Abstract
Why do repeated shocks fail to generate diversification in Central Asia? Existing theories of dependency, hierarchy, and regional institutionalism generally assume that vulnerability triggers exit, partner substitution, or strategic hedging. Drawing on comparative evidence from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, this article shows that these expectations do not hold. Instead, Central Asian states exhibit a stable pattern of dual dependence, in which Russian-led institutional and infrastructural hierarchies and Chinese-centered market and financial ties operate in parallel and reinforce one another. Using qualitative process tracing, trade and debt data, institutional membership records, and shock-based diagnostics, including Russia-related sanctions, China’s overseas lending contraction, and the COVID-19 supply-chain crisis, the article demonstrates that efforts to reduce dependence on one external actor systematically intensify reliance on the other. Rather than enabling diversification, shocks redistribute exposure within the dual structure. The findings challenge unidirectional models of dependence, hedging frameworks, and regime complexity theories, and advance a political economy account of how functionally differentiated external hierarchies can generate persistent, non-substitutable forms of dependence under multipolar conditions.