China-Russia strategic partnership has evolved into a new stage where the two great powers share increasing overlapping and complementary interests. The Greater Eurasia Partnership (GEP) framework offers an integrated approach to conducting their relations by deepening collaborative partnerships through regional development and security cooperation. This article aims to analyze evolving nature of the GEP by focusing on domestic and regional elements of foreign policy convergence. Although connecting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to the GEP illustrates the domestic level of convergence in their foreign policies, the regional context reflects a partial convergence that entails further policy coordination in managing potential risks and challenges, particularly in Central Asia and more broadly in Eurasia. In examining the evolving nature of GEP, the international political economy perspective is applied to foreign policy analysis with a particular focus on the development-security nexus. The article concludes with a discussion of the main drivers and future trajectory of the GEP with regard to regional and global stability.

Keywords: China, Russia, Greater Eurasia Partnership, Belt and Road Initiative, Foreign policy.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53277/2519-2442-2023.1-01 [HTML]

Keywords: Central Asia, European Union, International trade, Geopolitics, Energy cooperation.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53277/2519-2442-2023.1-02 [HTML]

This study analyzes the transformation of the urban system in Kazakhstan from 1979 to 2022 by studying the interrelationship between population change in large cities and demographic trends in nearby towns and rural areas. The findings suggest that the collapse of the USSR triggered a large-scale spatial realignment of the population leading to dramatic changes in the population size of urban settlements. The estimations largely failed to confirm relationships between the growth of large cities vs population change in mid-size and small urban settlements that would hold throughout the entire sample period. However, the analysis of district-level data showed that remote and rural areas were more prone to depopulation while districts around rapidly growing large cities had significantly higher rates of population growth. The population in large cities and regional centers was found to be growing much faster than in periphery areas, which is very much in line with findings from studies done on other former Soviet states.

Keywords: Urban system, Urban settlements, Districts, Kazakhstan, Post- Soviet Urbanization.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53277/2519-2442-2023.1-03 [HTML]

It is the expenditure on consumption that constitutes the basic share of the expenditures of the households that supply labor as a factor of production in an economy. These expenditures have an indirect effect on the input costs of the companies that demand labor as a production factor. The change in food prices determines both the relative price structure of the economy and the inflationary trend in the economy for the future, depending on the changes in labor and goods markets. For this reason, households that make the consumption decisions of companies as a producer decision unit in the economy are highly sensitive to changes in food commodity prices. A continuous and permanent change in food commodity prices has a direct impact on consumption expenditures and investment decisions. This effect causes supply shocks that may arise as a result of food and commodity prices to turn into demand shocks at the same time. From this point of view, this study investigates the distribution of volatility in global commodity prices, food commodity prices, Baltic dry indices, and crude oil prices, which are the indicators of price trends of basic inputs in international markets. Thus, the mechanism of spillover of a possible supply shock is revealed at the international level under the restrictions of the asymmetric TVP-VAR approach.

Keywords: Asymmetric TVP-VAR, Global inflation rate, Food commodity prices, Connectedness approach, Diebold-Yilmaz methodology

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53277/2519-2442-2023.1-04 [HTML]

This review article aims to comprehend which themes sociologists should focus on when discussing climate change. To conduct the study, the systematic review method was adopted. By scanning the sources, six major themes were identified based on the codes extracted from the documents that establish a relationship between sociology and climate change. This is followed by a discussion of reflections on these themes among Central Asian countries. The final part of the paper presents various academic and action-oriented suggestions to Central Asian academicians about the sociological context of climate change. It seems necessary to increase sociological studies and academic activities on climate change in Central Asia, given the current inequalities and potential dangers.

Keywords: Climate change, Central Asia, Environmental Sociology, Social inequalities.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53277/2519-2442-2023.1-05 [HTML]

Thorsten Beck and Yung Chul Park (Eds.). Prospects of the Global Economy after COVID-19. Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Press. 2022. pp. 131.

Keywords: COVID-19, Global Economy, Development, Pandemic.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53277/2519-2442-2023.1-06 [HTML]