ABSTRACT
This introduction provides some context of the topic, including the key puzzles, arguments, analysis and the position of the book in relation to some of the existing explanations and literature on Uzbekistan’s post-Soviet political economy and its trade partnership with the major powers like China, Russia, the US, Japan and the EU. It provides a brief overview of the proposed analytical framework and its key contributions to this study. Specifically, it explains some of the key reasons for employing the (neo-)Gramscian IPE framework to understand this case study. It highlights the importance of understanding a reciprocal relationship between politics and economics as well as the internal and external realms and argues that the combination of the conceptual tools of the state (which focuses on different configurations of state, the state-society complexes and economic and historical structures) and globalisation (changing distribution of economic power because of the rise of China and other non-Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (non-OECD) countries and increase demand of energy) in a neo-Gramscian CIPE approach will offer a very important structural content for this book as well as providing a theoretical synthesis for the empirical study. It then sets out the main themes of the book, highlighting the relevance and timeliness of the subject. The last part of the introduction consists of a brief description of the book’s subsequent chapters.
