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TOWARDS SOCIAL STABILITY AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE IN CENTRAL EURASIA

NATO Science Series A series presenting the results of scientific meetings supported under the NATO Science Programme. The series is published by IOS Press and Springer Science and Business Media in conjunction with the NATO Public Diplomacy Division. Sub-Series I. II. III. IV. V.

Life and Behavioural Sciences Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry Computer and Systems Sciences Earth and Environmental Sciences Science and Technology Policy

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The NATO Science Series continues the series of books published formerly as the NATO ASI Series. The NATO Science Programme offers support for collaboration in civil science between scientists of countries of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. The types of scientific meeting generally supported are “Advanced Study Institutes” and “Advanced Research Workshops”, although other types of meeting are supported from time to time. The NATO Science Series collects together the results of these meetings. The meetings are co-organized by scientists from NATO countries and scientists from NATO’s Partner countries – countries of the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe. Advanced Study Institutes are high-level tutorial courses offering in-depth study of latest advances in a field. Advanced Research Workshops are expert meetings aimed at critical assessment of a field, and identification of directions for future action. As a consequence of the restructuring of the NATO Science Programme in 1999, the NATO Science Series has been re-organized and there are currently five sub-series as noted above. Please consult the following web sites for information on previous volumes published in the series, as well as details of earlier sub-series: http://www.nato.int/science http://www.springeronline.nl http://www.iospress.nl http://www.wtv-books.de/nato_pco.htm

Series V. Science and Technology Policy – Vol. 49

ISSN: 1387-6708

Towards Social Stability and Democratic Governance in Central Eurasia Challenges to Regional Security

Edited by

Irina Morozova International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, the Netherlands

Copy editing: Renata Jasaitis John O’Sullivan

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop: Towards Social Stability and Democratic Governance in Central Eurasia: Challenges to Regional Security Leiden, the Netherlands 8–11 September 2004

© 2005 IOS Press. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 1-58603-545-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2005932876 Publisher IOS Press Nieuwe Hemweg 6B 1013 BG Amsterdam Netherlands fax: +31 20 687 0019 e-mail: [email protected] Distributor in the UK and Ireland IOS Press/Lavis Marketing 73 Lime Walk Headington Oxford OX3 7AD England fax: +44 1865 750079

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LEGAL NOTICE The publisher is not responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

Towards Social Stability and Democratic Governance in Central Eurasia I. Morozova (Ed.) IOS Press, 2005 © 2005 IOS Press. All rights reserved.

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Acknowledgements The present volume results from the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) “Towards Social Stability and Democratic Governance in Central Eurasia: challenges to regional security”, which was organized and held by the editor of this book and Prof. W.A.L. Stokhof, Director of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), on 8-11 September 2004 in Leiden, the Netherlands. Together with Prof. Stokhof, I express my gratitude to the NATO Science Fellowship Programme Committee for providing funding for the event and especial thanks to the Programme director, Prof. Fernando CarvalhoRodrigues for encouraging and stimulating us. Our thanks go to other sponsors of the meeting – Leiden University, the Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and especially to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), which awarded me with a fellowship to start and realize this project. The four-day workshop was prepared and run by the professional team of the IIAS and I am especially grateful to Drs. Marloes Rozing for her great organizational work and, as a result – the successful meeting we all enjoyed. My thanks and compliments to all the participants of our NATO ARW – those who publish their papers in this volume, those who will publish in other editions and those who contributed as discussants: Prof. Leonid Friedman, Dr David Lewis, Prof. Coby van der Linde, Prof. Michael Kaser, Dr Elena Sadovskaya, Prof. Touraj Atabaki, Prof. Nazim Imanov, Dr Mehdi Amineh, Dr Farkhod Tolipov, Dr Andrey Fursov, Prof. Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Dr Kashinath Pandita, Dr Beate Eschment, Dr Togrul Juvarly, Prof. Jacques Legrand, Dr Otar Kandelaki, Prof. Nina Dyulgerova, Prof. E.J. Zürcher, Dr Pynar Akcaly, Prof. Catherine Poujol, Dr Saodat Olimova, Prof. A. Bayat, Dr M. Spechler, Dr Rafis Abazov, Prof. Marat Ishankulov, Drs. Kees Homan, Drs. Nana Janashia, Prof. J. Boldbaatar, Dr Alisher Ilkhamov, Prof. Robert Cutler, Dr Paul Geiss, Dr Marfua Tokhtahodjaeva, and Dr Greg Austin. As an editor I am greatly obliged to all the authors of this book for their scientific input and sparkling ideas, from which I continue to learn and take inspiration. I am grateful to all the reviewers, who preferred to stay anonymous, and also to many colleagues of mine, who shared their professional opinions with me. I am very obliged to our copy editors – Renata Jasaitis and John O’Sullivan for their hard work and patience. I am sincerely thankful to Dr Uwe Bläsing for his assistance with the maps for this book. Irina Morozova

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List of Maps 1. Central Asia Within the Russian Empire (1895)

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2. Soviet Central Asia Before WW II

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3. Contemporary Central Asia

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4. Contemporary Caucasus

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5. Turkmenistan. Tribal Territories in the Nineteenth Century

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6. Regions of Turkmenistan

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Marcel Wielenga, Ontwerp & DTP

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x


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Uwe Bläsing, Leiden University

Contemporary Caucasus

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Contents Acknowledgements Irina Morozova List of Maps Introduction Irina Morozova

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Part I. Central Eurasian History and Societies in the longue durée Approach Central Eurasia: Historical Centrality, Geostrategic Condition and Power Model Legacy Andrey Fursov

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Nomadic Pastoral Societies-the Importance of Compromise in Dealing with Tension, Conflict and Security Jacques Legrand

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Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Democracy Versus Justice? Catherine Poujol

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Part II. Modern State-Building and Communities in Central Eurasia Nation-Building in Central Asia: Creating New State Mythologies Irina Morozova

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Post-Soviet Central Asia: From Nationhood Mythologies to Regional Cold Wars? Alisher Ilkhamov

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Regionalism and Statehood in Soviet and Independent Turkmenistan Paul Georg Geiss

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De-Authoritarization in Uzbekistan?: Analysis and Prospects Robert M. Cutler

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Part III. Economic Reform and Social Security Growth Accounting for Eight Eurasian Economies: Factors Differentiating Future Prospects from Soviet and Transition Experience Michael Kaser

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Living Standards and National Security of Central Asian Countries Leonid Friedman

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Gradual Economic Reform in Uzbekistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back Martin C. Spechler

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Labour Migration and Its Impact on Social Stability in Central Asia Elena Y. Sadovskaya

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Part IV. Political Development and Prospects for Democratisation Political and Economic Development: Correlation in Southern Caucasus Nazim Imanov

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Georgia-Challenges to Internal Security Through the Prism of External Political Priorities Nina Dyulgerova

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The Gap Between de-jure and de-facto Democratization in Uzbekistan. Nine Problems of Proto-Democracy Farkhod Tolipov

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Notes on Contributors

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Selected Bibliography

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Subject Index

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Author Index

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Introduction Irina MOROZOVA Leiden University, International Institute for Asian Studies

Over the last fifteen years, following the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the USSR, the term Central Eurasia appears to have become generally accepted, if not institutionalized in the humanities and social sciences. However, the various branches of academia still lack a precise and comprehensive concept of which area should be defined as Central Eurasia. The variability of definitions by representatives of classical national schools of Asian studies,1 on the one hand, and sociologists and political analysts, on the other hand, creates the main dilemma. The problem also derives from the fact that among the current definitions of Central Eurasia, physical geography seems to be a secondary consideration. Furthermore, the historical and cultural legacy of the peoples who inhabit the region is also not the main criterion for a definition, and the particularities of different cultures are usually sacrificed for broader typologies. The only historical-political legacy that is indisputably taken into consideration by the majority of scholars when determining Central Eurasia is the Soviet and/or socialist past. The definition of Central Eurasia as a post-Soviet geopolitical space, encompassing the former five Soviet Central Asian Republics, the Caucasus and the south-eastern regions of the Russian Federation, prevails in current political and social science. In addition, the Iranian part of the Caspian region, northern Afghanistan, Mongolia and the northern provinces of China, such as Inner Mongolia, Xingjian and even Tibet are included in the Central Eurasian domain. If we view this great territory – Central Eurasia – using the longue durée approach we see how, through invasions, migrations, trade and cultural exchange, developments in the Eurasian heartland have, for millennia, impacted upon the history of both Europe and Asia. For the last three hundred years, Central Eurasia has been the stage upon which great empires clashed. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Central Eurasia has once again emerged as a region of geo-political concern. 1

In classical Western scholarship such a broad definition as “Central Eurasia” has not been widely used. (The Russian philosophical stream “ɟɜɪɚɡɢɣɫɬɜɨ” can until now be viewed as the only example of a broad conceptualization of Central Eurasia, with its well-known discourse on Eurasian space as a special trajectory for Russian political and cultural development, as well as its missionary role for the non-European peoples who inhabited Siberia.) The term “Central Asia” is used on a wide scale, though its conceptualization differs: in German and in Russian “Mittelasian” / “ɋɪɟɞɧɹɹ Ⱥɡɢɹ” is used for the territory from the Caspian Sea to the Pamir in the east, and “Zentralasien”/ “ɐɟɧɬɪɚɥɶɧɚɹ Ⱥɡɢɹ” from the Pamir in the west to Manchuria; in French and in US historiography the same distinction is made between “Asie centrale” / “Central Asia” and “Haute Asie” / “Inner Asia”. The English term “Central Asia” often encompasses the two parts and thus has gained much popularity recently.

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I. Morozova / Introduction

The recent demand for re-writing the region’s history, and the temptation to predict future developments of the Newly Independent States (NIS), spurred a rush of publications re-conceptualizing “Central Asian modernity”. 2 Despite some recent achievements, the lack of specialization and the small number of historians in Central Asian studies have slowed the development of the field.3 The prevalence of a politicized approach to the institutionalization of these regional studies becomes especially visible in the search for a general scheme of the present development and progress that could be applied to all the states and communities within Central Eurasia. Such an approach is promoted mainly by US experts (many of whom are former Sovietologists, specialists on the Cold War) and also by a young generation of NIS academics, in particular, those scholars who are active in international projects, consultancy and the non-governmental sector. The post-Soviet Russian Asian studies (ɜɨɫɬɨɤɨɜɟɞɟɧɢɟ) also have changed their trajectories: there is a tendency for a standardized approach to all the former Soviet Republics, particularly in the light of their role in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Central Asian scholars have not made remarkable headway since independence and, as they used to during Soviet times, continue to compose what Bernard Lewis calls “invented history”4 and Benedict Anderson refers to as “imagined communities”.5 These scholars contribute to the nation-building processes in their countries; there are some bright exceptions, however. The contributors to this book, historians and sociologists, economists and anthropologists, do not have as their goal the production of definitions of Central Eurasia, but, coming from various theoretical schools and presenting innovative interdisciplinary approaches, deem to provide their views on the socio-political challenges confronting the nine Central Eurasian states (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). Socio-economic indicators, certain political tendencies and ethnic fragmentation signal the peripheral status of Central Eurasia in the current world system. However, its geo-strategic location, natural resources, and above all the large hydrocarbon reserves of the Caspian Sea may return to this huge region its former historical centrality. The new ‘centrality’ of Central Eurasia brings new security threats to the region’s population, to Europe and to the rest of the world. Repressive political regimes and marginalisation of whole groups of the population inflame conflicts that spill across national borders. 2

Akiner, S. “Social and Political Reorganisation in Central Asia: Transition from Pre-Colonial to Post-Colonial Society” in Atabaki, T. and O’Kane, John (eds.) Post-Soviet Central Asia. London, New York: Tauris Academic Studies. 1998. pp.1-34; Olcott, M.B. “Central Asia’s Post-Empire Politics” in Orbis. Philadelphia. 1992. Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 253-268; Rashid, Ahmed. The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism? Karachi: Oxford University Press. 1994; Roy, Olivier. The New Central Asia. The Creation of Nations. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers. 2000. pp. ix-xi. 3 Bregel, Y. Notes on the Study of Central Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University, Research institute for Inner Asian Studies. 1996. pp. 1-4. 4 Lewis, B. History – Remembered, Recovered, Invented. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. p. 12. See also: Dudoignon, S. “Chagements politiques et historiographie en Asie centrale (Tadjikistan et Uzbekistan)” in Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turcoiranien. No. 16, 1993, pp. 86-135. 5 Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. (New York, 1993).


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Migration to Europe, both legal and illegal, is the direct outcome of social-economic destabilization in Central Eurasia. The end of the Cold War and the current globalization have opened the doors to the region for various international actors – the USA, international monetary organizations, strategic alliances, TNCs, NGOs, regional blocks, as well as criminal groups and ethno-religious movements. The illicit production and trade of drugs add to the complexity of security problems in the region. Post-Soviet Central Eurasia, as a direct neighbour to the turbulent Middle East, is a potential playground for extremist movements: marginalized sections of the population serve for recruitment by radical Islamic groups and terrorist organizations. To resist the rapid penetration of these groups and to prevent the newly established states from falling apart along ethnic lines, the current governments have launched nation-building policies. Nation-building in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus has a complex and controversial history that goes back to the late period of the Russian Empire and the Soviet creation of nations. Together with the historical legacy, old ethnic conflicts resurfaced and have shaped concepts of the nation-centric state. The nationalistic nature of these concepts creates a serious obstacle to regional integration processes and security. Border conflicts and competition for water resources among the Central Asian ethnicities have become the unfortunate reality. Territorial disputes, especially in the Southern Caucasus, leave much doubt that the wealth accumulated by the realization of the international oil contracts will be used for peaceful solutions to these conflicts. Social stability as an integral component of human security is a priori viewed by the authors of this book as an undisputable value, while discussions on democracy and democratic governance do not produce any commonly accepted conclusion. The views and approaches of the authors can be diametrically opposed and by no means does the editor concur with all of them. The book is intended as a scientific discussion on the historical and social legacy of Central Eurasian societies, the risks and problems they face – socio-economic collapse, under- and unemployment and marginalisation, and the ability of regional governments and elites to deal effectively with these threats. The book consists of four parts covering respectively general discussions on the historical development of Central Eurasia and its socio-cultural legacies; Soviet and contemporary state organization, social transformation and communal structures; the current economic conditions as a precursor to social stability and development; and geopolitical arrangements and political changes over the last two decades. In the first chapter, Central Eurasia: Historical Centrality, Geostrategic Condition, and Power Model Legacy, Andrei Fursov looks “from a height on Central Eurasia as a historical totality in space and time” and creates, in fact, the historical concept of Eurasian social systems. He describes the geo-historical division of Central Eurasia into the Littoral Belt and the Eurasian Rim. Although the former was a reservoir of the great civilizations of the Old World, the latter, which is the Central Eurasian Heartland, was the core of historical impulses that manifested themselves through largescale migrations, great invasions and steppe empires. Using the longue durée approach, Fursov discovers “Great Eurasian 700-800-year cycles” that could be seen in the continent-scale migrations: the Indo-European migration in the twelfth century BC, Alexander the Great’s Drang nach Osten, the third- and

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fourth-century Hsiung-nu (the Huns) migration into the Eastern European Plain and further to the West, the Crusades, the Mongolian conquests and the emergence and spread of the world capitalist system. Capitalism, which emerged in Western Europe, formed the Eurasian North-Atlantic world that started to integrate the Eurasian space into it. When the global maritime eastward expansion of Europe began in the sixteenth century, the cycles of the newly-formed world capitalist system began to interact with the great Eurasian cycles with a tendency to dominate them. However, for more than two millennia before Modernity, Central Eurasia, particularly its eastern part, was the epicentre of all major changes in Eurasia and produced a strong legacy of power organization, which the author terms the Central Eurasian Power Model (CEPM). CEPM, which constituted itself in the great steppe empires, could effectively cover and provide social control over the huge Eurasian space and in modified and adjusted forms influence not only the entire continent of Eurasia, but world history. Fursov describes the essentials of CEPM: a pastoral economy and nomadic military power based on a combination of violence and consent, primacy of population and service over land, primacy of power over property, and extralegality. CEPM can be distinctly seen in the structure of the Great Mongol Empire. The Golden Horde was the inheritor of the Great Mongol Empire, although it had certain inbuilt power regulations and limits established by steppe law, custom, tradition and ritual. In relation to the Russian lands, the Horde functioned as an extralegal power by imposing control from a distance. These extralegal power features were adopted by Russian princes, especially by the Moscovian ones, who ruled the Russian population on behalf of the Mongol (Golden Horde) tsar.6 The new post-Mongol Russia inherited the above-mentioned main features of the Golden Horde power model. The totality of these features are evident in the fact that autocracy tended to be the only social mono-subject, not letting any other group or organisation become a real and socially significant subject. Russian communism, the apogee of Russian autocracy, manifested itself beyond society, population, and dominant groups acted as its sole functions or organs. This extralegal power could be both revolution and reaction at the same time. In addition, Fursov points out that the Russian extralegality cannot be equated with Western Absolutism or Eastern Despotism, since these forms had more in common with each other than with Russian autocracy – both of them were in principle limited and highly institutional forms of power. It was only CEPM in its developed late Russian power form, which could become a systemic anti-capitalism. The author proves that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was an organization of superlegality; it stood above the law and its decisions provided direction for Soviet law. As the inheritors of CEPM, the Russian Empire and the USSR in the twentieth century became a stumbling block for the North-Atlantic expansion, which in turn was a logical result of the Mongol’s unification of Eurasia. Fursov argues that the fall of the USSR closes the Great Eurasian cycle, which began in 1211 with the march of Genghis Khan into Northern China. 6 See also: Seiden, Jacob. The Mongol impact on Russia from the 13th century to the present: Mongol contributions to the political institutions of Muscovy, Imperial Russia, and the Soviet state. Georgetown University. 1971. Vols I-III.


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Pointing out the conditional character of all historical analogies, Fursov, nevertheless, suggests that the current situation in Central Eurasia with the establishment of the 15 sovereign states resembles the situation after the fall of the Great Mongol Empire and the Tamerlane Empire. Nowadays, instead of khanates, emirates and tribal unions, the NIS are launching nation-building processes. These states are vulnerable to globalization, as is the nation-state concept itself. They are pressed by global financial markets from above and criminal enterprises from below. Globalization that determines the Great-Game-2 in Central Eurasia strengthens economic and social polarization, provoking social unrest and conflict. The centrality of Central Eurasia returns, above all, in the current competition for oil, gas, uranium, communication lines and in the illegal economy – the trade in narcotics and arms. Thus, we may be witnessing the start of the next Great Eurasian cycle. Jacques Legrand’s chapter, Nomadic Pastoral Societies – The Importance of Compromise in Dealing with Tension, Conflict and Security, also presents a historical systemic analysis of nomadic pastoral societies, though from another position – that of an anthropologist. He studies nomadic systems and cultures, their legitimacy and relationships with neighbouring cultures and focuses in particular on the way nomadic pastoral societies deal with changing ecological, technological, demographic and historical conditions. As Fursov does, he considers the historical impact of nomadic pastoralism on Eurasian societies and cultures. His approach to the study of nomadic societies goes beyond general definitions of state and empire. Legrand points out the impossibility of using the sedentary cultures’ categories for the analysis of nomadic societies and the underestimation of the nomadic contribution to sedentary political cultures. Nomadic pastoralism is a mode of appropriation of natural spaces and resources to maintain resources and avoid risks. Pastoralism can satisfy basic human needs and provide a buffer between man and nature by creating various strategies to compensate for the fragility and irregularity of resources. Among those various strategies, dispersion appears to be the key: although it generates contradictions and conflicts, it also serves as a means of control over limited primary resources. The nomadic population disperses into small groups that establish control over limited pastures and herds. Even if maximization of herds or extension of pasture space takes place, it bears a limitation upon the growth of humans and herds. The author finds this “demographic stability” in the long-term history of the steppe peoples, including the Mongols. Mobility is a tool of dispersion. Seasonal pasture migrations maintain the production process inside a spatial and territorial framework; Legrand argues that seasonal nomadic migrations aim not only to face the needs of the herds, but more importantly to preserve pasture resources. The predominant succession pattern in a nomadic society guarantees that the inheritance is transmitted to children not after their parents’ death, but when young people reach adulthood. Matrimonial alliances, thus, play an important role in physical dispersion of the population into small groups. Large gatherings generally arise only before the actual formation of nomadic pastoralism or when the alliances redefine themselves. In a developed nomadic pastoral society any numerous gathering implies a rapid exhaustion of neighbouring pastures and resources, leading to massive and frequent moves.

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Nomadic pastoral groups are extremely sensitive to minimal variations in their own and neighbours’ organizations, which could be the reason for direct political and military interventions in order to maintain the balance of power. However, the complex alliance relations can prevent that. Nomadic pastoral society develops by building and managing relationship networks with neighbouring or distant partner or rival groups. This creates a certain attitude to the outside world that can never be neglected or ignored. This feature, according to the author, albeit not exclusively nomadic, vividly contrasts with the selfcentred priorities of sedentary communities. The flexibility of the networks allows the nomads to respond to changing situations however sharp they might be. Gatherings are defensive responses to most critical situations, during which a dominant group (aristocracy) may become superior by demonstrating proper skills and power and invoke legitimacy. Legrand interprets the emergence of a nomadic power as a seizure of primary resources from other protagonists. He argues (using historical examples, also from Mongolian sources) that the history of conflicts and wars in which the nomads participated reveals mostly their personal competition, search for vengeance and tendencies to establish new relationships. Thus, Legrand concludes that in nomadic political culture compromise is a more common solution than in sedentary cultures. Pastoral societies need to produce empires, which they, however, are unable to sustain on their own. Contradictions within nomadic society push the empire to seek outside resources.7 Legrand emphasizes the necessity of interdisciplinary study of the nomadic empires and their relations with sedentary cultures – using political sociolinguistics, ethno linguistics, analysis of political discourses and, particularly, social psychology. The author concludes that in order to suggest effective solutions to the ongoing conflicts in Central Eurasia one should examine the mentalities and perceptions of the world shared by the people living in the region, their priorities and hopes, and how their motives and behavior interact with their nomadic historical background. Catherine Poujol is one of the most critical observers among the contributors to this book on the discourse on democracy in post-Soviet Central Asia. In her chapter, Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia: Democracy versus Justice?, she argues for the existence of a bipolarity in the world public domain between Western adherents of democracy and human rights, and the supporters of social justice and the values of Islam. As with Fursov and Legrand, she uses the longue durée approach and makes an excursion into the history of Central Asia, dwelling in particular on the position of Islam in Soviet times. The author discovers the persistency of Islam in the Central Asia and the socialcultural compromise the Moscow Bolshevik leaders had to reach with the Muslim clergy. She finds that the Lenin April Thesis, which called for the right to self-determination, reflects the discourse of social justice that seemed so tempting to the local political leaders who desired a new life and identity. WWII also imposed a set of compromises on Stalin with the Soviet Muslims, which was expressed in the establishment of an official 7

On pastoral nomadism and the functioning of nomadic empires see also: Kradin N.N. Imperiya Hunnu [The Hsiung-nu Empire]. Vladivostok, 1996. pp. 20-25.


