ABSTRACT
Central Asian countries became independent in a time of intense globalisation, forcing them to confront issues of internal stateness and external sovereignty simultaneously. This chapter looks at four migration-related issues that demonstrate the complex nature of globalisation in the region. Migration touches on a number of issues that are politically salient and rise to the forefront of analysis of Central Asian states. In each of these areas, the states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan struggle for decision-making capacity vis-à-vis their regional and geopolitical interdependencies, yet also retain important leverages. Looking at the financial interdependencies between states created by labour migration and remittances, political and economic efforts to integrate through the Eurasian Economic Union, transnational social relations and the international nature of security threats offers a way to analyse a breadth of factors affecting migration patterns, policies and outcomes in the region.
