In 2005, the Program of Research and Training for Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the former Soviet Union (Title VIII), administrated by the Department of State, supported a new initiative of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University – the series of Policy Seminars on Conflicts in Eurasia (PSCE). PSCE aimed to increase the depth of knowledge and understanding of existing and potential ethnic and religious conflicts in the greater Central Asia region.
In February 2005, a multidisciplinary group of 10 scholars gathered at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution for their first seminar to discuss the continuing problem of sectarian, ethnic, and cultural conflict in the Central Asia area. Each Fellow was actively engaged in individual research projects from a broad range of perspectives: economic development, political issues, ecology, education, migration, and gender. During the course of the program the Fellows came together as a group for two seminars (February 17 and May 6, 2005) and the final conference (October 14, 2005) to exchange ideas and information, to discuss and update one another on the progress of individual research projects, and to develop the collective analysis of conflicts in Central Asia. This special issue represents the results of this stimulating, complex, and open-ended discussion about the social, economic, ethnic and sectarian conflicts in the five Republics of Central Asia.