Paper Proposal for CIS

Since I'm taking a Central Asia politics course (for now, anyway) I've decided to finally get some of my data for this done in the class. For now I'm not even sure I'm going to be having a thesis thanks to some Graduate School Department issues that I am currently having. Anyway the proposal:


World Bank Funding of transportation infrastructure projects in Central Asia (Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan) has led to more stability and development in the region than the other reforms and projects funded by the World Bank in the same region.

Since the fall of the USSR, the World Bank has funded approximately 600 projects within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) which includes the Central Asia Region. The current states in the CIS include: Russia, Georgia (currently separate from CIS), Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. For the purposes of this class, I would like to focus on the World Bank projects in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Many of these infrastructure projects involve multiple countries, but more importantly this promotes connectivity and economic development throughout the region. Within a constructivist paradigm, these sorts of infrastructure projects that are more politically neutral and economically mutually beneficial are ideal for helping ensure peace and regional stability.

In order to explore the thesis above, I propose a statistically driven analysis of the World Bank projects in the region. By using data readily available and creating new data from the World Bank project website, the analysis will be time-lagged and seekign correlative relationships. With an expansive set of data and indicators placed three, five, and tens years out hopefully trends will be visible. Attached is the coding guide.