Edward Lemon
Biographic Data
| ID | 3698783 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Edward Lemon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Edward |
| FAMILY NAME | Lemon |
| SIGNATURE | LEMON E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4518-2613 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 154 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Backlash
Central Asia is at the forefront of China’s efforts to assert itself as a major world power. Since 1991, Beijing has emerged as the region’s main investor, creditor and trade partner, as well as an increasingly important security provider. But its growing influence has met opposition: in recent years, anti-China protests have erupted across Central Asia, threatening Beijing’s shaky regional hegemony. Bradley Jardine and Edward Lemon examine how C…
Bumps Along the Belt and Road
Big Brothers United
While, in recent years China, and to a lesser degree Russia, have been mooted as “models” of authoritarian internet governance that other autocratic states can emulate, at present relatively little has been written on the transfer of internet technologies and policies within the framework of global authoritarianism. In this research note, we explore the deployment of digital authoritarianism in Tajikistan and the role played by state actors and b…
Grooming the next generation
This article provides a comparative analysis of laws on youth policy and patriotic education in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine (as a control case), as well as model laws developed by the Commonwealth of Independent States. These laws are aimed at educating young people and transferring values of loyalty and obedience to authoritarian rule, as well as love and patriotic devotion to the Motherland, as means to legitimise and sustain author…
Values Education, the Family, and Youth in Tajikistan
This article examines the relationship between youth, the family, and the authoritarian state in Tajikistan. We argue that the state works through both young people and the family in its attempts to produce loyal citizens through values education that focuses on patriotism, national identity, and allegiance to the state. We examine how the government frames this relationship through discourse analysis of 13 speeches by President Emomali Rahmon, a…
Stability Maintenance and the ‘Three Evils’
This article analyzes 430 security-related press releases from meetings between officials from China and the Central Asian republics between 1991 to January 2023 to examine how its threat perceptions have evolved. First, China's focus on the Three Evil Forces (terrorism, extremism, separatism) has won its support and cooperation from regimes across the region. Second, China has advanced a number of new security concepts over the years, most recen…
Academic Diplomacy
Soft power draws attention to the way governments, and other actors, create a positive image of themselves so that they can attract others and influence them. In this article, we examine how Russia and China use education to implement soft power in Tajikistan and the differences between the two approaches. This article examines academic diplomacy and the role of educational programs and research collaboration in the projection of China and Russia…
We Are Living in Fear
Since 1997, the Chinese Party-state has engaged in a campaign of transnational repression against the Uyghur diaspora. This campaign has grown in severity since the 2014 declaration of the People's War on Terror and Strike Hard campaigns, which, taken together, involved a program of mass incarceration for the Turkic peoples of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This article examines the everyday impacts of extraterritorial persecution …
Globalizing minority persecution
The Chinese Communist Party has unleashed a campaign of repression against Turkic minorities residing in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This campaign does not stop at China's borders. This study introduces the Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Dataset, which contains 7108 cases of Uyghurs being targeted in 44 states from 1997 to 2021, the largest public dataset on transnational repression published to date. Unlike other regimes, the …
Transnational repression
Research on state repression generally focuses on what states do to populations within their own borders. However, recently scholars working at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations have begun to systematically analyse states repressing their populations outside their borders as part of their foreign policy. Variously called transnational repression, extraterritorial repression, or sometimes global authoritarianism,…
Academic freedom in Tajikistan
While there have been a number of studies of the political economy of knowledge production in Central Asia, the often exploitative relations between foreign and local researcher, there has been less discussion of what Elizabeth Perry recently described as the ‘scholar–state’ nexus: how authoritarian rule rests on the suppression of independent academics, the ‘educated acquiescence’ of academia or their incorporation into the ‘factory of answers’.…
Spatialising state practices through transnational repression
