Kanat Makhanov – Page 3

February 28, 2022

Old Europe, New Europe and the Associated Trio

In some literature and discussion, one can see Europe divided into “Old Europe” and “New Europe”. It is believed that the distinction between the two Europes was first made in a public speech by then U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in January 2003 [Defense.gov, 2003] to make a distinction […]

February 2, 2022

Labor Migration and Emerging Migrant Diplomacy in Central Asia

Labor migration is one of the most sensitive issues for the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The three Central Asian republics were the ones that have had the largest population growth after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For instance, over the three decades since 1990, Kyrgyzstan’s population has […]

December 27, 2021

Turkey as the Most Important Non-EU Partner of Moldova

The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affair Mevlut Cavusoglu has recently been on a working visit to Moldova where he met with the Moldovan President Maia Sandu to mainly discuss issues of bilateral economic cooperation, trade, and investments [Moldpres.md, 2021]. The sides keenly agreed to increase the amount of bilateral trade […]

December 6, 2021

From The Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific: Underlying Trends and Implications

Since recently, we have been witnessing the term “Indo-Pacific” being used more often than “Asia-Pacific” in the context of global affairs. Oftentimes this new tendency is viewed as a result of recent shifts in the focus by the West in its engagement with the countries of the Pacific region and […]

November 26, 2021

Afghanistan: A New Variable in Equation

The withdrawal of the United States (U.S.) from Afghanistan after 20 years has brought many unexpected circumstances for the region in general and to Afghanistan in particular. It is argued that withdrawal of the U.S. is quick and clumsy leading to chaos on a certain level in the country. The […]

November 22, 2021

Do Central Asian Countries Export Urbanization?

Currently, Central Asia is among the largest labor-exporting regions in the world. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan rely very much on remittances sent by their citizens working abroad. According to the World Bank, remittances comprise about 28.4% of the GDP of Kyrgyzstan making it the second country in terms of remittances […]

October 22, 2021

An Overview of the Effects of Covid-19 Crisis on Global Freight Transport

The global spread of the COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on the aviation and air travel industry all around the world. In 2020, the number of passengers in aviation dropped by an unprecedented (-60%) or 2,699 million passengers compared to 2019. This resulted in $371 billion loss of passenger […]

September 28, 2021

Connected by Waters: The Issue of Water as a Factor of Regional Cooperation in Central Asia

It is well known that water scarcity is one of the most serious challenges that Central Asia is about to face in the near future. According to the World Resources Institute, Turkmenistan is among the top 17 countries that face extremely high water stress; Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are in the […]

September 27, 2021

External Voting Patterns in New Post-Communist Democracies

The Party of the current president the Party of Action and Solidarity (Partidul Acțiune și Solidaritate) (PAS) won majority of the seats with 52.80% in the unicameral Parliament of Moldova as a result of early elections held on July 11, 2021. With this result the PAS, which is known to […]

August 27, 2021

English Language as a Prerequisite for the Development of Kazakhstan

According to the annual report by Education First (EF), Kazakhstan ranks very low among other countries in terms of the English proficiency level. In 2020, it ranked 92nd in the English Proficiency Index list among 100 countries around the world [EF, 2020]. The situation looks somehow contradictory because multilingual education […]