Publications
The Institute for Security and Development Policy regularly issues a variety of publications ranging from shorter Policy Briefs to more comprehensive studies in its Asia and Silk Road Papers series. Explore the different series below.
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Kazakhstan’s June Referendum: Accelerating Reform
Introduction: The violence of January 2022 exposed both the demand for greater change in Kazakhstan’s society, as well as elite conflicts involving influential forces seeking to block President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s […]
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Learning from Kazakhstan’s January Crisis
Introduction: In January 2022, Kazakhstan went through an unprecedented crisis. While it was since overshadowed in the eyes of the world by the events in Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s crisis marked a […]
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Human Rights Reform in Kazakhstan
Introduction Kazakhstan’s leaders have long expressed ambitious goals for the country’s development, and worked to make the country a force in international affairs. To a considerable degree they have succeeded. Kazakhstan has played an important […]
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Russia and the CIS in 2019: Relying on the Chinese Way
ABSTRACT The paper examines the relationship between Russia and the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, including how Moscow’s responses to changing geopolitical dynamics framed these relations in […]
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Organized Crime in Foreign Policy
Transnational organized crime is part and parcel of the modern, globalized economy. The black market has irrefutable influence over both economic and political structures. It corrodes, corrupts, and coopts the […]
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The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform
Keeping a firm eye on both the policy community and academic environment, Thomas Fingar (ed) has produced a most relevant and interesting book on China and its neighbors in South […]
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The Fallacy of ‘Compartmentalisation’: the West and Russia from Ukraine to Syria
In the post-Soviet space as well as the Middle East, Western leaders have largely failed to heed ample evidence that the goals of the Russian leadership are fundamentally opposed to […]
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Financing War or Facilitating Peace? The Impact of Rebel Drug Trafficking on Peace Negotiations in Colombia and Myanmar
Rebel involvement in drug trafficking is broadly found to prolong and intensify civil wars. Being an illicit good with strong demand, high profit margins, limited barriers to entry, and few […]
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The forgotten success story: Japan and the methamphetamine problem
This paper examines Japan’s policy towards methamphetamine (Japanese: hiropon). Opium has been used in Japan for medicinal purposes since 1722. However, it was strictly controlled. The result was that drug […]
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Toward a Crimea Scenario? Russia’s Annexation Policies in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Their Implications
Since independence, the conflicts over the secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have constituted troublesome challenges to Georgia’s sovereign interests. Tbilisi’s lack of control of 20 percent of its […]