Russian adventurism and Central Asian leaders’ foreign policy rhetoric: Evidence from the UN General Debate corpus
Journal: Research & Politics
Year: 2024

How do smaller states position themselves in the biggest diplomatic forum when a regional power with which they share deep economic and political ties is engaged in foreign adventurism with its neighbors? We answer this question by examining how the five Central Asian countries (the “-stans”) have crafted their United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speeches in the aftermath of three recent instances of Russian foreign adventurism: Russo-Georgian War in 2008, Crimea Annexation in 2014, and the R