Markowitz, Lawrence P. "Unlootable Resources and State Security Institutions in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan." Comparative Political Studies, no. 44.2 (2011): 156-183.

Markowitz, Lawrence P. "Unlootable Resources and State Security Institutions in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan." Comparative Political Studies, no. 44.2 (2011): 156-183.

• The paper examines why some state security apparatuses fracture under pressure, whereas others resort to corrupt and rent-seeking behavior w/o posing a threat to centralized authority. The divergence noted in this paper is between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan after independence.
• In May 1992 the new coalition government formed in Tajikistan was rejected by large numbers of regional elites -- esp. elites from Gharm and Gorno-Badaxshan -- who formed self-defense forces 'protecting democracy'. Over the next 3 months local police forces joined and armed paramilitaries, leading to a 5-year long civil war ended only after Russian intervention and Uzbekistani mediation (157).
• During this same period in Uzbekistan potentially unruly elites were bound to the state, despite undermining state power by using control over local law enforcement to extract resources. This erosion of the rule of law culminated in the outrage expressed during the Andijon Incident, but did not result in civil war (157).
• The author claims that this result is surprising b/c Uzbekistan and Tajikistan share several similarities, including the economic structure of indebted Soviet agricultural colonies, clan divisions, and a history of corruption. His central claim that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are highly similar is extremely contestable.
• Plenty of research exists on how security forces and paramilitaries will behave in conflicts in resource-rich states, but the resources of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are difficult to extract, limiting the applicability of these theories in the region. There is very little research applicable to this scenario (157-158).
• The author says the difference is not well explained by imperial legacies, belief in state ability, or economic 'warlordism'. He does a poor job of explaining why not. 
• Focus on historical legacies does not explain some security agencies remained loyal and other did not, because they are individual choices, not macro-evolutions (159).
• Focus on how lack of information could make rent-seeking elites 'make a run on the bank' in terms of public resources ignores the complex relationships and power-balances between metropolitan elites and peripheral elites and does not recognize patronage flows (160).
• The economic argument needs to be understood in the context of 'unlootable wealth', which currently it is not, to answer how elites respond to political changes when their resources are tied to the state (160).
• The issue at hand to how to convert control over state resources into rents in a situation where extraction and monetization of resources requires state investment and state control. Whereas looters seek only the non-interference of the state, the only way to maintain rents is thus to secure a influence within a patrimonial government (161).
• The greater a region's concentration of resources -- and thus the incentive of elites to maintain strong patronage networks -- and the more top-down and centralized the patronage system the more like it is to weaken into rent-seeking w/o civil conflict (162).
• Competitive pressures resulting in intra-elite civil conflicts are more likely in regions where local elites are lacking in resource endowments and thus have less to lose by challenging (and possible replacing) state authority. This is particularly true during periods of uncertainty when the stability of current patronage networks is in jeopardy (162).
•  The 'privatization' of military force by one actor will usually spawn similar actions by other competing elites, leading to the large-skill paramilitary forces founds in civil war situations (162).
• Elites from cotton-growing provinces of Leninobad/Xujand, Qurghonteppa, and Kulob traditionally dominated Tajikistani politics since WWII. When corruption purges under glasnost and perestroika reforms opened up positions in the upper party, disenfranchised elites from Gharm and Gorno-Badaxshan saw an opportunity. When reform was abandoned by the 1990 government, these elites revolted against an exclusionist system (163).
• Despite the length of the war, almost all political fracturing took place between May and August 1992.
• Contrary to popular belief, the tendency to fracture or privatize paramilitary forces was not associated with high crime rates, clan divisions, or proximity to Afghanistan. The only relevant predictive factors where distance from the capital and low resource wealth, as distant and poor districts were the first to revolt and militarize (164).
• Fragmentation of state security forces occurred to two stages. First stage was in the poor and distant districts, then the second occurred everywhere else. Only during the second stage did clan cleavages -- actually reflecting patronage networks -- become significant for militarization (164).
• In the first phase (local protests) opposition groups in Gharm were armed by local police marches to block Southern routes into Dushanbe, gaining support on the way. In the second phase (reactions) old-guard elites from Xujand and Kulob rejected attempts to form a coalition government under threat of force by forming their own militias within an increasing violent environment. In the third phase (split among civil authority), by early June, police openly armed groups based on previous patronage networks, often centering on local politicians or collectivized farm administrators. In the forth stage (violent conflict) all civilian authority was transferred to the militias, giving military leaders all decision-making authority for the duration of the conflict (166-167).
• The post-war peace settlement which integrated former UTO forces into government has had mixed results. In some areas the security forces eliminate non-compliant elites, where in others they still openly serve former militia commanders. The state generally has more control in regions with large amounts of resources, including Gorno-Badaxshan. (167).
• The concentrated and balanced resource distribution in Uzbekistan allowed for the government to engage in both anti-corruption reforms during the 1980s and corrupting privatization during the early 1990s without engendering regional inequalities (168).
• Privatization in Uzbekistan allowed local elites to control important rent-seeking systems, such as banks, which lost almost 200 billion so'm [$500 million USD] in bad loans during the 1990s. This created a rent-seeking and state dependent class of political connected rural elites (171).
• Many opportunities existed during the 1990s for intra-elite conflict to emerge, including 42 incidences of mass violence, one against Mesxetian Turks claiming hundreds of lives. In no cases did local security forces cooperate or arm protestors, preventing violence from becoming fragmentary (171).
• Importantly all but a single violent event occurred in either Toshkent, Ferg'ona, Andijon, or Namangan, all wealthy states dependent on the central government (171).
• In Uzbekistan during this period there was a precipitous collapse in the capacity of law enforcement and a rise in corruption, as an already corrupt republic realized that Moscow was no longer able to supervise its activities. The current government is still working to erode this change. Local elites, esp. governors, used their positions to enrich themselves through organized crime, smuggling, and bribes (173).
• Now state officials in Uzbekistan are likely to carry-out their duties to a similar degree regardless of geographic location or other factors, a very different situation than Tajikistan.
• In states with weak security systems and unlootable resources, the disparity of resource concentration between regions affects whether the system will collapse into privatized violence or endure in rent-seeking coercive form (177).