Sociologist Dr Balihar Sanghera has been made a visiting scholar at the leading US research institution, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.

He has been awarded the George F. Kennan fellowship for three months with the goal to examine how major global powers use development strategies to compete and struggle for their vision and goals in Central Asia.

The study will explore in particular how Russia, China and Saudi Arabia contest the dominance of Western development and financial institutions, putting in place alternative visions of economic, political and normative development, thereby affecting US relationship with Central Asia and its support for liberal capitalism and democracy in the region. During the stay at the Wilson Center, Dr Balihar Sanghera (SSPSSR) and Dr Elmira Satybaldieva (Politics and IR) plan to conduct interviews with US state officials and Chinese experts in Washington DC.