I would like to express my gratitude for intellectual, logistical, and financial support provided by the Nippon-Foundation Central Asia- Japan Human Resource Development Project (Leader Professor Tosh- inobu Usuyama) at the University of Tsukuba, Grant-in-Aid for Sci- entific Research (C) 21K12400 (PI: Timur Dadabaev) funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 21H00686 (PI: Professor JunichiAkashi) funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
In addition, I would like to acknowledge that several chapters of this book either revisit or represent re-written versions of the academic articles published in Journal of Eurasian Studies (SAGE), International Journal of Asian Studies (Cambridge University Press), Asian Survey (California University Press), and Asia-Europe Journal (Springer).
I would also like to thankfully acknowledge opportunities to present some of the ideas of this book at the Cambridge Central Asian Forum (Cambridge University) and Research seminars at the Comprehensive Capacity-Building in Eastern Neighborhood and Central Asia (Kent University).