Turker, Ahmet Tolga. "Explaining Authoritarian Regime Variations in Post-Communist Central Asia". Revista de Stiinte Politice, No.44 (2014): 28-38.

Turker, Ahmet Tolga. "Explaining Authoritarian Regime Variations in Post-Communist Central Asia". Revista de Stiinte Politice, No.44 (2014): 28-38.

• Since there independence, theories about the expected political trajectory of the Central Asian republics have revolved around conceptions of liberal hegemony and the 'end of history', which predicted the transformation of those areas into capitalist democracies (29).
• This outcome has become particularly important in Western, Russian, and Chinese thought following the reemergence of Halford Mackinder's theory about the Eurasian Heartland, which posits that control over Central Eurasia through the silk road is of immense geopolitical significance (29).
• From the perspective of the Fukuyaman theory employed by the West, the best way towards democratization in Central Asia was abolishing the all-penetrating Soviet state, which stifled freedom. When adopted, however, these reforms led to declining state capacity manifested in poor social services, corruption, wealth disparity, and organized crime (29).
• This paper examines the causation behind different degrees and methods of authoritarian rule in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have been excluded from the study because reliable information about them is difficult to access (29-30).
• The five Central Asian republics did not experience any significant social, economic, or security threats during the late Soviet Union, and in fact were among those countries which benefited most significantly from Soviet development programs. As a result they were opposed to the dissolution of the USSR, which signaled the beginning of new challenges (29,30).
• During the confusing and chaotic early years of independence, the political leadership in Central Asia attempted to simultaneously safeguard their new sovereignty and achieve domestic political stability (30).
• By 1992, all the of the Central Asian republics had made some progress towards integration into the global capitalist system, with all states joining the World Bank, IMF, UN, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and -- with the exception of Turkmenistan -- the Asian Development Bank (31).
• None of the Central Asian republics has yet produced a democracy whose elections and institutions are up to international standards. While all states, even Turkmenistan, have some form of regular electoral process for a nominally independent legislative body, political reform remains stifled in the region (31).
• Importantly, the types of authoritarianism which have emerged in Central Asia differ greatly between republics. President Karimov of Uzbekistan has combined paternalist authoritarianism with social welfare and protectionist economic policies; Tajikistan developed a weak autocracy to hold the country together; Kazakhstan retreated into authoritarianism based on President Nazarbayev's corrupt rule; the Kyrgyz Republic makes nominal progress devoid of meaning for most citizens; and Turkmenistan has created a cult of personality (31).
• The author claims that the three factors in the countries study which best explain the divergent authoritarian systems are the involvement of Moscow in mediating leadership crises during perestroika, what economic resources are available to the leaders, and the state of Islamic revival in the country (31).
• The author uses a source mine of material on authoritarian stability to establish that the strength of the state and the strength of the ruling party are important factors in determining state stability. In the Central Asian context, the primary source of cohesion are systems of patronage, leaving states vulnerable to disunity during periods of economic decline if they lack other strong organizational ties (31-32).
• The concept of sovereign democracy, articulated by Vladislav Sukhrov, imagines a Russian path to modernization without interference from outside powers and establishing a form of democracy unique to Russian experiences. To some degree, similar ideas have become common in all Central Asian states (32).
• The trend in Central Asian political development has been towards a concentration of authoritarian power in the executive. Most political parties in parliament are regarded as tool advancing the beliefs of the executive, with ruling parliamentary parties rubber-stamping executive actions (32-33).
• The decision of the Gorbachev administration to instigate and mediate change in the executive of the Kazakh SSR and Uzbek SSR, but not the Kyrgyz SSR, led to significant differences in post-independence regime strength, leaving Kyrgyzstan with divided leadership, while Uzbekistani and Kazakhstani elites were united. The difference is demonstrated by the stability of the Kazakh and Uzbek governments following 1990 ethnic violence in Osh, compared to the leadership crisis it unleashed in Bishkek (33).
• The replacement of Secretary Dinmuxammed Kunaev, ethnically Kazakh and corrupt, with ethnic-Russian Gennady Kolbin in 1986 led to riots through-out the Kazakh SSR. To resolve this issue, Mikhail Gorbachev worked with the Kazakh Prime Minister, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to transfer effective power from the Politburo to the Soviet. This compromise laid the foundation for a united opposition and later a united Kazakhstani government under Nursultan Nazarbayev (33).
• When Premier Gorbachev's controversial land reforms in the Farg'ona Valley, implemented coterminously with relaxation of family planning policies for Uzbeks, led to ethnic violence between Uzbeks and the Mesxetian Turks in June 1989, he admitted defeat to republican opponents and compromised with Uzbek cadres to support Islom Karimov as the new Secretary of the UzSSR, laying the framework for a united Uzbekistani political system (33).
• Yet, when the same land reform policies led to ethnic riots between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh, Premier Gorbachev did not prevent a leadership crises from emerging in the Kyrgyz SSR. Without meddling from Moscow, the comprise candidate of Askar Akayev did not have a united front within Kyrgyz politics, making his position weak in the period following independence (33).
• The significant surplus wealth generated by Kazakhstan's oil and gas reserves help explain the stability of the patronage system constructed to support the Nazarbayev regime, as the government can afford to offer considerable rewards for loyalty without needing to depend on popular support. The Karimov regime has managed to use the Soviet procurement system for cotton to similar effect, generating enough wealth to support necessary elites (34).
• The Kyrgyz Republic, on the other hand, has no obvious sources of revenue other than taxation, which it is notoriously bad at collecting or using. The central government cannot afford to buy off local elites, who in turn often cannot afford to pay their own bureaucrats. Essential government services will not serve the central government if another, wealthier, patron presents itself, making the Kyrgyz government essentially weak (34).
• The Hanafi school of Islam was totally dominant in Central Asia until the 1970s, when some support for Wahhabism began to grow. All forms of practice were represented under the Soviets, with 25% of official mosques were closed during the Khrushchev administration, and most Central Asian knew little about religion following independence (35).
• The strong legacies of Islam in Uzbekistan and the Farg'ona Valley allowed the religion to fill the ideological gap created by the abolition of state Marxist-Leninism, while Islamic organizations and charities began to provide the essential social services which the newly independent states could no longer provide. These groups posed more of a challenge to state power in the oasis areas than the steppe (36).
• The author of this paper was utterly failed to make their case. While the article includes some interesting observations about divergence between the Central Asian republics, the analysis of the three 'factors' are shallow and unsophisticated. Moreover, the author has not done anything to demonstrate that the factors correlate, let alone explain, divergent forms of authoritarianism in Central Asia.