Security in Central Asia: Sources of State Resilience

The presentation focuses on political security/organizational stability of Central Asian states. It argues that the indices of weakness/fragility of states developed by a number of prominent international projects cannot fully explain the resilience or lack of such of Central Asian states.

The strength of weak (to various extent) Central Asian states is embedded in a different kind of political order that is different from a classical liberal-democratic conception. This type of order can be defined as “Machiavellian principality”.