This article theorises the repressive security practices of authoritarian states in the context of transnationalism and globalisation. While emerging research on transnational repression has identified a range of extraterritorial and exceptional security practices adopted by authoritarian states, it has not fully studied the implications of such practices on space and statecraft. Using data from the Central Asia Political Exile Database project (…
Das politische System Tadschikistans
Exclusion, Enmity, and the Normalization of the Exception
The armed rebellion of Deputy Defense Minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda in September 2015 was a critical moment in the post-war history of Tajikistan. The rebellion, which the government blamed on the Islamic Renaissance Party, formed the justification for the Supreme Court to classify the party as a terrorist organization and arrest its leadership. While the government framed the events as a coup attempt, supported by the IRPT , the narrative had inc…
Authoritarian legal harmonization in the post-Soviet space
Faced with common threats to their regimes from independent civil society, organized opposition groups and protest movements, authoritarian governments in the former Soviet Union have learned from one another and adopted similar policies to consolidate their power. This article examines the process of authoritarian policy transfer in three fields: peaceful assembly, civil society and political participation, focusing on Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz…
Constructing the Uzbek State. Narratives of Post-Soviet Years
Constructing the Uzbek State. Narratives of Post-Soviet Years." Europe-Asia Studies, 71(3), pp. 522–523
Weaponizing Interpol
Interpol, the world's leading police-cooperation body, aims to "connect police for a safer world." Although the organization's constitution states that Interpol cannot engage in "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character," it is increasingly being subverted by autocratic regimes seeking to pursue their exiled political opponents. The number of Red Notices (a type of arrest request issued through Interp…
Practicing Islam. Knowledge, Experience, and Social Navigation in Kyrgyzstan
Practicing Islam. Knowledge, Experience, and Social Navigation in Kyrgyzstan." Europe-Asia Studies, 70(1), pp. 142–143
Critical approaches to security in Central Asia
Counter-extremism, power and authoritarian governance in Tajikistan
Counter-extremism has become an important tool for the authoritarian government of Tajikistan to consolidate its position. In this article, we argue that counter-extremism is not purely about destructive acts, such as banning groups or arresting individuals: it is productive, too. Using a Foucauldian understanding of disciplinary power and biopower, we argue that counter-extremism in Tajikistan is an attempt to produce secular, docile citizen sub…
Researching Islam, Security, and the State in Central Asia
As researchers in Central Asian Studies, we discuss the different perspectives our methodological approaches provide to understanding the content and context of Islam, security, and the state in the region. We acknowledge the role of bias in creating narratives that dominate regional and international discourse and question mono-causal explanations of Islamic practice and the roots of radicalism. As such, we offer insights into the challenges and…
Building resilient secular citizens
Between 500 and 1000 citizens of Tajikistan have travelled to take part in hostilities in Syria and Iraq. The majority of these transnational activists are recruited in Russia, where over one million Tajik citizens live and work. In this article, I examine the politics of the Tajik government’s response. I answer three questions: how has the Tajik government reacted to its citizens joining the Islamic State? How has the foreign fighter phenomenon…
Mediating the Conflict in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan
Between 2009 and 2011 Tajikistan experienced one of the worst bouts of political violence since the end of the country’s civil war. The fighting was concentrated in the Rasht Valley, an area traditionally associated with opposition to the regime. As a result, the government attempted to fix the meaning of the conflict around the signifiers “international terrorism” and “radical Islam.” This framing directly reproduced the regime’s hegemony throug…
Authoritarian legal harmonization in the post-Soviet space
Faced with common threats to their regimes from independent civil society, organized opposition groups and protest movements, authoritarian governments in the former Soviet Union have learned from one another and adopted similar policies to consolidate their power. This article examines the process of authoritarian policy transfer in three fields: peaceful assembly, civil society and political participation, focusing on Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz…
Transnational repression
Research on state repression generally focuses on what states do to populations within their own borders. However, recently scholars working at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations have begun to systematically analyse states repressing their populations outside their borders as part of their foreign policy. Variously called transnational repression, extraterritorial repression, or sometimes global authoritarianism,…
