Central Asia

A considerable degree of immobility permeated the structure of Central Asia’s economic production after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The progressive entrenchment of authoritarian strategies of economic management has to date prevented the implementation of comprehensive reform agendas across the region: In 2016, the economic activity of post-Soviet Central Asia ¹ remained predominantly confined to the extraction and commercialisation of natural resources, just as it did in 1992. It is in the energy sector that Central Asia’s resource dependency has, however, come to the fore more visibly: Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan hold substantive hydrocarbon reserves, while Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan feature a globally relevant hydroelectricity potential, thanks to their significant water resources. The extraction, transport, and ultimately the export of natural resources hence represent the cornerstone activities of the region’s political economy: It is precisely to the study of these processes that the present chapter will devote its core analytical attention. The chapter, however, will not delve exclusively into energy-related issues but, tellingly, will also put a premium on the identification of the resource dependency patterns that define Central Asia’s agricultural sector. By briefly looking at the region’s agro-industry – and most specifically Uzbekistan’s extreme reliance on cotton crops – this chapter intends to emphasise that production models centred on the exploitation of a single resource have ultimately entrenched a detrimental monoculture praxis across Central Asia.