Of nomads and khanates: heteronomy and interpolity order in 19th-century Central Asia
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231200370 |
| Author | Filippo Costa Buranelli |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
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JR
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https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231200370
European Journal of
International Relations
2024, Vol. 30(2) 461 –485
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661231200370
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Of nomads and khanates:
heteronomy and interpolity
order in 19th-century Central
Asia
Filippo Costa Buranelli
University of St Andrews, UK
Abstract
Scholars of International Relations (IR) and Global Historical Sociology alike have recently
become more and more interested in Eurasian order(s). Yet, most recent works on Eurasian
historical international relations approach the subject from a long durée perspective,
mostly focusing on “big polities” from a “high altitude.” Central Asia, or “Turkestan,” and
its constitutive polities such as the khanates of Bukhara, Khiva, and Khoqand and the vast
array of nomadic groups surrounding them are yet terra incognita in IR, specifically with
respect to the pre-Tsarist period. By relying on both primary and secondary sources, this
inductive research reveals how precolonial Central Asia was an interpolity order on its own,
premised on heteronomy and based on the institutions of sovereignty between the khanates
and suzerainty between khanates and nomads; territoriality; Sunni Islam; trade and slavery;
diplomacy; and war and aq oyluk. This paper contributes to filling this gap, and to the broader
literature on Eurasian historical orders, in three respects. First, it adds granularity, detail, and
specificity to current IR knowledge on Eurasia by looking at smaller polities as opposed to
empires, which as noted have been the main analytical focus so far. Second, the paper adopts
an emic approach to uncover local practices, institutions, and norms of precolonial Central
Asia, thus adding to the recent “Global IR” debate. Third, by focusing on a case where
heteronomy was the rule, this paper adds a new case to the literature on the entrenchment
and durability of heteronomy in historical IR and contributes to its theory-building.
Keywords
Historical sociology, international history, order, English School, heteronomy, Eurasia
Corresponding author:
Filippo Costa Buranelli, School of International Relations, The Arts Faculty Building, University of St
Andrews, The Scores, St Andrews, KY16 9AX, UK.
Email: fcb7@st-andrews.ac.uk
1200370EJT0010.1177/13540661231200370European Journal of International RelationsCosta Buranelli
research-article2023
Original Article
Correction (October 2023): Article updated to correct placement of Figure 1.
462 European Journal of International Relations 30(2)
Scholars of International Relations (IR) and Global Historical Sociology alike have
recently become more and more interested in the study of Eurasian order(s), to the extent
that one can speak of a proper “Eurasian turn.” In fact, most of the recent scholarly pro-
duction on Eurasian politics in the past has uncovered the fundamental normative ele-
ments of its cosmology (Spruyt, 2020), its contribution to (international) political theory
and ideas of sovereignty and order (Zarakol, 2022), and the crucial role that “the steppe
tradition” has played in forging polities and interpolity relations across the centuries up
to the present (Neumann and Wigen, 2018). Yet, most recent works on Eurasian histori-
cal international relations approach the subject from a long durée perspective, and mostly
focusing on “big polities” such as the Moghul, Mongol, Ottoman, Qing, Russian and
Safavid empires studied from a “high altitude.”
While these “high altitude” studies on Eurasia are of fundamental importance to
advance our understanding of models of international politics different from the modern
European one, they necessarily brush over the agency and the order-making role of
smaller polities, which were equally important in sustaining and perpetuating the broader
system of relations in the area. In addition, and linked to the previous point, they also run
the risk of missing out on the inherent diversity that constituted such smaller polities—a
diversity which nonetheless did not obstruct the establishment of ordered pattern of rela-
tions (Phillips and Sharman, 2015a, 2015b).
By drawing on and combining insights deriving from Historical IR, Global Historical
Sociology, and English School theory (ES), this paper contributes to and advances both
literatures, that on Eurasian historical orders and that on order in diversity, by focusing
on the case of Central Asia in the 19th century, understood in this paper as Transoxiana,
or Mawarannahr, or more specifically as the three khanates of Bukhara, Khiva and
Khoqand, the nomadic communities of the Kyrgyz, the Kazakhs and the Turkmens, and
their surrounding empires—the Ottoman, the Tsarist, and the Qing. Through the use of
secondary and, at least in IR, previously unknown primary sources, the paper shows how
these very different polities used specific institutions to create and sustain a durable order
despite their heterogeneity and the marked heteronomy present in the region, with heter-
onomy defined as “a patchwork of overlapping and incomplete rights of government,”
under which “the distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ political realms, separated
by clearly demarcated ‘boundaries,’ [makes] little sense” (Ruggie, 1983: 274). Namely,
these institutions were sovereignty and suzerainty, territoriality, Sunni Islam, trade and
slavery, diplomacy, and war and aq oyluk. As will be argued later in the paper, specific
interpretations of the abovementioned institutions, and the rootedness of some of their
associated practices and cultural priors in the highly hybridized Turco–Persian cultural
substratum, contributed to sustaining and legitimizing a highly diverse interpolity order
without necessarily inducing, let alone imposing, homogenization.
This paper contributes to the two literatures identified above in a tripartite way. First,
it adds granularity, detail, and specificity to current IR knowledge on Eurasia by looking
at smaller polities as opposed to empires, which as noted have been the main analytical
focus so far. It offers an interpretivist (but also socio-structural) account of pre-Tsarist
Central Asia in the 19th century with the use of both secondary and primary sources
highlighting the agency of smaller polities and their role in sustaining, and perpetuating,
the practices that informed the wider Eurasian order. Second, thanks to the use of
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