan to halt these human rights abuses and for countries in the EU to grant asylum to exiles from Tajikistan and their family members.
Research Interests:
Unexplained Wealth Orders, introduced in the United Kingdom in 2017, were designed to tackle the problem of transnational kleptocracy. However, our research on real estate purchases in the UK by elites from post-Soviet kleptocracies... more
Unexplained Wealth Orders, introduced in the United Kingdom in 2017, were designed to tackle the problem of transnational kleptocracy. However, our research on real estate purchases in the UK by elites from post-Soviet kleptocracies demonstrates that incumbent elites are invulnerable to attempts to question the legality of their wealth while exiles from these states often lose their property. From our original dataset of properties, we take a single case on the margin: one of incumbents Dariga Nazarbayeva and Nurali Aliyev, the daughter and grandson of Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev who were subject to one of the few UWOs issued and thereby had their properties frozen. In a close analysis of the legal documents from this case, this paper analyses how the properties were purchased and how the sources of wealth were subsequently explained as legitimate. We elaborate an exemplary case of transnational kleptocracy revealing how British legal services actively, passively, and structurally enable specific acts of money laundering. We further expose how they effectively explain kleptocratic wealth and why they are likely to continue to do so despite recent changes to laws and regulations.
Research Interests:
In August 2003, at the Alfred Marshall Lecture in Stockholm, the political economist Daron Acemoglu and colleagues noted that the greatest puzzle about kleptocracies ‘is their longevity, despite the disastrous policies pursued by the... more
In August 2003, at the Alfred Marshall Lecture in Stockholm, the political economist Daron Acemoglu and colleagues noted that the greatest puzzle about kleptocracies ‘is their longevity, despite the disastrous policies pursued by the rulers’ (Acemoglu, Robinson, and Verdier 2004: 163). As weakly institutionalised polities, kleptocracies – defined as those countries ‘where the state is controlled and run for the benefit of an individual, or a small group, who use their power to transfer a large fraction of society's resources to themselves’ (Acemoglu, Robinson, & Verdier 2004: 162) – do indeed challenge most theoretical conceptions in political science, international relations, and international political economy (Pitcher & Soares de Oliveira 2022). Two decades on, this puzzle has hypertrophied rather than abated and thus gained far more attention from academics in these fields. Not only do kleptocracies endure, but they have been globalized to the extent that their elites are no longer content to capture and command their own states. Now they are transnational, buying assets, purchasing reputations, and gaining influence in democracies. Their divide-and-rule strategies are not merely national but transnational.
Research Interests:
We explore how the influx of foreign funding into the higher education sectors of the United States and United Kingdom has raised the challenge of "reputation laundering”—when foreign donors and individuals use donations to prestigious... more
We explore how the influx of foreign funding into the higher education sectors of the United States and United Kingdom has raised the challenge of "reputation laundering”—when foreign donors and individuals use donations to prestigious universities to boost their international public image and offset negative images or reported controversies back in their home country. We outline four pathways for reputation laundering—donations for academic programs/schools, naming rights, honorary degrees and board seats; and the offer of favorable admissions
decisions—and examine the variety of policies, practices and safeguards that have been adopted by U.K. and U.S. universities in response. We present evidence, drawn from a survey of U.K. development officers, that university diligence procedures, which usually focus on compliance with the law, often are inadequate for filtering or deterring most types of reputation laundering.
decisions—and examine the variety of policies, practices and safeguards that have been adopted by U.K. and U.S. universities in response. We present evidence, drawn from a survey of U.K. development officers, that university diligence procedures, which usually focus on compliance with the law, often are inadequate for filtering or deterring most types of reputation laundering.
Research Interests:
The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics. Although a neat... more
The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in
International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as
China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics.
Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international
domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always
been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political
economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably.
Instead, this collection advances the concept of ‘state transformation’
as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign
policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the
pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven
processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation
of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state
transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ most
important foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the
wider field in IR.
International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as
China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics.
Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international
domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always
been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political
economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably.
Instead, this collection advances the concept of ‘state transformation’
as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign
policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the
pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven
processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation
of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state
transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ most
important foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the
wider field in IR.
Research Interests:
Unexplained Wealth Orders, introduced in the United Kingdom in 2017, were designed to tackle the problem of transnational kleptocracy. However, our research on real estate purchases in the UK by elites from post-Soviet kleptocracies... more
Unexplained Wealth Orders, introduced in the United Kingdom in 2017, were designed to tackle the problem of transnational kleptocracy. However, our research on real estate purchases in the UK by elites from post-Soviet kleptocracies demonstrates that incumbent elites are invulnerable to attempts to question the legality of their wealth while exiles from these states often lose their property. From our original dataset of properties, we take a single exemplary case: one of incumbents Dariga Nazarbayeva and Nurali Aliyev, the daughter and grandson of Kazakhstan's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev who were subject to one of the few UWOs issued and thereby had their properties frozen. In a close analysis of the legal documents from this case, this paper analyses how the properties were purchased and how the sources of wealth were subsequently explained as legitimate. We elaborate an exemplary case of transnational kleptocracy revealing how British legal services actively, passively, and structurally enable specific acts of money laundering. We further expose how they effectively explain kleptocratic wealth and why they are likely to continue to do so despite recent changes to laws and regulations.
Research Interests:
Free access at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2020.1803794 This forum brings together five different angles on the question as to whether and how political regimes and forms of order-making can and should be researched through the... more
Free access at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2020.1803794
This forum brings together five different angles on the question as
to whether and how political regimes and forms of order-making
can and should be researched through the concept of
‘illiberalism’. The discussion engages critically with this and
associated concepts, such as ‘illiberal peace’ and ‘authoritarian
conflict management’, which have been developed out of the
Central Asian / Eurasian context and discussed in their wider
global ramifications and, within the framing of ‘illiberal peace’,
explored in various contexts in and beyond Central Asia. While
further assessing the relevance and implications of this approach,
this forum also attempts to think beyond ‘illiberalism’ by
introducing and discussing the idea of ‘post-liberalism’. This way,
the authors engage in an exchange that serves to probe both
concepts and to determine their strengths and limitations when it
comes to analysing and understanding politics and societal
processes in Central Asia.
This forum brings together five different angles on the question as
to whether and how political regimes and forms of order-making
can and should be researched through the concept of
‘illiberalism’. The discussion engages critically with this and
associated concepts, such as ‘illiberal peace’ and ‘authoritarian
conflict management’, which have been developed out of the
Central Asian / Eurasian context and discussed in their wider
global ramifications and, within the framing of ‘illiberal peace’,
explored in various contexts in and beyond Central Asia. While
further assessing the relevance and implications of this approach,
this forum also attempts to think beyond ‘illiberalism’ by
introducing and discussing the idea of ‘post-liberalism’. This way,
the authors engage in an exchange that serves to probe both
concepts and to determine their strengths and limitations when it
comes to analysing and understanding politics and societal
processes in Central Asia.