Integration Processes in Central Asia: Kazakhstan and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Abstract

Currently, integration processes became an important part of international relations. Integration organizations in which states interact for common goals and interests exist in almost all regions and corners of the world.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Central Asia region becomes a center of competition games among worlds great powers, which tried to establish their influence in the region through a bilateral and multilateral level of cooperation, by the proposal of integration initiatives. Therefore, nowadays we can find a large number of integration organizations in the region with different kind of functions and goals.

However, we can see a growing influence of the Shanghai cooperation organization (SCO) among the existing integration organization in the region.

Participation of Kazakhstan, one of the largest country in Central Asia, located between two great powers Russia and China, also a member of the SCO, requires detailed analysis and has an importance in defining future integration development of Central Asian countries within the SCO framework.

The goal of this paper is to describe the importance of the SCO in Central Asia and define main interest of Kazakhstan towards participating in the SCO.