GREAT POWER RIVALRY AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES TO REGIONALIZATION PROJECTS: CENTRAL ASIA’S AGENCY IN ADVANCING A MULTI-VECTORISM FOREIGN POLICY

This study examines the choices of regional, non-great powers in an increasingly tense international environment, and how they pursue their national interest. The article focuses on the concept of "strategic accommodation," a trend observed since 1991 wherein great power rivalries have opened political and economic spaces for local region-building projects, rather than imposing direct hegemony. The study highlights the agency of Central Asian states in their adoption of "multi-vectorism," as a pragmatic foreign policy strategy aimed at balancing domestic and external interests through diversified partnerships, including with rivalling great powers. The study argues that while multi-vectorism benefited from strategic accommodation, it evolved independently. In so doing, the study highlights the space of agency that regional states construct for themselves in formulating their strategies, which is an analytical departure from attributing this space to the exclusive influence of great power policies. It concludes that intensifying great power rivalries may present Global South countries with further spaces for them to develop localized solutions to regional challenges. The study thus proposes an alternative analytical framework that privileges local agency in understanding region-building projects under shifting geopolitical conditions.