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Islamic-communist body the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (SADUM). This official religious structure provided a minimal Islamic participation in an official atheistic state. The Soviet Muslim leaders acted as an interface between the Soviet state and their own society and were inclined to unite with the communists against the rise of political Islam in the USSR from the 1970s onwards. The Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 enabled the Soviet Muslim communities to get acquainted with new, outside Muslim discourses, fashions and representations. In fact, Islam in Central Asia was not completely eradicated by the Soviets and did not revive from almost nothing during Perestroika. In an evaluation of the inheritance of the Soviet political system, still evident in current power structures in Central Asia, Poujol discovers the rise of Homo Islamosovieticus in Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Turkmen national concepts. Although Central Asian states are officially secular states, they have Muslim majorities; even before independence they had developed a strong cultural resistance to Western values. Nowadays they refuse to apply “democratic dogmas” as simple transplantations, mandatory for implementing a market economy. On the contrary, they prefer to demonstrate the existence of the endogenous concept of democracy found in the Islamic community culture and consensus. Poujol writes that the concept of democracy is interpreted in local mentalities as consensus, justice and equality that communities use to regulate themselves. The author points out that in the new post-September 11 world, the question of democracy is problematic even in Western countries, where a drastic shortfall in human rights can be observed in response to new security challenges and terrorism. Central Asian governments claim that they are even less ready for the “luxury” of democracy; instead, national security is prioritised. Among other official post-September 11 political simplifications shared by US, Russian and Central Asian governments, is an undisputable, practically automatic link between any public violent act connected with Islam and international terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, the author warns against simplistic comparisons in the region and points out the necessity to take each country as a separate case. Part Two of the book includes four chapters covering Soviet and contemporary state and communal structures, administration, nation-building processes and unofficial clan politics in Central Asia. In my own chapter, Nation-building in Central Asia: creating new state mythologies, I start by sketching the historical legacy of present-day social and ethnic relationships in Central Asia. The dichotomy of traditional communal structures and the supreme sovereign power above these structures is discussed. This power was (and was perceived as) external to the local communities and could preserve its dominance as long as it maintained a strong, but compromised control over the whole population. Thus, the Tsarist administration in the nineteenth century did not go into a substantial conflict with the Central Asian nomadic and agricultural communities until it started to directly interfere with the local management – by redistributing lands and water, endeavouring to reform traditional and religious legal systems. In Tsarist times kinship aristocratic lineages eroded, but kinship structures and identity at the horizontal level remained strong. In Soviet times these traditional

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communal relationships adjusted painfully, but gradually to state-party hierarchies. I discuss the “historical division” of Central Asia in 1924, using recently published archival materials, pointing out the crucial importance of the land reform in the 1920s that sharpened inter-ethnic conflicts, on the one hand, and consolidated the new local ruling strata, on the other hand. Soviet local authorities were formed according to kinship ties and territorial identities, and by the 1960s the national Republican cadres were promoted in all political spheres and social institutions. Integration of already mutated traditional social regulations, such as kinships and clans, into the Soviet power hierarchy made the whole political and social system very stable in Central Asia. I argue that the main principle of communist redistribution of power and property and ways of maintaining them corresponded to local traditional institutions. So far, in the scheme – “Moscow, CPSU – local administration in the Republics” the old historical principle of “external control – local horizontal administration” could be seen. The second part of the chapter analyzes the post-Soviet identities in Central Asia including “titular nation” identity, greater ethnical (Turkic) identity and religious identities. While the search for a common nation-state identity (and the concept of nationstate was originally brought to Central Asia by Soviet social science) continues in these countries, local identities, as many times before, have retained their meaning and strength. I discuss unofficial, non-legitimized kinship and clan solidarity groups and view the current social system in Central Asian countries as a symbiosis of traditional communal and Soviet structures that makes a special type of Central Asian clan that manifests itself in kinship, family ties and territorial principle of redistribution of welfare. Central Asian clan identity by no means corresponds to Western concepts of democracy and civil society, which are imposed on the communities from above. Although the governments make official declarations of democracy and basic freedoms, there is a tendency to restore some traditional communal institutions, especially in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The hypertrophied presidential cults in these countries could be also viewed as a particularistic remaking of the concept of khans and sultans, master, “father of the nation”, with a long genealogy and great historical traditions behind him. At the end of the chapter the differences in presidential cults and state politics in different Central Eurasian countries, especially in Mongolia, are considered. In Post-Soviet Central Asia: from nationhood mythologies to regional cold wars? Alisher Ilkhamov further develops the topic of nation-building processes, mythologization of national histories and ethnic conflicts in Central Asia. The author refers to the awakening of inter-ethnic tensions at the beginning of independence and points out a number of positive trends in the last decade. However, Central Asian governments continue to provoke nationalistic moods against the background of a relatively unstable regional environment that is expressed, above all, in delimitation of borders and disagreement over territories, numerous violent border incidents, visa restrictions between Central Asian states since 1999 and disputes over water and energy issues. Ilkhamov particularly points out that these cases of mutual mistreatment have become possible in the atmosphere created by the construction of national ideologies. He sees Central Asian nationhood ideologies as a mythological construction and suggests a deconstruction of the make-up of these nationhood mythologies into the two


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main categories they comprise: Epos as imagined ancestry and national history, and Ethos as identification of “us” versus “others”. After the establishment of the NIS and their release from Russian patronage and communist ideology, new nationalistic historical concepts developed in Central Asia, often resulting in quarrels over historical and cultural heritage. The dominant principle is an unfortunate simplification: who was born, or died, on “our” territory is “our” ancestor. Thus, history and archaeology have become an integral part of the nationhood ideology, since some representatives of these disciplines have provided the rulers with “immemorial ancestry”. Ilkhamov stresses that the present versions of Uzbek identity, largely designed by Soviet historiography, have a strong link to the national statehood and little in common with the meaning of Uzbekness before the twentieth century.8 Another side to nationhood mythology is the selective choice of an ancestor group and an imagined golden age, the link between which and the current progeny is enforced by a set of national symbols, most of them historical figures – great warriors, philosophers or poets who sang of national ideals. Among these glorified historical figures are, for instance, Tamerlane in Uzbekistan, Oguz-khan in Turkmenistan. The designers of the present Central Asia nationhood mythologies choose for petrified national identities, expressed in an isolationist approach that by itself provokes conspiracy theories and ethnocentrism, as well as a teleological evolutionary representation of national histories, in which the present should be regarded as the natural culmination of the nation’s evolution. Ethnocentrism leads to the exclusion of other groups, despite the publicly exhibited generosity of the titular nation towards minorities. In order to claim titular legitimacy, the ethnicity needs to constitute a majority in their respective territory; following Soviet practices, the current national administrations often manipulate statistics, on which the author provides some data and analysis. Ethnocentrism expresses itself in various forms of ethno-narcissism, self-glorification and national virtues. To illustrate these processes, Ilkhamov provides a number of detailed accounts. At the end of his chapter, Ilkhamov discusses the popular theory of transition applied by many Westerners to current Central Asian states. The author criticizes this approach which, from his point of view, serves as additional tool for repressive Central Asian regimes to justify the lack of reforms and democratic development. The author sees the enforcement of nationhood mythologies as the main stumbling block to real progress in the region. The discussion on statehood and regionalism in Central Asia is continued by Paul Geiss, who analyses authority relations and state structures of Soviet and contemporary Turkmenistan in the chapter, Regionalism and Statehood in Soviet and Independent Turkmenistan. As with Ilkhamov, Geiss is critical of transitology which imposes a certain analytical framework on area specialists and comparatists, preventing them from distinguishing different societal and state contexts of non-European societies. Geiss exposes the mixing of terminology such as regionalism, tribes and clans for contemporary Central Asia and the “conceptual stretching” of these terms from a prestate to a state organized society. The author finds it theoretically and historically inappropriate to conceptualize political change in Turkmenistan as a problem of 8

For discussion on this topic of Alisher Ilkhamov see: Etnograficheskoe obozrenie [Ethnographic review]. No. 1: January-February 2005. pp. 23-92.

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democratization, but suggests to sociologise the study of political change in Central Asia, using the historical comparative method. The national delimitation of Central Asia and establishment of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (TSSR) promoted Turkmen nationality as a cultural community by standardizing a Turkmen literary language and introducing compulsory education. The development of the Soviet Turkmen administration and party structures, also through the collective farms’ system, police and schooling extended state control over the whole population and accelerated detribalization. The recruitment of local cadres from the titular Turkmen nationality reshaped the political elite’s orientation towards territorial units and enforced the new redistribution system. State officials, being in the position to acquire a greater share of welfare for themselves and their clientele, contributed to the Soviet stratification of society. The former major tribal groups did not entirely lose their territorial identity, but their tribal political orientations were replaced by regional ones, the new territorial units, enabling the regional elites to compete within the Soviet system and with the silent agreement of Moscow. Moscow selected leading Turkmen cadres and balanced regional affiliation by promoting cadres from different regions to senior positions, on which the author gives comprehensive data. Competition between regional clientele networks was also constrained by European second party secretaries and other European party members. Geiss argues that although patrimonial enclaves within the Turkmen communist party structures were persistent, the Soviet state managed to establish a strong territorial administration that destroyed tribal politics by transforming them into political clientelism within a hierarchic ruling organization. In Turkmenistan – as in all other Central Asian republics – independence gave way to the patrimonialisation of state structures and the break up of the Union’s control mechanism led to the introduction of personality-driven presidential regimes. Geiss finishes his chapter with a sketch of Turkmenistan’s president, Saparmurat Niyazov, his political and administrative reforms, as well as his tactics in dealing with local regional authorities and managing new appointments throughout the country. The author concludes that the current political system of Turkmenistan is an extreme form of neopatrimonial rule, where the unity of the state relies on the personal loyalty and obedience of officials to the head of the state, who rules without restraint. Robert Cutler’s chapter, De-Authoritarization in Uzbekistan? Analysis and Prospects, presents his approach to theorizing on and sociologising post-Soviet Central Asia. In the first part he provides the reader with a comprehensive reference to discussions of recent reinvigoration of elite theory as a result of studies of postcommunist transformations in East Central Europe, emphasizing the usage of the “transformation” approach rather than the “transition” one and the “de-authoritarization” process instead of “democratization”. The author argues that the development of the Soviet system under Khrushchev illustrates that even a totalitarian regime can undergo certain de-authoritarization without changing its essential form: the ruling elite seeking simultaneously self-preservation and maintenance of the political system leads the system to its end. Under Khrushchev the first phase of de-authoritarization (mobilization from the bottom up) was marked by the subordination of the KGB to the CPSU and the “thaw” in literature and art. From 1956-


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1969, following the 21st Congress of the CPSU, the authorities began to rein in this mobilization of the public sphere through the imposition of new aspects of political conformance from the top down. The third phase of this political cycle (1959/60-64) saw the reformation of the institutions of governance (consolidation of organized officialdom) expressed in Krushchev’s administrative reorganizations of various elite-level and regime-level bodies. Within this framework the chapter investigates political change in Uzbekistan since 1983, the year after Brezhnev’s death. The author discerns two political cycles. During the first one (1983-1989), Moscow attempted to intensify the consolidation of organized officialdom in Uzbekistan, facing first conformity in the public sphere, and only in 1988-89 the outbreak of generalized political mobilization among the mass population in Uzbekistan. At the end of this cycle, Islam Karimov became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz); Uzbek became the official language; and the claim for nationality rights was substituted by the claim for religious autonomy and some of the members of the opposition movement, Birlik, began to demand political democracy in Uzbekistan. The second cycle begins in the period 1989-91 with the collapse of the USSR. The mobilization of civil society did not decrease and even continued to grow in 199293. However, the pre-independence period of intra-elite conflict made it impossible for the new leaders to address the new political claims; on the contrary, Karimov started a brutal crackdown (a top-down enforcement of conformance to rein in the public sphere), which in time proved to be a thorough political repression. As Cutler concludes, the brief de-authoritarization of the late 1980s and early 1990s was not just reversed, but entirely uprooted. Cutler analyzes the Karimov’s harsh struggle to come to power, his first administrative reforms, as well as his actions against opposition movements. According to the author, from 1994 to the present we have been witnessing a consolidation of organized officialdom in Uzbekistan: dissidence and autonomous political articulation still extant at the end of 1993 has been eliminated; Karimov has enhanced his grip on the administrative apparatus and tightened his extensive political controls; and activities of religious organizations have been limited. In order to launch the domestic antiauthoritarian mobilization, the support of international public opinion is required, says the author, and the perspective dialogue between the elite and community sectors should contribute to the differentiation between bottom-up social-political behaviour and topdown mandatory political practices. Part Three of the book consists of four chapters on economics in post-Soviet Central Eurasia, starting with an analysis of macro-economic parameters of all the states in the region. This section includes reflections on living conditions, with a special focus on the economic reforms in Uzbekistan, and finishes with the record of current migration trends. In Growth Accounting for Eight Eurasian Economies: Factors Differentiating Future Prospects from Soviet and Transition Experience, Michael Kaser examines the recovery of the eight Central Asian and Caucasian economies after the decline they experienced with the break-up of the USSR, and provides some useful comparisons with Mongolia. The author analyses the total factor productivity in the late Soviet period and

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after independence and discusses the influence of increased openness to trade and the inflow of foreign investment. The author begins with an overview of the data on growth accounting collated by him, emphasizing the still-continuing effect of the former central-planning system with its overestimated industrial growth and other drawbacks on the present statistical collections and publications in the countries under study. Kaser outlines the price liberalization at the beginning of the 1990s, which was followed by rapid inflation and depreciation of exchange rates, the severe recessions in all the republics and the incomplete and problematic introduction of market mechanisms as additional complications to the interpretations of long-run trends in growth accounting. Kaser makes an excursion into the last two Soviet decades, arguing that the period of 1965-1985 was the most ‘normal’ for Soviet central planning: Brezhnev’s political ‘stagnation’ provided a stable economic environment into which Gorbachev’s perestroika in 1985-91 introduced some elements of market economy. In 1970-1990 the inputs of labour and capital continued at typically Soviet ‘extensive’ rates and investment throughout each of the eight economies increased capital per worker at the remarkably high rate of 4 per cent annually (although this was accompanied by a productivity gain in only four republics). Four Central Asian republics demonstrated actual decline in total factor productivity (the Kyrgyz Republic showed little change), while the three Caucasian republics experienced the highest productivity gains in the USSR, equalled only by Belarus. The process of establishing the infrastructure for independence often went at the expense of democratization, favouring a statist rather than a market-competitive economic system. Corruption and clan affiliation also hindered economic stabilization. The national capital stock became disused or was not redeployed. Unemployment rose as labour requirements fell. A shorter time in recession (particularly in Mongolia and Armenia) allowed more time for structural reform and enabled the countries to move more quickly to a market economy, the author argues. He presents estimates of capital formation and employment and GDP in index numbers based on 1990. Kaser points out the difficulties of defining the value of unmeasured economic activity – the “shadow economy”. However, its ratio measured against GDP is greater in the republics at present than it was in Soviet period. Corruption and the relative value of migrants’ remittances negatively influence the size of the shadow economy. Openness to foreign direct investments and to world technology should enhance capital productivity; however, governments with ample funds may be tempted towards the construction of prestige projects with low productive returns. Kaser concludes by commenting that openness to the economic gains to be derived from globalization need not weaken the distinctive culture and historical tradition which governments seek to protect and adapt to the needs of contemporary society. One of the key chapters dealing with human security is the contribution by Leonid Friedman – Living Standards and National Security of Central Asian Countries. The author points out that although security is a combination of various external and internal economic, social and political factors, in the end, the main measure of stability is the dynamics of indicators characterizing the living standards of the majority of the population. Friedman analyzes both value indicators (salaries and pensions, household


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consumption, the volume of retail trade turnover) and the so-called “natural” indicators (food, clothing, durables, education and health care). During the years of economic crisis, the incomes of the majority of former Soviet citizens rapidly declined; real wages and the purchasing power of pensions reduced 2-4 times and the volume of trade turnover declined by 40-50%. Personal savings accumulated by the beginning of the 1990s were lost. Payments of wages, pensions and allowances were frequently postponed. Under- and unemployment became a threat to millions of people. Nutrition levels of the majority of the population worsened. People started to consume two-three times less of products such as meat, milk and eggs, returning to bread-vegetable-potatoes ration that had been common in the 1950-60s. Purchases in durables such as TV sets, refrigerators and washing machines declined in most Central Asian countries. The social systems of recreation and vacation, pre-school education and summer camps for children deteriorated. At the end of the 1990s and beginning of 2000 the situation slowly improved. However, even now the level of real wages and purchasing power of pensions, average retail trade turnover, as well as consumption of qualitative products remain lower than the maximum pre-crisis level. Nevertheless, most countries preserved the secondary education system despite the budget cuts, and in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan the number of students at universities and third-level institutes increased 1.5 – 3 times. The Soviet system of medical service was also retained in Central Asia and helped to avoid mass epidemics during the rapid decline in living standards. In general, despite the reconstruction and economic growth of the last seven to nine years, practically in all of the Central Asian states have deep-rooted internal conflicts. Social and political instability remains prominent and sometimes has even increased because of structural economic changes. Friedman supports transition theory for Central Asia and concludes that the current transition process from an administrativecommand to a market economy is complicated by negative tendencies in the political sphere, such as authoritarian tendencies and personal cults of the presidents. In Gradual Economic Reform in Uzbekistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back, Martin Spechler presents his analysis of the country’s progress since its independence from the USSR in 1991 till spring 2005. He characterizes the state-led economic reforms in post-Soviet Uzbekistan as being orientated towards a gradualist path to a market economy and views the country as the most economically promising of the Central Eurasian states. Uzbekistan is one of the poorer economies of the region, if judged at purchasing power parity conversion rates. At the same time, if the official statistics are followed, this country has achieved an overall GDP level, relative to 1991, ahead of all other CIS countries. As the author points out, this is possible because Uzbekistan did not suffer such a deep “transition depression” as its neighbours at the beginning of the 1990s. Spechler explains that the shallow depression resulted from the low level of industrialization in Soviet Uzbekistan and reliance on cotton and self-sufficiency in energy after independence. The author states that the Uzbek government has been able to

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maintain cotton production and direct it to more advantageous world markets, although by means of strong-arm methods and monopsonistic exploitation of cotton farmers.9 According to official statistics, Uzbekistan has experienced steady growth since 1996. However, the author emphasizes the necessity to regard the figures with caution, especially those indicating growth rates. Spechler’s analysis indicates that trade and services, general government, mining and agriculture have been growth sectors, while manufacturing seriously lagged during 1996-2003. The unmeasured, “shadow economy” has increased during the 1990s. The author discusses the so-called “Uzbek road”, particularly stressing President Islam Karimov’s “borrowings” from the prior experiences of China, Republic of Korea and other Asian countries, where traditional values of stability and hierarchy are upheld. Thus, as in Soviet practice, the Uzbek state took upon itself the role of stabilizing incomes and set price controls, subsidies, and targeted taxation. However, the Uzbek civil service has been overworked and poorly paid and demonstrated strong tendencies towards corruption and, consequently, inefficiency. Spechler distinguishes four phases of reform in Uzbekistan: stabilization from 1991 to 1993, initial market reforms 1993-1996, retreat from inconvertibility 1996-2002, and return to convertibility, 2003-05. During the first two years after independence, the Uzbek government focused on preserving social stability in the Soviet style while disengaging from Moscow’s influence. In 1993 the Uzbek national currency, the soum, appeared. Small and medium sized enterprises started to emerge; the so-called shuttle traders began their business. Some adopted liberal laws favoured foreign direct investment, and the government invested heavily in a new international airline, oil and chemical refineries and a number of manufacturing ventures, such as the UzDaewoo car plant. Inflation rates fell from an official 1132% in 1994 to 28% by 1997. In the second half of the 1990s Uzbekistan experienced setbacks as did practically all post-Soviet republics. The author argues that under international pressure and the signed Memorandum with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Uzbek government made the soum convertible for exporters and tourists, if not for investors or emigrants by October 2003. Spechler also dwells upon the international economic relations of Uzbekistan and the US and Russia’s current politics towards this country, as well as inter-state conflicts in Central Asia. Although these states are hardly guaranteed sustainable growth and political stability, they have managed to get through fourteen years without major interstate armed conflicts; this result that cannot be attributed to any regional institutions or big-power influence, but solely to the Central Asian states themselves. In the chapter Labour Migration and its Impact on Social Stability in Central Asia, Elena Sadovskaya analyzes the main trends in labour migration in five Central Asian states and their impact upon social stability in these countries and in the region. After the collapse of the Soviet welfare system in the 1990s, labour migration became one of the alternative means of employment and, despite its sometimes unregulated and illegal character, it has helped hundreds of thousands people to support their families.

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On the current cotton politics in Uzbekistan see: “The Curse of Cotton: Central Asia’s Destructive Monoculture” International Crisis Group Asia Report # 93, 28 February 2005, pp. 36, 12-14, 16-26.


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Sadovskaya discusses the common infrastructures, transportation and communication systems, economic, financial, sociocultural relations and human ties within the CIS and mentions Russia’s role as the main country attracting migrants. Throughout the 1990s migration from Central Asian countries was caused by such factors as economic crises and discriminative nation-building policies; since 2000 the improved economic conditions in Russia are attracting migrants to the country. The role of Kazakhstan in the region has changed: due to the dynamic economic reforms and a more favourable socioeconomic situation (first of all due to the high oil prices) it has become a destination country for Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The author analyzes different “push” and “pull” factors for migration in all the five Central Asian countries. She particularly points out under- and unemployment, the balance of demand and supply in the labour market, salary levels and living conditions, de-urbanization and a deteriorating infrastructure, and problems in the housing market and migrant networks. In Tajikistan the emigration was also caused by civil war in the period 1992-1997; in Uzbekistan – by overpopulation and economic deprivation, particularly in the Fergana valley; and in Turkmenistan – by political pressure, especially on highly qualified and educated cadres. Sadovskaya’s analysis distinguishes among legal, irregular and illegal flows of migration, providing figures taken from various, rare sources and data collected in the field. The author suggests her explanation for the gaps, mismatches and differences in the estimations of migrant numbers by official statistical bodies, experts and other sources; and she also presents her own estimation. Irregular and illegal migrants by far outnumber legal ones and are also considerably more damaging for the national budget of the receiving country. Moreover, irregular and illegal migration distorts economic and social relations by creating conditions for bribery and corruption among civil servants. Sadovskaya gives informative profiles on labour migration for the five Central Asian countries, particularly focusing on remittances and their effect on improving living standards of the migrants’ families. Pointing out the positive stabilizing role of migration, the author, however, recognizes its negative impact as well: worsening of health conditions of the migrants, damage to their family life and brain drain. Unregistered migrant workers suffer from exploitation, low wages and lack of proper working conditions and social protection (the author gives an account of the rights of labour migrants). Immigrant workers are often objects of hostility from locals who view them as competitors, thus, xenophobia and migrantophobia are spreading, especially in Russia and Kazakhstan. At the end of her chapter the author stresses the necessity of further interdisciplinary research on contemporary labour migration as a new social phenomenon and a problem that requires practical solutions. Part Four presents some analysis of the correlation between economics and domestic and international politics in the region and suggests prospects for future regional development, including democratization. In his chapter Political and Economic Development: Correlation in Southern Caucasus, Nazim Imanov discusses linkages between economics and politics in the three Caucasian Republics – Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia – from regional and national perspectives. The author questions beliefs that economic cooperation can succeed in relieving regional inter-state conflicts and expresses his conviction that conflict resolution is a necessary precondition for effective economic cooperation in the Caucasus.