Spatialising state practices through transnational repression
This article theorises the repressive security practices of authoritarian states in the context of transnationalism and globalisation. While emerging research on transnational repression has identified a range of extraterritorial and exceptional security practices adopted by authoritarian states, it has not fully studied the implications of such practices on space and statecraft. Using data from the Central Asia Political Exile Database project (…
Weaponizing Interpol
Interpol, the world's leading police-cooperation body, aims to "connect police for a safer world." Although the organization's constitution states that Interpol cannot engage in "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character," it is increasingly being subverted by autocratic regimes seeking to pursue their exiled political opponents. The number of Red Notices (a type of arrest request issued through Interp…
Globalizing minority persecution
The Chinese Communist Party has unleashed a campaign of repression against Turkic minorities residing in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This campaign does not stop at China's borders. This study introduces the Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Dataset, which contains 7108 cases of Uyghurs being targeted in 44 states from 1997 to 2021, the largest public dataset on transnational repression published to date. Unlike other regimes, the …
Constructing the Uzbek State. Narratives of Post-Soviet Years
Constructing the Uzbek State. Narratives of Post-Soviet Years." Europe-Asia Studies, 71(3), pp. 522–523
Counter-extremism, power and authoritarian governance in Tajikistan
Counter-extremism has become an important tool for the authoritarian government of Tajikistan to consolidate its position. In this article, we argue that counter-extremism is not purely about destructive acts, such as banning groups or arresting individuals: it is productive, too. Using a Foucauldian understanding of disciplinary power and biopower, we argue that counter-extremism in Tajikistan is an attempt to produce secular, docile citizen sub…
Mediating the Conflict in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan
Between 2009 and 2011 Tajikistan experienced one of the worst bouts of political violence since the end of the country’s civil war. The fighting was concentrated in the Rasht Valley, an area traditionally associated with opposition to the regime. As a result, the government attempted to fix the meaning of the conflict around the signifiers “international terrorism” and “radical Islam.” This framing directly reproduced the regime’s hegemony throug…
Academic freedom in Tajikistan
While there have been a number of studies of the political economy of knowledge production in Central Asia, the often exploitative relations between foreign and local researcher, there has been less discussion of what Elizabeth Perry recently described as the ‘scholar–state’ nexus: how authoritarian rule rests on the suppression of independent academics, the ‘educated acquiescence’ of academia or their incorporation into the ‘factory of answers’.…
Critical approaches to security in Central Asia
We Are Living in Fear
Since 1997, the Chinese Party-state has engaged in a campaign of transnational repression against the Uyghur diaspora. This campaign has grown in severity since the 2014 declaration of the People's War on Terror and Strike Hard campaigns, which, taken together, involved a program of mass incarceration for the Turkic peoples of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This article examines the everyday impacts of extraterritorial persecution …
Big Brothers United
While, in recent years China, and to a lesser degree Russia, have been mooted as “models” of authoritarian internet governance that other autocratic states can emulate, at present relatively little has been written on the transfer of internet technologies and policies within the framework of global authoritarianism. In this research note, we explore the deployment of digital authoritarianism in Tajikistan and the role played by state actors and b…
Building resilient secular citizens
Between 500 and 1000 citizens of Tajikistan have travelled to take part in hostilities in Syria and Iraq. The majority of these transnational activists are recruited in Russia, where over one million Tajik citizens live and work. In this article, I examine the politics of the Tajik government’s response. I answer three questions: how has the Tajik government reacted to its citizens joining the Islamic State? How has the foreign fighter phenomenon…
Bumps Along the Belt and Road
Stability Maintenance and the ‘Three Evils’
This article analyzes 430 security-related press releases from meetings between officials from China and the Central Asian republics between 1991 to January 2023 to examine how its threat perceptions have evolved. First, China's focus on the Three Evil Forces (terrorism, extremism, separatism) has won its support and cooperation from regimes across the region. Second, China has advanced a number of new security concepts over the years, most recen…
Academic Diplomacy
