Rico Isaacs is Professor of International Politics at the University of Lincoln, UK. His research interests lay at the intersection of authoritarianism, culture and political theory in post-Soviet states with a particular focus on the Central Asian Republics. He is the author of Film and Identity in Kazakhstan (2018) and Party System Formation in Kazakhstan: Between Formal and Informal Politics (2011), as well as authoring several co-edited volumes, including most recently The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Central Asia (with Erica Marat, 2021) and a Critical Reader in Central Asian Studies (2022). Rico is also the current serving editor of Central Asian Survey.