Yevgeny Ivanov spoke at the Social Science Alliance conference organised by the FSN of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

A researcher from the CSRA presented his paper "Army and Politics in the Central Asian States in the Post-Soviet Period". The collapse of the USSR led to the fact that the Central Asian states, as well as other newly formed republics, faced the need to build and modernise their own armed forces to replace the all-Soviet army. In the course of his presentation, Yevgeny Ivanov emphasised that strengthening milirary capacities is an integral part of state building for any polity that claims full sovereignty. Despite the economic difficulties of the transition period, all Central Asian states are were endeavouring to develop their armed forces. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and, according to some reports, Turkmenistan, have increased their defence spending in the 2010s, upgrading their own material and technical base. At the same time, the increased focus on the defence sector is not currently affecting political processes.