This book brings together a series of innovative contributions which provide an eclectic view of how theorizing politics plays out in Central Asia. How are the concepts of governance, legitimacy, ideology, power, order, and the state framed in the region? How can we use the experiences of the Central Asian states to renovate political theorizing? In addressing these questions, the volume relies on the contributions of many young and local researchers, whose chapters are primed to address three key themes: exploring models of governance, revealing ideological justifications, and reframing state and order. Utilizing a range of single and comparative case studies from across the Central Asian space, this illuminating and original volume opens up a new space for political theorists, regional specialists and students of politics to begin reconsidering how we approach the theorization of regions of the world assumed to be on the periphery.

Rico Isaacs
is Reader in Politics at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author of
Film and Identity in Kazakhstan
(2018),
Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Space
(with Abel Polese, 2016) and
Party System Formation in Kazakhstan
(2011).

Alessandro Frigerio
is Dean of the School of Management at Almaty Management University, Kazakhstan. He has been working in Almaty for the past ten years combining administrative duties at different universities with heterodox scholarly activities in political philosophy.

1. Political Theory and Central Asia: An Introduction.- 2. Legitimacy and Legitimation in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.- 3. Governmentalization of Kazakhstani State: Between Governmentality and Neopatrimonial Capitalism.- 4. Theorizing the managerialism-neoliberalism-development nexus: Changing donor landscapes and persistence of practices in Kyrgyzstan.- 5. Rawlsian Liberalism and Rationalistic Maturidi Islam in Central Asia.- 6. In Search for "National Purpose": in Theory and Practice. Formation and Main Features of National ideologies in post-Soviet Central Asia.- 7. Compartmentalized Ideology: Presidential Addresses and Legitimation in Kazakhstan.- 8. Beyond "Personality Cults": Sacralization of Power in Kazakhstan and the Concept of Monarchy.- 9. Eternal Futurostan: Myths, Fantasies and the Making of Astana in post-Soviet Kazakhstan.- 10. The State Identities in post-Soviet Foreign Policy: Theories and Cases in Central Asia.- 11. The Heartland of IR Theory? Central Asia as an 'International Society' between Realism and Liberalism.- 12. The Incomplete State: Re-conceptualizing State and Society Relations in Central Asia.- 13. Driving in Almaty: Ironic Perspectives on Domestic Anarchical Society.- 14. Postscript: Dude Where is my Theory?.