Negotiating Strategic Partnerships: Domestic Roots of Foreign Policies in Post-Soviet Eurasia
The research seeks to understand how domestic political processes influence strategic foreign policy decisions in the post-Soviet states of Eurasia. “Small states”—a classification routinely used for states in the Caucasus and Central Asia—are conventionally treated as actors whose foreign relations are limited to reacting and adjusting to developments at the international level. Yet, the countries of that region have a history of changes in their international relations that cannot be covered by “systemic-level” explanations alone. This research, which looks at Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, examines how strategic foreign policy decisions, such as international alliances and affiliation strategies, reflect a balance of domestic and external political pressures.