ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the domestic dimensions of the political context emergent in Central Asia and highlights new realities while drawing attention to the persistence of old patterns and the possible resurrection of still older configurations in novel guises. The approach adopted in the chapter is largely geopolitical in its orientation and national/ethnic in its focus. It must be underlined that local and regional politics provide a key to the national delimitation in Central Asia and the character of the republics that emerged in its aftermath. The centuries-old antagonism between Uzbeks and Tajiks had, by the late 19th century, been partially mitigated through gradual ‘turkicization’ of the Tajiks. The choice in June 1989 of Islam Karimov as Uzbekistan’s Party leader was unexpected. Regional differences and economic difficulties encountered in the post-Soviet period conceal an ongoing search for what the peoples of the region share in common.
