Pandemic Politics in Central Asia: Authoritarian Contagion

This book examines how the authoritarian regimes of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan exploited the Covid-19 pandemic to consolidate their political control over Central Asia.Through restrictive policies and strategic manipulation, these governments reshaped the region’s politics and societies during 2020-2022. This volume offers readers an insight into three key areas where Central Asia’s pandemic power grab was most visible: mobility control, whereby restrictive legislation limited freedom of movement and suppressed dissent; authoritarian information flows, whereby COVID-19-related measures aligned media and digital information to government messaging, further curtailing freedom of expression; and the international politics of the pandemic, whereby the regimes capitalised on global instability to strengthen their kleptocratic hold over Central Asia’s politics and society.This book provides a detailed analysis of these strategies, offering a compelling exploration of how crises