Domestic sources of foreign policy in Central Asia

This chapter examines the literature on the foreign policy of the Central Asian states. It underlines the growing volume of scholarship devoted to the domestic sources of foreign policy, a departure from the more traditional ‘geopolitical’ angle in literature. Domestic-oriented research has demonstrated that foreign policy in Central Asia was in the service of narrow ruling regimes. While illuminating the nature of political systems in the region, the emphasis on regimes also points to areas that have remained outside scholarly attention. The chapter concludes with a call for analytically eclectic approaches to better understand the dynamic and multifaceted nature of Central Asian foreign policy.