Evolutionary governance, sustainability, and systems theory: The case of central Asia

Abstract

In this chapter we explore the issue of regional sustainable economic development through the inherited interdependencies established in the water–energy sectors of newly independent states in Central Asia and their post-Soviet interactions in the allocation of regional water resources. National independence established new boundaries for each country’s economic development strategy in a way that disrupted the responsiveness of each economy to its surrounding environment. The increased internal complexity of these economic systems, which was necessary for exploring newly available opportunities, developed each country’s insensitivity to the others and to those regional conditions on which they all depend. We discuss how the complexity of economic systems can be oriented toward regional economic sustainability through the complexity-reducing function of weighted national policies and coherent regional policymaking. Improved economic integration between riparian states can impose a new pattern of coordination on intrasystemic operational possibilities, ensure regional policy coherence, and, thus, act against regional disintegration and complexity–sustainability trade-offs.