January 16, 2008

Abstract: The rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a main regional organization in Central Asia is drawing increasing concern and criticism in Western foreign policy establishments. Since its 2005 summit declarations, when the organization declared that US military bases in Central Asia should be removed now that their original mission in Afghanistan has been completed, Western analysts have viewed the SCO as a threat to Western interests in Central Asia. Specifically, the SCO is viewed as a regional organization through which Russia and China can exert pressure on the smaller Central Asian states to promote their regional interests and check the influence of the United States. Western observers are also concerned about the group's potential as an Energy Club and Iran's potential membership in the organization.

This lecture argues against this prevailing view that sees the SCO as an anti-American military alliance. Rather, I will argue that the true role of the SCO lies in providing necessary regional public goods for the Central Asian states, but doing so in a way that does not involve itself in the internal decision-making or domestic politics of member countries. Unlike Western organizations operating in the region such as the OSCE, the World Bank or the EU, the SCO is fostering cooperative initiatives without placing political or economic conditions on member states.

Accordingly, the author concludes that the SCO, from the Western perspective, does challenge Western interests in the region, but not as a military alliance. Rather, the SCO undermines the influence and authority of Western international organizations that traditionally have performed regional functions such as monitoring elections, promoting human rights, funding large developmental projects and providing humanitarian assistance.

Bio. Alexander Cooley is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He earned both his M.A. (1995) and Ph.D. (1999) from Columbia University. Cooley is the author of several books and scholarly articles that examine the international relations of the post-Soviet states, with a focus on Central Asia. His first book, Logics of Hierarchy (Cornell University Press 2005), examined Soviet legacies in Central Asia and was awarded the 2006 Marshall Shulman Prize by the American Association for the Advancement for Slavic Studies (AASS) for outstanding book on the international relations of the post-Communist states. His new book – Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas (Cornell University Press, 2008)– examines the domestic politics surrounding U.S. overseas military bases in East Asia, Southern Europe and the post-Communist states (including Kyrgyzstan).

In addition to his academic work, Professor Cooley has published articles in Foreign Affairs magazine and has contributed opinion pieces to the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. He has been a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Brussels (2005) and an International Security Fellow with the Smith Richardson Foundation (2007). Cooley also taught a class at the American University in Kyrgyzstan in 1998.

 Report (English [194 Kb])