The George Washington University Central Asia Program organized the second seminar in our Civil Society in Central Asia series. These sessions are led by Central Asia civil society experts with a goal of not only informing their audiences of current developments in Central Asia, but also hosting a discussion about potential courses of action for Central Asian civil society.
This seminar was co-organized by The Europe-Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM) programme of the Centre of European Security Studies in the Netherlands. EUCAM was established in 2008 to monitor the implementation of the EU-Central Asia strategy. Over the years, EUCAM has developed into a knowledge hub on Europe-Central Asia that is active in training, monitoring, research, debate, and networking. EUCAM’s latest working paper, “Between praise and persecution: Civil society in Kyrgyzstan”, discusses important developments in Kyrgyz civil society.
Speakers
Erica Marat is an Associate Professor at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University. Her research focuses on violence, mobilization and security institutions in Eurasia, India, and Mexico. Before joining NDU, Dr. Marat was a visiting scholar at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center. Dr. Marat latest book titled The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press 2018) and co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Central Asia (Routledge 2021).
Begimai Bekbolotova is from Osh and has worked in the non-profit sector of Kyrgyzstan for more than 8 years. She has a background in journalism, public relations, and project management and devotes much of her time to fighting gender-based violence and inequality in Kyrgyzstan. Begimai recently worked as a consultant for the Centre for European Security Studies (CESS) and is a EUCAM research fellow alumna.
Jos Boonstra is senior researcher and EUCAM coordinator at the Centre for European Security Studies (CESS) in The Netherlands. Before joining CESS in 2016, Jos Boonstra worked as head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia program at FRIDE, a think tank with offices in Madrid and Brussels. At CESS, his research focuses on democratization, security and development policies in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
Sebastien Peyrouse, Moderator
Sebastien Peyrouse, PhD, is a Research Professor at the Central Asia Program in the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University) and a Senior Fellow with the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China relations. His main areas of expertise are political systems in Central Asia, economic and social issues, Islam and religious minorities, and Central Asia’s geopolitical positioning toward China, India and South Asia.
