Foreign Policy Orientation of Independent Central Asian States : Looking Through the Prism of Ideas and Identities

Abstract

Since the Soviet dissolution in 1991, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have pro- moted the most active foreign policies in the region. From a wide perspective, they both have much in common. They both were under Russian domination along with being ruled by their respective irremovable leaders. Despite all those commonalities, they both have taken different foreign policy paths. This article explores and discusses the interconnection between national identity and foreign policy construction in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan by examining comparatively at the driving forces through which the regimes adopted identities based upon historical narratives of their demographics that have led to the formation of divergent foreign policies (Uzbekistan’s unilateralism and Kazakhstan’s multilateralism). This article adopts the constructivist approach to answer the puzzle, where the theory delineates the connection and pertinence of national identity to foreign policy because the process of identifying the contrast of “self” and the “other” is socially constructed.