Uzbekistan's New Face [Paperback]

Uzbekistan, long considered the center of Central Asia, has the regions largest population and borders every other regional state including Afghanistan. For the first 25 years of its independence, it adopted a cautious, defensive policy that emphasized sovereignty and treated regional efforts at cooperation with skepticism. But after taking over as President in autumn 2016, Shavkat Mirziyoyev launched a breathtaking series of reform initiatives. His slogan  it is high time the government serves the people, not vice versa  led to large-scale reforms in virtually every sector. Time will tell whether the reform effort will succeed, but its first positive fruits are already visible, particularly in a new dynamism within Uzbek society, as well as a fresh approach to foreign relations, where a new spirit of regionalism is taking root. This book is the first systematic effort to analyze Uzbekistans reforms.

S. FREDERICK STARR is Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center whose components are affiliated, respectively, with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington D.C. and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. The Founding Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Starr is a Distinguished Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. His research focuses on issues of social and economic development in Central Asia, particularly the salience of continental transport and trade. Starr was educated at Yale, Cambridge and Princeton. He was founding director of the Kennan Institute and is a former President of Oberlin College and the Aspen Institute. He contributed to the establishment of the University of Central Asia, of the Nazarbayev University, and of the ADA University in Baku. He is the author or editor of some twenty- two books and 180 articles, and the recipient of five honorary degrees.

SVANTE E. CORNELL is Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Roal3,