Leaders, ideas, and norm diffusion in Central Asia and beyond

Abstract

This article considers how the ideas and worldviews of the first presidents of the post-Soviet Central Asian countries have shaped their states’ identities, and their domestic and foreign policies. It argues that the contested ideas of regionalism in Central Asia were responsible for the rejection, reconstruction, and diffusion of foreign norms within the region and beyond. The ideational norms of the Central Asian states are argued to play a critical role in the creation of new norms— multi-speed and multi-level Eurasian regionalism—and their diffusion into global normative processes. Thus, the Central Asian region, and its contribution to the development of Eurasian normative regionalism, deserves recognition in world politics.