Central Asian geo-relation networks: Evolution and driving forces

Yun WANG; Yi LIU

doi:10.1007/s11442-020-1810-z

Journals >Journal of Geographical Sciences >Volume 30 >Issue 11 >Page 1739 > Article

Journal of Geographical Sciences
Vol. 30, Issue 11, 1739 (2020)

Central Asian geo-relation networks: Evolution and driving forces

Yun WANG^1、2、3 and Yi LIU^{1、2、3、*}

Author Affiliations

¹Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China

²College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

³Institute of Strategy Research for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou 510070, China

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DOI: 10.1007/s11442-020-1810-z Cite this Article

Yun WANG, Yi LIU. Central Asian geo-relation networks: Evolution and driving forces[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2020, 30(11): 1739 Copy Citation Text

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Fig. 1. Degree centrality of Central Asian countries in the diplomatic relations network, 1993-2013

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Fig. 2. World IGO connection with Central Asia, by country, 1993-2013

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Fig. 3. Degree centrality of Central Asian countries in diplomatic relations and IGO connection networks, 1993-2013

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Fig. 4. The blocks of world IGO networks as determined by CONCOR

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Hypotheses and number	Proxy	Expected sign	Data source
A country’s degree of importance in the Central Asian geopolitical network (dependent variable)	ICAN: The length of time over which formal diplomatic relations have been established with a Central Asian country	+	Diplomatic Dashboard
Economic power (H1)	GDP: the country’s GDP in the year when it established diplomatic relations with Central Asian countries	+	World Bank development indicator
Identity as a post-Soviet state (H2a)	PS: = 1 when the country is a post-Soviet state	+	…
Membership of NATO (H2b)	NATO: = 1 when the country is a member of NATO	+	Official NATO website
Membership of OIC(H3)	OIC: = 1 when the country is a member of the OIC	+	Official OIC website
Military power (H4)	ME: the country’s military expenditure in the year when it established diplomatic relations with Central Asian countries	+	World Bank development indicator
Distance (H5a)	DS: the geographical distance between the two capitals	_	The GeoDist Database
Neighboring country (H5b)	NC: = 1 when the country is a neighboring country of the Central Asian countries	+	…

Table 1.

The determinants of a country’s degree of importance in the Central Asian geopolitical network

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Variable	Introduction	Mean	SD
GDP	The country’s GDP in the year when it established diplomatic relations with Central Asian countries (billions of USD)	642	1480
PS	= 1 when the country is a post-Soviet state	0.23	0.42
NATO	= 1 when the country is a member of NATO	0.22	0.42
OIC	= 1 when the country is a member of the OIC	0.37	0.48
ME	The country’s military expenditure in the year when it established diplomatic relations with Central Asian countries (billions of USD)	15.9	44.2
DS	Geographical distance between the two capitals (km)	3733.51	2269.14
NC	= 1 when the country is a neighboring country of Central Asia	0.11	0.31

Table 2.

The proposed variables in this study

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	ICAN	GDP	PS	NATO	OIC	ME	DS	NC
ICAN	1.0000
GDP	0.1978	1.0000
PS	0.1241	-0.2199	1.0000
NATO	0.1738	0.3675	-0.2369	1.0000
OIC	-0.1146	-0.2974	0.1236	-0.2886	1.0000
ME	0.1737	0.8824	-0.1798	0.3868	-0.2031	1.0000
DS	-0.0592	0.5240	-0.3973	0.2608	-0.4209	0.4907	1.0000
NC	0.1965	-0.1202	0.3311	-0.1833	0.3191	-0.1058	-0.3239	1.0000

Table 3.

The correlation matrix

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	Kazakhstan	Uzbekistan	Central Asia
GDP	7.32	15.16	8.37
PS	2.12	2.33	1.73
NATO	1.22	1.50	1.24
OIC	1.54	1.71	1.56
ME	7.60	13.79	8.14
DS	2.24	2.76	1.73
NC	1.48	1.88	1.24
Mean VIF	3.36	5.59	3.43

Table 4.

Variance inflation factor test for the OLS regression model

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	Kazakhstan	Kyrgyzstan	Tajikistan	Uzbekistan	Turkmenistan
IGO membership	51	45	42	40	35
Average weight	7.82	9.26	10.18	9.40	8.79
Centrality	386.30	399.73	402.02	372.71	303.85

Table 5.

Description of the IGO connection network for Central Asian countries in 2013

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Table 6.

The determinants of a country' s degree of importance in the Central Asian geopolitical network

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Region/country	Period	Driving factors (sorted by coefficient value, from largest to smallest)
Central Asia	1993-2013	NC, NATO, GDP, PS, DS (-)
Central Asia	1993-1995	PS, OIC, ME, NC
Central Asia	1996-2001	NC, PS, GDP
Central Asia	2002-2008	OIC, GDP, ME (-)
Kazakhstan	1993-2013	GDP, ME (-), DS (-)
Uzbekistan	1993-2013	PS, GDP