Description
Central Asia’s geopolitical neighbourhood is not a forgiving one. Straddled between their former overlord Russia and the increasingly assertive People’s Republic of China, the region’s constituent republics are experiencing the whole pressure of great power competitions. Despite these pressures, the two Central Asian states examined in this paper have shown a remarkable geopolitical resilience and maintained fiercely independent foreign policy strategies. Both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan continue to engage in meaningful diplomacy with a range of often conflicting partners without sufficiently frustrating these to incur their wrath. While much is written on this phenomenon, however, few scholars have attempted to explain this extraordinary agency of these small powers in the midst of an increasingly tense Great Game for influence in Eurasia’s heartland. Embedded within a Neorealist framework, much of the existing literature fails to consider local political contexts and narratives. This paper seeks to partially remedy this. By presenting data from interviews with political leaders in both countries, and proposing a Neogramscian analytic approach, the paper argues that Central Asia’s often overlooked states provide a unique case study for countries to peacefully coexist with their powerful and ambitious neighbour.
