Thinking about the international affairs of post-Soviet Eurasia easily gravitates to the clichéd imagery of a “great game,” “global chessboard,” “land of discord,” “pulpit of the world,” “geographic pivot of history,” “the disparate and anarchic theater of global geopolitics,” and so forth. While indicative of important developments, the geopolitics of this perspective not only overlooks the contextual idiosyncrasies provided by the domestic patterns of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, but also befuddles the study of the impact of historical and institutional legacies, cross-regional patterns, and socioeconomic structures on the shape, process, and content of statehood across Central Asia. The important task for commentators and observers therefore is to separate the phantoms from the substance in the reflections on the Central Asian experience(s) of state-making during the nearly two decades since the annus mirabilis of 1991 – marking the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In this respect, the volume by Thomas W. Simons Jr. undertakes an interesting refinement of this explanatory trend. The point of departure in such an investigation is the assertion that Eurasia has become one of the emblematic features of the post–Cold War geography of international relations. Thus, unlike other commentators, Simons not only enumerates the unpredictable changes in the region associated with the end of communism, the “revival” of ethnic, religious, and clan mobilization, and the gradual involvement of various international actors but also reflects on the interaction of these dynamics with the content and nature of governance in Eurasia. Such an approach is enriched by Simons’s experience of the postcommunist region both as an American ambassador to Poland (1993–1995) and Pakistan (1996–1998), and as coordinator of U.S. Assistance to the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union (1993–1995). His engagement with the complexity of Eurasian politics is enriched from the breadth and scope of Simons’s personal insights.
Simons’s main proposition is that the problems currently plaguing the region reflect several interrelated issues. His contention is that these are not new posers, but that Western actors were forced to confront them only after the start of the “global war on terrorism,” when Central Asia became a central piece in the puzzle of stabilizing the precarious statehood in the volatile post-Taliban Afghanistan. In short, Simons assessment is that for the time being (at least) post-Soviet Eurasia is “a wheel with enormous spokes (running to Moscow) and scarcely any rim” (P. 49). He thereby concludes that if “the West fell short as savior or patron, so did new ties with new neighbors, but not for lack of effort” (P. 46). International agency, thereby, impacts continuously (even if not always significantly) on the pattern, flow, and character of regional statehood. In this respect, the reference to Eurasia becomes an idiom, an intervening variable, and a context (i.e., an enabling environment) for confrontation both with the modalities and emergent complexity of international politics and with the changing patterns of regional geopolitics. It is this kind of consideration that provides the background for Simons’s emphasis on several key issues, whose interface informs prospective trajectories of both Central Asian statehood and intraregional affairs.
First, according to Simons, Central Asian politics is undermined by the absence of a robust civil society. He offers a detailed account of the historical legacies that could have contributed to such an outcome. Yet, the analysis is quick to point that it was the idiosyncratic confluence of events in the immediate post-Soviet period that weakened civil-society building in the region rather than some purported primordial backwardness of Central Asians. Simons points out that an important contributing factor in this regard has been the proliferation of government-organized nongovernmental organizations (GONGOs), which under the guise of autonomy, significantly stunted the flourishing of grassroots initiatives by either co-opting and constraining the voices of dissent or crowding out the underfunded genuine NGOs. Such an examination demonstrates that “‘civil society’ has had mainly a virtual role to play” (P. 37).
Second, Simons identifies the particular forms of elite rule in Eurasia as another of the regional posers. Again the origins of this problem can be traced to the sudden and unexpected disintegration of the Soviet Union, which underpins the fragility of Central Asian statehood. In other words, the countries of the region were unprepared and confused, and lacked the material and symbolic resources that could have facilitated the consolidation of democratic rule. Interestingly, however, Simons suggests that such an outcome is not least the result of the anemic civil society in Central Asia. As he maintains, the fact that there were “no sustained oppositional politics,” “no Solidarity,” and “no Charter 77” meant that the “ideology of governance, the justification for rule, were also up in the air,” because there was no one “trained up” to think democratically (P. 41). At the same time, Simons indicates that it is not only factors internal to Eurasia that contributed to the lack of good governance in the region. He also points a finger at the Western perception that Central Asia is a distant region that prevented more comprehensive commitment to democratic rule.
