On Wednesday 1 October 2008 Dr. David Lewis, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Cooperation and Security, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, will launch his new book ‘The Temptations of Tyranny in Central Asia’ from 12:30-2pm.
IISS Eurasia Strategy Seminar
Book Launch
After the recent toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the important but overlooked ex-Soviet states of Central Asia - Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan - briefly became key players in the war on terror. Military and economic aid from America and other Western countries poured into the region on the assumption that stability and greater democratisation would be the result. Only a few years later, however, the West's strategy to exert geopolitical influence in the region is in chaos, and autocracy seems to be as entrenched as ever.
David Lewis's provocative book investigates why the U.S. alliance with Uzbekistan failed to produce reform and instead ended with the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Andijan. It provides the first detailed account of the 2005 revolution in Kyrgyzstan, explores political transition in Turkmenistan following the death of its eccentric former leader, Saparmurat Niyazov, and examines the Islamic militant groups that are believed to be threatening stability in the Ferghana Basin.
David Lewis is Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for International Cooperation and Security at the University of Bradford. He served as Director of the International Crisis Group's Central Asia Project from 2001-2005. He is a long-term observer of politics in the former Soviet Union and obtained his Ph.D. in political science from the London School of Economics.
This meeting will be Chaired by Oksana Antonenko, Senior Fellow (Russia and Eurasia) and will take place on the Fourth Floor at Arundel House,13-15 Arundel Street, Temple Place, London WC2R 3DX.
If you would like to attend, please RSVP Clara Catherall on catherall@iiss.org or tel: 020 7395 9156