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One of the most ferocious conflicts in the Southern Caucasus was the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorny Karabagh. The outcome of the war, in which Armenia dominated, is considered by Azerbaijanis as illegal occupation and by Armenians as a legitimate act of self-determination. Georgia is experiencing territorial problems in Ajaria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Javakheti.10 According to Imanov, each of the Caucasian states talks of the uniqueness of territorial problems in their region, while at the same time tries to justify the settlement of problems in its own favour. In the current regional geopolitical arrangements, Azerbaijan and Georgia act as allies. Imanov gives basic macroeconomic indicators for the three states, noticing that although significant economic growth has taken place over the last few years, the economies have not recovered over a longer timeframe (over the last 15 years). The prosperity indicators in all three countries are low and the Caucasian countries are poorer than the other states with a similar level of GDP per capita. Revenues obtained from labour and capital migration serve as an essential source of income for Caucasian states, but are not recorded by official statistical organs. Unregistered and/or illegal employment also is not reflected in the official unemployment rate (the author’s own calculations estimate a 30% unemployment rate in each of the Caucasian states). The main reason for the high level of unemployment in Azerbaijan is that oil and gas production and exports are not labour intensive. Despite the unfortunate economic realities, the right is the dominant political philosophy: even left-wing politicians in Azerbaijan have similar economic slogans to parties on the right: privatisation, tax reduction, smaller government, redistribution of a smaller portion of national income through the state budget, etc. Acknowledging some achievements in conducting liberal reforms in the Caucasus, Imanov argues that the countries could perform much more effectively if, above all, they managed to reach a solution to the territorial disputes. In the main body of his chapter, the author describes how political instability in the Caucasus prevents domestic economies from developing further, arguing that the fundamental pre-condition for long-term economic progress is not political and macroeconomic stability, but democratic development: an optimal balance must be achieved between the private and public sectors; between taxation and service provision; between foreign trade and market protection; and between encouraging foreign investors and stimulating local investment. Imanov also stresses the importance of research on political stability, namely stability of the government, and the influence stability has upon economic reforms. The government’s performance largely depends on public opinion – on the population’s perceptions of the state redistribution of welfare, and this redistribution is widely recognized as unfair in Azerbaijan. The author concludes that there is a higher degree of economic independence than political development almost everywhere in the Southern Caucasus. Until a certain level of economic development has been reached, internal political development is unattainable. There is also a well-known dissonance between resource abundance in Azerbaijan and democratic development. Economic development built upon the export of natural resources does not pave the way for democratic change: at a certain point, improvements in living standards among distinct social groups almost automatically 10

There are also problems connected with the Talysh and the Lezgin ethnicities in Azerbaijan: although they are on a much smaller scale, they did and still can cause territorial disputes in Azerbaijan.


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weaken people’s desire for political and even economic changes. The channelling of a significant part of the huge income received from oil exports to social welfare mitigates discontent in the country and drastically limits the electoral base of the political opposition. Imanov speaks against the widely shared opinion that the key to regional stability in the Caucasus is interstate economic cooperation: the current territorial disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan do not create any circumstances for such cooperation. The dominant spirit in Azerbaijan, for example, is to strengthen the economy in order to ensure its territorial integrity; and in Armenia, – the overall opinion is that a sustainable strong economy should be achieved to “protect” Karabagh. The author states that the solution to the territorial disputes in the Southern Caucasus is intractable without the intervention of the world community and international organisations, such as the UN, OSCE, and NATO. The chapter Georgia – Challenges to Internal Security through the Prism of External Political Priorities by Nina Dyulgerova continues the discussion on territorial disputes in the Southern Caucasus in a broader geopolitical perspective. The post 9/11 military-strategic reorientation of the Caucasus and the neighbouring Central Asia is supported by projects aimed at increasing the political, economic and military dependency of these countries on the EU, NATO and the USA, argues Dyulgerova. She describes Georgia as a key state determining the general political climate in the CaspianBlack Sea area. Until now Georgia, being geo-politically and geo-economically highly dependent on Russia, has demonstrated a clear pro-Western orientation, as has Azerbaijan; Armenia, by contrast, is practically a satellite of Russia. Georgia enters the twenty-first century as an unstable country with high unemployment and broad criminality. Georgia’s decrease in GDP between 1990 and 1995 was the largest among all the post-Soviet Republics, making this country extremely dependent on foreign financial and humanitarian aid. In the second part of the 1990s economic growth was achieved, mainly due to the Georgia’s role as a transition territory. However, the huge shadow economy slows socio-economic development. In 2004, the new economic drive of the Saakashvili government has stopped corrupt privatization, restructured debts and focused on developing measures to support Georgian products in the international markets and attracting foreign investors. Georgia’s economic achievements in 2004 were impressive: GDP for 2004 increased to 8.4%, and the receipts in the state budget increased by 1.5 times, according to the official data. Since Georgia is highly dependent on energy supplies, its main energy priorities are to diversify the energy and energy carriers’ suppliers, as well as to profit from the possibilities for transit through the country’s territory. Oil needs are met through supplies from Azerbaijan and Russia. In this triangle, Moscow is a constant power, while Georgia and Azerbaijan are looking for allies to end their geo-economic dependence on Russia. Another challenge to successful economic reform is Georgia’s integrity: the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (as well as the separatist Ajaria, until March 2004) openly disobey the centre. The main currency in Ossetia and Abkhazia now is the Russian ruble. Moreover, local residents do not need visas for Russia. In Georgian Javakheti, where the main population is Armenian, pro-Armenian feelings are strong. Russia officially recognizes the territorial integrity of Georgia, but does not actively reject calls for Abkhazian independence, adding fuel to anti-Russian sentiments

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in Tbilisi. In addition, the author notes, Russia cannot lose its military bases in Georgia without finally destroying its influence in the region, which is a constant source of diplomatic dispute. Moscow has accused Tbilisi many times that it supported Chechen terrorists, who in recent years have been using the Pankin defile as their base. Duylgerova provides her explanation why, despite the mutual accusations, Moscow and Tbilisi need a solution to the Chechen and Abkhazian problems that is beneficial to each side. She also comments on the contradictions between the USA, NATO and Russia in the Caucasus, giving her analysis of the situation and sketching possible scenarios of future events. In the second part of her chapter Dyulgerova presents a detailed account of the development of domestic politics in the separatist regions of Georgia – Ajaria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia up to spring 2005. The author concludes that Georgia is currently torn by ethno-national conflicts that are exploited by various international players and dwells upon alternatives for Russia-Georgian relations. In the final chapter of this book, The Gap between de-jure and de-facto Democratization in Uzbekistan: Nine Problems of Proto-Democracy, by Farkhod Tolipov (written before May 2005), a number of socio-political issues in Uzbekistan are discussed: secular versus Islamic, Islamic versus democratic, democratic versus autocratic, security versus democracy, gradual versus rapid democratization, liberalism versus paternalism, and modernization versus traditionalism. After discussing some theoretical problems of democratization in his introduction, the author then reveals the problems that he believes are the main obstacles to democratic development in Uzbekistan: the absence of independent parties and free mass media; the unsatisfactory performance of the local self-governing bodies (mahalla); localism and clan relationships; the underestimation of public opinion by officials; generally ineffective relationships between the state and society leading to frequent bureaucratic violations, corruption and criminalizaton of the state apparatus; ineffective, corruptive courts and police; lack of legal and well-functioning economic institutions; and indoctrination through the new nation-building ideology and education. Tolipov calls for a Uzbek state that is “Islamic in essence and secular in form”, arguing that Islam and democracy do not oppose each other, but on the contrary, share basic core values of human life, dignity and knowledge. According to the author, the current regime in Uzbekistan, which remains “democratic in form and authoritarian in essence”, must reduce state bureaucracy, liberalize at all spheres of social life, and, crucially, increase political pluralism As Spechler does, Tolipov mentions the “Uzbek road”; however, he interprets the five principles of Islam Karimov in a different way, revealing they are more orientated to foreign observers rather than a practical realization. Unlike Poujol, Tolipov is a strong adherent of democracy as a means of increasing national, regional and world security, particularly in terms of preventing radical theocracy, precluding the exacerbation of social unrest and achieving sustainable peace. Although Tolipov is not in favour of the concepts of national democracy (democracy that fits the peculiar Uzbek realities), he nevertheless remains courteous about universality and the long-term historic effectiveness of Western European democratic cultures. The author supports the idea that Uzbekistan, as well as the other Central Asian states, is better prepared for rapid democratization than some Third World countries, especially due to the Soviet high levels of education. At present, democratic rhetoric in


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Uzbekistan is focused on the concept of civil society, which is still very weak, and is consciously misinterpreted by the officialdom. Tolipov calls for a less paternalistic state and the assurance of individual rights. At the end of the chapter, the author discusses Uzbek-US relations and the question of the Western donations to the country, arguing that economic assistance should not be regarded as a reward for democratic success. The author concludes that unless the issues raised by him are resolved, the gap between dejure and de-facto democracy will persist, and democracy will be, in fact, a showcase democracy. As some sort of evidence of Tolipov’s rather pessimistic conclusion, the Kyrgyz “revolution” in March 2005 – a revolt prepared by opposition groups with some external support, followed by mass marauding and plunder in Bishkek – did not demonstrate a burgeoning “grassroots’ democracy”. The civil riots in Andijan two months later revealed the political and social problems that had been accumulating over the last fifteen years in Uzbekistan. Most of the independent states of Central and Inner Asia and Southern Caucasus are on the threshold of national elections in 2005-2006, which has increased political instability in the region. Whatever the outcome of the elections – be it either the prolonging of power of the current dominant political groups and clans or the success of the opposition – the primary challenge for the present and future region’s governments, together with all the international actors involved, is to provide basic economic, social and human security for their citizens.


Part I Central Eurasian History and Societies in the longue durée Approach



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Central Eurasia: Historical Centrality, Geostrategic Condition and Power Model Legacy Andrey FURSOV Institute of Russian History, Russian State University for Humanities, Moscow The world is not a quantitative concept but a qualitative one. Albert Einstein Abstract. This paper discusses the direct influence Central Eurasia had on Eurasia and the world as a whole in a long-term historical perspective, and the current geostrategic situation in Central Eurasia. A. Fursov stresses the geohistorical centrality of Central Eurasia between the XV-XIII centuries BC and XIII-XV centuries AD. Now, after the dissolution of the USSR and the formation of the New Independent States from the former Soviet republics, centrality seems to have returned to this part of Eurasia, though not on its previous scale. Central Eurasia had a great influence on the world in an indirect form – in the form of the Central Eurasian power model (CEPM). In this model, control over population is more important than control over land, hence power is more important than property. The CEPM was initially forgotten by the Mongols on the basis of 1500 years of development of nomad empires. In the agricultural space of Russia and due to contacts with the Russian principalities this model became transformed into Russian power. In the twentieth century, to survive in the capitalist system and to maintain its initial geohistorical algorithm this power took form of Soviet communism, i.e. world anti-capitalism. Now after the breakdown of communism, Russia is at the point of bifurcation and it will take several years to see which path of development it will choose.

Central Eurasia – Core of Heartland This volume is devoted to the problems of Central Eurasia and to its current events. But it is evident that the history of this region did not begin yesterday. Time is extremely important in the analysis of any space, especially so with the spaces which have experienced drastic qualitative changes. Central Eurasia belongs to this type of space. Eurasia is divided into two distinct parts or zones. The first is usually called the Littoral Belt (LB) or the Eurasian Rim (ER). It is precisely from this relatively narrow seashore band stretching to the West from the Sea of Japan to the Northern Sea that the greatest civilisations of the Old World emerged. The second zone is a vast continental hinterland usually called Heartland. Whereas the Belt was almost totally agricultural and studded with cities and towns, Heartland had both agriculture and nomadic pastoralism, with fewer cities and towns. The core of Heartland is formed by steppe, mountains, and deserts. The name of this core is Central Eurasia; this territory is now occupied by Mongolia, Southern Siberia, the Chinese province of Xingjian and part of Tibet, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, the steppe zone from the Southern Urals to the Black Sea and of course the northern part of Afghanistan (this last being of extreme importance – it is no coincidence that the great poet Iqbal called it “the

24 A. Fursov / Central Eurasia: Historical Centrality, Geostrategic Condition and Power Model Legacy

heart of Asia”, while the great British politician Curzon called it “the captain’s bridge of Asia”). For many centuries Central Eurasia was the realm of nomadic tribes living on a pastoral economy, long distance trade and plunder. While Heartland was considered to be the periphery of LB, its core, Central Eurasia, seemed to constitute a kind of inner periphery. And it was treated by scholars in this way – as a periphery of China, the Muslim world (namely Persian empires) and Russia. It was supposed that the main historical impulses originated within the LB zone reaching Heartland and its core from there. This was indeed the case over the last three or four centuries. But it would be a great mistake to project this onto the 30 centuries preceding the sixteenth century. Of course in economic and cultural spheres LB was the leader since the so-called Neolithic revolution. Yet in the political – and hence in the general historical – sphere the opposite was the case until the European military revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before that the large-scale migrations, great invasions and steppe empires of the Central Eurasian nomads played a crucial role in Eurasia and in the Old World as a whole. The events in Central Eurasia were a kind of bifurcation – to use "prigoginist" language – leading to all-Eurasian fluctuations. The core of the Heartland region itself was the epicentre of all major changes in Eurasia. Although it was peripheral geographically and economically, it was central from a geopolitical and geohistorical point of view. Its peoples and leaders acted as geohistorical constructors and engineers. The formation and dissolution of steppe tribal nomadic empires triggered human tidal waves which swept through Eurasia and drastically changed the historical landscape, bringing into existence new empires and even new social systems (such as slavery and feudalism) in the Far West of Eurasia. Having played a crucial role in Eurasia for many centuries, this central Eurasian core (of course not on its previous scale and functional rather than substantial) lost this role during the long sixteenth century (1453-1648). Now, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the rise of Islam in the Middle East, centrality seems to be returning to Central Asia, at least partly, but on a different basis than in the past. The present basis is globalisation which in the present geostrategic situation in the region manifests itself in the form of the Great Game-2. Between the old centrality and the emerging one there is a period (sixteenth-twentieth centuries) when Central Eurasia did not exercise direct influence on its neighbours and beyond; on the contrary these neighbours were pressing Central Eurasia. Yet I believe it is precisely during this period that the indirect influence of Central Eurasia or, to be more precise, of the Central Eurasian power model (CEPM), forged by the nomads, reached its peak, first in Eurasia, and later in the world. Central Eurasia exists as a geographical reality – as such it can exist only within its physical boundaries and cannot be moved beyond them. It also exists as a metaphysical reality materialised in certain principles and institutions that can exist and develop beyond the geographic reality – as a kind of legacy of power organisation first of all. Usually in this context we speak of the Mongol legacy. Yet the Mongol power was just the first – nomadic-based – form of the CEPM, the essentials of which I shall speak of later. Forged in its nomad form by the Mongols, this model acquired its own autonomous dynamic and logic. Later, as the world became more and more complex it transformed itself or rather mutated to preserve itself into an agriculturally based form, Russian autocracy, and was succeeded by an industrially based one, Soviet communism. I would like to stress that both Soviet communism and Russian autocracy cannot be derived directly from the Mongol legacy, from initial CEPM. They represent a result of its synthesis or symbiosis with some other forms but the basic features quite obviously were reproduced. This enables us to speak not only about a certain model but also about a certain historical line of development determined by this model. Only CEPM could effectively cover and provide

A. Fursov / Central Eurasia: Historical Centrality, Geostrategic Condition and Power Model Legacy 25

social control over such a space as the Eurasian one. But at the same time having covered and unified this space, in order to remain the same in its essentials, CEPM had to adapt and modify itself to agricultural and industrial conditions. It is in these modified forms it began to influence not only Eurasian but also world history. In this paper, I would like to address three issues here: First, the direct influence of Central Eurasia on Eurasia – i.e. on Heartland and LB as a whole in a long term historical perspective. I believe this influence realised and materialised itself in the phenomenon of Great Eurasian 700- 800-year cycles. Second, the current geostrategic situation in Central Eurasia, which I term the Great Game-2. Third, the indirect historical influence of Central Eurasia on Eurasia and the world in the form of CEPM in its modified successive forms (systems) – Russian autocracy (Russian power) and Soviet communism (communist power). Of course it is difficult to cover such issues in one article. My aim is quite modest – to fix a certain position which is based on thirty years of research and to try to take a look from a height on Central Eurasia as a historical totality in space and time – long-term time, which the French historian Braudel called très-très longue durée. I am a historian and my approach to Central Eurasia will be that of the historian. But my field and object of research is not usual – it is social systems. I would like to stress that this is not sociology or social history; this is precisely the history of social systems. In practice this means concentration on large historical entities and on long-term periods and long-term tendencies rather than on events. As Braudel said, “l’evenement c’est de la poussière” (“an event is dust”). Braudel stressed that what we call “events” are part of reality which we artificially snatch from a historical totality. In fact we construct events; the place of events in reality can be perceived only as an element of totality taken in a longterm perspective. Another field of the history of social systems is globalisation as a historical process. In fact there are two ways of looking at reality. The first is a short range, or “from below”, perspective in which we notice details, even the minutest ones. But with time we find ourselves in the position of a person who knows more and more about less and less. The second perspective is to try to take a position high enough to look at reality as a whole. We may miss some specifics but the overall gain is evident – it enables us to see the elements better and to understand them better in the context of the whole; it is the whole which determines the elements, not the opposite. In fact the two ways complement each other. The problem is that in the last decades the first perspective was practised much more frequently that the second one. Its over-accentuation leads to parcelling of the object under study into smaller and smaller pieces which loses any ties between them. That is why, having my own parcels, I at the same time try to look at them and neighbouring parcels and also on their totality from a height. My research motto is taken from the title of Charles Tilly’s famous book Big structures, Large processes, Huge comparisons. And it is precisely the longue durée approach which helps us to clearly see the central (or core-like) historical role of Central Eurasia. Eurasia: the Cycles and the Pendulum The history of Eurasia contains continent-scale migrations and invasions: they are the Folkwanderung of the fourth-seventh centuries AD, Mongol invasions, the Crusades, Alexander the Great’s Drang nach Osten. But until now three issues have gone unnoticed, strangely, as they are evident and lay on the surface. First, the initial impulse of the great migrations was born in Central Eurasia, in its eastern, nomadic part and went westward.


Second, these westward surges from the core of Eurasia generated reactions in the form of counter expansions from the west. The main thrust was from the nomadic east, while the westward surge was reactive in nature. This ebb and flow alternated in a pendulum-like manner – I call it the Old World Pendulum (OWP). Third, and most intriguing, the oscillations of the pendulum had a cyclical character, taking place each 700-800 years, thus forming what I call Great Eurasian cycles (GEC). By the twelfth century BC, the intertribal struggle somewhere in Core Eurasia provoked a migration all across the Eurasian steppes. Indo-European charioteers burst onto the Eastern European plain; from there they began storming the Balkans and set in motion the process that historians call “the crisis of the twelfth century BC”. It destroyed the old Mediterranean world and opened a phase called the Dark Age of Ancient history (eleventheighth centuries BC). In fact it was the first known Folkwanderung. Even Egypt – the African, not the Eurasian part of the Old World – was devastated by “the peoples of the sea”. The twelfth century crisis hit the Mediterranean but the fuse was ignited some two centuries before in Core Eurasia. 800 years passed and the pendulum tipped eastward: Alexander the Great began his Drang nach Osten to be succeeded by the Romans just a few centuries later. The GreekRoman expansion reached its limit under Trajan (98-117 AD). The second century AD found the Romans trying to keep their limes intact, but after Marcus Aurelius the failure became evident. Marcus Aurelius died in 180 AD. The following year in the far east of Eurasia the great khan Tanshihai of the Hsienpi quasi-empire died. It was the Hsienpi who delivered a mortal blow to the great nomad empire of the Hsiung-nu (late third century BC – early second century AD) and made them move to the west by the middle of the second century AD. A new expansion was about to start. In the third or early fourth century while storming through the Eurasian steppe the Hsiung-nu became transformed into the Huns – a conglomerate of peoples of different ethnicities whose capital Gunnigard was somewhere in the region of contemporary Kiev. In the fourth century BC – just 800 years after the beginning of Alexander the Great’s inroad into the East – the new westward Folkwanderung began. By the end of the fifth century AD it had ruined the western part of the Roman Empire, and in the fifth-sixth centuries a new world of "Barbaricum" emerged. The picture was completed by the conquests of the Arabs in the seventh-eighth centuries. The Second Dark Age had come to Europe. Another 700-800 years passed after the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire, before the pendulum swung eastward again – with the Crusades. There are no literal repetitions in history, however. With the passage of time the picture became more complicated and multidimensional. It reflected the fact that the world was changing, and that something new was emerging. After the Sixth Crusade (1228-1229) (in the Far West of Eurasia) we see a new westward movement from Core Asia through the whole of Eurasia – the Mongol conquests. In comparison with the Mongol conquests, the last two crusades associated with the name of Louis the Saint look very pale – not only because of their failure, but also because of differences in scale and historical consequences. It was an overlapping of two waves, and the eastern wave was much stronger than the western one. (It was a kind of reverse of the fifth-fourth centuries BC situation, when the Scithian and Sarmatian westward wave had to face a strong western force – the Greeks and the Macedonians.) It seemed that with the Mongols Central Eurasia practically covered all of Heartland transforming it into something like great Central Eurasia. 700-800 years after the Crusades and the Mongol incursions, there was again a migration from Europe, from the west. This time it was not in an eastward direction, but


westwards – in the nineteenth century from Europe to America, and from the south to the north in the twentieth century. Here we can see that the pattern of GEC and the tilt of OWP have changed. The reason is simple and powerful: in the middle of the fourth GEC in the Far West of Eurasia capitalism emerged which formed its extra-European and extraEurasian North-Atlantic world and began to integrate Eurasia into it from the south – from the Asian (Indian first of all) LB. It was the first not continental but maritime eastward expansion of Europe. Very soon out of two oceans (North Atlantic cum North Indian) the world capitalist system emerged and its rhythms and cycles began to interact with GEC trying to dominate them. That is why since the middle of the fourth Eurasian cycle (“the long sixteenth century”) the picture became much more complicated than in previous cycles: the North-Atlantic (AngloSaxon) world was emerging. This world from its first steps began to struggle with the Eurasian giants in successive order: with Spain, France, Germany, Russia/USSR and now many analysts say, China will be next. I will discuss the fourth cycle and its second part later. Before that I would like to stress that the very fact of the rise of capitalism as a qualitatively different social system halfway through the fourth cycle suits well the inner logic of all GEC. The most interesting feature of the clockwork-like OWP is the events that occurred halfway through each cycle at 700-800 year intervals. In the middle of all four cycles major changes took place throughout Eurasia which manifested themselves in the rise of new empires. In addition, in Europe – in the Far West of Eurasia – great social and spiritual revolutions burst out in the middle of each cycle which laid the basis for several qualitatively new social systems. In the middle of the first cycle (eighth-seventh centuries BC) the “poleis” revolution took place in ancient Greece providing the basis for a new social system based on slavery. In the first and second centuries AD (the middle of the second cycle), there was a great spiritual and social revolution – the rise of Christianity. At the same time the Roman Empire flourished under the Julii, Flavii and Antonines. In the middle of the third cycle (seventh-eighth centuries) we have the genesis of feudalism and the rise of Islam. In the Eurasian Far East we see the Great Turkic khanate (a new nomadic empire) and the blossoming of China under the Tang dynasty. The middle of the fourth cycle (sixteenthseventeenth centuries), gave birth to a cluster of empires throughout Eurasia – from that of Charles the fifth in Spain to that of Qing of Zu and Tai Zong in China. Furthermore, capitalism emerged in the "Atlanticate" Western Europe. I would not say I can clearly explain the causes of the pendulum and the cycles in Eurasian history, though the explanation may be much simpler than it seems at first glance. Here it is enough to draw attention to the fact that the pendulum and cycles of Eurasia, both in Heartland and in the LB, were determined by the developments in Core (Central) Asia inhabited by the nomads. These cycles reflect the centrality of this region which played a crucial role in the history of Eurasia somewhere between the thirteenth century BC and the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries AD and was its real geohistorical core. Out of this core came the horsemen that invaded the Old World and that created the Great Mongol Empire. This invasion and this empire opened the fourth Eurasian cycle and shaped in many ways – both directly and indirectly – the world up to 1991. The Fourth Cycle: Twelfth – Twentieth Centuries The fourth Eurasian cycle is an extremely important and dramatic one. It began with the triumph of CEPM in the form of the Great Mongol Empire, which changed the fate of Eurasia, including its far-western part. By the cycle’s mid-point, the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, not only the Mongol empire but its direct successors had left the scene, and


