Fumagalli, Matteo. "Alignments and Realignments in Central Asia: The Rationale and Implications of Uzbekistan's Rapprochement with Russia". International Political Science Review, vol.28, no.3 (2007): 253-271.

Fumagalli, Matteo. "Alignments and Realignments in Central Asia: The Rationale and Implications of Uzbekistan's Rapprochement with Russia". International Political Science Review, vol.28, no.3 (2007): 253-271.

• This article seeks to explain the political dynamics of Uzbekistan's political transition in 2005 of rapprochement with Russia and rejection of American influence. The author argues that the turnabout in foreign relations was motivated by domestic decision-making to secure regime stability, however with the primary threat being posed as a normative competition rather than threat of force (254).
• After the breakup the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan failed to democratize as a period of brief reform from 1991 to 1992 allowing the creation of limited pluralism challenges from secular and Islamic opposition groups against the Soviet elites led to repression and the creation of a multiparty 'facade' (255).
• The contemporary regime legitimizes its rule one the values of sovereignty, political stability, and economic reform. The principle of sovereignty in particular has led Uzbekistan to reject Russian political or cultural influence: distancing itself from CSTO and CIS institutions and de-russifying public life (255).
• Uzbekistan's early foreign policy seems driven by autonomy from Russia while still maintaining mutually beneficial cooperation, such as joint-training or the resolution of the Tajik Civil War. This may have shifted into a more aggressive competition in 1994, when Uzbekistan-backed parties where excluded from Tajikistani peace talks and Uzbekistan began to view Russia as a regional competitor (256).
• American-Uzbekistan relations greatly improved following the 9/11 attacks, as Uzbekistan had a track-record of fighting Islamic terrorism and was a vital transit and logistics base near the conflict in Afghanistan. For Uzbekistan this both provided material support and international legitimacy for the regime (256).
• Tensions where present from the beginning of the relationship with America, as the countries had different objectives and visions. America viewed the deal as a strategic partnership and an opportunity to push for reforms, whereas Uzbekistan envisioned a broader scope of cooperation where America would work with the Central Asian states to quash Islamic opposition groups (256).  Relations particularly began to sour in 2004, as US reform policies began to be viewed as a threat to regime security in the wake of 'coloured revolutions', leading up to the expulsion of the American presence following the Andijon Incident (257).
• Many realist theories of alliance formation fail to explain Uzbekistani foreign policy. Bandwagoning does not explain why Uzbekistan only aligned itself with Russia in 2004, rather than immediately following independence. The best realist theories appears to be Waltz's balance of threat, in which Russia is now less threatening than the democracy-promotion of the US, but it fails to account for domestic politics or the lack of violence (258).
• The author instead supports the use of Steven R. David's omni-balancing theory which rejects balance of threat theories as Western-centric and requiring a normative acceptance of the unitary state, whereas in third-world countries with weak governments the state's policy is not determined by the threats posed to the state, but the threats posed to the regime and the elites, both externally and domestically (259).
• The statist assumption of the omni-balancing theory and its placement within the late Cold War context represent problems for the explanation of how non-state actors affect foreign policy and ignores constraints at the structural level limiting Uzbekistani foreign policy choices (260).
• During the Yeltsin era, Russian policy towards Central Asia was erratic and undisciplined as it was not planned during that phase of pro-West integration. This all changed when Vladimir Putin was elected in 1999, as Mr. Putin both increased Russia's presence in the 'near abroad' and introduced politics based around control of energy resources, where Russia has sought to continue domination of export routes in Central Asia and elsewhere (261).
• Russia and Uzbekistan always had strong economic ties even following independence, with trade levels being high and Russia remaining the main destination for Uzbekistani migrant workers (261). Since the beginning of the Putin administration, this economic cooperation has been particularly focused on energy, with Russia being a major investor in all stages of gas production in Uzbekistan, as well as owning key infrastructural elements (262).
• Uzbekistan's foreign policy is largely motivated by a rejection of any relationship of dependence with a single power, and in this light the signing of the Treaty of Allied Relations between Uzbekistan and Russia on November 14, 2005, would not be surprising even w/o a complimentary decline in American-Uzbekistani relations during this period (263).
• This does not mean that Uzbekistani foreign policy decisions are not influenced by security concerns, as clearly the capability of certain powers to help Uzbekistan address security issues, especially those posed by Islamic opposition movements, affects contemporary political positioning (263).
• The shift from support for the US to support for Russia was motivated by two primary factors. First, a perception by the Karimov administration that the US has not decreased the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan -- bringing into question the benefits of the partnership -- and secondly, the perception of American democracy promotion as a threat to the regime (263).
• Russia and Uzbekistan have worked together to promote ideologies and foreign policies based on opposition to regime change or foreign interference in domestic affairs, under the slogans of stability and sovereignty respectively. In this way, Russia and Uzbekistan have emerged as the main conservative powers in Eurasia (264).
• In there efforts to counter Western, and particularly American, influence in the region, Russia and Uzbekistan have drawn on support from another conservative power: China. Chinese foreign policy compliments Uzbekistani policy in many ways, while also allowing for the Karimov administration to play the two power off of one another (265).
• Domestic politics in Uzbekistan reveal many continuities within international relations, primarily a continued dedication towards maintaining sovereignty and domestic stability. Structural factors also affected the realignment, as the perception of a new threat in the form of 'fundamentalist democracy' contributed to the timing of the change in alliance structures (266).