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This article examines the relationship between youth, the family, and the authoritarian state in Tajikistan. We argue that the state works through both young people and the family in its attempts to produce loyal citizens through values education that focuses on patriotism, national identity, and allegiance to the state. We examine how the government frames this relationship through discourse analysis of 13 speeches by President Emomali Rahmon, an analysis of the content of laws on education and youth, a close reading of the official training program of the course “Family Education,” and an ethnographic study of a “Girls’ Competition.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Communist Party has unleashed a campaign of repression against Turkic minorities residing in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This campaign does not stop at China's borders. This study introduces the Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Dataset, which contains 7108 cases of Uyghurs being targeted in 44 states from 1997 to 2021, the largest public dataset on transnational repression published to date. Unlike other regimes, the Chinese state has been indiscriminate in its persecution, often pursuing apolitical diaspora members on account of their ethnicity rather than political activism. China's transnational repression of Uyghurs has expanded rapidly in recent years as domestic repression has increased in XUAR. We documented 238 incidents from 1997 to 2014, and an additional 6870 events since 2014. The paper argues that globalization is producing a new trend of transnational minority persecution, offering new insights for our understanding of twenty-first century genocides and minority persecution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there have been a number of studies of the political economy of knowledge production in Central Asia, the often exploitative relations between foreign and local researcher, there has been less discussion of what Elizabeth Perry recently described as the 'scholar–state' nexus: how authoritarian rule rests on the suppression of independent academics, the 'educated acquiescence' of academia or their incorporation into the 'factory of answers'. Through the concepts of suppression, acquiescence and incorporation, this article examines how restrictions on academic freedom have an impact on knowledge production in Tajikistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with common threats to their regimes from independent civil society, organized opposition groups and protest movements, authoritarian governments in the former Soviet Union have learned from one another and adopted similar policies to consolidate their power. This article examines the process of authoritarian policy transfer in three fields: peaceful assembly, civil society and political participation, focusing on Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The article examines the role played by the Commonwealth of Independent States- Inter-parliamentary Assembly, the body charged with legal harmonization in the former Soviet Union and ignored thus far by scholars of authoritarian diffusion. Through causal process tracing and the use of document comparison software, we compare 34 laws and decrees. Our findings indicate that diffusion is no illusion in the former Soviet Union. Autocrats have adopted similar legislation in all three fields, with the greatest degree of convergence in laws related to extremism, terrorism and operational searches, all of which are used to pursue political opponents. Russia is usually, but not always, the policy innovator. The region's poorest states – Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – both dependent on Russia in economic, political and security spheres display the highest levels of legal harmonization with the former Soviet centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including everyday experiences of (in)security by Central Asians, how actors frame security issues and Islamic extremism.

Counter-extremism has become an important tool for the authoritarian government of Tajikistan to consolidate its position. In this article, we argue that counter-extremism is not purely about destructive acts, such as banning groups or arresting individuals: it is productive, too. Using a Foucauldian understanding of disciplinary power and biopower, we argue that counter-extremism in Tajikistan is an attempt to produce secular, docile citizen subjects who are resistant to extremist ideas. Using ethnography and discourse analysis, we focus on the way in which these practices are gendered, targeting the bodies of those deemed ‘dangerous’. Counter-extremism, we argue, is exercised not only by the state but also by citizens, who monitor themselves and others for signs of radicalization. Although some support state secularism, most merely accept it. A smaller group resist practices that target certain forms of religious belief and practice. We explore these everyday forms of resistance against disciplinary power and biopower. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The threat of radical Islam has been used by the Tajik government as a way to promote discriminatory policies based on a misinterpretation of the causes and extent of radicalisation in the country, argues Edward J Lemon. He analyses the Tajik government's rhetoric and policies to show how it has created a situation of insecurity for the country's citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In August 1918, 1500 British troops sailed across the Caspian Sea and occupied Baku. Dunsterforce – named after its leader Lionel Dunsterville – ended in tactical failure. One month after entering the city, the British force withdrew. Many historians have written Dunsterforce off as an ambitious, but ultimately unsuccessful, intervention on a peripheral front. In this article, however, I argue that the operation achieved greater strategic success than it is often given credit for. Dunsterforce's achievements, however, cannot be disentangled from broader developments on other fronts in late 1918. As such, this success was largely incidental. Although some authors have argued that Britain was driven by economic interests, the principal objective of Dunsterforce was the protection of Britain's position in the Middle East and India. By occupying Baku and thus controlling the Caspian, Britain hoped to forestall a Turko-German invasion of India. Operating in an unpredictable strategic environment, Dunsterforce's objectives evolved over time; the operation suffered from what modern strategists have labelled ‘mission creep’. Originally tasked with training local levies, Dunsterville's mission had evolved into a field force: Dunsterforce. Under relative autonomy from London, Dunsterville drove the intervention. His ambitions extended to restoring the entire Eastern Front by linking up with forces in the Ukraine. Three factors contributed to Dunsterforce's failure. First, it arrived too late. By the time Dunsterforce disembarked in Baku, the city was already under siege by the Turkish army. Second, the resources available to Dunsterville – both in terms of men and materiel – were insufficient to accomplish the mission's tactical end: holding Baku. Third, the residents of Baku were too occupied with in-fighting to mount a united defence. Despite being a military defeat, Dunsterforce achieved some successes. The British presence in Baku helped deny the Central Powers access to Baku's oil for six vital weeks. No oil from Baku travelled further than Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi) by the time the armistice was signed. At a time when German forces on the Western Front were hampered by chronic fuel shortages, this was a significant feat. Indeed, on 17 November, a British force occupied Baku once more. The capture of Baku by the Army of Islam proved the zenith of the Pan-Turanian dream, and Turkey's expansionist plans were never realized. The British retained command of the Caspian from their base at Enzeli in north-west Persia, giving the British a foothold from which the successor of Dunsterforce, Noperforce, could operate against the Bolsheviks. India remained unthreatened, and thus Britain had secured its strategic objectives in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]