Central Eurasia began to look like a graveyard of the nomad statehood, a realm of forgotten glory. New agents and forces were making their way into and through history. In the Far West of Eurasia capitalism emerged, which began to organise its own aggressive NorthAtlantic region soon to be felt all over the world. In the Far East of Eurasia China was invaded by semi-nomad Manchu who established a new Chinese dynasty – Qing (16441911). Qing China established control over the nomads of Mongolia and made them its tributaries, thus ending the historical dispute between China and the nomads. A new force also emerged in the centre of the Mongols’ Greater Central Eurasia. Initially it took the place occupied earlier by the Golden Horde. Later it became the inheritor of the Great Mongol Empire. This was Russia, whose autocracy was based on a modified CEPM. As the second Eurasian empire Russia became a stumbling block for North-Atlantic (capitalist, Anglo-Saxon) expansion. From the Napoleonic wars up until 1989/91 the key feature of world history was the struggle between two geohistorical logics of development – one personified by the Anglo-Saxon (Anglo-American) world and another – by the (largely Russian) Eurasian one. Gibbon, Napoleon and de Tocqueville, among others, foresaw this conflict as early as the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the form of the USSR, the Eurasian power challenged America in the second half of the twentieth century. The decline and fall of the second Eurasian empire – Russia/USSR – in 1991 closed the cycle which began, say in 1211 with the march of Genghis-khan into Northern China. I would not go so far as to say that the world of the fourth cycle was the world the Mongols made. But using Braudel’s metaphor I would say that the Mongols both delivered and grasped the most important Cards of History, that they directly and indirectly shaped the fate of Eurasia until the “long sixteenth century”. They also influenced in many ways important trajectories of the “long century” itself and to an extent the history that followed until the end of the twentieth century. For several decades Genghis-khan and his successors – Ugedei, Guyuk, Mongke and Khubilai – unified a large part of Eurasia, almost all of Heartland. As a result of this unification the Eurasian cultures began to enrich each other. There were both acquisitions and losses: Black Death as a result of this unification found its way to Europe and wiped out a third of the population (20 million people), making the period between the midfourteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, despite the Renaissance, a kind of early modern Dark Age. The Black Death drastically changed the economic and social position of peasants vis à vis seigneurs and the latter had to fight to defend their weakening positions. Their social engineering (“new monarchies”) combined with the discovery of America and followed by an inflow of American bullion into Europe, the new international division of labour and the military revolution led in the long run to the genesis of capitalism. Bearing these factors in mind we should admit that the world of the fourth Eurasian cycle, or at least its basis, was built by the Mongol geohistorical constructors or engineers. The indirect yet logical consequence of the Mongol activities at the beginning of the fourth cycle was that the cycle transformed itself into the world one. To be more precise, the far western part of Eurasia began its own development, distinct from the rest of the continent. The Far West of Eurasia became the North Atlantic area, thereby transforming into a core – a new type of core – with a new type of geohistorical engineer: the Westerners. The coming of the Westerners as the new type of geohistorical engineers in the long sixteenth century was the indirect but quite logical result of the Mongol unification of Eurasia. It occurred when the Mongols themselves left the historical scene. Yet the Mongols did not leave it without bequeathing a legacy. Simultaneously with the beginning


of mutation of the western Europeans into Westerners with “capital” and the “monarchical state” (later to be transformed into the nation-state), a parallel mutation took place in East Europe. A new historical agent came onto the scene here – as new to the previous age as the “new monarchies”, monarchical states and capital were to feudalism. It was Russian autocracy. This agent expanded eastward to reach the Chinese border by the seventeenth century. From that time on, the two empires began to squeeze the historical space of the central Eurasians. Three major shifts can be seen in the history of Central Eurasia in the sixteenthtwentieth centuries. First, the historical space, Lebensraum of the region began to diminish. Secondly, the development Central Eurasia became more and more determined by powerful neighbouring states – China and Russia. Thirdly, these states also began to encroach into Central Eurasian territory. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Central Asia became an arena of the Russian-British struggle known as the Great Game. The Great Game ended in 1907 when Russia and Great Britain became allies, but in the 1920s a new Russia, a Soviet one, blocked British attempts to enter Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Between 1921 and 1991 the greater part of the Central Eurasia was directly or indirectly controlled by the USSR. After the disintegration of the USSR fifteen sovereign states emerged, several of them on the territory of Central Eurasia. Central Eurasia in the early Twenty-First Century: Return of Centrality Bearing in mind that all historical analogies are somewhat superficial, I suggest that the current situation in the Central Eurasia after the disintegration of the USSR resembles – on the surface – the situation which emerged after the fall of other empires – the Great Mongol or Tamerlane’s. Now instead of sultanates, khanates, emirates or tribal unions with their intra- and infra-tribal and clan struggles, sovereign states or “nation-states” are in the process of formation, at least in theory. But these new states face problems much more serious than, for example, the African states which emerged after the disintegration of colonial system in the 1950s and 1960s. In contrast to the 1945-1975 period, we now live in the world of globalisation. Being a by-product of the Cold war, globalisation buried one of the two main participants – the USSR, and for the first time in history made Eurasia (with the relative and partial exclusion of China) vulnerable to and dependant on the global world dominated by AngloSaxons. In history, globalisation’s first victims were the USSR, the socialist camp and the welfare state. From an institutional point of view its first and main victim is the nationstate. It is pressed both from above (by global financial markets, NGOs, TNCs, supranational structures) and from below (by dynamic regions crossing state borders – K. Ohmae calls them “region-economies”; megacities; criminal enterprises etc.). Of course nation-states at the core of capitalist system are strong enough to resist globalisation, but this is not the case with more than 150 states situated outside this core – on the periphery and semi-periphery. The nation-state has ceased to be the only agent on the world arena, and international relations i.e. the relations between nation-states are not the only world-scale relations. Globalisation weakens existing established states. As for newly emerged states, it affects, deforms or sometimes even blocks the process of their further development as states. In their interests TNCs and core states weaken the “nation” part of the new nationstates and try to reduce their statehood to functions that just serve global interests; these


functions are the market, corporations and policing. Political scientists speak of the denationalisation of state, of privatisation of state power and the emergence, in the place of formal nation-states, of function-states: “market-state”, “police-state”, “corporation-state”, “mafia-state” or even “bandit-state”. In many parts of the world the nation-state in fact is fading away, resembling more and more cartographic reality. Such functional (onedimensional) states become just one force among other forces acting within “political boundaries”, which become illusionary. It goes without saying that globalisation strengthens economic and social polarisation, which often results in social unrest and conflict. The conclusion that globalisation will weaken the state and increase fragmentation and turbulence tendencies almost everywhere including Central Eurasia seems correct to me. In a paradoxical way, the clan struggle of pre-modern times has acquired a new, supermodern, global basis – global financial markets. It is globalisation and its effects and consequences which determines the current situation in Central Eurasia and which makes the Great Game-2 – now occurring in Central Eurasia – different from the Great Game-1. First, in the nineteenth century only two participants existed: both legal, states and empires. In the second game there are many more participants – not all of them states and not all of them legal. Secondly, the first Great Game had to do with pure Eurasian geopolitics; now economic factors define the game. Oil, gas, uranium, lines of communications coming through Central Asia to Europe, the Mediterranean, Iran, India and China – all this makes Central Eurasia central again, in a geoeconomic sense. And to the legal economy we should add the illegal ones –narcotraffic and the arms trade. Intensified narcotraffic is becoming a no less important economic and political nerve of the region than gas and oil; Central Eurasia is becoming a kind of not silk, but narkoway, a narco-corridor from Afghanistan to Europe. Thirdly, for the first time in Eurasian history a non-Eurasian power – the USA – is becoming an active participant of the Great Game-2, a major factor in Eurasian (geo)politics. The USA has an interest here both as a cluster of TNCs and as a state trying to create new world order. Some analysts even claim that the dream of Anglo-Saxon geopoliticians from Mackinder cum Mahan to Brzezinski is becoming reality. They used to say: he who controls the Heartland controls Eurasia; he who controls Eurasia controls the world. And the key to Heartland is Central Asia and Afghanistan. Of course Afghanistan is a tricky “key” – historically it has played the role of the graveyard of empires, British and Soviet. Will America become an exception? Central Eurasia occupies a unique geostrategic position: from here Russia, the Middle East, India and China can be watched, threatened or even controlled to some extent. The US bases in the Central Asia and the US presence in Afghanistan under the pretext of the war against international terrorism is a geohistorical novelty. It is also important that with the disintegration of the USSR and integration of Central Eurasia into the world market new forms of power – liberal democratic ones – came here. For the first time in its history CEPM is challenged in its own home – Central Eurasia (this is also the case with Russia and Russian power). But, as the history of political modernisation of Latin America, Africa and Asia shows, formal democratisation from above often remains a superficial phenomenon and becomes just a cover and a tool for tribal and clan struggle. From this point of view the fate of liberal democracy in Central Eurasia is likely to repeat the fate of socialist democracy and communist party organisations in the Soviet Transcaucasia and Central Asia – which were in fact a façade covering tribal and clan struggle. It seems that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, in many parts of the world, through the contours of supermodern age, features emerge which resemble the pre-capitalist world; Central Eurasia is among these parts. Again, as before the rise of capitalism, it is


becoming central – now not only from a geohistorical, but primarily from a geoeconomic and geopolitical point of view. With globalisation we are stepping into a promising and at the same time extremely dangerous world. The unification of Eurasia brought cultures and peoples together, though in an involuntary way; it also brought the Black Death from Asia to Europe. Americanised globalisation made the world very small and opened enormous financial possibilities for capital and for 20% of the population whom sociologist Z. Bauman calls “globals” (in contrast to “locals”). But in the world which has become small Mr. bin Ladin can become a close neighbour of Mr. Bush in a very easy and frightening way. Yet in this small world we see again the return of Central Asia’s centrality. The Centrality-2 of course is different from the Centrality-1 and cannot match it: they have a different basis; they belong to different worlds (pre-industrial and postindustrial) and they cannot be compared by their duration – three millennia and 15 years at most. And what about the period between the two centralities, between the beginning of “the long sixteenth century” (1453) and the end of “the short twentieth century” (1991), between the fall of Constantinople as the second Rome and the fall of Moscow as the third Rome? What about the role and influence of Central Eurasia during this period? Here I believe we come to one of the most interesting and astonishing moments in the history of Central Eurasia – its great influence on Eurasia and on the world as a whole. This influence was indirect – through the Russian autocracy and Soviet communism. At first it seems paradoxical and almost unbelievable. But it is CEPM which lies in the core of both Russian autocracy and Soviet communism; they are its modified form. We can even state: Central Eurasia exerted its greatest influence on the world, firstly, through its power model, and secondly, indirectly, through its new – agricultural and industrial – forms. But the core of the forms is the same – Central Eurasian, and “la plus ça change la plus ça reste même chose” (the more it changes the more it remains the same). Central Eurasian Model of Power: Mutations and Transformations The basic features, the essentials of the CEPM were elaborated by the Hsiung-nu steppe empire in the III-II centuries BC. Over the next 1500 years several steppe powers repeated and to some extent developed this model. It acquired its final shape in the Great Mongol Empire and it is precisely this form that we speak of as the Mongol legacy. Nomadic (Mongol) power had a pastoral economy as its basis. Due to the vast spaces, control over the population in this model was much more important than control over land; power (and hence – service) was much more important than property; tribal property over land coincided with power itself; and as any steppe empire is a military machine this type of power is a military one based on a combination of violence and consent (of co-tribals).These are the essentials of CEPM. The Mongols had the greatest and the last steppe empire. And theirs was the first Eurasian (and not just Asian) steppe empire. They held sway over an area greater than any previous polity – Alexander the Great’s, Roman, Byzantine or Arab. As I have said, over the 1500 years before the rise of the Mongols seven large steppe empires existed. Among them the Hsiung-nu and the Turkic khanate were the most important ones. The western border of the Hsiung-nu reached the Baikal lake, that of the Turkic khanate went further westward – to the Caspian sea, and the Mongols pushed the nomadic borders farthest, to its geographical and ecological limit in Eastern Europe (-6º for the January isotherm, which is also the south-western border of the Russian people). The Mongol empire was the first Asian and nomadic empire to encompass the Russian plain and to retain control over it for more than two centuries. In Asia the Mongols took over China, Central Asia and Iran. The


conquered sedentary Eurasian population was a ready object for the Mongol power. But their “readiness” was different. It depended on the demographic potential, level of culture and sophistication of centralised government tradition, and historical experience in dealing with the nomad invaders. China and Iran were old and well established societies with a strong tradition of centralised government. The nomads borrowed centralised structures and practices from the Chinese and the Iranians, not vice versa. The Chinese and the Iranians had more than a thousand years of experience in assimilating the nomads coming from the north culturally, demographically and, last but not least, politically. As a result, in Asia nomad empires’ social and political influence was not very strong; they had few chances to leave a strong, system forming historical imprint in this part of Heartland. The situation was quite different in Eastern Europe. The Russian principalities of the early thirteenth century were not (using Marxist language) established class structures of any known type (for example feudal). They were young societies in many respects – late barbarian ones. A large part of the population was armed and was not easily exploited by local dominant groups. No Russian prince before the Mongol conquest had enough strength to control the population effectively and to transform it into an exploited stratum. And of course, the Russians had no experience of centralised political structures and had to borrow them from the Horde, from CEPM. The Russian situation had drastically changed with the advent of the Mongols and with the transformation of Russian principalities into the tributaries of the Golden Horde – one of centralised successor states to the Great Mongol Empire. With the military forces of the Horde Russian princes for the first time in their history acquired the strength they needed to control and exploit the population (firstly in the form of collecting tribute for the Horde). The Horde system also changed the balance of forces in the pre-Mongol “power triangle”. The triangle was formed by the prince, the nobility and the population – just as almost everywhere in Europe. Just as almost everywhere different “angles” had different potentials and the weakest usually combined to fight the strongest. The Horde made the prince the strongest element of the triangle. Yet the union of the other angles against him did not materialise. On the one hand the Horde supported the prince and could overpower any coalition and resistance of that kind. On the other hand, and more importantly, both the nobility and the population had to support their prince against other princes in the struggle for the benefits within the Golden Horde system. The more support – the more chances to win. As a result the power of the Russian princes began to acquire Central Eurasian forms and, what is more important, substance. At the same time the Golden Horde having found itself in new conditions modified itself at least in the relation to the Russian principalities to transmit this modified form to them later. And this particular modification had unexpected consequences. As any steppe power structure, the Golden Horde had certain in-built power regulations and limits established by steppe law, custom, tradition and ritual. In the symbiotic form “the Golden Horde cum Russian principalities” the Horde was beyond any legality on the part of the Russians; it was a yoke imposed from above. In relation to Russian lands the Horde functioned as extralegal power. These extralegal power features were adopted by Russian princes, especially by Moscovian ones who ruled the Russian population on behalf of the Mongol (Golden Horde) tsar. Neither Yuan power in China nor Il-khan power in Iran had this extralegal element, because both presented themselves as interiorised dynasties. The Golden Horde was a distant power and it exploited Russian lands from a distance. That distant and extralegal type of rule was transmitted functionally to the power of Russian princes. Thus a type of power was forged which was Central Eurasian in origin but existed neither in steppe


empires, nor in pre-Mongol Russia; it was a kind of mutation of original CEPM in new historical conditions out of the steppe zone. Furthermore, in contrast to initial CEPM this type of power was not based on agriculture or pastoralism; it was different to the nomads’ pre-industrial economic basis (that is why in the future it demanded somehow to integrate property as a secondary element in the model which produced an inner contradiction to be solved only by the annihilation of property as such). Yet no other agricultural society in history had such a power model, nor experienced 250 years’ of control by a nomad power; Russia had to adapt to it and lived in fact in a kind of symbiosis with it and to survive had to imitate it. By the mid-fifteenth century the semi-nomad structure of the Golden Horde became an anachronism of premodern Eastern Europe; it disintegrated and Russia freed itself. But after almost 250 years of yoke Russia did not return to the pre-Mongol model of power. On the contrary, it consolidated and even strengthened what the Golden Horde had built. On the surface it took the Byzantine form "appropriated" by the Russians at the end of the fifteenth century. This led to emergence of what scholars call the Orthodox khanate (14801565). The new post-Mongol Russia inherited the main features of the power model the Golden Horde practised over the Russian principalities: - primacy of power over property (hence primacy of service over land ownership as a factor defining positions of belonging to the dominant group) - primacy of control over population above control of land - extralegality The inheritance was also determined by the vast and uninhabited Russian spaces that had no comparison in Western Europe, China or India. This made control over a fluid population a crucial problem for the Russian power. The totality of these features manifested itself in the fact that autocracy tended to be the social subject by itself – autosubject, tending to be the only subject-monosubject, or super-subject. (Subject is meant here as a philosophical category opposite to "object"; the historical subject is an active force, or agency.) It functioned in a way that did not allow any other group or organisation to become a real and socially significant subject. It tried to be (and it was) free from society, from population, from dominant groups which acted as its functions or organs; that is why it was free to be extra-revolutionary (be it Peter the Great, the “extreme socialists” of 1917 or the “extreme liberals” of the 1990s) in performing even reactionary acts. In fact this distant and extralegal power was the other side of the dichotomy of revolution and reaction – it could be both at the same time. During the Golden Horde (Central Eurasian) period of Russian history these power features were maintained and guaranteed by the very existence of the Golden Horde with its threat of violence. Russian Autocracy – First Mutation of the Central Eurasian Power Model After the fading of the Golden Horde the inherited features could survive and establish themselves in a kind of “triangle power complex” only by the way of ferocious social struggle – in fact a social war or even social revolution – on different levels of society: between power and dominant groups, on one side, and the population on the other; between different layers of dominant groups; between central power and the upper layer of dominant groups, which were represented by some 250 large families (clans) of old and noble lineage. In the social war (or Great autocratic revolution) of 1565-1649 the central power (I deliberately do not use the term “state” which usually means “nation-state” and which never existed in Russia) with the help of the middle and lower layers of dominant groups defeated both upper dominant groups and the population at large. The population was


enserfed, i.e. tied to the land and, more importantly, tied by labour service to dominant groups; these last ones were tied to power by military and civil service. It was a kind of total service system different from slavery, feudalism, and capitalism and was based on the central power’s control of population and on the extralegality of this power – the will of tsar was the only source of law and order, of internal and external policy and it was limited neither by law nor by church. This system of autocracy is equated by some scholars with Western (Occidental) Absolutism and others with the Eastern (Oriental) Despotism. Both are mistaken: these two forms had much more in common with each other than with Russian autocracy – both of them were in principle limited and highly institutional forms of power. As for India, China, or Japan, the power of shahs, huandis or tennos/shoguns was limited – by ritual, tradition etc. If we take Western Europe, for example France, which is considered to be a model absolutist monarchy, we can see that apart from the throne (“absolutist state”), other bodies and groups contained state power. I am not speaking about the law – absolutist monarchy was under the law. For example Louis XIV spent the last two years of his life crying because he hated Philip of Orleans – who after the king’s death was to become Regent by law. And to Louis, who is said to have proclaimed “L’état c’est moi” (“The state – it is me”), to change the law was unthinkable. No Russian tsar of that time would find himself in such a situation. The first significant limitation of autocratic power came from within autocracy itself – the law of 5 April 1797, fixing the order of succession to the throne (before that the tsar appointed a successor at will), and a second one came in 1905, just 12 years before the fall of autocracy (the third came as the end of autocracy – the 1917 revolution). The Communist order which took the place of autocracy was even more extralegal. One of the main paradoxes of Russian development in 1649-1917 is that while on the surface, power, system and country looked more and more Western-like, in its main logic of development the Central Eurasian principle was becoming more and more pronounced demanding a new, non-autocratic form. This was reflected in the long-term process of diminishing of property in the hands of dominant groups, in the logic of these successive groups' becoming less property based in the logic of depropertisation of power in Russia. There was no surprise in this. If service is the main factor which determines the condition of dominant groups, the main tendency will be the constant growth in the number of these service men; in Russia it can be fixed since the mid-fifteenth century (since 1446 – in fact the first Russian perestroika) up to the year 2004 to this spring’s administrative reform. While the resources remained limited and the possibilities of significant growth of exploitation quite weak, the price for the quantitative growth of dominant groups was having less and less property, and in fact this is the main tendency of the Russian development between the fall of the Horde and the fall of Autocracy. When autocracy established itself in Russia, Russian dominant groups had lands and serfs as their property. Until 1762 service was conditio sine qua non of this property. After 1762 noble status became a privilege. Yet the initial principle of service/power’s predominance over property lived continued in spite of all attempts to organise a regular property (class) based society in Russia. Let us look at the long-term social dynamic of Russian history. There were several power structures in pre-revolutionary Russia: the Moscovian autocracy (1560s – 1690s) and the St. Petersburg autocracy (1700s – 1850s). I am not sure we can fix post-reform Russia (1860s – 1905/1917) as a special structure comparable with the Moscovian and St. Petersburg autocracies (in fact it was just a process of disintegration of the latter), yet it was a distinct period of Russian history and as such it can be put in line with the previous ones.


