| ID | 159214 |
| Title Proper | Disorder over the border |
| Other Title Information | spinning the spectre of instability through time and space in Central Asia |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Koch, Natalie |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Across Eurasia, authoritarian leaders have sought to justify their ‘strong-hand’ approach to government by framing instability as a security threat and the strong state as a guarantor of political stability. Such ‘regimes of certainty’ promote a modernist valorization of order, the flip side of which is a demonization of political disorder instability, or mere uncertainty. Examining the spatial and temporal imaginaries underpinning such narratives about in/stability in Central Asia, this paper compares official discourse in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where state-controlled media and official publications have stigmatized political instability in Kyrgyzstan as indicative of the dangers of political liberalization and a weak state. Ostensibly about the ‘other’, these narratives are also about scripting the ‘self’. I argue that official interpretations of ‘disorder over the border’ in Kyrgyzstan are underpinned by a set of spatial and temporal imaginaries that do not merely reflect regional moral geographies, but actively construct them. |
| `In' analytical Note | Central Asian Survey Vol. 37, No.1; Mar 2018: p.13-30 |
| Journal Source | Central Asian Survey Vol: 37 No 1 |
| Key Words | Political Geography ; Kazakhstan ; Uzbekistan ; Critical Security Studies ; Authoritarianis |