Central Eurasia in Global Politics: Conflict, Security and Development.

• Author: Yuce, Muge
• Position: Book review

Central Eurasia in Global Politics: Conflict, Security and Development

Mehdi Parvizi AMINEH and Henk HOUWELING (Ed.)

Second Edition, Netherlands, Brill Academic Publishers, 2005, 365 pages. ISBN: 9004144390

International Relations (IR) is a field which is characterized by the variety of issues it examines and the complexity of the factors shaping these issues. This variety and complexity bring about a big uncertainty to the IR. Therefore, International Relations theories require a broad and multidimensional perspective to decrease the uncertainty. Despite the diversity of the traditional theories, IR is still in need of some new perspectives and syntheses taking into consideration a large number of factors together.

Central Eurasia in Global Politics- Conflict, Security and Development intents to improve a new perspective in International Relations. The approach it has brought to bear in the work is called "critical geopolitics" (p.vii). Authors claim that "critical geopolitics" is especially appealing to whom studying "foreign policies of projecting power beyond borders".

The main merit of this book is its utilization of practical phenomena to explain theory. As the combination of theory and practice is rarely found in IR, this achievement deserves credit. Theoretically it tries to shed light on the concept of "critical geopolitics" by explaining and focusing on the "power projection". Practically the focus of the book is on the place of Central Eurasia (CEA) in today's global political, economic, military and socio-geographic global system. The main assumption is that the political culture of power projection by a particular country or its ideological form depends on its prior history on current power relations in the interstate system and on responses by host societies (p.ix)

By taking this assumption on the centre writers try to predict whether the transnational battles among non-state actors force the major powers involved in the region to cooperate and collectively impose a local peace order or not (p.3). To achieve the aim they also try to decide the stand of critical geopolitics in relation to classical theories of IR.

According to the examinations critical geopolitics shares with domestic society schools the explanation of foreign policy by inputs from domestic society. However, they reject the secondary, derivative role of the state in international politics. It shares with structural realists the selective function of the...