Each power structure (and their respective historic periods) had its own dominant group. Respectively they were the nobility (boyarstvo), the gentry (dvoryanstvo) and the functionaries. Let us compare these periods and these power groups which in fact were created by power as its functional organs (it was only in 1762 that the Russian gentry was given the right not to serve; but due to the fact that only 20 per cent of the gentry between 1779 and 1861 were wealthy enough not to lead a socially acceptable gentry lifestyle, it remained largely a service-type group). Each successive dominant group was more numerous than the previous one. It signifies that the logic of development of Russian power was to incorporate ever larger segments of population, to make them its functional organ. In terms of wealth and property we have quite a different picture: each new rising group had less property than the previous one and we witness a step by step “depropertisation of power”. From this standpoint the October episode of 1917 is the final and revolutionary act of self-cleaning of power from all remnants of property. In this light, which reflects long-term Russian development, the Communist order in Russia and the Soviet period are by no means deviations. They represent a logical phase in the development of the special power agent forged by the Golden Horde, during which this agent acquired its pure form by way of anti-capitalist revolution. Here we come to another transformation of CEPM – from Russian autocracy to Soviet communism. Capitalist Test for the Central Eurasian Power Model At first glance the Bolshevik victory and the establishment of the Communist order pulled Russia to the most remote historical point of Europe. More than that, at first glance it seems that it threw Russian power to its “Horde stage”. But if we remember that the Bolshevik victory was achieved by way of anticapitalist, socialist revolution, our impression will be quite different. Soviet communism was a modern-type mass society; it was industrially based and it was a twentieth-century phenomenon. Is it reasonable to connect it with the Golden Horde and CEPM? To these doubts and questions I have two counter questions: one of common sense and another that is scientific. First, is it reasonable to connect a 50-year old adult with the same person when he or she was, say, 10 years old? Second, is it reasonable to connect late “informational capitalism” or even a mature industrial one with initial agrarian-based capitalism of the sixteenth – mid-eighteenth centuries? My answer is a definite “yes” to both just as in the case of communism and CEPM. As for the Soviet communism and CEPM I would like to stress: - It was only CEPM in its developed late Russian power form (power with less and less property) which could be transformed into a systemic anti-capitalism; - It was only capitalism in its negative form which could be the means of purification of CEPM of property this “fulfilling” its “social genetic programme”. During the fourteenth-seventeenth centuries the Golden Horde form of CEPM had to adapt itself (and was adapted by the Russians) to different historical conditions than the steppe, i.e. to the Eastern European part of Heartland, much wider than its initial core and to a different economic basis (agriculture instead of nomadic pastoralism). The result was autocratic Russian power. In the twentieth century this Russian power, which was developing the CEPM principle in a modified form, found itself in completely new conditions. To survive it had to adapt itself to these conditions. Hence a kind of double and contradictory task needed solving: 1) to bring the line of depropertisation of power to its logical end; 2) to continue Russian development in the world capitalist system, because complete autarchy was not impossible in the Modern Age; but how to get rid of property


and yet to stay in the world capitalist system based on private property? The only solution was anti-capitalist revolution, rejecting property on the negative capitalist line. The Bolshevik revolution became a historical means of creation of a new, pure form of CEPM “trying” to solve a problem: how can a propertyless power can exist at the same time in and out of the world based on (private) property? Meanwhile this revolution was a way for world anti-capitalism to materialise itself as a social system in and out of capitalist world order at the same time. Russian (Eurasian) power found Western (North-Atlantic, world-wide) capitalism in its negative form as a means of selfpurification of property, including that of capital. World anticapitalism found the Russian power (in its pure form) as a means of self-realisation and came into being as a Eurasian phenomenon (first Russia, then Eastern Europe and China). Indeed the Russian revolution, heralded under the banner of European anti-capitalist ideology of Marxism, carried out the political programme of the French Revolution. This programme was part and parcel of the geoculture of Enlightenment representing its revolutionary progressivist project (another was the evolutionary, liberal, mainly AngloSaxon, or Anglo-American project; this should not be confused with the right wing radicalism of American neoconservatives since the 1980s which present themselves as “neoliberals”). In fact it was only the “Russian power” (in its negative and revolutionary Bolshevik form) with its autosubjective, unlimited character, extralegality, supervoluntarism, and its freedom from the population (“society”) that could realise in practice the most extreme European political projects, namely the modernist Great Left Project. Constantly demonstrating triumph of the subject (agent, will) over system (population), the Russian power often presented itself as a “super-European” subject, unrestrained by any social system, civilisation or law of European kind. It is its historical nature which enabled it to become super-European both in revolution and reaction. Hence apparent Europeanisation and modernisation here tended to strengthen rather than dilute the autosubjective character of Russian power, its initial Central Eurasian core model. Let us note again that this power type was initially forged by the Core Eurasian people – yet again not in the Core, Eurasia, but in its western agricultural part, Eastern Europe, where it found its suitable home, locus standi. After several centuries of development (as Marx said, “The mole of History burrows slowly”) this power turned into negative capital and returned east. Was Bukharin not close to the truth saying that Stalin was a kind of Genghis-khan with a telegraph? Soviet Communism – the Highest Stage of the Central Eurasian Power Model? The Soviet communist order not only demonstrated all the principal features of CEPM, but developed them to their limit. It eliminated property completely, fixing service as the only characteristic of the dominant group. It guaranteed strict control over the population. Since 1929/33 peasants were tied to the land in the form of kolkhozes and were allowed to have passports only in the mid-1970s – an evident sign of the system’s disintegration. Between 1940 and 1956 workers could not change their place of work (plant, factory) without permission of the administration. But the most striking feature was the extralegality of the Communist power, of the CPSU itself, because it was illegal according to the Soviet civil code and this very fact fixed its extraordinary status and role. According to the Soviet civil code any organisation could be considered legal only if the state had authorised it. The state authorised all organisations except one – the CPSU. Of course, one can say that the 6th article of the 1977 Soviet Constitution proclaimed the leading role of the CPSU. But legality is not about proclamations; it is about establishing


legal norms, procedures and mechanisms. No legal mechanism for that role was fixed there; there was no word about the Central Committee (CC) of the party or its Political Bureau in the Constitution. There was no act regarding the CPSU, quite the opposite: the decisions of the party were officially proclaimed to be the main source of the Soviet law. Once, Khrushchev was reminded by the Soviet attorney general of the law. He shouted in rage: “Is the law above us, the Communist Party, or are we above the law?” The answer was evident. So the CPSU and its CC were extralegal according to the Soviet civil code. In practice it meant the CPSU was unable to be a legal body, to have property etc. Until perestroika this was not a problem. In the second half of the 1980s the situation altered and the Communist leaders understood this very well. Let us take a look, for example, at the highly classified document: On the urgent measures on the organisation of commercial and external economic activities of the party. It was sent to Gorbachev by his deputy Ivashko, secretary of the CC of the CPSU (dated 23 August 1990, no. 15703). The document states: “the lessons of Eastern Europe show that not taking measures in time to fix party belongings… especially in the period of transition to the market is a great menace to the party… creation of “invisible” party economy is necessary; only a selected number of people should have permission to participate in this work”. What do we see? A proposal for the organisation of an “invisible” (i.e. extralegal) party economy. There is a line of development from extralegal power to extralegal economy as it turned out to with the help of “extralegal” (i.e. criminal) groups which began to flourish in the 1990s. The Extralegal (CPSU type) Soviet tradition is still alive. Currently, the de facto main power structure in the Russian Federation is the Administration of the President. There is not a single word about this body in the Russian constitution. Even after decline and fall of the Communist system extra (or out- of-) legality persists as the principle. This means that the roots of this phenomenon go much deeper than communist power or even autocratic power. We find them somewhere in the fourteenthfifteenth centuries in the synthesis, or at least symbiosis, of CEPM in its Mongol Golden Horde form with Russian conditions. Yet due to anti-capitalism and the world scale of the capitalist system this model acquired, in a transformed way, not a regional nor even a Eurasian dimension, but a truly world one. We can definitely say that in the Modern Age the only systemic and world alternative to Anglo-Saxon capitalism was Eurasian-based Soviet communism, which influenced capitalism both directly and indirectly. In the form of the Soviet Union Central Eurasia grew to Eurasian (Heartland) and even world (world socialist camp) dimensions. Having transformed itself into Autocracy and then into Communism, this model survived and kept its essentials intact or even strengthened them. We may even change this formulation: to keep its essentials intact and to adapt itself to agricultural and industrial conditions beyond Central Eurasia this CEPM took different forms (Mongol, Russian, anti-capitalist). Just as the Queen in Alice in Wonderland it had to run in order to stay in the same place. As if due to its nomadic form which was not rooted in property, to stay itself this power model had to, first, acquire new historical systemic forms and secondly, to expand, to develop more in space than in time. And in this expansion it could not evade contacts – both positive and negative – with the capitalist world system based on (private) property and hence alien to it. These were the contacts between the two qualitatively different models of organisation of social space and social time – North-Atlantic (Anglo-Saxon) and Eurasian (Mongol/Russian), maritime and continental, that of property type and power type, capitalist and autocratic/communist. They influenced each other; capitalist influence can be seen both in Russian prerevolutionary quasi-capitalism and in Soviet communism.


The USSR – Peak of (Central) Eurasian Influence on the World Of great interest is the influence of CEPM, which materialised in the Russian empire and afterwards in the USSR, on the capitalist system, its development and composition. Here see the indirect centrality of Central Eurasia on a global-scale. Ironically over the last two centuries Russia/USSR, a giant with its CEPM as its core, often played a decisive role, transforming the capitalist system itself. This was reflected in: the world wars; the Cold War; the strengthening of the national-liberation movement; the welfare state in the West; and the post-war rise of Germany and Japan. If we look at the wars of hegemony in the North-Atlantic core of the capitalist system between maritime Great Britain and continental France in the nineteenth century and the maritime Anglo-Saxon bloc of Great Britain plus the USA and Germany – I mean the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars of 1792-1815 and the two world wars of the twentieth century – we may be surprised. Russia/USSR which was not part of this core and which never tried to establish hegemony in the capitalist system played a decisive role in these wars thus enabling maritime powers to defeat their continental rivals. It was Russia which defeated Napoleon and Hitler; it was Russia which during the First World War held the larger part of the German troops; the main theatres of all these wars were on Russian territory – the eastern fronts were the decisive ones. It is as if the North-Atlantic core of the capitalist system had not enough space “to wage a war and had to borrow” Eurasian space. There is a triple paradox behind the wars for hegemony in the capitalist system. First, since the Napoleonic wars the main and decisive theatre in these European or NorthAtlantic wars was Russian space. Secondly, the victory of the sea power over the continental one was determined by the fact that allied to the sea power was the country termed as continental – Russia/USSR. Thirdly, not being a part of capitalist system, Russia played a crucial military role in deciding who would have hegemony in the capitalist system; not being part of North-Atlantic world it was Eurasian Heartland (in the form of Russia or the USSR) which decided its fate. Therefore the fate of the core of the capitalist system was largely influenced by a non-capitalist or even anti-capitalist country. Being unable to establish capitalist system hegemony without Russia/USSR both Anglo-Saxon powers had to reconcile themselves to this fact, to adapt to it and even to help it during the war period. But the moment the world wars started to end, cold wars (AngloSaxon – Russian) began between yesterday’s allies: the Russian – for example the RussianBritish cold war of the 1840s-1907 and the Soviet-American Cold War of 1945-1989/91. Of extreme importance is the second cold war which was qualitatively different from that of the nineteenth century. The war in the second half of the nineteenth century was largely a struggle of the two empires for a strategically important region – the Asian part of Central Eurasia. In the second half of the twentieth century the situation was much more complicated. First, it was a war not simply between states or empires, but between capitalist and anti-capitalist systems; behind capitalism and anti-capitalism lay diametrically opposed principles of social organisations – those based on property (market cum state) and those based on pure power space control. The Centre together with the Far East of Eurasia clashed with the Far West of Eurasia as the two global forces. Secondly, it was a struggle not for ascendancy in a particular region, but for ascendancy in the world as a whole – both systems had their own planetary projects. The very existence of the USSR, a kind of Eurasian shield, made it possible for many colonial and semi-colonial countries to become free. (Whether they became happier due to this fact is another matter.) I am not speaking only of socialist revolutions in China or Vietnam, but also of national-liberation movements in Asia and Africa.


The USSR not only limited the opportunities for the West to suppress Third World countries and movements (for example, Nasser’s Egypt and Castro’s Cuba), but enabled small countries like Vietnam to defeat a country such as the USA. Now with the USSR gone and following American-led aggression against Yugoslavia and Iraq we can better assess the impact of the existence of the USSR on Third World peoples. But the existence of the USSR worked in the favour not only of Third World populations, but also in the favour of vast segments of the First World population – for the lower and middle social layers of capitalist core itself. In view of the existence of the USSR as the Second World, the master class of the First World had to pacify their middle and working classes through state – in fact socialist – redistribution. This was called the “welfare state”, and it was especially strong in countries such as Western Germany and France. Even Anglo-Americans in 1945-1975 had to appease their middle and working classes. Now they no longer have to. Not only certain social groups, but certain countries like West Germany and Japan indirectly owe their economic successes in the second half of the 1950s and 1960s to the Soviet-American, communist-capitalist world struggle, to the existence of the USSR. Due to the logic of the global cold war the US had to promote the economic development of its protectorates which share a border with socialist camps: West Germany vis à vis East Germany and the USSR in the Far West of Eurasia and Japan vis à vis China and the USSR in the Far East. America had to help them economically while these two countries had no military expenses. As a result they benefited greatly from the cold war. But there is another aspect to their gain. It has to do with the Soviet use of oil prices as the weapons against pro-Western regimes in the Middle East, so to say of the struggle for the Middle Eastern line of the world chessboard. In 1958 the USSR surprised the West: it began to sell oil on the world market in large quantities – at the expense of the Soviet economic interests. Oil prices decreased for 15 years. The main reason for this was political; the aim was to minimise incomes of pro-Western Middle Eastern monarchical regimes through cheap oil and to destabilise them. This tactics proved to be successful in cases of Iraq (coup d’état of 1958) and Libya (coup d’état of 1969). But unexpectedly for the Soviet leaders, cheap Soviet oil also contributed enormously to the “economic miracles” of Germany and Japan. For example in 1955 Japan satisfied only 7% of its electric energy requirements with oil, but by 1969 this had reached 70%. Even in such traditional “coal countries” as Germany and Great Britain many electricity stations changed from coal to oil as the latter was becoming cheaper and cheaper. As a result, at the beginning of the 1970s Germany and Japan could challenge the US economically; this fact was reflected in the organisation of the Trilateral Commission. In the 1980s because of the combination of internal systemic crisis, the incompetence of Soviet dominant groups, of the inadequacy – both political and psychological – of the Gorbachevist leadership, and in some cases even because of betrayal of important segments of these groups, the USSR unilaterally stopped the Cold War (Malta, 1989) and was defeated (1991/1994). It disintegrated into 15 states, eight of them in Central Eurasia. We do not know for certain whether this is the beginning of a new Eurasian or of a new global cycle. The end of Soviet communism and the breakdown of the USSR seemed to fix the end of world significance of CEPM, of its indirect influence and centrality. I am certain that turbulent years lie before us and we will face many unexpected events and conflicts in the world without the USSR. But that is another story.

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Nomadic Pastoral Societies-the Importance of Compromise in Dealing with Tension, Conflict and Security Jacques LEGRAND CRREA-INALCO, Paris–IISNC, Ulan Bator Abstract. A tentative analysis of the way in which conditions and constraints prevailing at the very basis of a pastoral nomadic technical and social system have to be considered too as the background of political and strategic trends common to nomadic societies in Central Eurasia. In a society dominated by its dispersion needs, compromise retains a major positive place and role as a way of thinking and as a practical tool for the identifying and solving of arising contradictions.

Introduction When studying nomadic pastoral societies and their historical experiences, relationships– without under-estimating contact kept with neighbouring cultures, as well nomadic ones belonging to different traditions as sedentary–have to be searched, primarily through analysis of nomadic systems and culture themselves and of their own legitimacy. This may be assumed for each sphere of social life and it is to these tasks that consecutive stages of my anthropological study of nomadic pastoralism are devoted. These successive, if not chronological approaches have dealt with ecological, technological, demographic and historical conditions of Mongolian nomadic pastoral society and formations prior to it on the territory of modern Mongolia and Mongolian-speaking areas. This gave me the opportunity to develop in these different fields a common set of hypotheses and methods aiming at a simplified but comprehensive systemic analysis of nomadic society as a whole. The present volume gives thus an opportunity to deal with political anthropology, a sphere at once of central significance and even more heavily submitted than others to the appearances of mere external influences. Although focussing upon a problem, the current actuality and acuteness of which are obvious, it is once more necessary to look back to the depth of history. To present the following considerations is justified by the essential role played by nomadic pastoralism in the history of the whole of central Eurasiatic societies and cultures. For some of them, nomadic pastoralism is either still active or it constitutes the direct and deep roots of the cultures concerned. For other cultures, both oasis and remaining sedentary ones, long-term confrontation and interference with neighbouring nomadic groups strongly contributed to the development of still current and lively individualized identities under various forms. In formation and becoming of numerous peoples, major features of their cultures and mentalities are indivisible from long-lasting roles played in the whole region by powers and empires either nomadic themselves or connected with nomadism. This approach is not bound in any way with general logic due to which any description of nomadic political life and institutions, however they might be named, should fit a general definition of empire or of state.

J. Legrand / Nomadic Pastoral Societies-the Importance of Compromise

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The history of nomadic peoples–whose driving forces are rarely looked for in the depths of pastoral society itself–is in a large measure described by applying to them criteria and by using categories proper to sedentary cultures. This does not mean that these descriptions are deprived of valour. But, it could explain on the one hand, hypertrophy of their narrow political and polemological concerns. On the other hand, this makes more intelligible the inclination proper to these descriptions or analysis to privilege, to an excessive extent, the role of borrowings from sedentary patterns, which should be a rule for any somehow developed nomadic structure, particularly in the case of “imperial” mechanisms and institutions. Such an approach implies a too harsh opposition between nomadic and sedentary cultures, considered antagonistic by their very nature and homogenous polar terms. It restrains the dynamical role of relationships among nomadic entities themselves, and definitely under-estimates the direct responsibility of nomadic peoples and cultures in the birth and in the making of sedentary political cultures themselves (an extremely rich and exemplifying field being provided from this point of view by the history of North China).1 The systemic and historical analysis I aim to develop relies for its part upon two major conclusions of my previous research.2 First, nomadic pastoralism cannot in any way be considered an exotic abnormality. It is a mode of colonization (this word being taken here, naturally, in its ethological meaning) and of appropriation by man of natural spaces and resources fitting a common and permanent human need to build up and sustain favourable energy balances in order to allow a group of human population to devote itself to the exploitation of a localized and stable set of resources sufficient to avoid dramatic constraints and risks associated with migration. From this point of view, nomadism faces the same challenges as agricultural sedentary colonization, and all that unites them in many essential respects is of far more significant importance, than anything which divides or opposes them. Second, this colonization exerts itself in areas characterized less by the insufficient level of resources than by their fragility and irregularity. Essential features and devices proper to an original system arise thus from the very requirements of strategies able to manage such situations. Needs of continuity, imperatives of reproduction based upon the annual rotation of vegetative cycles lead agricultural colonization to build a production and a society relying upon primal forms of accumulation. These spread to the whole of social system and of cultural references. On the contrary, dominating place acquired by pastoralism, animals’ role as both direct resource satisfying the main part of human elementary needs and as “safeguard buffer” between man and nature, as protection against

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Lattimore, O. Inner Asian Frontiers of China, 2nd ed. Oxford U.P. 1988; Serruys, H. Sino-Mongol Relations During the Ming, The Tribute System and Diplomatic Missions (1400-1600). IBHEC Bruxelles. 1967. 2 Legrand, J. Les Mongols en Asie centrale, Asie centrale, Autrement, n°64. 1992. pp. 60-72; Legrand, J. Aux origines des Mongols: formation ethnique, histoire et pastoralisme nomade, Slovo, n°14, octobre 1994. pp. 23-44; Legrand, J. Mongol Nomadic pastoralism: a tradition between Nature and History, in Vadime Elisseeff, ed., The Silk Roads, Highways of Culture and Commerce, UNESCO Publishing/Berghahn Books, NYOxford. 2000. pp. 304-317; Legrand, J. Vozdeistvuet li istoricheskii obraz Chingis khana na sovremennuiu mongol’skuiu deistvitel’nost’? [Does the historical image of Genghis Khan exert an action upon contemporary Mongolian realities?] Olon ulsyn Mongolch erdemtediin VIII Ih hural [VIII International Congress of Mongolists]. IAMS, Ulan Bator, August 2002; Legrand, J. Nomades et sédentaires, dans Mongolie, le premier empire des steppes (Catalogue de l'exposition des fouilles du site Xiongnu de Gol mod, Monaco, Paris, Ulan Bator, 12 avril-17 septembre 2003b), Actes Sud/Mission archéologique française en Mongolie, Arles-Paris, 2003. pp. 45-59; Legrand, J. Les conquêtes mongoles peuvent-elles être expliquées par la démographie ? Journée d’étude du Centre d'Etudes sur l'Histoire de la Défense (Histoire de la défense et sciences sociales), Paris, novembre 2003c, à paraître; Legrand, J. Les marches de l'empire chinois: Grande Muraille et empires nomades, Marches et Confins d'empires, Centre d'Etudes sur l'Histoire de la Défense, Paris, décembre 2001, in Face aux Barbares, Marches et Confins d'empires, de la Grande Muraille au Rideau de fer, Tallandier, Paris 2004. Ch. III, pp.53-85.

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conditions and resources irregularity leads in its turn to the adoption of radically different strategies, in which a forceful dynamic role belongs to a major principle of dispersion. This dispersion is in its first stage a mode of control and of coping with pressure exerted on primary resources. Such behaviour is a primordial condition for sustainable satisfaction of human needs. The social corollary of this primary role takes its main form in the exploding of population into little groups, for which pastures and herds find their limits in accordance with those imposed by capacity for human control. Even if this correlation includes strategies of maximization of herds or extension of pasture space, it nevertheless bears a relatively severe feed-back limitation upon the growth of human and herd groups. This relative demographic stability can be observed in the long-term history of steppe peoples, including the Mongols, and is associated with many corollaries and consequences.

Seasonal alternate pasture consumption and territorial anchorage One of the main technical fundamentals for the whole nomadic system consists in alternating the use of pastures on a mainly seasonal basis. This sharing is not primarily the effect, but the cause of mobility. This one, to which nomadism is too commonly assimilated, is in fact an important but subordinated tool for dispersion, and in no way an autonomous, self sustaining principle organizing economy or society. However paradoxical it may seem, seasonal pasture alternation is a means to maintain the production process and the whole way of living inside a limited spatial and territorial framework. The extension of this framework must remain compatible and connected with the energy balance and with the effective control capacity on which the group is relying. This technical and social configuration is far that from a sedentary perspective which perceives nomadism as mainly defined by its mobility, more or less explicitly assimilated with wandering conducts excluding territorial fixity. This strategy, in fact, pursues a twin aim. In the short term, the aim consists in giving herds immediate conditions for facing their needs in order to provide in their turn the fulfilment of human requirements and settlement of necessary equilibriums. But in the longer term, on the scale of annual cycles and even of multi-annual anticipation, the point is to reserve pasture resources areas as less remote as possible from each other. In this way, the combination of qualities belonging respectively to each one provides a capacity to take advantage of their complementary nature in a repeated and non-accidental way, even under severe catastrophic climate conditions. Thus, an appropriation of space as permanent as possible is allowed, remaining in accordance with its scope and duration with the limited management capacity of human groups with restrained dimensions. In the case of Mongolian nomadic pastoralism, mobility thus contributes to a successful anchorage on a relatively narrow territorial scale. Technical features of pastures and their respective parameters in terms of herbages, watering and shelter facilities naturally play a governing role in decision-making, which explains why it should be impossible to conceive a uniform pattern of occupation and utilization of pastoral areas. Even apparently quite dissimilar variants, either between remote areas (for example, the Hangai and Gov’ regions) or even inside a same area, appear to be quite close with each other. But a proper and essential role belongs to wintering pastures and encampments, which are in limited number due to special requirements that their locations must meet and to the lack of pasture regeneration during this period of the year, reflecting the utmost important significance of the time and space of winter animal consumption.


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Heritage transmission patterns A second aspect is formed by the predominant succession pattern. This one operates by swarming, which means that heritage is not transmitted to children after their parents’ death, but during elders’ lifetime, as young people enter adulthood. Instead of expansion by accumulation (for example, the undivided, joint character of property under the French Ancien Régime’s birthright or “Droit d’aînesse”) the herd growth thus contributes mainly to sustain such a process. This succession pattern is inseparable from matrimonial strategies, consanguinity control and concrete evolutions of grouping modes. When describing ancient nomads as living in large communities which later collapsed or suffered a subsequent dissolution process, this commonly and widely-used picture is based upon some confusion and eventual anachronism between several levels, each of which really exists, but cause nomadic society to organize itself in different ways. Networks built upon matrimonial alliances and devoted to consanguinity control are materialized by indicators of kinship relationships and lineages and by a large and active sharing of genealogical knowledge with its multiple tools, both oral and written. They form an important and permanent institution, even magnified by the very physical dispersion of the population into small groups, whose ultimate shape on a massive scale is the nuclear family. Only under certain circumstances, varying with time, do these groups enlarge themselves, growing into small-scale gatherings resting or not in addition, on consanguine relationships (so-called hot ayil). This kinshipbased level of social organization, although playing an essential role in forming and shaping the global social cohesion, in identifying and recognizing inside and among groups independently from their territorial dislocation, in “socially localizing” each individual, is not therefore the pattern upon which physical concrete groupings are built. These groups, bound with possibilities and constraints of their access to pastoral resources can be in a sustainable manner nothing but the small scattered groups we have just mentioned. The rise of numerous gatherings may take place only in two radically independent circumstances: either it happens in a historical phase preceding specific formation and generalization of nomadic pastoralism, and such gatherings have much in common with a still-existing sedentary way of life, or it is the form taken by episodes limited in time, during which alliance and force equilibrium undergo radical and restless redefining. In a developed nomadic pastoral society, indeed, any numerous and long-lasting population gathering should imply an equivalent gathering of herds, with fast exhaustion of neighbouring pastures and resources, leading to the necessity of massive and frequent moves, incompatible with energy equilibrium and balance of considered population. In other words, the frequency of labour-intensive nomadizations should have thus absorbed an amount of energy quickly exceeding the total resources available to such entities.

