Disorder over the border: spinning the spectre of instability through time and space in Central Asia. Issue 1 (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Koch, Natalie
• Is Part Of: Central Asian survey. Volume 37:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 13
• Page End: 30
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: Authoritarianism -- political geography -- critical security studies -- Kazakhstan -- Uzbekistan; Asia, Central -- Periodicals; 958.005
• DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2017.1338667
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-4937

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Across Eurasia, authoritarian leaders have sought to justify their 'strong-hand' approach to government by framing instability as a security threat and the strong state as a guarantor of political stability. Such 'regimes of certainty' promote a modernist valorization of order, the flip side of which is a demonization of political disorder instability, or mere uncertainty. Examining the spatial and temporal imaginaries underpinning such narratives about in/stability in Central Asia, this paper compares official discourse in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where state-controlled media and official publications have stigmatized political instability in Kyrgyzstan as indicative of the dangers of political liberalization and a weak state. Ostensibly about the 'other', these narratives are also about scripting the 'self'. I argue that official interpretations of 'disorder over the border' in Kyrgyzstan are underpinned by a set of spatial and temporal imaginaries that do not merely reflect regional moral geographies, but actively construct them.