Rising Powers and Conflict Management in Central Asia

自冷战结束以来，大多数国际社会对冲突的反应都受到西方国家倡导的一套广泛自由的准则的支配，这些准则将冲突管理与国际干预、民主化和自由国家建设联系起来。然而，自21世纪初以来，其中一些准则--特别是与主权有关的准则--在苏丹、斯里兰卡、利比亚、叙利亚和其他国家接连发生的内部冲突中，遭到了俄罗斯、中国和其他新兴大国的尖锐质疑。这种规范之争的过程也发生在中亚地区。在那里，西方的“自由建设”理念往往遭到当地精英的排斥或大体上改编，他们倾向于支持中国或俄罗斯等邻国的“非自由”政策，以维护政权安全。此类政策倾向于使用威权形式的冲突管理来控制暴力的爆发，并经常受到西方国家的批评。该地区正在崛起的大国在分析该地区冲突的原因时，也与许多西方行为者有明显不同。一些分析人士从一个新的“大博弈”的现实主义视角来看待俄罗斯、中国和西方在中亚的这场明显的竞争。该项目对这些与冲突有关的规范的争论采取了更具批判性和更有成效的方法，分析了中亚人自己促进、调整和本地化冲突管理的不同论述的方式。通过这种方式，它将有助于解释为什么西方通过欧盟、双边关系或欧洲安全与合作组织(OECD)等组织解决该地区冲突的方法，经常被当地的冲突管理方法拒绝或破坏。该项目特别侧重于三起武装冲突事件--乌兹别克斯坦安迪容的一次反对政府的叛乱、吉尔吉斯斯坦奥什的种族间暴力和塔吉克斯坦拉什特山谷的武装叛乱。在每一种情况下，国际反应都是复杂的，而且在地缘政治竞争的传统路线上也有部分分歧。该项目将在伦敦、北京和莫斯科与政策制定者、学者和非政府组织进行访谈，以评估政策制定者制定和理解这些冲突局势的方式。在中亚的实地考察将评估奥什和拉什特地区的当地意见，这既是关于冲突的性质，也是关于国际社会的不同反应。该项目旨在解释为什么西方的冲突管理方法显然未能在中亚获得吸引力，并将这些方法与俄罗斯和中国推动的方法进行对比，无论是通过双边还是通过地区组织。该项目将通过与英国、中国和俄罗斯参与影响或制定政策的合作伙伴的密切合作，在学术和政策方面产生重大影响。该项目的目的是鼓励人们更好地了解这种不同的冲突管理方法，以便在新兴大国与西方之间建立更多合作关系的背景下，更有效地应对该区域的冲突。

Since the end of the Cold War, most international responses to conflict have been governed by a broadly liberal set of norms, promoted by Western states, which linked conflict management to international intervention, democratisation and liberal state-building. Since the early 21st century, however, some of these norms -related to sovereignty in particular - have been sharply contested by Russia, China and other Rising Powers, in relation to successive internal conflicts in Sudan, Sri Lanka, Libya, Syria and others. This process of norm contestation has also taken place in the region of Central Asia, where western notions of 'liberal peacebuilding' have often been rejected or substantially adapted by local elites, who have tended to favour the 'non-liberal' policies of the neighbouring states of China or Russia to maintain regime security. Such policies have tended to use authoritarian forms of conflict management to control outbreaks of violence, and have often been criticised by Western states. Rising Powers in the region have also differed markedly from many Western actors in their analysis of the causes of conflict in the region. Some analysts have viewed this apparent competition between Russia, China and the West in Central Asia through the realist lens of a new 'Great Game'. This project takes a more critical and productive approach to these contestations of conflict-related norms, analysing the ways in which divergent discourses of conflict management are promoted, adapted and localised by Central Asians themselves. In this way, it will help to explain why Western approaches to conflict in the region, through the EU, bilateral relations or organisations such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have often been rejected or undermined by local approaches to conflict management. The project focuses in particular on three incidents of armed conflict- a rebellion against the government in Andijon, Uzbekistan, inter-ethnic violence in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, and armed rebellion in the Rasht valley of Tajikistan. In each case the international responses were complex and partly divergent along traditional lines of geopolitical competition. The project will conduct interviews in London, Beijing and Moscow with policy-makers, academics and NGOs, to assess the ways in which policymakers framed and understood these conflict situations. Fieldwork in Central Asia will assess local views in Osh and Rasht regions, both of the nature of the conflict, but also of the divergent international responses. The project aims to explain the apparent failure of Western approaches to conflict management to gain traction in Central Asia, and will contrast those approaches with those promoted by Russia and China, both bilaterally, and through regional organisations. The project will be designed to have a significant impact, both in academic terms and in policy terms, by engaging closely with partners engaged in influencing or making policymaking in the UK, China and Russia. The project will aim to encourage improved understandings of such divergent approaches to conflict management with the aim of more effective responses to conflict in the region, in the context of more cooperative relationships between Rising Powers and the West.