Thesis advisor: Kathleen Bailey / Clans are often viewed anachronistically in a world characterized by globalization. Yet, recent research highlights that clans not only determine how societies function, but play a central political role in many parts of the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. My analysis focuses on exploring clan alliances and their affect on the international system through the case of Uzbekistan. Clans and Democracy: A Mismatch? explores the presence of clans in Uzbekistan, deciphers to what extent they remain involved in politics, and determines how clan politics affects Uzbekistan's future prospects for democratization. I conclude that clans continue to influence the political decision-making of the state and ultimately hinder democracy formation. In closing, I explore predications for the future stability and democracy of Uzbekistan, as well as suggest policy prescriptions for the United States vis-à-vis Uzbekistan and other clan-based states. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

This paper examines the establishment of papermaking in Central Asia in the 7th to 8th century CE. Additionally, it examines the historical and contemporary status of papermaking in Uzbekistan based on primary sources gathered during a research trip, and historical sources. Both textual research and experimental papermaking research were conducted for this paper. Designed as a foundation for further study, this paper includes early textual sources mentioning papermaking, information gathered from interviews, personal observations, and maps highlighting areas of importance. The first part surveys the development of the discussion surrounding the establishment of the craft in the region. By combining early and contemporary research and highlighting and discussing new sources, possible scenarios of the establishment of papermaking in Central Asia are further investigated. Pursuing this line of inquiry, the paper provides a full overview of the history and development of the different papermaking regions of Uzbekistan, following a detailed description of the tradition in the city of Kokand based on first-hand accounts from the early 20th century. The second part of this paper includes a description of the author’s process of recreating historical tools, techniques and paper based on data and information gathered during the research trip as well as information drawn from historical sources. In addition, the author explores different theories such as the debate about which raw materials were used, and hypotheses regarding the development of the paper mould.

Abstract With the transformation of the world geopolitics since the collapse of USSR, the international relations theories about borders, cross-border ethnics, and energy politics are increasingly getting important. Meanwhile, there are some doubts about the debate between the land power and sea power based on the theories of the classic geopolitics. Take China for example. It is a nation equipped with land power and sea power, and is moving forward as a great power. Accordingly, my research focuses on the nature of Chinese geopolitics and its thinking on national security from the perspective of the dynamic process of Chinese border and borderland. I hope it can be of help to interpret China¡¦s Grand Strategy. Through the general explorations of geopolitics and national strategy, I intend to prove the arguments: whether China will be a nation with land power and sea power or a nation with only one alternative. Besides, how can China resolve the geopolitical dilemma in the diplomatic practice? In my research, the understanding of historical culture and geography factors should be prior to the thinking on the Chinese geopolitical theory. In the Chinese history, ¡§China¡¨ and ¡§Borderland¡¨ have been integrated with each other during the war times, which have made China expand into the vast territory and border of all time, and have made the national security more stable than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. In the 21st century, when China declared its ¡§peaceful rise¡¨ and developed its marine strategies, the so-called ¡§geopolitical dilemma in sea-power and land-power,¡¨ based on the classic theories, would not virtually cause any problem to China. The key is that China¡¦s Grand Strategy always balances with and adjusts to the dynamic world politics. China wins over the advantage of land-border security by announcing the mutual respect and interests to the surrounding states, and practices its ¡§soft power¡¨ through the international institutes. In addition to the military modernization promoted by economic effects, China begins to strive for an ocean strategy. Furthermore, in my opinion, the problem of Xinjing is the biggest threat to the national security inside China. As the cross-border ethnics and ¡§pivot of Asia,¡¨ Xinjing is inclined to be influenced by the outside world. In order to promote the border protection and attack the antiterrorism, China founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Xinjing is the biggest province of China and the access to the Central Asia and Europe from China. That¡¦s why Xinjing is called ¡§Eurasian Crossroads.¡¨ As a consequence, Xinjing is deeply affected by the outside world no matter what issues are involved, such as politics, economics, military security, energy, border, and antiterrorism. That¡¦s why China¡¦s national security and Xinjing are closely tied up. My conclusion is that the threat to China¡¦s national security lies not in outside the border but in inside the country. In Chinese history, the diplomatic practices are the reflections on the domestic demands, especially under the principles of the ¡§sovereignty¡¨ and the ¡§unification of territory,¡¨ which form the basis for the formation of ¡§China¡¨ and ¡§Borderland¡¨ in Chinese history, and are also the foundation stone for CCP to maintain its control over the state.

