Internationalisation versus Securitisation: Nation-building through Higher Education in post-Soviet Uzbekistan

Abstract

This book analyses how security concerns dominated international engagement in higher education reforms in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. Internationalisation of higher education – which entails recruitment of international students and staff, development of joint programs and branch campuses, and other research and education partnerships – has become an indispensable part of higher education worldwide. While most post-Soviet states liberalised their higher education systems shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan chose a peculiar way of developing a national tertiary education system. The authoritarian regime’s politics of ideological compliance during the period of 1991–2016 supplanted the genuine functions of higher education institutions as places of education and research. As a result, Uzbekistan’s higher education system remained largely isolated, although there was a strong demand for alternative, international providers of higher education. The book explains why there was such a cautious approach to internationalisation of the university system in Uzbekistan under President Islam Karimov and how it was implemented. This book will appeal to scholars, historians and political scientists and researchers of Central Asian studies, as well as readers interested in the legacy of post-Soviet governance.