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These seminars will focus on the most urgent current problems now facing the Central Asian states, emphasizing
how the Central Asian states have gone their separate ways since independence from the center. The course defines Central Asia in a wider sense to include Tatarstan and the Uighur Sinkiang province as well as the Turkic and Tajik peoples of Afghanistan and the Caucasus (in other words, Eurasia). Last update: Vykoukal Jiří, doc. PhDr., CSc. (18.01.2016)
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The seminars will give students an opportunity to discuss special topics with multiple issues related to contemporary Central Asia - political and economic (e.g., foreign relations, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, political institutions, parliamentary and presidential elections and the effects of presidents elected for life), social (e.g., corruption among the political elite, potential for ethnic unrest, standard of living, demographic trends, effects of globalization, civil society, nation building through language legislation), religious (e.g., Islamic extremism, particularly in the Fergana Valley, ISIS recruitment efforts, the situation of other religions after the enactment of the laws on religion, the effects of globalization on traditional religious beliefs), ecological (e.g., water management, the situation of the glaciers, air pollution, effects of emissions on the atmosphere, the exploitation of natural resources by foreign companies), and educational (e.g., the state of primary, intermediate and higher educational institutions), each occupying one week of the course. Last update: Vykoukal Jiří, doc. PhDr., CSc. (18.01.2016)
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Students will be assigned readings on a weekly basis and should be prepared to enter into classroom discussions. Readings will be assigned from books and journals dealing with the region. The course will emphasize learning the English terminology appropriate to the course. The final exam will consist of a paper giving 5 or 10-year projections or scenarios of a CA country of choice. Last update: Vykoukal Jiří, doc. PhDr., CSc. (18.01.2016)
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Syllabus
Week One - Introduction a. Assigning of topics according to nation or according to issue, assignment of reading materials
b. Defining Central Asia Topics and Issues: What terms are used in the literature, both historic and contemporary, in describing the Central Asian states? What considerations must be taken in finding an adequate term to describe the Central Asian states? What issues were taken in consideration in the Lenin’s nationality policy in delineating national boundaries c. Short overview of present situation in Central Asia
d. Historical Background
Topics and Issues: formation of the Central Asian States, events leading up to Independence and events immediately following independence Week Two - pre-9/11
a. How the Central Asian states have gone different ways
Topics and Issues: inter-ethnic relations, phenomenon of one man rule - amending constitutions and rigging elections, elections and how they differed from one country to another, national vs. pan-Turkic identity
b. language legislation and nation building
c. reform movements, political pluralism and the role of the opposition,ecological legacy of having been exploited by the Soviet leadership
d. role of government
Topics and Issues: primarily as in charge of economy and as a scapegoat for anything unforeseen that goes wrong, with particular focus on the Tajik power-sharing experiment after 1997 and how successful/unsuccessful it proved to be, how the Communist Party reinvented itself as a defender of the interests of the titular nationality?
e. role of parliaments Topics and Issues: comparisons in terms of how docile or otherwise they are (ranking them in order and how they compare), relations between upper and lower parliament chambers, focusing on the rare instances where one chamber has refused to endorse something the other chamber approved, like the Kyrgyz row over the treaty that would have ceded territory to China, and the two chambers of the Kazakh parliament disagreeing about the bill on the media. f. social issues (e.g., human rights, rule oflaw, civil society, freedom of press, women’s issues, health)
g. Concern over environmental problems, lack of water, Aral Sea
h. insurrections in Kyrgyzstan
i. Fears over spillover from the Tajik Civil War that began in 1992 and ended in 1997
Weeks Three and Four - post-9/11
a. impact of 9/11 Topics and Issues: relations with Afghanistan and China, threat of Islamic fundamentalism (Hizbut-Tahrir, Al-Qaida, IMU), inter-ethnic relations, regional tensions
b. role of Islam
c. foreign policy
Topics and Issues: relations with Russia and CIS, relations with US and EU, also with the OSCE and NATO, participation in regional organizations -- Shanghai Cooperation, Central Asian Union, relations between the five Central Asian states and how they perceive/portray each other -- for example how does Uzbek TV cover Central Asia, especially the elections in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, relations among the five CA states themselves Last update: Nigrinová Monika (12.02.2016)
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