NATION-BUILDING AND STATE-BUILDING IN AZERBAIJAN THE .

NATION-BUILDING ANDSTATE-BUILDING IN AZERBAIJANTHE CHALLENGES OFEDUCATION ABROADThis article examines the interaction among education, national identity, and external players attempting to influence post-Soviet Azerbaijan. The authors argue that inthe circumstances surrounding transition, education became a major political toolfor outside powers to advocate their own political philosophy among Azerbaijanis. Itis argued that the policies of the U.S., Europe, Russia, and Turkey to provide education opportunities to Azerbaijanis in hopes of affecting Azerbaijani society resultedin a stratification of Azerbaijani civil society, which in the short to medium-termhinders the democratization process with which the country is currently struggling,and in the long run may induce potentially profound conflicts of interests among thevarious domestic groups.Murad Ismayilov and Michael Tkacik**Murad Ismayilov currently serves as Program Manager for Research and Publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy; ideas expressed here reflect thepersonal views of the author and do not represent the views of any institution. Michael Tkacik is a Professor of Government and the Director of the School ofHonors at the Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. This article builds and expands on Michael Tkacik and Murad Ismayilov, “EducationAbroad, Civil Society and Nation-Building: The Case of Azerbaijan”, Current Politics and Economics of the Caucasus Region, Vol. 2, Issue 3 (October 2008).89

The 21st century indeed heralds a new world order, though it appears avery different world order than was anticipated in the waning years ofthe 20th century. The fall of communism, the rise of the challenge ofpolitical Islam, the addition of some 25 de facto states to the world, andthe need to incorporate these new elements has proved a challenge for the greatpowers. Many of these elements come together in the most unlikely of places:Azerbaijan.Interest has heightened over the last two decades in the Caucasus and CentralAsia, both because of the presence of energy resources in these regions and because they exist on the periphery of the Islamic world. Azerbaijan, though smallin population, holds special significance because of its oil and gas reserves,1 itspotential as a land route for an oil and/or natural gas pipeline,2 its proximity toIran,3 and as a potential example of a “secular” Islamic society.4 This invites theattention of outside powers –the United States, Europe, Russia, Turkey, and Iranbeing the most notable in the list– which have been trying to influence Azerbaijan. One method of extending influence is through education. The U.S., Europe,Russia, and Turkey have all provided education opportunities to Azerbaijanishoping to affect Azerbaijani society. This article examines an intimate relationship among education, civil society, and external players attempting to influenceAzerbaijan. It then discusses the ways in which the workings of this triangularinteraction have interfered with Azerbaijan’s efforts of post-Soviet nation andstate-building. Finally, the article looks into and analyzes different mechanismsthrough which Baku could work to neutralize those negative effects and stepsit could take to better capitalize on the intellectual capital built through international education.During Soviet rule, people throughout the empire were united by a single panSoviet identity. The end of the Cold War eliminated this identity. For Azerbaijan“Azerbaijan: Country Analysis Brief,” Energy Information Administration, www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Azerbaijan/Full.html, last updated October 2009.2See for example Taleh Ziyadov “Azerbaijan,” in, Frederic S. Starr (ed.) The New Silk Roads: Transport and Trade inGreater Central Asia (Washington, DC: Central Asia – Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center, 2007); Frederic S. Starr and Svante E. Cornell (eds.), The Baku-Tbilisi-CeyhanPipeline: Oil Window To The West (Washington, DC: Central Asia – Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program,Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center, 2005).3Brenda Shaffer, Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity (Cambridge, Massachusettsand London, England: The MIT Press, 2002); Brenda Shaffer, “Iran’s Role in the South Caucasus and Caspian Region:Diverging Views of the U.S. and Europe,” Iran and Its Neighbors: Diverging Views on a Strategic Region (Berlin:Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 2003), pp. 17-22.4For a post-Soviet Islamic revival in Azerbaijan, see Svante E. Cornell, The Politicization of Islam in Azerbaijan(Washington and Uppsala: CACI & SRSP Silk Road Paper, October 2006).190

