This month we discuss the post-coloniality of Central Asia's International relations with Timur Dadabaev, the author of Decolonizing Central Asian International Relations: Beyond Empire (Routledge, 2021). This book, which brings together new writing and other material previously published by Dadabaev, re-reads the international politics of Central Asia through a very original post-colonial lens. Dadabaev, a Japan-based scholar who hails from the region himself, engages with the existing literature to depict and explain existing inter-state relations in Central Asia, to ultimately construct fairer International Relations along the Silk Road. There is plenty of empirical grounding for the alternative views illustrated by Dadabaev, who suggests that Western International Relations, when studying Central Asia, repeated the same mistakes that Russian Marxists made when they attributed a narrative of modernity along the lines of the progress made in Germany and Russia. The book does also engage critically with Uzbekistan’s foreign policy and also sheds lights on the prospects of coordinated development of Central Asia and Afghanistan. A very topical reading, which we're very pleased to discuss on NBN Central Asian Studies.

Timur Dadabaev is Profess of International Relation in the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. His latest books include Transcontinental Silk Road Strategies. Comparing China, Japan and South Korea in Uzbekistan [Routledge 2019] and Japan in Central Asia. Strategies, Initiatives, and Neighboring Powers [Palgrave MacMillan 2016].

Luca Anceschi is Professor of Eurasian Studies at the University of Glasgow, where he is also the editor of Europe-Asia Studies. Follow him on Twitter @anceschistan

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