Soft power draws attention to the way governments, and other actors, create a positive image of themselves so that they can attract others and influence them. In this article, we examine how Russia and China use education to implement soft power in Tajikistan and the differences between the two approaches. This article examines academic diplomacy and the role of educational programs and research collaboration in the projection of China and Russia…
Exclusion, Enmity, and the Normalization of the Exception
The armed rebellion of Deputy Defense Minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda in September 2015 was a critical moment in the post-war history of Tajikistan. The rebellion, which the government blamed on the Islamic Renaissance Party, formed the justification for the Supreme Court to classify the party as a terrorist organization and arrest its leadership. While the government framed the events as a coup attempt, supported by the IRPT , the narrative had inc…
Mediating the Conflict in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan
Between 2009 and 2011 Tajikistan experienced one of the worst bouts of political violence since the end of the country’s civil war. The fighting was concentrated in the Rasht Valley, an area traditionally associated with opposition to the regime. As a result, the government attempted to fix the meaning of the conflict around the signifiers “international terrorism” and “radical Islam.” This framing directly reproduced the regime’s hegemony throug…
Researching Islam, Security, and the State in Central Asia
As researchers in Central Asian Studies, we discuss the different perspectives our methodological approaches provide to understanding the content and context of Islam, security, and the state in the region. We acknowledge the role of bias in creating narratives that dominate regional and international discourse and question mono-causal explanations of Islamic practice and the roots of radicalism. As such, we offer insights into the challenges and…
Building resilient secular citizens
Between 500 and 1000 citizens of Tajikistan have travelled to take part in hostilities in Syria and Iraq. The majority of these transnational activists are recruited in Russia, where over one million Tajik citizens live and work. In this article, I examine the politics of the Tajik government’s response. I answer three questions: how has the Tajik government reacted to its citizens joining the Islamic State? How has the foreign fighter phenomenon…
Practicing Islam. Knowledge, Experience, and Social Navigation in Kyrgyzstan
Practicing Islam. Knowledge, Experience, and Social Navigation in Kyrgyzstan." Europe-Asia Studies, 70(1), pp. 142–143
Critical approaches to security in Central Asia
Counter-extremism, power and authoritarian governance in Tajikistan
Counter-extremism has become an important tool for the authoritarian government of Tajikistan to consolidate its position. In this article, we argue that counter-extremism is not purely about destructive acts, such as banning groups or arresting individuals: it is productive, too. Using a Foucauldian understanding of disciplinary power and biopower, we argue that counter-extremism in Tajikistan is an attempt to produce secular, docile citizen sub…
Constructing the Uzbek State. Narratives of Post-Soviet Years
Constructing the Uzbek State. Narratives of Post-Soviet Years." Europe-Asia Studies, 71(3), pp. 522–523
Weaponizing Interpol
Interpol, the world's leading police-cooperation body, aims to "connect police for a safer world." Although the organization's constitution states that Interpol cannot engage in "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character," it is increasingly being subverted by autocratic regimes seeking to pursue their exiled political opponents. The number of Red Notices (a type of arrest request issued through Interp…
Das politische System Tadschikistans
Exclusion, Enmity, and the Normalization of the Exception
The armed rebellion of Deputy Defense Minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda in September 2015 was a critical moment in the post-war history of Tajikistan. The rebellion, which the government blamed on the Islamic Renaissance Party, formed the justification for the Supreme Court to classify the party as a terrorist organization and arrest its leadership. While the government framed the events as a coup attempt, supported by the IRPT , the narrative had inc…
Authoritarian legal harmonization in the post-Soviet space
Faced with common threats to their regimes from independent civil society, organized opposition groups and protest movements, authoritarian governments in the former Soviet Union have learned from one another and adopted similar policies to consolidate their power. This article examines the process of authoritarian policy transfer in three fields: peaceful assembly, civil society and political participation, focusing on Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz…
Academic freedom in Tajikistan
While there have been a number of studies of the political economy of knowledge production in Central Asia, the often exploitative relations between foreign and local researcher, there has been less discussion of what Elizabeth Perry recently described as the ‘scholar–state’ nexus: how authoritarian rule rests on the suppression of independent academics, the ‘educated acquiescence’ of academia or their incorporation into the ‘factory of answers’.…