in particular, the “identity vacuum” was especially complicated because of thelarge number of options that Azerbaijan’s historical background suggested. Azerbaijan was left to opt between the Turkic, Iranian, Islamic, Russian, and newly added Western/liberal components of its complicated identity.5 Without anagreed-upon coherent national identity, the centrifugal forces of other attendantidentities, whether transnational or ethnic, can tear a state apart.Creating a new political identity would be difficult for any young state in a globalizing world. But in Azerbaijan this situation was aggravated by the weaknessof the newly established political regime. Consequently, the state became an obvious target for surrounding regional powers, as well as the United States and, tosome extent, Europe. These states have sought to impose their own ideologicalphilosophy and political culture on Azerbaijan through different means, including religion and education (and sometimes, religion through education). Education is a tool of choice because it appears altruistic and does not seem to interferein another state’s internal affairs to the extent other methods might.6Education in the post-Soviet transitional states, including Azerbaijan, faces adilemma that provides an opening that external powers have sought to exploit.On the one hand, since gaining independence, these countries have undergoneprofound economic, social, and political upheavals that in many ways havedamaged their educational systems. On the other hand, education is essential ifthese transitional societies are to successfully cope with challenges such as fullyadopting democratic governance and a market economy. Because the government has often proved incapable of providing high quality education, it has beenleft to individuals to provide themselves with a proper one. And since educationis crucial for the country’s future, these individual actions have not met opposition from the government but rather have been encouraged.In the circumstances surrounding transition, it is therefore unsurprising thateducation became a major political tool for outside powers to advocate theirown political philosophy among Azerbaijanis. Education acts as a socializingmechanism across the world. Predictably, the educational programs offered bythe United States, Russia, Turkey, Europe, and others sought not just to provideFor a brief overview of the current debate over the Azerbaijani national identity, see Murad Ismayilov, “AzerbaijaniNational Identity and Baku’s Foreign Policy: The Current Debate,” Azerbaijan in the World, Vol. 1, No. 1, 021949162.html (accessed 21 March 2010).6For one example of this dynamic, see Ulrich Teichler and Wolfgang Steube, “The Logics of Study Abroad Programmes and Their Impacts,” Higher Education, Vol. 21, No. 3 (April 1991), pp. 325-349.5Volume 8 Number 491TURKISH POLICY QUARTERLY

an education but also to socialize students in the political culture of the providing state. Consequently, many of the best Azerbaijani students were socialized in various ways, depending on the state providing the educational program.Participation in U.S. educational programs, for example, has been intended inpart to inculcate certain American values, thereby contributing to the creationof an Azerbaijani civil society that shares key American values; the essence ofsoft power.7 The Turkish government, in turn, has regarded the education opportunities it moved to offer students coming from Azerbaijan –as well as fromother Turkic republics of post-Soviet Central Eurasia– as a powerful mechanismthrough which a common “Turkic identity” among those who have been viewedas the future generation of leaders of Azerbaijan, or ones who were to standin the vanguard of the social, economic, and political transformation of theircountry could be crafted.8 As a former Turkish minister of national educationexplicitly stated, “when [students] return to their countries after finishing theireducation, they will become the architects of the great Turkish world.”9 Indeed,the goal was nothing else but “a thorough cultural reorientation”.10 If socialization into the U.S. cultural system is likely to shape a rather cosmopolitan agendafor the emerging elite of Azerbaijan, those with a Turkish educational experience are apt to develop a rather communitarian –nationalist– perspective on theircountry’s future development. Unlike the beneficiaries of the U.S. programs whotend to develop an inclusive civic understanding of their national identity, thosewho have benefited from Turkish education (either in Turkey or in a Turkish educational institution in Azerbaijan) are likely to embrace a more narrow definitionof their identity, one based on ethnic (Turkic) kinship rather than citizenship.Once students return to Azerbaijan with their newly earned education credentials, they are strongly encouraged to network among their fellow alumni, whichin turn reinforces and further develops their new identities. This is especially truefor Turkish and U.S. graduates. As a result of having the alumni engage in a tightcircle of social intercourse and by facilitating their post-education recruitmentFor the role educational exchange programs –such as Fulbright, Humphrey, UGRAD, Muskie, and the like– havebeen playing in the U.S. cultural diplomacy –its efforts to promote “new ways of thinking” and “American knowledge,skills, and ideals”– outside its national borders, see U.S. Department of State, Cultural Diplomacy: The Linchpin ofPublic Diplomacy, Report of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy Washington, DC: U.S. Department ofState, September 2005), pp. 4-5, 7-8 and Liping Bu, “Educational Exchange and Cultural Diplomacy in the Cold War,”Journal of American Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3 (December 1999), pp. 393-415.8For a discussion of the way educational exchange has been utilized in Turkey’s foreign policy in Eurasia, see LernaK. Yanik, “The Politics of Educational Exchange: Turkish Education in Eurasia,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 56, No. 2(March 2004), pp. 293-307.9Quoted in Yanik (2004), p. 294.10Yanik (2004), p. 302.792