Third, the volume demonstrates that it is not only the nature of political struggle in the region that is the problem, but the particular framing of this contestation. As Simons aptly puts it, “elite infighting over access to resources is the stuff of post-Soviet politics” (P. 62). Control of the lucrative Eurasian resources is important for nurturing loyal supporters and ensuring the backing of various political networks. Simons, thereby, points to a peculiar interplay between “economics” and “sovereignty” in the region. While both appeared largely intertwined at the start of the post-Soviet period, there have been important policy swings prioritizing either the economy or an insistence on sovereign decision-making. Such a peculiar decoupling has significantly impacted post-Soviet state-building in Eurasia and has prevented the development of path-dependent patterns of development. Instead, the structures of governance are increasingly intertwined with the whims of regional leaders.
Fourth, the fragility produced by such decoupling between economic and state development appears to have undermined the consolidation of national coherence in Eurasia. The weakness of regional polities also seems to derive from their unpreparedness for independence. At the same time, the state-building project appears to be constrained by the external construction of Eurasia in popular and policy attitudes. The region tends to be defined either by its perceived common – usually backward, violent, and fatalistic – culture or the protracted history of imperial rule. The combination of such a tortuous legacy and external outlook appears embedded in the very fabric of the newly independent states that emerged in the wake of Soviet dissolution. Thus, rather than a transitory stage, the fragility that underpins the seemingly erratic character of Central Asian trends appears to be here to stay, and will continue challenging the dominant frameworks for the study of both global and regional politics.
Thus, according to Simons, the unpredictability and randomness of post-Soviet patterns prevents both the articulation and institutionalization of any form of viable nation-building project or narrative. In other words, despite the affirmation of sovereignty in Eurasia, the increasing personalization of state rule in the region presages a trend toward emptying regional states of their content. The issue then is that the hankering for a strong state across the region is also associated with the rise of extreme forms of populist national feelings. Such noncivic forms of nationalism are premised not only on exclusionary narratives but also on the violent assertion of state power both domestically and internationally.
At the same time, however, the analysis acknowledges that “in the post-Soviet space the nation-state is not a relic of the past but the wave of the future. Among all the alternatives on offer in the international system, ranging from tribalism to universalist utopias, in Eurasia the nation-state is and will remain for many years to come the most plausible and effective vehicle for ensuring identity, welfare, and even prosperity through effective governance” (P. 141). While optimistic in its reading of regional patterns, Simons’s injunction is that “we should be prepared for the abnormal in Eurasia” (P. 8).
In this respect, the awkwardness of Central Asian statehood has become an idiom for the topsy-turvydom of the post–Cold War climate of world affairs, where more often than not interstate relations are characterized by a modicum of order, while intrastate affairs elicit patterns of anarchy. Simons presciently points to the emergence of “hybrid sovereignty,” which at the most basic functional level refers to the formation of “border-crossing regimes, often informal, to ease the lives of citizens who used to travel freely in areas where there were no borders ‘to speak of’” (P. 112). However, he also points out that “there is a brand of hybridity that is more ominous because while it can point toward the past, like exchange sovereignty or dual nationality, it can also point toward a nastier future, and it is hard to tell which sort of hybrid any given case will turn out to be” (P. 113). Thus, unlike mainstream accounts that use hybridity as an indication of the cohabitation of authoritarian and democratic features of governance in one polity, Simons refers to hybridity as a notion that can offer both an explanation and understanding of the relation between past and future in the process of state-making.
Such an account offers refreshing engagement with the patterns of Eurasian politics. At the same time, the investigative journey of the volume offers a rare glimpse into the construction and individualization of Eurasian affairs as a distinct field of observation in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yet, what perhaps is of greatest value is the perspective from which such an inquiry is undertaken. The volume is written by an individual with an extensive and deep engagement in U.S. policymaking and can be read as an attempt to inform the prospective Eurasian policymaking trajectories of Washington. In this respect, the volume not only offers a very erudite and considerate interrogation of the patterns of Eurasian affairs but also provides a unique insight into the thinking and perspectives of some American diplomats. It is expected therefore that Simons’s volume will benefit both students and scholars of Eurasian and post-Soviet studies, postcommunist transitions, comparative politics, and weak states.