Spheres of Influence as Negotiated Hegemony – The Case of Central Asia
Journal: Geopolitics
Year: 2017

In the nineteenth century, as well as during the Cold War, spheres of influence were created and legitimized to pursue and sustain order in world politics, as well as to avoid direct confrontation between the great powers. Nowadays, they are considered as belonging to a past characterized by confrontation, power politics, balance of power and coercion. Yet, spheres of influence still constitute part of the present-day political vocabulary, and several regional dynamics are in fact framed and ana