Buy the article on CAIRN websiteAbstract

Nearly fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the New Independent States are about to assess their current political, economic and social situation. These five Republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), often gathered under the term “Central Asia”, have experienced different political and economic evolutions. They seem however to remain in the same regional ensemble: the rise of authoritarianism, the connivance between the political circles and the mafia-like economic structures, the social – though limited – foothold of radical political Islam confirm the high political risk the region could go through in the long term.Sébastien Peyrouse holds a PhD from the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO, Paris). He works on the policy, the monk and the national issues in Central Asia. He is in particular the author of Asie centrale, la dérive autoritaire. Cinq républiques entre héritage soviétique, dictature et islam (Paris, Autrement/CERI, 2006, with Marlène Laruelle).