Spatialising state practices through transnational repression
This article theorises the repressive security practices of authoritarian states in the context of transnationalism and globalisation. While emerging research on transnational repression has identified a range of extraterritorial and exceptional security practices adopted by authoritarian states, it has not fully studied the implications of such practices on space and statecraft. Using data from the Central Asia Political Exile Database project (…
Globalizing minority persecution
The Chinese Communist Party has unleashed a campaign of repression against Turkic minorities residing in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This campaign does not stop at China's borders. This study introduces the Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Dataset, which contains 7108 cases of Uyghurs being targeted in 44 states from 1997 to 2021, the largest public dataset on transnational repression published to date. Unlike other regimes, the …
Transnational repression
Research on state repression generally focuses on what states do to populations within their own borders. However, recently scholars working at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations have begun to systematically analyse states repressing their populations outside their borders as part of their foreign policy. Variously called transnational repression, extraterritorial repression, or sometimes global authoritarianism,…
Values Education, the Family, and Youth in Tajikistan
This article examines the relationship between youth, the family, and the authoritarian state in Tajikistan. We argue that the state works through both young people and the family in its attempts to produce loyal citizens through values education that focuses on patriotism, national identity, and allegiance to the state. We examine how the government frames this relationship through discourse analysis of 13 speeches by President Emomali Rahmon, a…
Stability Maintenance and the ‘Three Evils’
This article analyzes 430 security-related press releases from meetings between officials from China and the Central Asian republics between 1991 to January 2023 to examine how its threat perceptions have evolved. First, China's focus on the Three Evil Forces (terrorism, extremism, separatism) has won its support and cooperation from regimes across the region. Second, China has advanced a number of new security concepts over the years, most recen…
Academic Diplomacy
Soft power draws attention to the way governments, and other actors, create a positive image of themselves so that they can attract others and influence them. In this article, we examine how Russia and China use education to implement soft power in Tajikistan and the differences between the two approaches. This article examines academic diplomacy and the role of educational programs and research collaboration in the projection of China and Russia…
We Are Living in Fear
Since 1997, the Chinese Party-state has engaged in a campaign of transnational repression against the Uyghur diaspora. This campaign has grown in severity since the 2014 declaration of the People's War on Terror and Strike Hard campaigns, which, taken together, involved a program of mass incarceration for the Turkic peoples of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This article examines the everyday impacts of extraterritorial persecution …
Backlash
Central Asia is at the forefront of China’s efforts to assert itself as a major world power. Since 1991, Beijing has emerged as the region’s main investor, creditor and trade partner, as well as an increasingly important security provider. But its growing influence has met opposition: in recent years, anti-China protests have erupted across Central Asia, threatening Beijing’s shaky regional hegemony. Bradley Jardine and Edward Lemon examine how C…
Bumps Along the Belt and Road
Big Brothers United
While, in recent years China, and to a lesser degree Russia, have been mooted as “models” of authoritarian internet governance that other autocratic states can emulate, at present relatively little has been written on the transfer of internet technologies and policies within the framework of global authoritarianism. In this research note, we explore the deployment of digital authoritarianism in Tajikistan and the role played by state actors and b…
Grooming the next generation
This article provides a comparative analysis of laws on youth policy and patriotic education in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine (as a control case), as well as model laws developed by the Commonwealth of Independent States. These laws are aimed at educating young people and transferring values of loyalty and obedience to authoritarian rule, as well as love and patriotic devotion to the Motherland, as means to legitimise and sustain author…
Political science (22 works) · Law (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Politics (14 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (10 works) · Authoritarianism (9 works) · Democracy (9 works) · Political economy (9 works) · State (computer science (9 works)