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During the last few decades Central Asia has experienced widespread changes in land cover and land use following the socio-economic and institutional transformations of the region catalyzed by the USSR collapse in 1991. The decade-long drought events and steadily increasing temperature regimes in the region came on top of these institutional transformations, affecting the long term and landscape scale vegetation responses. This research is based on the need to better understand the potential ecological and policy implications of climate variation and land use practices in the contexts of landscape-scale changes dynamics and variability patterns of land surface phenology responses in Central Asia. The land surface phenology responses - the spatio-temporal dynamics of terrestrial vegetation derived from the remotely sensed data - provide measurements linked to the timing of vegetation growth cycles (e.g., start of growing season) and total vegetation productivity over the growing season, which are used as a proxy for the assessment of effects of variations in environmental settings. Local and regional scale assessment of the before and after the USSR collapse vegetation response patterns in the natural and agricultural systems of the Central Asian drylands was conducted to characterize newly emerging links (since 1991) between coupled human and natural systems, e.g., socio-economic and policy drivers of altered land and water use and distribution patterns. Spatio-temporal patterns of bioclimatic responses were examined to determine how phenology is associated with temperature and precipitation in different land use types, including rainfed and irrigated agricultural types. Phenological models were developed to examine relationship between environmental drivers and effect of their altitudinal and latitudinal gradients on the broad-scale vegetation response patterns in non-cropland ecosystems of the desert, steppe, and mountainous regional landscapes of Central Asia.The study results demonstrated that the satellite derived measurements of temporal cycles of vegetation greenness and productivity data was a valuable bioclimatic integrator of climatic and land use variation in Central Asia. The synthesis of broad-scale phenological changes in Central Asia showed that linkages of natural and human systems vary across space and time comprising complex and tightly integrated patterns and processes that are not evident when studied separately.

The Islamic Revival in post-Soviet Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) offers a rich case study concerning the role of Islamism in international politics. The international relations literature on the region has not explored this phenomenon deeply, due in part to the limited account of ideational factors offered by the predominant approaches to international relations theory. Building on the constructivist argument that a causal account of ideational factors can be supplemented with a constitutive account that locates these factors in their social and historical contexts, the thesis explores ideology as a conceptual framework that may be used to link the different manifestations of political Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia, including Islamist movements (Islamic Renaissance Party, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and Hizb ut-Tahrir), the repression and cooptation of the Islamic revival Central Asian states, and the perception of the Islamic Revival as a threat to regional and international security.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between remittance flows and the gender and skill characteristics of the migrants. By using annual data on bilateral migration and bilateral remittances between 20 OECD sending countries and 22 receiving countries from Europe and Central Asia over the period 2010-2012, a gravity model, incorporating the share of female- and the share of skilled migrants, is estimated. The model is extended by including a number of macroeconomic determinants of remittances. The main results show that remittances per capita decline with both share of female migrants and the share of the skilled migrants, and this relationship is more evident for receiving countries with relatively higher income levels. Skilled women are also found to remit smaller amounts of money relative to the unskilled ones. Thus, the study contradicts the widespread claim that females are more reliable remitters and that the negative effect of brain drain from developing countries could be mitigated by larger volumes of remittances sent by skilled migrants relative to unskilled ones. Furthermore, most of the macro variables are found to be significant and remittances show to be more responsive to the economic conditions in the source rather than in the recipient countries. The evidence on the motives to remit is rather mixed.

The Islamic Revival in post-Soviet Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) offers a rich case study concerning the role of Islamism in international politics. The international relations literature on the region has not explored this phenomenon deeply, due in part to the limited account of ideational factors offered by the predominant approaches to international relations theory. Building on the constructivist argument that a causal account of ideational factors can be supplemented with a constitutive account that locates these factors in their social and historical contexts, the thesis explores ideology as a conceptual framework that may be used to link the different manifestations of political Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia, including Islamist movements (Islamic Renaissance Party, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and Hizb ut-Tahrir), the repression and cooptation of the Islamic revival Central Asian states, and the perception of the Islamic Revival as a threat to regional and international security.