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Publications
Publications (24)
Central Asian railways are usually discussed in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, and most studies deal with the main railway line at the heart of this grandiose China-backed project. Turkmenistan represents a somewhat extraordinary example due to the state’s massive investments in railways, which have almost doubled the length of the co...
The foreign policy of states is often viewed through the prism of the geopolitical, geostrategic or geoeconomic determinants. It is forgotten that in addition to these factors, foreign policy also has a strong human, or personal, factor. This factor is especially evident in authoritarian regimes of the personalist type, in which decisions, includin...
Turkmenistan belongs to the countries where the democratisation (Huntington in The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Oklahoma University Press, Oklahoma, 1991) and transition have led to the conservation of a Soviet system (McFaul in World Politics, 54: 212–244, 2002). The case of Turkmenistan showed that the discourse of t...
Turkmenistan educational system has gone through substantial changes in the years following the death of the first president, Niyazow. The second president, Berdimuhamedow, initially seemed to pay extensive attention to this sphere and launched several reforms abolishing the most bizarre measures introduced by his predecessor. However, it rapidly b...
Located in current debates on one party dictatorships and regime durability, this article explores continuity and disruptions within the Turkmen political elite in their transition from presidents Saparmurat Niyazov (1991–2006) to Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov (2007-). We are particularly interested in how the change from an idiosyncratic system, based...
The Battle of Gökdepe (1881) is considered to be a turning point in Turkmenistan's contemporary historiography. It led to the then independent Turkmen (Akhal Tekke in this case) tribes coming under Russian control. Almost immediately after the event the battle became a controversial point of interpretation starting from Turkmen sources (rarely know...
This article proposes a comparison of the attitudes of the first and second presidents of Turkmenistan to discuss possible overlap between personality cult, as it has been initiated and developed by the two presidents after independence, and nation-building narratives in the country. Nation-building in post-Soviet spaces has been studied comprehens...
Although European customers are potential energy partners for Turkmenistan, obstacles on the transit route may cause Europe's efforts to fail in comparison with the more assertive and effective policies of China, Russia, Iran, and India.
The article focuses on the analysis of the internal politics of Afghanistan after 2001 and evaluates the results of state- and nation-building. The emphasis on internal politics is the only possible way to understand the processes in the country and work out the strategy for the country after the planned withdrawal (or limitation) of foreign troops...
The author examines divergent versions of the history of the Tajiks and of Tajik-Uzbek relations in the works of Tajik and Uzbek historians.
When Taliban rule was overthrown in autumn 2001 Afghanistan was to start a new pattern of peace-building process. However, experts on Afghanistan pointed out several problematic aspects of Afghan post-war society (criminalization, distribution of arms, disaster economy with narcotic production within failed state etc.). These problems determined th...
Abstrakt Po svržení vlády Tálibánu na podzim 2001 stál Afghánistán před nalezením nového způsobu budování Abstract When Taliban rule was overthrown in autumn 2001 Afghanistan was to start a new pattern of peace--building process. However, experts on Afghanistan pointed out several problematic aspects of Afghan post--war society (criminalization, di...
Unlike for people in the West the state is not 'a night watchman' for Turkmens. They consider it to be a universal institution. They see in it a paternalistic organ, which displays father-like care for them, transforms the population into a single nation. It also takes care of its unity, ensures its security, makes them happy and provides them with...
Political leaders of many new independent states of former USSR (mostly authoritarian and totalitarian ones) turns their attention to various attributes of ideology in search for their state and national identity. History helps to manifest dominancy over other nations in the region and also confirms the right for existence of concrete nation in con...
With the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Russia gradually lost its position as the dominant foreign power in Central Asia. The United States, Europe, and the Muslim World, among others, started to assert their influence over the post-Soviet states in this region. Since the late 1990s, China has been increasingly active there as well, mainly in sea...
The dissolution of the USSR and creation of the New Independent States (NIS) was accompanied by a rapid deterioration in relationships between the component republics. With the disputable exception of the Baltic States, the close dependence of the NIS members on Russia dom-inated their foreign policies. This reliance was expressed at all levels – p...