From ecological and technical constraints toward political anthropology These ecological, technological and social constraints and constants of nomadic pastoralism are recalled to underline how deep a role they play as very sources of socio-political mechanisms proper to nomadic society as a whole. Equally, one must emphasize the way in which demographic limitations proper to that society and numeric weakness of scattered groups lie at the cradle of their specific political anthropology. A first feature characteristic to these numerically unimportant groups is in political terms their extreme sensitivity to minimal variations in their own or neighbours’ organization or disposition, with repercussions as well on their technical capacities in managing herds and pastures as in more directly political and even military terms of strategic initiative and forces balance. More than on simple arithmetical relations to

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numerical conditions, the accent has to be set here on structural disproportions in group composition: even a limited shift in the number of young adults is sufficient to induce immediately perceptible disproportion between groups which elsewhere could seem of similar weight. A corollary of the utmost importance of this “strength of weaknesses” is the necessary place and complexity of alliance relations, whatever their basis and whatever the arguments used to build them up may be. This may, in fact, be considered one of the fundamentals upon which nomadic society and its policies rely. A second feature is an effect of conditions in which dispersion itself specifically generates stress, contradictions and conflicts. Although dispersion arises as an unavoidable ecological and technical optimum, it doesn’t result in an equal social harmony. It is even possible that this dissymmetry contains one of the most essential and effective dynamics for nomadic society and history. Because of both constraints of dispersion in accessing immediate resources and of essentially centrifugal nature of social organization and reproduction mechanisms, it is difficult for any steady equilibrium to sustain in the long term. Every element able to favour growth of both herds and human population, in spite of the appearance of prosperity it can offer, and at relatively low levels and thresholds, is leading to overpopulation tensions, to induction of concurrences between each group and its neighbours with these tensions applying either to pastures themselves or, more frequently, to apparently additional or accessory resources, like hunting sites. A third feature appears: the whole of social mechanisms and strategies related to them has to be represented in a centrifugal perspective. This is perhaps the point by which nomadic society is the most symmetrical, if not antagonistic, to the sedentary one, led by its accumulation priority to a set of dominating centripetal strategies. Nomadic pastoral society, whatever appearances may suggest, does not proceed by accumulation of hierarchical strata, but through the building-up of relationship networks, each oriented toward the other and as well organizing pasture access as managing relations with neighbouring and distant partner or rival groups. This centrifugal orientation, already perceptible in the conduct of pastoral production itself, when each species in complex herds has to be handled separately and led to different pastures even at different hours of the day, can be noticed on a larger scale in the managing of multiple relationship networks to which groups and individuals ascribe themselves. Drawing attention to either neighbouring co-operations and alliances, matrimonial strategies or many other forms of relationships, the whole of social life appears to be associated with distance settings and adjustments, meaningful remote relations, with the necessity to consider, from one’s own encampment, a more or less distant outside world which cannot at any moment or in any way be neglected or ignored. This feature is probably not in itself an exclusivity of nomadic pastoralism, but it strongly contrasts, in terms of priority, with the clearly centripetal, self-centred tendency proper to sedentary communities–rural and urban. Thus, in nomadic pastoral tradition, there is no institution comparable to the market-city providing a whole agricultural area with a central point of reference around which economic and social life of the region organizes itself. The most elementary nomadic encampment is in itself its own system centre. This is not the place to examine the relationship between this fact and the non-merchant nature of exchange amongst nomadic pastoral society itself. It must, nevertheless, be underlined that this centrifugal orientation reveals itself with most evident clarity in the way the produce circulation and spreading reached (prior to the Manchurian domination epoch) the very periphery of the nomadic world. The nomads’ approach to the institution of border markets, on Sino-Mongolian frontiers, and the inscription of produce exchanges achieved in them in relationships networks and strategies bearing a strongly politicized character could be used here as a major illustration.3 3

Serruys, H. Sino-Mongol Relations During the Ming, The Tribute System and Diplomatic Missions (14001600), IBHEC Bruxelles. 1967.


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A fourth feature is a consequence of the previous ones: as stated earlier, there cannot be formation of numerous long-lasting gatherings, even less of permanent ones, which could allow or constitute by themselves the assembling of potentially dominating forces. These forces are first, above all, those of small dispersed groups accessing dominating capacities only by inscribing themselves in alliance networks with various roots and beginnings. These alliances set themselves up upon matrimonial strategies, consanguine connections, immediate or distant interest acquaintances linked with different sorts of partnerships or fellowships (thus, we should recall the historical significance of substitution form to consanguinity exemplified in the Mongolian sworn brotherhood anda). These networks remain heterogeneous and retain their own proper features, namely an overall flexibility, due to which the whole system may react to evolutions and changing situations however sharp and chaotic these changes may be. Physical episodes of gathering, for these two reasons (pastoral constraints on the one side, suppleness and versatility of alliance practices on the other) are mere momentary, temporary, mostly defensive responses (well-exemplified by the term kürij-e itself or “circle”, which gives a clear image of the most traditional defensive system or device) to most acute critical situations. This limitation doesn’t hence reduce their major political significance. In the course of these limited phases, lineages and groups with vocation to domination, but possessing as usual, in their normal dispersed situation, a relatively uncertain superiority, may emerge as first plan actors and have the opportunity to be recognized as such. Enlargement of this recognition is derived as well from demonstration of proper skills and strength as from evidence, in a longer term, of specific “rights” to invoke a particular legitimacy (real or supposed, symbolized role played in the past by the pretending group or its ancestors). The establishing of an “aristocratic” domination draws thus its origin and mechanisms at the same time from dispersion itself, which makes it necessary, and from critical gathered phases, which provide it with the opportunity to affirm its pretensions and to incorporate them as a necessary momentum in the whole nomadic social life. This domination is the political response to impulse coming from the very core of nomadic society. It firstly aims at favouring regulation mechanisms which allow society to escape the most acute and dangerous forms of concurrences and crises. Thus, it equally aims at restoring conditions in which return to dispersed access to pastoral resources may be guaranteed to the whole population implied in the crisis area and time. This regulatory mission is clearly echoed by the central Mongolian term for “power” (zasag), historically well-known in its form yasak/yasa as the alleged and controversial name of Genghis-khan’s Great Law, a name simply derived from the verb zasa- “to correct, rectify, repair”, and even “to cure” as in mes zasal (surgery). These facts are of large scale and significance: the emergence of power, under such conditions, doesn’t imply the implementation of a policy aiming at appropriation; mainly by seizure of primary resources “belonging” to other protagonists (the way in which loot is subject to social repartition more than to private confiscation is in itself an interesting testimony). Autochthonous descriptions of unification processes or of conflicts proper to nomadic societies shows convincingly enough that their objectives, apart from specific cases generally related to long-lasting personal rivalries and revenge, are neither the adversaries’ destruction nor primarily the seizure of their wealth, but the establishing of new relationships, of new mechanisms and regulations of access to resources. The last testimony of that concern could be found in the conclusion in 1640 of the Cagazin-u bicig, or “Mongol-Oirat laws” in which pastoral regulations appeared as an attempt to settle general relations between Eastern and Western Mongols. Many centuries earlier, the well-known assertion by Bodonþar, for whom “it is right for a body to have a head, and for a coat to

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have a collar,”4 is inscribed in this perspective. The use of strength, the momentum of open conflict assume, in these conditions, character and significance different from those they bear in conflicts between sedentary protagonists. Taking part in the conflict aims in general neither at the elimination of the enemy nor at gaining unilateral and irreversible advantages, quite illusory under irregularities and uncertainties inherent to a nomadic society. An ultimate goal is to allow the population to return to its optimal pastoral dispersion. This process is described in a very vivid manner in the passages of The Secret History of the Mongols dealing with the creation of the ninety-five Minggan immediately consecutive to the imperial unification.5 Far from the simple establishment of a new rule imposed by force by Genghis Khan to his former enemies as well as to his allies, these passages give the image of a negotiation open and active between partners, ending up in an organization responding more or less to the interests of each of the protagonists. Beyond often triumphant proclamations imposed by a later hagiography, it appears that the normal way of decision-making, as well in its modalities as in its expected results, even in the case of open conflict, is to search for and to put into practice a compromise. This notion, although present in the conceptual apparatus and in the operative methods of sedentary political art, is not considered, apart from a few brilliant, somehow paradoxical, exceptions, but in a worse way, as a “shameful” solution, to which one can resign only as a last step, often recognizing in doing so a defeat or a failure, at least partial. On the contrary, nomadic political culture uses compromise, so common that there is no special term in Mongolian for its denomination (nor is there for “nomadism”), in a positive way and as the major tool for any solution searching out or building up. This dimension is inseparable from the relativity of power among the nomads, which did surprise many observers. They were fascinated by close and contradictory superposition of demonstration of absolute power in the hands of emperors or lineage chieftains and of ease with which this supremacy itself could be questioned. Historical problems to be dealt with are beyond doubt very diverse, depending on the consideration we take of mechanisms proper to the nomadic society itself or of phenomena implying it in its relations to the sedentary world. From this point of view, we have to distinguish conflicts arising among the nomadic social life itself, including unification and the rise of empires related to it, from political and military formations and events proper to conquest periods. The time in which nomadic pastoralism arises and transitions leading to it deserve a special investigation. They present, by comparison with developed nomadism, remarkable specific features (mainly the significant place occupied there by agricultural or craft centres which later disappear with generalization of nomadic pastoralism on larger areas). Concerning properly imperial periods, on the opposite side, one of the major contradictions produced by the nomadic pastoral system as described above is the fact that in itself, along with the naturally short-term domination attempts, long-term claims to legitimacy may assume and instaurate themselves, being backed by alliance networks and by favourable force balances associated with them. Attempts to ensure duration for such claims may gain some success. But at the same time, no nomadic pastoral society, with its efficiency based on dispersion and its production surplus mainly unstable and irregular, could by its own resources make these attempts sustainable as such in the long term. In one word, pastoral society needs to produce empires, but cannot support their sustainability and duration beyond relatively narrow limits and objectives. This limitation, added to centrifugal logic proper to the whole nomadic society leads empire to solve this contradiction by looking for resources from outside the nomadic world. The traditional 4 De Rachewiltz, I. (translat. and comment.), The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, Brill, Leiden. 2004. p. 7. 5 De Rachewiltz 2004. pp. 144, 152.


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search for compromise thus shifts towards interactions on a larger scale between internal (nomadic) and external (sedentary) priorities. This change is not limited to mere boundary contacts. Establishment on the fringes of regions dedicated to nomadic pastoralism of infiltration or conquest formations, empires or dynasties, ensuring the domination of nomadic lineages upon sedentary areas and populations bears a huge significance. Once more, if we take the case of East Asian steppe people, North China provides us with the largest and richest field for analysis. Repeated and protracted succession of barbarian dynasties in North China, during more than a millennium, cannot be satisfactorily interpreted as a mere chance or coincidence. It is remarkable too that, if not by accident, this nomadic conquest of sedentary areas was not followed by significant extension of pastoral space. Undoubtedly, even through sometimes arduous reflections, as shown by the well-known discussion which took place amongst the Mongolian imperial and military elite in 1229-1230, advantages awaited from exploiting sedentary wealth outweighed the apparent immediate gain from enlarging the pastoral basis. Nevertheless, the capacity to develop this conception and argumentation denotes a sophisticated way of thinking that goes far beyond a brutal logic of appropriation. The fact that history on several occasions demonstrated the shortcomings of this way of thinking doesn’t alter its significance. Once more, the answer lies at the core of nomadic society. It seems evident, for instance, that communication, verbal exchange, oral transmission of culture and social norms, mental apparatus associated with genealogy and historiography occupy a primordial place. Political sociolinguistics, ethno linguistics and analysis of political discourse of nomadic pastoralism appear to offer some necessary research orientations. The same is true too, naturally, for a politological study about the nature of conflicts, their formulation and solution, to be carried out as well about the juridical terms arisen from nomadic realities and practice as about social and political substance of multiple organizational and relational networks and about the formation and evolution among them of force balances. A much more than anecdotal dimension must therefore be submitted to analysis. This must be carried out prudently because of the common assumption of such terms as “politically incorrect”: the psychological and psycho-sociological aspects of these problems could not be left unnoticed. This last dimension is essential because it is the one which may interfere with modern effects of problems I tried to signalize here. Apart from marginal events, for instance when discussing some vocabulary issues and the extension of such or such juridical term, it is obvious that we are no longer in a situation in which nomadic pastoralism could be able to generate a new political order. Nevertheless, at the very bottom of mentalities, in the world perception more or less consciously shared by many people in central Eurasia, in priorities and hopes they could formulate, we must not neglect sources and roots, motives and behaviours interacting with their remote nomadic historical background. Dealing with social psychology, it is obviously necessary to free oneself from any constraints or a priori of ethical nature, or more exactly to define their place and limits. It is a lieu commun in our readings about nomadic peoples and history to encounter contradictory and quasi simultaneous affirmations about treason and disloyalty, fidelity and loyalty as equally representative for nomadic political behaviour. We can also find episodes related by nomadic historiography as testimonies by witnesses or by their descendants. Either war trickeries or stratagems, word given and deceived or on the contrary recalls to surprisingly strict codes of behaviour like those regulating discipline in imperial Mongolian armies, pieces of information and commentaries mixing contradictory facts are quite numerous. One may be tempted to see here a reflection of fear and hostility nomads inspired their sedentary neighbours with, and on this ground to invalidate these acknowledgments. Without disproving this justifiable cautiousness, it seems that such testimonies cannot be considered as mere collections of prejudices. Once the truthfulness of

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the facts has been duly established, it remains necessary to provide them with consistent interpretations. From that point of view, one example may be of some help: the provisional nature of sworn brotherhood (anda), submitted to several times renewing, as The Secret History of the Mongols describes this about relations between Temüjin and Jamuqa.6 To elucidate such a phenomenon, as well as others comparable, both structural and episodic, is of special importance because such an event shows formation and practice of a compromise in the making. It seems possible to propose a tentative interpretation of such phenomena: under conditions of irregularity and unpredictability prevailing in nomadic pastoralism, to intercalate between the perceptions of interest or threat and reacting a buffer consisting of immutable and irremovable values, even of ethic principles, can prove to be fatal. Any relationship is not in this way exclusive of moral values and norms, which are remembered quite strongly on every occasion, but this can be achieved only through negotiations renewed with each significant variation of the faced situation and involved interests. At last, in a methodological backmove, perhaps too audacious or imprudent, but that seems to me even more meaningful, facing this moral aspect is in turn an opportunity to investigate the very bases of social and cultural systems, the confrontation and antagonism among accumulation and dispersion. We are indeed acquainted with the belief for which ethics consist in a sum of principles, norms and behaviours, as a corpus of values (the term “moral code” being illustrative here) the accumulation of which being both the collection of values itself, but equally the respect shown to them, every behaviour or practice taking no part in this accumulation being ipso facto disqualified as immoral or amoral. On the contrary, we ought to be able to understand that in a culture based on dispersion, the values, far from being inexistent or inoperative, intervene as forms of dynamics in relationship networks, as factors of deflection or reorientation which are as such, and not only through the accumulation of their effects, constituting the whole social consistency. We may find in this debate an echo to a long-lasting discussion between linear and cyclical understandings of history. Many works, amongst them Fernand Braudel’s, have done much to clarify this ancestral question, and it is nowadays largely accepted that linear and cyclical are associated and not antagonistic forms of social and historical course. The introduction in this discussion of issues related to accumulation and dispersion incites me to privilege a vector-based thinking and conception, in other words, to think of social and historical movement in categories of impetus and trajectory alterations or deflections which may not be considered either as effects of blind determinism or as erratic consequences of problematical wanderings. I acknowledge that my use of these tools has much respect to pay to Bezier’s curves and to their numerous applications in fields seemingly quite distant from social history. This nevertheless provides means of solving the apparent contradiction between linear and cyclical in many cases. Here too, accumulative and dispersive views of vector ought to be singled out. It appears that, for an accumulation-oriented conception, even action of modelling and deforming factors being conceived and analysed, the vector itself is nevertheless perceived as a collection of points, as their accumulation, with every point not entering this collection keeping its negation. On the contrary, for a dispersion-oriented conception, without neglecting vector’s materiality or impact as a whole, it is possible to conceive and think out the vector almost exclusively through interactions of multiple flexibility factors, these remaining by definition external to the vector itself, but at the same time being indivisible from its actual reality.

6

de Rachewiltz 2004. p. 44.


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Conclusion Could this contrast not throw some new light upon divergent definitions and appreciation of compromise in both sedentary and nomadic political cultures and lay emphasis on the fact that no one of these trends can be considered more universal than the other? If so, a still too frequent definition of nomadic societies by their “lacks” in regard to “normality” and “universality” provided only by sedentary cultures could be deprived of most of its consistency. Thus we could bear in mind that universality is certainly one of the rightful aims of a scientific way of thinking, but that it cannot be alleged unless it really takes into account accurate factual diversity and versatility. Above all, one question arises: doesn’t modern decision-making have something practical to learn from a compromise-based political philosophy?

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Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia: Democracy versus Justice? Catherine POUJOL Institut national des Langues et Civilisations orientales, Paris Abstract. A persistent bipolarity exists in the new global thinking: that democratic forces claim for democracy and human rights and that Islamic activists claim for justice (meaning social justice by the will of God). In fact, even during the Cold War, when the world was divided into two blocks, capitalism versus communism, the supporters of democracy were already facing the supporters of social justice. This article underlines why, since 1991, the elites of the new Central Asian independent states were not inclined to implement the Western values that the West insistently tried to bring them. Apparently isolated from the rest of the Muslim Community by the iron curtain, the Central Asian states have demonstrated there was in fact a specific pattern of Islamic persistency within the Soviet ideological frame that rested on an original compromise, which was unknown to the West. This social contract between Muslim leaders and the Soviet Communist party was mostly made in order to fight political Islam which was gaining influence from the end of the 1980s. For both, the political enemy was first the capitalist West, with its attribute of democracy, and second, radical Islam that wanted to get rid of the official Muslim leaders as they were “sold to the atheistic regime”. With the collapse of the Soviet system, the newly independent Central Asian ex-Soviet leaders were faced with a harsh challenge: working together with their former Western enemy to build the so-called market economy with its democratic values. They became very rich, losing the legitimacy given them by the Soviet ideology of social justice which, in turn, became the basic claim of the Islamic movements. Since 9/11 the fight between democracy and justice is as contested as ever; only the borders of each block have changed. We all live now under the global threat of small- or large-scale tragedies, the "fear industry", as French sociologist Michel Wieworka wrote in 2003. After fifteen years of independence, the first political overthrow occurred in Kyrgyzstan in March 2005 in the name of justice without any reference to Islam. The turmoil currently taking place in Uzbekistan has a greater link between Islam and justice.

The Persisting Pendulum Movement To understand why in the last decade of the twentieth century, while one of the last global empires was collapsing in the context of an exacerbated “South-North” resentment, the elites of the Central Asian independent states were not inclined to welcome the values that the West tried introduce – apart from technical and financial assistance for massive and rapid reforms, we must resort to history. We can first underline Fernand Braudel’s “longue durée” as an efficient concept for reshaping Central Asian history. Doing so, we will highlight the individuality of Central Asian territories. Indeed, it appears as a region long balanced between worldwide contacts (over two thousand years during the Great Silk Road’s existence) and a real lack of relations with the external non-Muslim world from the sixteenth century up to the Russian colonization in the twentieth century.

C. Poujol / Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Democracy Versus Justice?

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This apparently open space (steppes, deserts, lack of rooted and stable state frontiers) was in reality partially closed; unbelievers (kafir) were never welcomed. Their coming, even officially peacefully (as diplomats, scientists, travellers, merchants), always provoked instability within the local societies,1 due to the suspicion with which they were generally treated. In this respect, Central Asian oases, which had a long tradition of occasional contact (commercial or diplomatic), or lasting and violent contact (conquests) with Chinese, Indian, Mongol and Persian representatives, did not promote a tradition of exchanges with the Western world. That might be the ground for a significant difference with the Ottoman Empire, Persia and China where Christian missions were continuously present from the sixteenth century. The direct consequence of this phenomenon is the persistence, centuries long, of distrust towards the representatives of infidel culture, and a negative vision of “the other” who had “bad intentions” such as spying and dispossession of the natural wealth; all this added up to a paranoid atmosphere. So far, from the point of view of the Western powers (including Russia, which had never forgotten its southern frontiers), Central Asia, whose name changed from Transoxiana in the pre-Islamic period, to Tartaria and Touran in the medieval one, to Turkestan, then “Russian Turkestan” in Modern times, was submitted to a cyclic closure phenomenon, followed by recurrent periods of rediscovery. A pendulum movement of opening and land locking is observable in Central Asia, the most recent one, in 1991, being an opening movement. From One Clash to Another In fact, the colonization process in Turkestan from 1853 (General Perovsky’s seizure of the Ak Masjid Fortress belonging to the Kokand Khanate) provoked a real loss of integrity and sacrality for this part of the Muslim land (Dar-el Islam). Initially, the modernity brought by the Russian Empire to Turkestan – railways, telegraph, mass media, photography, industrialisation and so on – was not followed by the kind of counterpoint discourse that occurred in Western industrialized countries: during the first three decades, no social movement claimed justice during the spread of banks, loans, taxes, bankruptcies and other capitalistic structures accross the region’s cities. Nothing was done to avoid the downfall of thousands of small cotton planters.2 Then the genuine Muslim Reformist intellectual movement (Djadidism) emerged, claiming equality with Russians, the end of land seizure and respect for Islam. At the same time, although not very popular among the native population, the diffusion of Socialist and Bolshevist ideas in Turkestan more than a decade before the 1917 Revolution (mainly by Russian political deportees and local intellectuals) prepared the ground for a more harsh disruption in terms of ideological discourse. Unsurprisingly, Muslim Djadids and Russian Social Democrats were already working in parallel, if not together, to prepare for the near future a kind of Muslim-socialist agreement. The Lenin April Thesis that called for the right to self-determination was partly based on the discourse of social justice, the building of a new political federal structure out of the ruins of the “Tsarist jail of peoples”. After the first decade of civil war, Stalin came to power to achieve collectivisation of the means of production and final sedentarisation of the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz’, and Turkmen. After a decade of bloody repression to “Sovietize” the Central Asian political, 1 Poujol, C. “Boukhara, Khiva, Kokand and Russia from 1700 to 1840: Pre-colonial contacts through the Russian travelling Experience”. Phd in Oriental History at the University of Sorbonne. Paris III, 1992. 2 Carrere D’encausse, H. Réforme et Révolution chez les musulmans de l’Empire russe. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. 2nd ed.1981.

