Food lines in a land of marble
On June 5th 2019 in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabat, dozens of people lined up outside a state store where they heard there was sugar for sale.[1] Four years ago, there were…
A complex and opaque destination for investment
Turkmenistan is a complex and opaque destination for investment. The business climate is characterised by structural economic problems and general economic mismanagement, with the prioritisation of vanity projects over core…
Featured Publications
Saudi Arabia and Iran: The Struggle to Shape the Middle East
The fractious rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its impact on the Middle East.
12/11/18
The rise of illiberal civil society in the former Soviet Union?
Charting the rise of illiberal groups in Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova and Kyrgyzstan.
18/07/18
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Spotlight on Turkmenistan: Executive Summary
Turkmenistan is a country often overlooked on the world stage. When attention is paid the focus tends to be either on the size of its bountiful gas reserves or on…
Introduction: Putting the spotlight on Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan is a country often overlooked and one that has often courted its own isolation. When international attention is paid the focus tends to be either on the size of…
Food lines in a land of marble
On June 5th 2019 in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabat, dozens of people lined up outside a state store where they heard there was sugar for sale.[1] Four years ago, there were…
A complex and opaque destination for investment
Turkmenistan is a complex and opaque destination for investment. The business climate is characterised by structural economic problems and general economic mismanagement, with the prioritisation of vanity projects over core…
A tale of four pipelines: The international politics of Turkmen natural gas
On 23rd February 2018, the leaders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, alongside top government representatives from Pakistan and India, gathered in Herat to inaugurate the Afghan sector of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India [TAPI]…
Conclusions and recommendations
This report has shown Turkmenistan to be a country teetering on the edge of catastrophe. An obsession with appearance that speaks to a need for public display and regimented control,…
How realpolitik and the predictability of the West’s weaknesses helps autocrats legitimise their foreign policies
With democracy and liberalism in decline, and pro-active autocrats dominating the international community, the resilience of the political models based on democratic principles, human rights and freedoms is increasingly being…
International Affairs in the Disinformation Age
In April 2017, I was sitting in an office with Syrian rights activists watching, in real time, as the Syrian regime and Russia manipulated a second US president. The current…
The Strategic Role of the Fezzan Region for European Security
The Fezzan is a strategic southwestern region of Libya. Its stability is vital for Europe's security and that of the wider Mediterranean area. The region is home to two of…
Far from a pro-Russian dove, Volodymyr Zelensky enters office a Russia hawk
With his inauguration today, the presidency of Volodymyr Zelensky is upon us. Zelensky, a political outsider who ran on an explicitly anti-establishment platform and ousted incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in…
FPC Briefing: Exploiting an idyll – US, Indian and Japanese efforts to counterbalance China in Sri Lanka
The grisly terror onslaught against Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday that took 253 lives could well have been avoided if a deeply divided government had not failed to act on…
Lessons from Brexit: (Re)balancing Euroscepticism
As the Brexit process appears to be drawing to an uncertain close, there are still lessons to be learned from the past three years for the United Kingdom and the…
Decentralisation: learning from the Jordanian Experience
Decentralisation is now a core part of the development agenda. Moving resources and powers to local government and closer to communities is widely regarded as essential, if developing countries –…
Hui Muslims in China’s ‘Little Mecca’: Fusing Islamic and Han Practices
There has been much discussion in the global media of China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims in its far western province of Xinjiang. Meanwhile, much less is known about the Hui,…
The state of Islamic threat in Central Asia: assessing the threat of terrorism from Central Asia
As Islamic State faces its demise as a territorial unit in the Middle East it is worth considering why it was so attractive to so many Central Asians The spate…