The editor of a volume on ‘The “New” Central Asia: The Regional Impact of International Actors’ announces a call for chapter submission from interested international relations scholars. The projected volume is both about the place of Central Asia in world affairs and the way the international politics of state-building and regionalization have affected Central Asia since the end of the Cold War. Therefore, this volume pursues the twin-aims of simultaneously generalizing and contextualizing the “Central Asian experience” as well as re-thinking and re-evaluating its comparative relevance to the study of both other regions and international politics. In this respect, the prospective submissions would assess the agency of different international actors in Central Asia and their impact on the dynamics of state-building and regionalization. At the same time, the contributions would make analytically and empirically grounded propositions on the possible trajectories of Central Asian state-building and regionalization, and the possible patterns/transformations in the agency of external actors in the region. In this way, the volume addresses the need to systematize the knowledge produced on Central Asia since the end of the Cold War.

List of chapters (this is only a schematic list of the themes of the chapters):

1. The European Union (EU) and Central Asia.
2. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (PfP) and Central Asia.
3. The Conference/Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (C/OSCE).
4. The World Bank/International Monetary Fund/other international financial institutions and Central Asia.
5. The United Nations (and its various agencies) and Central Asia.
6. Russia and Central Asia.
7. China (especially, through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and Central Asia.
8. The United States of America and Central Asia.
9. India and Central Asia.
10. Iran and Central Asia.
11. Turkey and Central Asia.
Additionally, there would be chapters contextualizing the Central Asian reception/perception of this agency:
12. Kazakhstan and the role of international actors.
13. Kyrgyzstan and the role of international actors.
14. Tajikistan and the role of international actors.
15. Turkmenistan and the role of international actors.
16. Uzbekistan and the role of international actors.

Outline of the main themes and questions for each chapter: For the purposes of coherence, the assessment of the roles/implications/agency of different international actors in Central Asia focuses on the notions and practices of:

- state-building—understood as an attempt by an international actor to suggest/promote a certain mode of governance to Central Asian states and, thereby, impact their practices of policy-making according to certain externally-promoted rules;

- regionalization—understood both (i) in terms of the existence of a “regional approach” by an international actor to Central Asia—i.e., is there something in the strategy of your actor (provision of funds/incentives/infrastructure) that allows/intends for a process of regionalization to take place; and (ii) in terms of whether there is anything in the Central Asian interactions with that actor that “justifies” the use of the term region (in a sense that designates something unique to the “Central Asian” practice that is broader than a mere geographical convenience/proximity);

Again for the purposes of coherence, the prospective contributors to the volume are requested to construct their submissions around (or as responses to) the following sets of questions:

1. What is the nature of the international actor under discussion? What are the main theoretical approaches that have been employed in understanding and explaining the international outreach of this international actor? What would you say are the main international norms/foreign policy beliefs that inform your actor’s international outreach? Do its declared policies and actual behavior in Central Asia confirm such perceptions of its international role?

2. How has your actor defined its interests in Central Asia since the end of the Cold War? Has such definition of its role in the region changed over time?

3. What policies/approaches/tactics does your actor pursue in Central Asia to support its objectives? In particular, what is the understanding of state-building and regionalization that this international actor represents/promotes in Central Asia (if any)?
- what are its tools for both state-building and regionalization in Central Asia;
- in what way would you say they are unique to/property of that international actor;

4. How successful has your actor’s strategy been in Central Asia? What has been its impact on Central Asian state-building and regionalization dynamics? Has your actor’s influence in Central Asia grown/decreased since the end of the Cold War? Upon what its influence in Central Asia rests? What weaknesses/obstacles hamper its influence? Has something in the “Central Asian experience” of your actor forced it to alter/reevaluate its international outreach?

5. How would you evaluate the prospects for your actor’s policies in Central Asia? What developments would/could impact its outreach in the region? In short, (based on your analysis of the relationship between this actor and the region) what do you think the “future” has in store both for your actor and Central Asia? What does the explanation and understanding of this international actor’s agency in the region tells us about the nature and concerns of state-building and regionalization in Central Asia? Does your study suggest any critical perspectives, revisions and developments in terms of the study of state-building and regionalization in international politics, Central Asian affairs and/or your actor’s international outreach and the main theories by which such study is usually informed?

Submission Procedure:
Interested researchers and scholars, who would be willing to commit to such a collaborative project are invited to submit 500-word chapter abstracts (including chapter title and a clear explanation of how the authors would address the volumes objectives as outlined in the five sets of questions above) and a short CV (1-2 pages) by 25 May 2008. Authors would be notified by 30 May 2008 about the status of their proposals. Full chapters (9,000-11,000 words) are due by 10 December 2008. All submissions should be sent by email to Emilian Kavalski (emilian.kavalski@gmail.com)

____________________________ Emilian Kavalski
DPhil (Loughborough), MA (Warwick)
Dept of Political Science
10-16 HM Tory Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
CANADA, T6G 2H4
email: kavalski@ualberta.ca
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