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

Abstract

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 (HE) worldwide. While most post-Soviet states liberalised their HE 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 HE institutions as places of education and research. Therefore, Uzbekistan's HE system remained largely isolated, although there was a strong demand for alternative, international providers of HE. This thesis 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 research shows that Uzbekistan's use of HE to promote national ideology of the country played a role in decisions concerning internationalisation of the university sector. It argues that during Karimov's presidency, Uzbekistan securitised the internationalisation of its HE system as a threat to national ideology and the national model of education centred around this ideology. Excessive utilisation of the tertiary education sector as a platform for ideology-based education led to the absence of internationalisation of HE in the country. The thesis explains the restricted internationalisation in the HE sector through the Copenhagen School's securitisation theory. It presents several theoretical assumptions that can help analyse how and why authoritarian political orders treat internationalisation of HE as a security threat.