The Great Game Reignited: Power Dynamics in Central Asia

This event is online only. All times are AEDT (Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne).

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87928974885?pwd=RlJFc0RaS2NadExEVm80T1E2TWZ2UT09

This event is brought to you by the National Office Interns.

With the recent withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, Central Asia could now become an arena of increased Great Power competition. The responses of the ex-Soviet states of Central Asia - Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan - suggest that they are intent on ensuring that instability and the looming terrorist threat in Afghanistan does not spill beyond its borders. Neighbouring states Russia and China, each with their own vested interests in the region, are now likely to fill the power vacuum of Great Power influence left in the wake of American forces leaving Afghanistan. How will Great Powers navigate relations with the historically volatile Central Asian region? What spill-over effects will the rise of the Taliban have on its regional neighbours?

Speakers:

Dr Shuhrat Baratov

Shuhrat Baratov teaches at the University of Canberra and the Australian National University. He has a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the Australian National University, and a Masters from the University of Tsukuba. He has a keen academic interest in International Relations theories, Foreign Policy Analysis, Regional Security, Eurasia and Central Asia, and has previously worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.  
 

Dr Raihan Ismail

Raihan Ismail is an ARC DECRA fellow and a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, ANU. She was the co-recipient of the Max Crawford Medal in 2018, awarded by the Australian Academy of the Humanities for 'outstanding achievement in the humanities by an early-career scholar'. 

Her research interests include Political Islam, sectarianism, and the intertwining nature of religion and politics in the Middle East. She has presented at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, examining Saudi clerics and Sunni-Shia relations in the Middle East, the Crawford Australian Leadership forum 'Global Realities', discussing challenges and opportunities for the Middle East, the Canberra Writers Festival, examining the geopolitics of the Middle East, as well as other academic and non-academic events. She delivered the 8th Hancock lecture for the Australian Academy of the Humanities, titled "Hybrid Civilisation or the Clash of Civilisations: Rethinking the Muslim Other".

Raihan is the convenor of the Political Islam seminar series for various Commonwealth government agencies, including AGD and Defence. She is a regular commentator in Australian and international media on Islam and Middle East politics and appeared as a panelist on the ABC's Q&A program in 2016. In 2019, she was placed in the ABC’s Top 5 Media Residency Program for humanities scholars.

She has published in academic and non-academic outlets including the Washington Post. She is the author of Saudi Clerics and Shia Islam, published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She has completed a book project titled Rethinking Salafism, which looks at the transnational networks of Salafi clerics in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The book is scheduled for publication later in 2021 through Oxford University Press.

Dr Johan Engvall

Dr. Johan Engvall is a Deputy Research Director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI). He is a Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with Johns Hopkin's School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C. and the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP). He holds a PhD in Government from Uppsala University. He is the author of The State as Investment Market: Kyrgyzstan in Comparative Perspective (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016). His research on political developments in Central Asia has appeared in various international journals, such as Governance, Post-Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia Studies and Problems of Post-Communism. In addition, he has authored several policy reports on anti-corruption, political and economic transition, foreign policy strategies and conflict dynamics in the Eurasian region.

Dr Kirill Nourzhanov

Dr Kirill Nourzhanov is a Senior Lecturer and Convenor of PhD Studies at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National Univeristy. His main research specialisation is on Central Asian politics and international relations, but his interests also cover Islamic radicalism, Eurasian geopolitics and the history of the former USSR.

Dr Nourzhanov has worked as an academic consultant on the World-Bank funded projects in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. He has served as Associate Editor of the Asian Politics and Policy journal and has been a member of the executive of the Australian Society for Inner Asian Studies. He was the President of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-communist Studies twice. Dr Nourzhanov's research has previously been awarded funding by the Australian Research Council.

Dr Nourzhanov's recent books include The Afghanistan Security Threat: Security Dilemmas for Central Asia and Beyond (with Amin Saikal, Bloomsbury, 2021) and Soft Power in Central Asia: The Politics of Influence and Seduction (with Sebastian Peyrouse, Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

Moderated by Bryce Wakefield, AIIA.