From the “forgotten region” to the “great game” region: On the development of geopolitics in Central Asia

Only eight years ago, Central Asian1 region was characterized as being “largely ignored as a scholarly backwater of the defunct communist world system”.2Since then the situation has changed; and the role of the Central Asian region in international affairs has increased considerably. Several developments within the region ushered in new geopolitical approaches, echoing international rivalries for the dominance in the ex-Soviet republics. Kazakhstan's oil export and the Kyrgyz Manas military bases are among those international disagreements that echoed in the “Great Game” vision of Central Asia in the world literature.Could geopolitics be the key approach to frame complex developments in the region? Or is this the case when particular methodological “lenses”3 through which one could consider the world are counter-productive?