The purpose of this paper was to comprehensively examine the diplomatic and geopolitical aspects of US policy towards Kazakhstan in order to identify the key factors determining the effectiveness of US strategy in Central Asia. The study applied the historical method to analyse the evolution of US-Kazakhstan relations, structural-functional analysis to examine the instruments of US diplomatic influence, and a systematic approach to assess US geopolitical interests in the region. The results of the study revealed three key phases in US policy towards Kazakhstan. It is found that energy policy remains the most successful area of American strategy in Kazakhstan, while in the sphere of democracy promotion and military-political cooperation, the results are limited. The analysis demonstrates that the US has to balance geopolitical interests and the promotion of democratic values, adapting its policy to changing regional dynamics. It is revealed that the C5+1 format has become a key tool for strengthening American influence in the region. The study found that the effectiveness of the US strategy varies depending on the specific area: the US has been most successful in the energy sector, with US investment in Kazakhstan’s economy. At the same time, in the field of democratization and military-political cooperation, the results remain limited. It was found that Kazakhstan’s multi-vector foreign policy, aimed at maintaining a balance between the interests of the United States, Russia and China, creates additional challenges for the implementation of the US strategy. Keywords: foreign policy, regional security, energy cooperation.

The ongoing reconstruction of Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital city, is emblematic of two interrelated processes. The first is the country’s capitalist transformation. The second is about how Tajik policymakers approach the country’s Soviet past. In my ethnographic research in Dushanbe over the course of the past decade, I have followed the reshaping of urban space and large-scale displacement caused by it in the context of the city’s history and Tajikistan’s political economy. In contrast to several other states that gained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan has never actively engaged in reimagining its Soviet past, neither glorifying nor denouncing it. Even so, de-Sovietisation of public space in Tajikistan has been rapidly progressing since the mid-2000s, with the removal of Soviet-era monuments, renaming of streets and resettling of the population. Yet unlike in the Baltic states or Ukraine, Tajik policymakers have not characterised these actions as a symbolic break with the Soviet era or an attempt to counter present-day Russian influence. This paper argues that the reconstruction of Dushanbe is a manifestation of the silent de-Sovietisation that has been ongoing in the country since the mid-2000s. This form of de-Sovietisation is not a deliberate process: it does not result from rethinking the Soviet past and taking a clear stance on it. Rather, Dushanbe’s de-Sovietisation is a casual by-product of Tajikistan’s capitalist transformation and it is characterised by massive socio-economic inequalities.

The foreign policy of the Republic of Tajikistan remains underexplored in international relations and post-Soviet studies, despite its strategic relevance within Central Asia. As a landlocked and resource-constrained state, Tajikistan faces persistent challenges related to sovereignty, development, and security while operating in a region shaped by competing Russian, Chinese, Western, and regional interests. This paper examines how Tajikistan utilizes bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms to achieve its foreign policy objectives, with a particular emphasis on energy and water diplomacy. The analysis centres on the Rogun Hydropower Plant as a key empirical case. Rather than viewing Rogun solely as an infrastructure project, the paper conceptualises it as a strategic foreign policy instrument mobilised to strengthen national sovereignty, negotiate regional power relations, and engage with international governance frameworks. Initiated during the Soviet period, suspended after independence and civil war, and relaunched in the 2000s with international involvement, Rogun embodies multiple dimensions of foreign policy, including bilateral negotiations with neighbouring states such as Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, cooperation with global financial institutions, environmental governance, and processes of national identity construction. Methodologically, the paper adopts a qualitative case study approach. It draws on document analysis and planned fieldwork in Tajikistan in July 2026, including semi-structured interviews with government officials, experts, energy sector representatives, and international organizations. This research design allows for an in-depth examination of how energy and water resources are used as diplomatic leverage in both bilateral and multilateral formats of cooperation. By situating the Tajik case within broader theoretical debates on foreign policy, resource diplomacy, and multi-level governance, the paper contributes to comparative studies of Central Asia and the post-Soviet space. It demonstrates how strategic resource projects can function as tools of foreign policy in asymmetrical regional environments. In doing so, the paper directly addresses key themes of CEECON, including foreign policy transformation, regional interaction, and the political role of infrastructure and resources in Eurasia.

The Covid-19 pandemic brought to Kyrgyzstan not only major economic recession and impoverishment, but also a spectacular populist turn in politics. In October 2020, capitalizing on societal grievances, populist politician Sadyr Japarov overthrew the President Jeenbekov and initiated a swift constitutional reform that reversed the country’s fragile record of semi-parliamentary system back to strong presidentialism. These changes were carried out in the name of ‘the people’ and a peculiar idea of ‘strengthening of the state.’ Although anti-establishment sentiments have been on the steady rise in post-communist authoritarian societies, this populist mobilization caught many commentators by surprise. Academic assumptions about the nexus of populism and authoritarianism suggest that populist frames and policies are the domain of elite politics (Robinson & Milne 2017, Busygina 2019). Based on an extensive empirical study, the paper brings the ‘vernacular’ perspective on the recent populist turn in Kyrgyzstan. Using in-situ observations of the populist mobilization in October 2020 and interviews with protesters, the paper explores the populist project ‘from below.’ The research seeks to fill the void left by the dominant elite approaches in Central Asia political science and area studies and foregrounds popular imaginaries of what a ‘normal’ state and a ‘normal’ leader constitute. The research contributes to a more nuanced theorization of authoritarianisms in the former Soviet space as not just elite projects but as co-produced by social actors that are habitually written off from conventional political analysis. Finally, the paper attempts to formulate preliminary conclusions about where the authoritarian populism stands six years after the ‘October Revolution’ of 2020.