Abstract
In the 1990s, there was an expectation that Uzbekistan, along with other countries in Central Asia, would gradually move towards the West by distancing itself from the sphere of Russian influence. However, in spite of the West’s significant investment in the region’s economies and attempts to enter the local markets through both bilateral and multilateral channels, this shift never materialised. In fact, since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Uzbekistan’s trade cooperation with Russia has remained robust, and only in 2014 did China overtook Russia as Uzbekistan’s biggest trading partner. This article aims to understand why Russia and China have become Uzbekistan’s biggest economic partners, especially in the energy sector. To understand this, I believe that it is important to analyse the nature of both domestic and international factors and their interaction. First of all, there are international factors: globalisation, the rise of China and an increase in global demand for natural resources; the role of the China-initiated the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Silk Road Economic Belt; and Russia’s attempt to reclaim its “great power” status since 2000 and Putin’s attempt to build and expand the Eurasian Economic Union. Second, there are domestic factors: understanding Russia’s and China’s foreign trade policy linked not only with economic growth but also with the structure of foreign economic policy decision-making, or “power vertical,” among other domestic elements. This article will draw on Critical International Political Economy (CIPE) to argue that this tradition is well equipped and offers an important framework to understand foreign economic policy of powers such as Russia and China. The CIPE does not simply combine the domestic and international factors but also insists on their indivisibility and engages with cultural, ideological and social elements in their historical contingency.
Highlights
After the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, Uzbekistan emerged as an independent state, ending more than a century of the Russian and Soviet rule
This, as we argued earlier, is linked with multiple intertwining factors: China’s economic growth, global change in the distribution of economic power, increased demand for natural and mineral resources and the government’s power and ability to make domestic and foreign policy decision with virtually no domestic structural/institutional restrictions
Comparative Political Economy (CPE) focuses on how states make political and economic decisions domestically
Summary
After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Uzbekistan emerged as an independent state, ending more than a century of the Russian and Soviet rule. What this article proposes is to use Critical IPE This tradition does not combine the insights of the schools of thought like Domestic or Comparative Political Economy (CPE; focuses on domestic economic policy choices of states) and International Relations (focuses on strategic interest of “Great Powers”). Globalisation is not primarily concerned with state sovereignty, it helps to understand the changing distribution of economic power, the rise of China and increased demand of energy These contemporary themes on globalisation are very timely and important to understand the underpinnings of Russia’s and China’s economic cooperation with Uzbekistan. I argue that this case is best understood via the Critical school approach It is based on multiple origins — including classical political economy, radical theories of development and CPE — which has meant that the kinds of questions and debates are necessarily more varied.
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