Symbols and the Image of the State in Eurasia

Anita Sengupta is Senior Researcher, Calcutta Research Group and Visiting Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, India. She is an area studies specialist and her work has been focused on the Eurasian region with Uzbekistan being her area of special interest. She has also worked extensively on Turkish politics. She has collaborated with academics and policy makers in a number of Universities and Institutes in Tashkent, Bishkek, Almaty, Ankara, Istanbul, Berlin, Washington and has published jointly with scholars in the Eurasian region. She has been associated with the Stockholm International Programme for Central Asian Studies, SIPCAS and the Nordic Network for Research on Migration, Identity, Communication and Security. Her book Heartlands of Eurasia: The geopolitics of political space (Lexington Books: 2009) was selected by the Oxford Bibliographies Online in 2011 as a must read on the section Geopolitics and Geo-strategy. She is also the author of Russia, China and Multilateralism in Central Asia (Shipra 2005) The Formation of the Uzbek Nation-State: A Study in Transition (Lexington Books 2003) and Frontiers into Borders: The Transformation of Identities in Central Asia (Greenwich Millennium Press 2002) She has edited a number of volumes on Eurasian politics. Her most recent publication is Myth and Rhetoric of the Turkish Model: Exploring Developmental Alternatives (Springer 2014).

• Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Politics of Nation Branding in Uzbekistan.- Chapter 3. The Heart of Eurasia and the ancient land of the Kazakhs.- Chapter 4. Reconstructed Pasts: The state and its margins.- Chapter 5. Multicultural Societies and Imperatives of a ‘Singular Faith’.- Chapter 6. The Emergence of a New Dialogue? Regional strategies and initiatives.- Chapter 7. Conclusions: The Politics of Symbolism.