Syllabus

Week One - Introduction

a. Assigning of topics according to nation or according to issue, assignment of reading materials

b. Defining Central Asia

Topics and Issues: What terms are used in the literature, both historic and contemporary, in describing the Central Asian states? What considerations must be taken in finding an adequate term to describe the Central Asian states? What issues were taken in consideration in the Lenin’s nationality policy in delineating national boundaries

c. Short overview of present situation in Central Asia

d. Historical Background

Topics and Issues: formation of the Central Asian States, events leading up to Independence and events immediately following independence

Week Two - pre-9/11

a. How the Central Asian states have gone different ways

Topics and Issues: inter-ethnic relations, phenomenon of one man rule - amending constitutions and rigging elections, elections and how they differed from one country to another, national vs. pan-Turkic identity

b. language legislation and nation building

c. reform movements, political pluralism and the role of the opposition,ecological legacy of having been exploited by the Soviet leadership

d. role of government

Topics and Issues: primarily as in charge of economy and as a scapegoat for anything unforeseen that goes wrong, with particular focus on the Tajik power-sharing experiment after 1997 and how successful/unsuccessful it proved to be, how the Communist Party reinvented itself as a defender of the interests of the titular nationality?

e. role of parliaments

Topics and Issues: comparisons in terms of how docile or otherwise they are (ranking them in order and how they compare), relations between upper and lower parliament chambers, focusing on the rare instances where one chamber has refused to endorse something the other chamber approved, like the Kyrgyz row over the treaty that would have ceded territory to China, and the two chambers of the Kazakh parliament disagreeing about the bill on the media.

f. social issues (e.g., human rights, rule oflaw, civil society, freedom of press, women’s issues, health)

g. Concern over environmental problems, lack of water, Aral Sea

h. insurrections in Kyrgyzstan

i. Fears over spillover from the Tajik Civil War that began in 1992 and ended in 1997

Weeks Three and Four - post-9/11

a. impact of 9/11

Topics and Issues: relations with Afghanistan and China, threat of Islamic fundamentalism (Hizbut-Tahrir, Al-Qaida, IMU), inter-ethnic relations, regional tensions

b. role of Islam

c. foreign policy

Topics and Issues: relations with Russia and CIS, relations with US and EU, also with the OSCE and NATO, participation in regional organizations -- Shanghai Cooperation, Central Asian Union, relations between the five Central Asian states and how they perceive/portray each other -- for example how does Uzbek TV cover Central Asia, especially the elections in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, relations among the five CA states themselves