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economic, social and cultural spheres, the Second World War imposed a set of compromises. The Soviet power, from that moment on, was forced to find a workable agreement with native Muslim elites, promoting them as official representatives of the Muslim Soviet Community. Four official structures were created for the whole Soviet territory, which were put in the paradoxical position of working for an atheist state under the name of Allah. The most important was one in Tashkent, the SADUM (Spiritual Board of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan). The fact that Stalin re-established official Islam through the Soviet Muslim Community (“the Soviet Ummah”), helped the community to promote him as a legitimate ruler. So far, Stalin could not be accused of being the infidel tyrant he used to be before World War II.3 However, it is interesting to notice that the official leadership did not feel they had obtained the right to organize official Muslim representation from Stalin or Moscow. In their Journal Muslims of the Soviet East, published in Tashkent from 1968 in various languages, including English, French, Persian, and Uzbek in Arabic script, the Muslim leaders pointed out the creation of the SADUM was initiated by the believers themselves. “In April 1943, a group of theologians led by the revered Mufti Sheikh Ishan Babakhan ibn Abdulmadjidkhan came to visit the Uzbek President Yuldash Akhunbabaev and asked him to create the Spiritual Board of Muslims. The president gave his agreement.”4 On 20 October 1943, by the call of the First Congress of Muslim of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (kuriltay), more than 160 representatives adopted the status of the Spiritual Board in order “to conduct a wide propaganda among Muslims about the ideas of Koran and Sunna, to eradicate the superstitions, contrary to Koran and Sunna … to guide the Muslims to the right path indicated by God, under the name of Peace and Justice on the earth”.5 So, a most unpredictable deal occurred, a kind of ideological fusion between Communism as a quest for wealth during lifetime and Islam as an ethical quest for paradise after death.6 The Islamic official leaders, fiercely orthodox (Sunni) if not intrinsically fundamentalist, were the best ones to manage the Muslim Soviet community domestically, as well as to promote the Soviet model for Islamic countries abroad. Apparently devoted to the Soviet state, they were capable of addressing the ideal of Social Justice conveyed by Soviet Ideology in accordance with the precepts of the Koran. The first article of issue 2 in 1979 of Muslims of the Soviet East (English version) claims: “The coming new age is acquiring a special kind of significance not only through hopes and expectations ordained upon it by all the believers in Islam but through practical accomplishment of its divine mission in abolishing each and every obstacle that stands in the path of its unhindered advancement, progress and justice towards all people of Muslim nations (…) The religion of Islam, in the course of the past fourteen centuries in unswervingly following true principles of ensuring proper justice and lasting peace on Earth, so that they will have no fear of menacing mankind with dangerous weapons, nor moral weakness, which at times tends to wreck the hearts and consciousness of each and every human in the world of ours.”7 These religious leaders, who acted as an interface between the Soviet state and their own society, made ritual pilgrimage (hadj) almost every year to Mecca, and discovered the new Muslim trends that developed in this period (the ideal of the Golden Age of 3 Charnay, J-P. Regards sur l’islam, Freud, Marx, Ibn Khaldun. L’Herne. 2003. 4 Muslims of the Soviet East Tashkent. 1396/1976, n°4, p. 2. 5 Ibid, p. 4. 6 This was perfectly understood by the few Soviet specialists of Islam such as Nugman Ashirov, who was one of chiefs of Atheistic propaganda and pointed out in the 1970s the attempt of Official Islam to adapt itself to Communism, Evolucija islama v SSSR, Moskva, Politizdat, 1973. 7 See Muslims of the Soviet East. 1979/1399, n°2. pp. 1-2.


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Muhammad, the Salafist movements, various political movements such as Muslim Brothers and so on). In this way, unanticipated by the West, they brought back to the Soviet Union all the debates of the outside Muslim World.8 They reintroduced a strong fundamentalist trend to the Soviet Muslim scene, far from the political aims of the Islamic parties and groups that were already fighting for an Islamic state, particularly in Tajikistan. As a result, they were inclined to unite with the Soviet Communist forces against the rise of political Islam in Soviet territory from the 1970s onwards.9 But all this political and social ebullition under the banner of Islam that steadily increased after Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 was almost entirely ignored by Western countries, except for a few specialists such as Alexander Bennigsen, Chantal Lemercier Quelquejay and Yaacov Roi.10 The Soviet Muslim community was on the brink of deep change; it was suddenly open to outside Muslim influences, discourses, fashions and representations. Its political chessboard was becoming more complicated, though it was still invisible. The coming of Perestroïka would reveal the depth of political demand within Central Asian societies, as well as vitality for the outside world, of Soviet Muslim social life after the socalled “Brezhnev stagnation”. Western and Local Preconceptions of Central Asian Islam: Rebirth or Awakening? The community of Central Asian scholars has taken its time for reflection on the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet system in the region, its impact on Islamic issues, and the massive reinsertion of the region into “Global Islam”. At independence in 1991, popular opinion was based on a set of assumptions about “quasi imagined” communities11 in quest of new political, economic and ideological definition. The current approach was built through exaggerated (mostly through the Russian and American media) and over-simplified representations which rested on two ideas: the complete eradication of Islam by the Soviets and its revival from nothing during Perestroïka, and the fear of its major radicalisation by extremist segments in society, aided by outside Muslim activists. This problem was connected to the West’s simplistic assumption that the new Central Asian independent states would adopt Western values of democracy and human rights. It was deeply rooted on what we could call the “betrayal of terminology”, or the result of another “clash of civilisation”, i.e. the different interpretations for Western and post-Soviet political and academic circles of general conceptions such as state, power, democracy, human rights, individual versus community, moderate Islam and radical Islam. The gap between the official discourse of the elites, internet, the regular media and the reality in the field is also problematic. Moreover, the opacity of information and the underground activities of opposition movements make it difficult to estimate the number, the social affiliation and the aims of people involved within Islamic extremist activities. The massive proportion of ill-informed citizens is a crucial feature too; people there are flooded with informal news and gossip.

8 Poujol, C. “Islam et mondialisation en Asie centrale : une trajectoire entre islam local et islam global”. La Pensée, N°338, avril/juin 2004. pp. 8-9. 9 Babadjanov, B. “Islam officiel contre islam politique en Ouzbékistan: la Direction des Musulmans et les groupes non hanafi” Revue d’Etudes Comparatives Est-Ouest. 31, (3), 2000, pp.151-164. See later in this chapter: the question of Democracy or how to delay it 10 They attested to the vitality of the underground Muslim mentality through the concept of « parallel Islam » borrowed from Soviet sociologists, Bennigsen, A., Lemercier-Quelquejay, C. L’islam en Union soviétique. Paris Payot. 1968. RO’I, Y. Muslim Eurasia, Conflicting Legacies. London: Frank Cass. 1995. 11 To make a parallel with the work of Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities, New York, 1993.

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The reality and life of the Post-Soviet Central Asian societies must be handled quite differently. If some, mostly among the younger generations, have returned to dogmatic practice (in massive numbers in the Fergana Valley), the remaining population is still bound to a ritualised and moderated Islam. Nevertheless, be it resilient or resurgent, Islam actually seems to be the only workable political, cultural, social and ethical system that could be mobilized for ruling these societies in the future. Communism as a political alternative is dead. It remains only in the memory of the retired and elderly, a memory of an idealized past, but where at least social justice was ensured for the majority. Table 1: The perception of Central Asia by external powers and its consequences Exogenous vision from outsiders Endogenous answer from natives Medieval and pre-colonial Central Asia is a “terra incognita” which is cyclically rediscovered Colonial Period: the vision of the winners, upon conquered land Consequences: fear of protesting Islam, jihad Soviet Period: vision of the Centre, territory to develop, a periphery as an economic burden for the Centre Post-Soviet Period: the globalized vision, a territory to democratise, to reform, to help, to integrate, to secure

The foreigner is the spy, the unbeliever, the predator who steals local wealth The vision of the losers: technological superiority of the Russians, Frontal attack against the Dar-el Islam Consequences: persistence of Islam, compromise A periphery building its national cradle, the rise of national elites, proto-nationalism, (the Cotton Affair in Uzbekistan, the Kolbin Affair in Kazakhstan) Resistance or not against Globalisation (financial institutions, delay for accepting in Uzbekistan, resistance to entry of large foreign firms, seizure of capital, syndrome of deprivation, the Uzbek way, the Kazakh way.

Re-Interpreting Recent Inheritance? We must rethink the cohabitation in Central Asian societies of the two large-scale ideological bases, Communism and Islam, which in reality were in competition as politicalideological-social and ethical totalities. We have to pay special attention to the local conditions conditioning the social dialogue because we are all victims of a normative Western, post-Soviet way of thinking: “now it is better than before”. We need to properly evaluate the inheritance12 of each political system which is still perceivable in the current power structure. For instance, we must appreciate the persistence of colonial practices within the Soviet system, and the Soviet ones within the current political and social system, both having deeply influenced Islam and the ideas and practices of opposition in Central Asia.13 It is quite common to believe that Communism in Central Asia was first of all a simple application of Marxist-Leninist dogmas in the Sovietized part of the region: Turkestan and the Steppe Region. It is commonplace to view these five meta-Soviet societies as regular parts of the global Soviet community, literally applying the Stalinist dogma to any republic which was "national in form, socialist in content".14 12 See Poujol, C. “L'islam entre résistance passive et acculturation active: nouvelle approche d'une problématique persistante” Les cahiers d’Asie centrale. n°11, IFEAC , Edisud, Aix en Provence. 2005. pp.199-214. 13 Sagdeev, Roald and Eisenhower, Susan, eds. Islam and Central Asia: an enduring legacy or an evolving threat? Washington DC: Center for Political and Strategic Studies. 2000. 255p; Jones Luong P. ed. The Transformation of Central Asia, States, Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2004. 14 Poujol, C. L’islam en Asie centrale: vers la nouvelle donne. Paris: Ellipses. 2001. chap 2.


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In fact due to Soviet propaganda, most Western scholars were not aware of what really occurred in these Soviet Republics from Khrushchev’s time onwards. Indeed, they were not able to grasp the subtlety of the Stalinist dogma, which was reinterpreted by the local powers in an inverted way: “socialist in form” and strongly “national in content”. Consequently, ethnicism and nationalism are by-products of the Soviet ideology that normally should have disappeared with the full advent of Homo Sovieticus and the rise of real socialism. What emerged after seven decades of Soviet rule, and during them, was the rise of Homo Islamo-sovieticus in Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Turkmen nationally exacerbated versions. At the same time, Central Asia after the Soviet collapse is seen by the outside world as a part of the Muslim community without any strong specificity other than through the prism of the re-Islamisation process from the bottom up. To an extent, post-Soviet Muslims were initially seen more as Muslims than as post-Soviet citizens. However, for scholars who study Central Asia and quite different countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, the perception of the newly independent citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, should be quite obvious: they are all Muslim, but for a number of generations, these post-Soviet Muslims will remain Soviet minded as well as Muslim minded. Moreover, the gap between post-Soviet civil society and religious official or nonofficial representatives will persist for a long time. We are still facing segmented societies which endure a real lack of flexibility. There is not yet a “Central Asian street” comparable to the media’s “Arab Street” in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, or Egypt. But we can already see a kind of “Central Asian square”: from Dushanbe in January 1992 to Andijan in May 2005, people are gathering in front of official buildings to express their concern. Until the events beginning on 13 May 2005 in Uzbekistan, we could have thought that the memory of Stalinist repressions was still too vivid to push Central Asian citizens into spontaneous street demonstrations. Now, it seems that things are changing. Recent events in Uzbekistan showed that there is a trend of women’s involvement in radical Islam. Women were seen as kamikazes in the April 2004 Tashkent Bazaar bloody events; and in winter 2004 they also demonstrated in the streets of Kokand to get their “Islamic husbands” released from jail.15 On 3 May 2005, a peaceful demonstration of about 70 people from a southern kolkhoz (including women and children) in front of the US embassy in Tashkent was dispersed. The bloody putdown of the Andijan demonstration is a tragic step in this social and political fermentation. It demonstrates a dramatic change in scale and nature. The number of victims is also significant, almost 200 according to official sources, 745 according to the opposition.16 Once more, the main motivation of those who seized weapons, as well as the peaceful demonstrators, was related to justice, as attested by many slogans heard during these days. The problem of repression, jails and Western reactions through NGOs’ claims, is a new aspect of the relationships between the West and post-Soviet states, bringing the problematic of democracy or justice back to the core of the debate. It puts the US as well as European countries and Russia in an uncomfortable position.

15 For documentation on these events see www.Fergana.ru or www.vesti.ru 16

At time of writing – May 19 2005

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The Question of Democracy or How to Delay It? According to their constitutions Central Asian republics are secular states. But they have Muslim majorities and Muslim traditions are deeply rooted. It is interesting to notice that some countries, notably Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, even before independence, have developed a strong cultural resistance to Western values, and a refusal to apply “democratic dogmas” as simple transplantations, mandatory for implementing a market economy. Everybody refers to democracy but nobody applies it. 17 Of course, the official discourse is somehow different. The democratic path is quoted almost everywhere as the political aim of the five Central Asian states. In an interview given to a Russian newspaper, Islam Karimov gave his views on democracy: “A democratic state. In fact, this phrase is so abused that I'm going to phrase it differently. It will be a state that answers all demands of the 21st century, a state where dictatorship will be impossible. And this is what everyone is afraid of, meaning tyranny. As for me, I understand dictatorship as dictatorship of an individual or a single structure. Hence the conclusion: the more independent the parliament is, the stronger the system of courts is, the more autonomous the government is, the better we will answer requirements of the new century. I believe that this alignment to modern requirements will take the form of justice in the country. ... I'd say that when every branch of the power is as just as it can become (and that requires independence), we will have the arrangement of forces in the country that will make dictatorship or monopoly impossible. People will feel themselves free”.18 This argument is clearly connected with the future. For the present, the post-Soviet political elite seem to count on their own patrimony in order to fill the ideological vacuum and prefer national values rather than adopting foreign ones. One means to solve this problem was to demonstrate the existence of the endogenous concept of democracy that is found in the Islamic community culture of consensus. So far, when there is a serious reference to democracy, it is for saying that “we have our own traditional form of democracy, inherited from the past; that is mahalla, neighbouring community, with its tradition of mutual assistance: khashar. In other words, the Western pattern of democracy is good only for the West, “Orient is a delicate affair” (in Russian: “vostok – delo tonkoe”).19 In reality there are some historical, ideological and even ethical reasons for rejecting the Western approach to democracy. It might be its arrogant discourse, its conquering ethnocentric spirit and above all, the persistent representation of the capitalistic world as the enemy of Soviet Union. So far, these new independent republics can be seen as a byproduct of the transplantation of a Western nation-state model with Western style legislative and executive apparatus into a traditional pre-colonial Islamic state.20 As the traditional Islamised social body went through violent disruptions during the tsarist and then the Soviet periods, local societies have widely developed trends of passive 17

See Poujol, C. “Le concept de démocratie est-il applicable à l'Asie centrale post-soviétique? Réflexions sur la transition démocratique”. Dossier L'Asie centrale, espace et domination, Défense, n°91, janvier-février, pp.32-36. 18 Panfilova, V., (Tashkent- Moscow), “Islam Karimov: we were regarded as men of the second sort in the Empire”, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Moscow), January 14, 2005, pp. 1. 19 Interview of Akmal Saïdov, Chief Editor of the Uzbek Journal published in English and in Russian, "Democratisation and Human Rights" November, 28th, 2000 in Tashkent. He mentions the “New mahalla in Uzbekistan”, as a new concept for the 21st century. 20 See Farkhad Tolipov’s chapter on the concept of proto-democracy in Uzbekistan.


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resistance beside active ones by a few opposition members.21 At least, the main way to overcome the persistent contradiction between a non-Muslim power (first imperial Russian, then Soviet) and “Muslim societies politically cut from any Muslim legitimacy”, (which could be a good definition of the five Central Asian socialist republics), was to find a social and political consensus, mostly elaborated by the national elite. This consensus or compromise, as we said earlier, was based on acceptable values in both the Islamic and communist spirits such as social justice and equality. In this context, the crucial activity of the Spiritual Board, SADUM, takes place, which is clearly more than just “sold to the regime”. Despite its constant proofs of loyalty to the KGB, this official structure maintained a minimal Islamic participation in an official atheistic state in order to reduce the anxiety of believers, as a whole, and to reduce the emergence of political Islam activists, in particular. As we have pointed out before, in Muslims of the Soviet East, we can easily find the tracks of a meta-discourse that dramatically shows the vivid debate around Islam, Islamism, fundamentalism and the quest for purity that burst out in Central Asia in the 1980s. The choice made by the Soviet leadership was clear; they reached a compromise with the official orthodox Sunni elite to promote a return to values of justice, and to reduce the influence of radical Islam and at the same time, of Western values. Democracy versus Justice? In Central Asia, as in each traditional Muslim region, the notion of democracy in its Western conception is exogenous, although it exists in local mentalities in the form of concepts of consensus, justice and equality that communities use to regulate themselves. In fact, it is interesting to note that Uzbek and Tajik intellectuals, educated in the spirit of Marxism Leninism, had been naturally creating alternative movements and parties during Perestroïka whose slogans of “justice” and “fight against tyranny” were intrinsically Muslim. Totally foreign to the rhetoric of democracy, Islamic movements worldwide have built their discourse on the quest for justice. In Central Asia, they have proposed the notion of God justice as the only alternative to the injustice of “corrupt and predatory” post-Soviet Powers. The web site http://muslimuzbekistan.com offers an interesting mixture of Islamist rhetoric on Justice and the fight against tyranny, with recurrent references to human rights, the problems of jails and political prisoners. The word “democracy” is totally absent. On their side, the current powers, who do not apply the democracy to which they formally refer (in deference to the world financial institutions), have nothing else to replace the “justice of Islamic militants”. The external nature of democracy, transplanted from outside, must surely have seemed to them incompatible with their own societies. But, by acting this way, they have taken a major risk in separating the rule of law they are supposed to warrant, from the social justice they are no longer able to ensure. With his set of “Islamic ukaz” (laws), President Karimov has tried for several years to demonstrate to his society that his government is “Islamically correct”. So far, he has closed family planning clinics, banned billiards in bars and, as was already recommended by official Islamic leaders in the 1980s, he has restricted excessive expenses on weddings. Furthermore, a sudden drop in the wedding age for girls was tolerated soon after the collapse of the Soviet System. Is his strategy of Islamising “on the sly” sufficient to keep him safe in this tense “electoral period”, where the only promising new ideology is God Justice? The demonstrations that began on 13 May 2005 already provide some elements of the answer to this question. 21 Poujol, C., op.cit. Aix en Provence. 2005. pp. 208-210.

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With the new insecure world that has emerged after 9/11,22 the question of democracy is itself problematic. In Western countries based on old democratic traditions, the new security regulations have resulted in a drastic shortfall in human rights. Western countries cannot offer a democratic option to Central Asian states as credible as it was in 1991. For these new states, there were negative reactions to the concept from the very beginning; it was even considered dangerous to national security. For example, it was said in Uzbekistan, but also in Turkmenistan, that they were not ready for this “luxury”. In these states, which came through a harsh twentieth century, social and political stability should be based on a state’s strength or the president’s strength, and that, by necessity, means authoritarian rule for the sake of the silent majority. Today, Central Asian elites use a double standard discourse. On one hand, the democratisation of society must occur and the rule of law must be built.23 On the other hand, democracy means weakness of power, social instability, and an open window for opposition, even terrorism. Jihad and Islamic extremism have become global phenomena. The war against terrorism, with the restrictions on freedom of movement and associated with it, puts states so different as the United States, Russia and the authoritarian states of Central Asia in a similar position. For the current Central Asian rulers, Putin’s strong hand on power is warmly welcomed. Westerners encourage more democratic developments. So far, the main problem facing Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan is the political confrontation with radical Islamic opposition, the only current alternative political stream, after the progressive eviction of all democratic movements which had flourished during Perestroïka. In reality, this seems to be a normal process in a society that cannot bear any expression of a political opposition. It was obvious that after Perestroika, the large realm of opinions got retracted little by little to promote a unique prototype of opponent: the Islamist, either the non violent “moral Islamist” (such as Akram Yuldash who supposedly founded the group Akramilar in 1996 and practised charity as a means of re-Islamisation of post-Soviet society), or the radical fighters. This option is potentially more dangerous than the split and dispersion of opposition movements. Would the leading elite be more frightened of a true democratic alternative than of Islamic extremism claiming for an Islamic republic or the rebirth of the Islamic Califate? The November 2004 parliamentary elections in the Ukraine and a year before in Georgia could bring about unexpected consequences in the Central Asian states (Turkmenistan excepted). Fearing the destabilising actions of George Soros in Georgia, Uzbekistan closed the Soros Institute just after the “Rose revolution” in Tbilisi, giving many official explanations for doing so; Kazakhstan did the same, due to alleged financial problems. Islam Karimov gave many interviews, even to the Russian media after the “Orange revolution” in Ukraine. “Question: Islam Abduganiyevich, 2004 ended with the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine. There is widespread opinion that the West was actively involved in the elections in Georgia and the Ukraine. Do you think the West is capable of changing the situation here in Uzbekistan?

22Cooley, J.K. CIA et Djihad, 1950-2001. Contre l'URSS, une désastreuse alliance. Autrement. 2002. Djalili, M-R, Kellner, T. Géopolitique de la nouvelle Asie centrale. PUF. 2001. 23 Morozova, I., “The Public Discussions on the ‘State of Law” and Contemporary Political Regimes in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus” in Johnson, W., Popova, I.F. eds. Central Asian Law: An Historical Overview. Kansas: Society for Asian Legal History. 2004. pp. 237-259.


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Islam Karimov: revolutions of this type always include several factors, and Western clout is not the decisive one. Domestic protest potential is the most important factor. It accumulates gradually over years. State policy in the socioeconomic sphere is the second most important factor … external influence becomes a serious factor only when society is discontent because matters of importance in domestic life (social, economic and political) accumulate … That is why I do not think that what happened in Ukraine or Georgia will take place in Uzbekistan… It does not mean, however, that we intend to turn from the way chosen in 1990 - of democratic renovation and development of civic society. It's just that each people reach this objective in their own way. Following fundamental principles of power of the people, we must align our actions with the people's mentality and traditions. Thus any external influence will be effective only if we permit it to be effective. It is a different matter altogether that "promotion of democracy" technology exists; I mean the technologies that are being used in Iraq nowadays. The idea is that whenever there is a certain "shortage" of democracy in any country, its people have to be helped in overcoming it. Money is always found for this purpose, and it takes serious money to topple the government that permitted this shortage to appear in the first place. This is where technologies of the so-called "velvet" changes come into play. They are used when it is necessary to have the old regime to step down quietly and without a fuss and to have it replaced with a new regime that will promote interests of whoever uses these technologies. 24 We have already understood that a “velvet revolution” was not in the agenda of Uzbekistan so far. Undoubtedly, we are aware that the supporters of democracy such as Muhammad Salih in Uzbekistan and Oljas Suleïmenov in Kazakhstan25 are at the same time, potential challengers to presidents, using the democratic discourse to gain access to power. Such a confrontation helps the current power in Uzbekistan as well as in Kazakhstan, for it gives the impression that simplifying the political chessboard is already a step towards neutralizing it. Table 2: The situation of Opposition facing Political System in Central Asia Political system Opposition Strong Presidential Clandestine Islamic, MIO, hizb ut Tahrir Kazakhstan Strong Presidential Diversified opposition, weak possibility of expression, but still existence of political debate Kyrgyzstan Presidential, getting more Diversified opposition but powerful until the events of decreasing freedom of expression March 2005 Tajikistan Presidential with coalition Active political debate, Hizb utTahrir getting more influence than Party of Islamic Rebirth (marginalized part of the coalition) Turkmenistan Presidential Despotic Exile, clandestine, no debate

States Uzbekistan

24 Panfilova, V., quoted article, Nezavisimaja Gazeta, 2005, p. 10. 25 Salih created the Party Erk in Uzbekistan during Perestroïka and then emigrated to Turkey, and later then Sweden as public enemy number one. Suleïmenov is a well-known Kazakh intellectual who organized the first Ecological Party in Kazakhstan « Nevada-Semipalatinsk », then was sent as Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Italy; he is now in UNESCO.

