Sources of authority influencing the development of research ethics policy in Muslim-majority secular jurisdictions: compatibility, contradiction and compromise

The pressures to internationalise and globalise research and higher education have created tensions between local and global influences in several Central Asian (CA) countries. Governments in CA have established national targets to expand knowledge production and dissemination to enhance their global standings. Similar efforts in other non-western contexts have resulted in cloning research ethics practices of the global north. In CA, it is timely to consider the fit between international principlists’ research ethics approaches and local cultural contexts by discussing and assessing sources of authority influencing policy development in three Muslim-majority secular countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. This discussion is particularly important for research in the social sciences, which is currently unregulated by national codes in these countries. The cultural values emanating from contemporary and historical socio-cultural practices will be considered concerning their compatibility, contradiction and potential for compromise with contemporary international research ethics. The paper’s conclusions may inform future national policy development in these countries and have relevance to other comparable jurisdictions inside and outside CA.