This dissertation focuses on the visual representation of generational politics as it changed during Imperial, Soviet and Post Soviet periods. It argues that the most important shift in visual representation of power relations between generations in Central Asia took place in th…
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Intimate partner violence (IPV) violates human rights, specifically, the right to life and bodily integrity. Although considerable knowledge about the prevalence of and risk factors for IPV in developing countries has been amassed, little attention has been paid to the attitudes…
Due to the pressures of increasing population and economic development in Central Asia, water resources management faces many challenges. This dissertation addresses several of these challenges in five chapters. The first chapter motivates the dissertation by presenting the back…
The study opens with a discussion of texts by “outsiders” who positioned Turkmenia as a space worthy of exploration between 1921 and 1927. Chapter One examines two essay collections by the Eurasianists— Iskhod k vostoku. Predchuvstviia i sversheniia. Utverzhdenie evraziitsev( Ex…
This dissertation explores the causes and consequences of authoritarian elections. When holding an election, the authoritarian leader faces a dilemma: In order to maintain his rule, he needs to win big in elections. Yet, the manipulation of election results risks losing some of …
In this dissertation I argue that political institutions in a plural society, through their ability to induce and constrain a wide range of interactions, can facilitate (or hinder) the prospects for cross-ethnic trust generation, and by extension cross-ethnic cooperation. More s…
At least since the Mongol conquests, the main cultural and political centers of the Muslim world in the Nile-to-Oxus region were linked by rich and multifarious commercial and cultural networks to the eastern and western extremities of the Afro-Eurasian oikumene, including China…
Why do market-oriented economic reforms in developing countries succeed or fail? Of the three sets of factors that affect the outcome of the reforms - economic policies, formal and informal institutions, and leadership - the role of political leaders and reform teams in initiati…
Repression, used by dictators as a tool to control the populous of a nation, is a defining feature of authoritarian regimes. Often the most concerning response, the use of coercion is centrally important to a greater understanding of how dictators maintain stability. Emerging th…
Alexander Volkov (1886-1957), an Uzbek artist identified by his expressive style, vibrant palette, and devotion to folk subjects, was a leading figure in the movement known as the Uzbek avant-garde. Volkov's influence is still at work among artists in Uzbekistan, though his lega…
This study examines the socioeconomics of state formation in medieval Afghanistan in historical and historiographic terms. It outlines the thousand year history of Ghaznavid historiography by treating primary and secondary sources as a continuum of perspectives, demonstrating th…
In the general literature on bilateral aid flows, donors' strategic interests have been found to determine aid amounts. These strategic interests include trade flows, shared cultural and linguistic ties, common ideologies, and geopolitical importance. In the case of Central Asia…
The nineteenth century rivalry between the Russian Empire and Great Britain over Central Asia, known as the "great game," was triggered by the quest for power and dominance. This study revisits Sir Halford Mackinder's thesis, which viewed the "heartland," consisting of Russia an…
Central Asia has been a hotspot of terrorist activities and the drug trade for at least a decade. There are reasons for the prolonged unrest in this region. First, Afghanistan, as the lair for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, is a seedbed of a terrorist threat, whilst also the world's …
The motivation for this research comes from the belief that an over reliance on a social constructivist perspective has caused development studies in general, and post-development in particular, to under-theorize the role of discourse in development. A key issue in post-developm…
This dissertation explores the complex relationship that people have with shrines in southern Kyrgyzstan from the 1950s to the present. In particular, I look at how people, especially women, identify themselves as Muslims and how their religious beliefs and practices associated …
This dissertation examines the political, economic and social stresses of incorporating the newly established Ferghana Valley (1876) into the Russian Empire including the tensions engendered between the Russian and Central Asian populations and state and local authorities. Econo…
The Central Asian country of Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics; it is also prone to a plethora of natural hazards including mass wasting, flood, and extreme temperature. This thesis seeks to characterize how vulnerable rural Tajik mountain communities are …
Drawing on sixteen months of fieldwork in the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site region in Kazakhstan, this ethnography is an account of the local understandings of health, livelihood, and suffering among rural Kazakh communities. Using the 1949-1989 Soviet atomic testing program a…