National Consolidation‪.‬

Abstract: The 5 states of Central Asia, whose borders were artificially imposed long before the emergence of well-developed and mass-supported movements of national self-determination in the region, have begun to develop genuinely distinct national identities only in the past decade. Even now, as ethnicity in the region is increasingly taking on a political face, the process of state-building is dominated by economic and social rather than nationalist concerns. Nevertheless, ethnic and national identities may prove to be the biggest obstacles to the consolidation of these states.