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So far the current powers have no new and positive ideologies to offer; rather, they are rewriting history, glorifying the titular nation and using the rhetoric of renewal of past values, without making any real legislative reforms. In this matter, they appear “socially unfair” because of the overwhelming corruption and the sharp economic gap they allowed to develop in their respective states. They are also considered to be responsible for numerous social injustices against ethnic minorities and diaspora groups,26 many of whom found themselves more comfortable in the previous Soviet nationality policy, than in this current inconsistent social contract. Analysing Terrorism: Between the Local and the Global Since 9/11, the political game has apparently changed toward a more simplified conceptual frame with the globalisation of Islamic extremism. The world is the hostage of sparse decentralised groups acting under the banner of Islam, in a new definition of global terrorism or hyperterrorism, in the name of social justice.30 Now the problem is to avoid the simplistic amalgam used by the media and the political elites of each concerned country: any event linking social violence with Islam is interpreted as being due to terrorist action.27 It would have been without any doubt organized from “outside” the national boundaries, or at least manipulated by outsiders. Yet, the actors are citizens of one country, living in another, acting or eventually planning to act in a third one. Moreover, they are paid by transnational organizations. Are they global actors (mercenaries of Islam) or national soldiers of Islam and justice? It has become more difficult to frame the interaction between the local political and social factors in any country and the global factors and their representations trasnmitted by the media all over the world. Considering the reflections made by researchers outside Central Asia on terrorism under the banner of Islam, a confrontation still exists between researchers in the US, Russia, China, Israel, Great Britain, Italy and Poland, who think that each act of political violence is a terrorist act is generated by Islamic internationalist groups (a new term appearing in the media) and those in France, Germany and more recently Spain, who want to “typologize” terrorism, to understand its reasons and nature. Central Asian elites are referring to global terrorism, seen as monolithic though sparse all over the world. In turn, the population always concludes that any terrorist act (“terrakt”, in Russian) has its roots inside the regime. That was the case with every bloody event in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and in Turkmenistan on 16 February 1999 when several bombs exploded in Tashkent causing many casualties and traumatising the population.28 In this perspective, the bloody events during March and April 2004 in Bukhara and on 30 July 2004 in Tashkent, although targeted at police forces or foreign representatives (namely the US and Israeli embassies) were also understood as “internal fighting within the 26 Nagels, J., La tiers-mondisation de l'ex-URSS. Ed. de l'Université de Bruxelles. 1993. 30

In a leaflet in Uzbek signed by Hizb-ut Tahrir Uzbekistan on 13 October 2003, “Amerikaliklar nima ucun Uzbekistonda urnashmoqda?” [Why do Americans settle down in Uzbekistan?], it states that, “having organized the 9/11 events itself, America has utilised them to struggle against Islam and the Muslim World (....) At the same time, the American Jew Karimov undertakes repression against Muslims in Uzbekistan (...) The only capable force that can stop such an aggression is the Califate, the only kind of state that can free not only Muslims but maybe the whole of mankind from injustice ... (...) and unhealthy democracy”. 27For a new definition of terrorism see, Wieworka, 2OO3, art.cit., pp. 37-38, Heisbourg, F. 2001. Bribosia, E. Weyemmbergh, A. Lutte contre le terrorisme et droits fondamentaux, Bruxelles. 2002. Questions internationales, “Les terrorismes”, La Documentation Française, n°8, juillet-août 2004. 28Poujol, C. op.cit. Ellipses. 2001. pp. 58-60.


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internal power structures” by ordinary citizens.29 At the same time, President Karimov has turned to new explanations of his new political choices in the national media and Uzbek Parliament since the US involvement in Iraq. He referred to the “zombification” of Uzbek citizens abroad, primarily in the tribal zones in Pakistan, openly meaning the formation of kamikaze Jihadists, who were given narcotics and brainwashed. This shows that the situation is, to an extent, worsening; in spring 1999, Islamic activists were depicted as scorpions, needing to be crushed.30 After the Kyrgyz experience in March 2005, the May 2005 events in Andijan shows an escalation of violence between the Uzbek State and any kind of Muslim opposition, who are depicted as terrorists. Uzbekistan society is at a crossroads, with very little choice in the political sphere. However, each country has its own set of problems. It is a mistake to use a single conceptual frame to interpret the colonial and post-colonial situation in Chechnya or in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan. In Central Asia, the problem is even tenser because of the lack of transparency, the difficulty of getting information, and the fact that Islamic activists operate clandestinely, even unregistered Islamic charities. In this respect, it is quite difficult to evaluate the social impact of opposition movements and to distinguish between political actions to gain access to power, and the nihilist actions of a kamikaze using the name of Allah. Of course, we can easily understand the recurrent features of terrorism in the Russian Federation through the prism of the multi-secular Chechen conflicts with Russia (the last two being very tragic for the civilian population). However, what is really going on in Central Asia? In this region, seen as instable and dangerous to the security of neighbouring states, namely Russia and China, Islamic destabilisation has been heralded for more than a decade since independence. Afghanistan has been seen as a cradle of instability for the region over the last twenty years. On the other hand, the civil war in Tajikistan (1992-1996) that caused 50,000 victims and 500,000 refugees,31 was advertised as a contagious tragedy in Central Asia. The separatist movements that have existed in Xinjiang for almost forty years worry the Chinese government enough that it has polarized its policy toward the Central Asian border states, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and has pushed forward the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation for security reasons since its creation in 1996. President Karimov commented on Islam and terrorism in January 2005 to the Russian Newspaper Nezavisimaja gazeta: “I'm a Muslim who has never betrayed the faith of our forefathers. There are, however, two schools of Islam. There is traditional enlightened Islam and there is belligerent Islam. It is this later that is getting stronger and stronger. This school is represented by Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Al Qaeda, Muslim Brothers, etc. It is the belligerent Islam that aspires to convert the 1,5 billion Muslims of traditional Islam. Ideologists of this belligerent school substitute faith with politics, they are trying to make all of us their adepts. They are out to transform Islam into a weapon in the war on Christianity and other faiths. These are far-reaching plans, you know. Unfortunately, very few in the world pay attention. The Americans have finally seen it and stopped dismissing the problem with a disinterested shrug. They know now that there is a war under

29 Personal interviews in Tashkent in May and August 2004. 30 TV news programme in Uzbek “Khabar”, end of February, March 1999. 31 Djalili, M-R., Grare, F., Akiner, S., Tajikistan, the trials of independence. Curzon. 1998; Dash, P.L. “The Tadjik Cauldron”, In Mustaq A. Kaw ed. Central Asia, Continuity and Change. 1999. University of Kashmir. Srinagar. pp. 141-163.

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way within Islam itself and that the future will depend to a great extent on who comes out the winner”.32 Table 3: Between Global and Local Factors What does Central Asian Islam mean to? Non-Muslim West? Rediscovering Central Asian Islam, as an exnihilistic resurgence

Muslim States? New zone to re-convert, accounting for a strong acculturation

Russian Federation? Crucial buffer zone for Russian security, Problem of Tajikistan

Central Asian States? Consolidating legitimacy of power through Islam, officially without Shariat, in fact, due to moral, ethic and judicial reIslamisation

Taking account of local realities, More effective help, Fear of state authorities

Growth of terrorism, Need to develop cooperation in security, especially in Tajikistan More involvement in military projects

Maturation of claims of justice to confront Western concept of democracy

Exaggerating its political strength

Since 9/11 Growth of terrorism logistic base, Military post

Conclusion: Questions and Answers Is there a real Islamic threat in Central Asia today, considering the growing problem of social and economic injustice?33 Yes, considering the absence of the ideal of justice within the current states’ structures, especially after the frustrating events in Kyrgyzstan and Akaev’s flight to Moscow. The nature of this threat derives from the lack of opportunities for the future, economic despair and the limited impact of an alternative political discourse that would fulfil the hope for social justice and end the corruption within the power structures. In order to adjust their strategy to that demand, what are the claims of the Islamic groups, either open or clandestine? A secular republic based on Islamic spirit? A secular republic with a coalition government including Islamic ministers? A new caliphate? If we look at the claims of the main parties, especially of those who have websites such as Hizb-ut Tahrir, we can easily note the recurrent use of declarations against corruption, injustice, seizure of economic wealth, as well as numerous observations about the failure of Western values.34 But so far, a clear political strategy brought by a charismatic leader has been not evident. What strategy can the current Central Asian powers use to keep their position, except from jailing Islamic activists, or killing them in anti-terrorist actions? One possible answer is to placate their moderate Muslim electorate by adopting Islamic rhetoric on justice, with a set of new laws in accordance with traditional Islamic norms. The question remains, would it be sufficient to answer the growing social demands? In conclusion, we have to become accustomed to the fact that democratic forces argue for democracy and human rights and Islamic activists argue for justice. Bin Laden referred explicitly to justice in a broadcast made just a few days before the American presidential elections in November 2004. Re-elected President G. W. Bush consistently calls for democracy, even if the military operations in Afghanistan are associated with God 32 Quoted article from Panfilova, V. 14 january 2005. 33 ICG Asia Report n°14 Osh/Brussels, Central Asia: Islamist Mobilisation and Regional Security, March 1 2001. ICG Asia Report n°20, July 4 2001. “Central Asia Fault Lines in the new Security Map”. 34 TV news programme in Uzbek “Khabar”, end of February, March 1999.


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and justice. His visit to Moscow on 8 May 2005 to discuss democracy with President Putin included a significant stop Georgia and the Baltic States. Now, after almost fifteen years of the so called “transition period”, academics and experts continue to be divided into two antagonistic postures: those who primarily engage with the fight against the Soviet “Empire of Evil” and those for whom the end of the Communist system did not economically and politically benefit the majority of the population. However, after the Cold War, the situation was kept simplistically bipolar: the supporters of democracy facing the supporters of justice. Will the millions of people that are in between, simple Muslim citizens of a former “Muslim Soviet republic” turn dramatically to the side of justice with all its consequences? The fight between democracy and justice is as contested as ever; only the borders and components of each block have changed. Yet, the strange experiment of the Bishkek so-called “Tulip Revolution” or “Narcissus Revolution” and the Andijan tragedy during the spring of 2005 have troubled the rules of the game in Central Asia: who of the sparse democrats or supposedly numerous radical Islamists will benefit from the growing thirst for justice? if the balance of power remains unchanged, how will people’s thirst for justice be quenched? These questions have yet to be answered.


Part II Modern State-Building and Communities in Central Eurasia



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Nation-building in Central Asia: Creating New State Mythologies Irina MOROZOVA Leiden University, International Institute for Asian Studies Abstract. This chapter analyses the legacy of traditional and Soviet social structures as conditions for further social and political development in Central Asia and Mongolia. The dichotomy, historically repeated in Central Asia, between the traditional communal structures and the supreme sovereign power was reflected in the relationships of the Tsarist administration and communist Moscow, on one side, and the various layers of the indigenous population, on the other side. Based on recently published archival materials, the chapter discusses the “historical division” of Central Asia in 1924, pointing out the importance of the land reform in the 1920s, which intensified inter-ethnic conflicts, on the one hand, and consolidated the new local ruling strata, on the other hand. Soviet local authorities were formed according to kinship ties and territorial identities, and by the 1960s the national Republican cadres were promoted in all political spheres and social institutions. The chapter considers post-Soviet identities in Central Asia including that of the “titular nation” and greater ethnic (Turkic, for instance) and religious identities. While the search for a common nation-state identity continues, local identities, as many times before, have retained their strength. The current social systems, as a symbiosis of traditional communal and Soviet structures, create a special type of Central Asian clan that manifests itself in kinship, family ties and the territorial principle of redistribution of welfare. Central Asian clan identity by no means corresponds to Western concepts of democracy and civil society that are imposed on the communities from above. Although official declarations of democracy and basic freedoms are made by the governments, there are tendencies to restore some traditional communal institutions, create hypertrophied presidential cults and impose oppressive reins in these countries.

Introduction The New Time Western civilization presented certain parameters of development for the Afro-Asiatic world. At the end of the twentieth century, when the values and institutions of the Western capitalist-centric world system underwent principle changes and leading economic centres grew rapidly in the non-Western world, sporadic, but substantial resistance to the Western universalistic concept of progress and sustainable development appeared. In weak states and economically underdeveloped regions anti-modernist, extremist and aggressive tendencies emerged. The attempts to block these tendencies by increasing pro-Western propaganda have brought few positive results, and promotion of the concept of a multi-polar world has not diminished the tensions thus far. The post-Soviet economically degraded Central Asia,1 the closest neighbour to the anti-systemic zones in the Middle East, is a potential playground for anti-systemic, 1

For economic indicators evidencing the dramatic decline of independent Central Asia in comparison to the late Soviet period (de-urbanisation, de-industrialization, structural underinvestment, overdependence on the agrarian economy, and the presence of chaotic and archaic elements in the economy) see Friedman, L.A. Ocherki ekonomicheskogo i sotsial’nogo razvitiya stran Tsentral’noi Azii posle raspada SSSR [Sketches of

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I. Morozova / Nation-Building in Central Asia: Creating New State Mythologies

extremist movements.2 Marginalized sections of the population are open to recruitment by radical Islamist groups, terrorist organizations, black market traders and criminal alliances. The Western presence in the region is still very limited3 and Russia currently does not possess enough economic strength to donate to the Central Asian states, although the Russian labour market has become one of the main sources of income for Central Asians. Successfully avoiding a deepening economic crisis and further social erosion and thus, resisting the threat of radicalism mainly depends on the political and institutional answers from the societies themselves. In this chapter I will analyze the legacy of the traditional and Soviet social structures as the background to which the conditions for further developments will be created. Historical Legacy The traditional communal structures in Central Asia were based on kinships’ landownership, water-ownership and redistribution of surplus (usually loot obtained in intertribal wars and raids). The supreme (sovereign) power did not necessarily need to be native to the region (in the late Middle Ages and Modern Times the supreme power was almost never indigenous). The primary tasks of this power were to maintain strong centralization in redistribution and fulfil the military function.4 These tasks arose from insecurity due to limited natural resources,5 frequent migration, invasions and border-conflicts. The ruling power formed an external protectorate for the rest of the region, who did not interfere with local communal structures. While the sedentary population in the oases and valleys of Zeravshan, Bukhara, Fergana, Semirech’e and others tended to preserve their way of life, kinship-tribal identity and social order, the external protectorates frequently replaced one another. The formal division in supreme power (the court and the army) established in most cases by the peoples of nomadic origin, and the local administration recruited from the sedentary population existed up to the Russian penetration into the region in the nineteenth century.6 The external sovereign power was generally accepted by the population, at least until it weakened and/or attempted to redistribute lands and pastures contrary to the traditional kinship order. During the existence of the Great Silk Road (2nd century BC – 16th century AD) the region flourished due to profits gained from trade and control over the trade routes. After the continental caravan trade declined in the fifteenth century, the Central Asian economy became confined within its natural boundaries and the development of social structures was constrained by the limitation of resources. In Modern Times the region did not play a significant role in world history: no great nomadic Empires formed in its steppes and even

economic and social development of Central Asian countries after the disintegration of the USSR]. Moscow: Gumanitarii. 2001. pp. 28-60. 2 “Is Radical Islam Inevitable in Central Asia? Priorities for Engagement”. International Crisis Group. Asia Report N°72. 22 December 2003. 3 http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/ceeca/ 4 See: Klyashtornyi S.G, Customary Law in the Ancient Turkic States of Central Asia: the Legal Documents and Practical Regulations. In: Johnson, W. and Popova, I.F. eds. Central Asian Law: An Historical Overview, Kansas: Society for Asian Legal History. 2004. p. 18; Klyashtornyi, S.G., Sultanov, T.I. Gosudarstva i narody Evraziiskih stepei (drevnost’ i srednevekov’e) [The states and peoples of Eurasian steppes (ancient world and Middle Ages)]. Second edition. St. Petersburg. 2004. 5 See: Kradin, N.N. Istoriya Hunnu [The Hsiung-nu Empire]. Vladivostok. 1996. pp. 20-25. 6 Manz Beatrice F. “Multi-ethnic Empires and the formulation of identity” in Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 26. No. 1: January 2003. Taylor & Francis Ltd. p. 90.


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small tribal migrations practically ceased;7 no large caravan trade routes went through its territories, and even oasis towns did not prosper as before. The numerous separate Khanates, minor political successors of the Golden Horde that had been appearing in Central Asia since the fifteenth century were squeezed between the powerful Empires: the Qing, Safavid, Moghul, and Ottoman empires and an expanding Russia from the North.8 In the nineteenth century, the great Asian Empires were gradually weakened and Central Asia became a battlefield for Russia’s and Great Britain’s struggle for zones of influence. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Russian Empire annexed practically all the territories of contemporary Central Asia; Russian/Soviet dominance in Central Asia lasted for almost 130 years, a record of external control over this turbulent region. The Central Asian population generally perceived the Russian administration in the framework of the traditional system: external control – horizontal local communal structures and customary law. This principle formed the basis of the Russian Imperial administration and its politics. While the Speranski reforms of local administration were in use (1822-1901) and supported a relative compromise in interactions between the vertical (Russian) and the horizontal (local) authorities, the Russian Empire expanded and national/ethnic problems did not become extreme. The Russian administrative system in the region functioned in such a way that made it possible for local peoples to observe their traditional laws, while at the same time blocking them from building a political career within the vertical Russian state administrative structure. Any attempt to explain the relatively “soft management” of Imperial Russia in Central Asia in the nineteenth century by the predominance of Russia’s geopolitical interests (against its rival Great Britain) over its concern to incorporate the regional population into the Empire must also take into account the radical changes in Russia’s domestic policy towards the Asian provinces at the beginning of the twentieth century. V.V. Barthold’s thesis on the lack of knowledge about the history and cultures of Central Asia, resulting in Russia’s inefficient administration of the region9 remains relevant and is applicable nowadays to all the actors currently active in, or intending to enter, the region. In 1901 the cancellation of the Speranski system and the launch of the Stolypin reforms against the background of the other processes in Russia and the world led to shortterm, dramatic and negative changes. Conflict became unavoidable as soon as the external power started interfering with local management – redistribution of land and water (especially to the advantage of Russian migrants), customary and religious legal systems, and, worst, the conscription of the Central Asian population for the European front during WWI. As a response to the intensified russofikatsiya (adoption of agriculture and Russian sedentary culture), ohristianivanie (forced baptising into Orthodox Christianity and banning other religions and beliefs – Islam, Buddhism and shamanism) and samoderzhavie (the Tsarist autocratic ideology) promoted by Nicolas II, the conflict acquired an ethnonationalistic character. The victims of the St. Petersburg politics were the local peoples, who had become used to a certain type of relationship with the Slavic population living on their territories (not always, however, a peaceful one) and also the Russians, who started losing much of their tolerance. In Tsarist times the supreme institute of khans/qaghans and the genealogy of the Chingizids eroded (the prestige of the Chingizids vanished without any Russian influence), 7

The last large-scale Central Asian migration occurred in the early seventeenth century: the Oyrats, a Western Mongolian tribe (Dzungar Khanate), migrated through southwest Siberia to the lower Volga, where they began to be called the Kalmyks. 8 The ruling dynasties of the great Asian Empires in the late Middle Ages were established by Central Asians: the Manchu in China, the Moghuls in India, and the Turkic tribes (Kaiy) gave the birth to the Ottomans. 9 Barthold, V.V. Sochineniya [Selected works]. Volume II. Part 1. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo vostochnoi literatury. 1963. p. 293.

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and the kinship aristocracy and military-service elite were washed away. Only in Khiva Khanate and the Bukhara Emirate did the aristocratic kinship elites remain, though weakened. The opportunities for Islamic political leadership were consciously eliminated in the annexed territories of the former Kokand Khanate.10 (The posts of the Chief Qadi and Shaykh al-Islam were liquidated by Governor-general Kaufman in 1876. According to Barthold, this was a gradual process, since the Chief Qadi and Shaykh al-Islam did not exhibit much political activism.) However, the religious elite consolidated, particularly against the background of the new social trends emerging at the beginning of the twentieth century, and measures were taken by the Russians to control the Muslim administration and courts. Among the nomads, the survival of a kinship tribe became dependent on establishing a good relationship with Russian officials. The administrative reforms also influenced the structure of traditional kinship based on the nomadic economy: the kinships were often neglected when forming nomadic volosts (minor administrative units comprised of communities based on their winter pastures).11 Adat (customary law), in general, seemed less threatening to Russian reformers than Shariah (Islamic law), since it did not push an ideology of a unifying super-ethnic identity as did Islam. The most prosperous group under the Russians became the traders, who found themselves in cosy relationships with the Tsarist administrators. At the horizontal level kinship structures remained strong. Local authority was supported by kinship and clan identity and strengthened by the prestige genealogy of a leader. The normative social order based on Adat and Shariah did not undergo structural changes. Adjustment of the Traditional Social System to Soviet State-Party Hierarchies The revolutionary overthrow of the Tsarist power in St. Petersburg in 1917 and the Era of Asian Resurgence that in Central Asia came under the banner of nationalism and Bolshevism12 left some hope for the restoration of the former balance between supreme power and local administration. However, the politics of the local Soviets, military communism and the civil war brought even more disappointment, frequently expressed in ethnic hatred. Due to its commitment to the goal of changing the social order and bringing modernization to the most distant areas of Central Asia, the Soviet power was ruining its reputation among the local population, at least when the new order was introduced by representatives from the European part of Russia. In spring 1924 preparation for the “historical division” of Central Asia was fully underway. This “Turkestan question” had been actively discussed at sessions of the Central Executive Committee of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks as early as 1920. After the civil war, the integration of the region into the USSR and the new nation-building processes in Central Asia made this question more pertinent. A special commission on partition (raionirovanie) was established, which worked upon the requests of the Presidium of the Central Asian Economic Council.13 Its main task was to provide the centre with 10

Barthold 1963 pp. 359-361. “Polozhenie ob upravlenii Turkestanskogo kraya. Izdanie 1892 goda [The law on managing Turkestan district].” Article 110. In: Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii. V pyati knigah. Knigaaya pervaya [The collection of laws of the Russian Empire. In five volumes. The first book.] Volume 2. St. Petersburg. 1912. pp. 427-446. 12 See: Bennigsen, A.A. & Wimbush, S.E. Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union. A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World. Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press. 1979. 13 Materialy po raionirovaniiu Srednei Azii [Materials on regionalization of Central Asia]. Bukhara, Tashkent. 1926. 11


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reliable and detailed data on the ethnography of the region, taking ethnic, administrative and economic factors into consideration. It is necessary to note that the Soviets relied on the old Tsarist cartography which was still in use at the local level.14 However, the maps of Turkestan in the nineteenth century and the USSR in the twentieth century provide evidence that the new administrative division completely broke up traditional economic ties in the region. In October 1924, the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (TSSR), Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (TACCR), KaraKyrgyz and Kara-Kalpak districts (oblast’) were formed. This new territorial-administrative division of Central Asia was a crucial turning point in the history of the region; Soviet Central Asia was planned with new economic centres for huge industrial enterprises and one-company cities. In Western, post-Soviet Russian and Central Asian historiographies, it is commonly presumed that the Soviet leaders considered the creation of the new nations in Central Asia to be their primary goal.15 However, the national question was always secondary: according to the original idea, all the nations were to dissolve in a big friendly communist family. The recently published archival documents of the United State Political Office (OGPU)16 vividly illustrate the logic of the Bolsheviks: nationalist conflicts were the outcome of economic and social factors, especially for the peasants. Such a causal scheme should also have worked in the opposite direction: the deepening of nationalist/ethnic conflicts should have speeded the transition to the new socialist society. The establishment of the Soviet Central Asian Republics in October-November 1924 was, first of all, the solution to the economic problems that already existed and that were expected in the prospective USSR (the planned industrialization) by “breaking up the old social basis”, namely, creating new layers of the population and redistributing resources and welfare among them. The ethnic conflicts and the nationalistic separation were the results of the land reform in the 1920s, which broke the former social relations and changed the usual natural boundaries between different ethnicities.17 Some scholars might object to this claim, arguing that political factors were the foundation for the regional division – as if the Soviet leaders aimed to eliminate a tendency towards a united Turkic and/or Muslim state.18 However, the concept of unity among the peoples of Central Asia in the twentieth century proved to be an illusion, for which the documents provide numerous records.19 Certainly, the disintegration of the USSR and the following “parade of sovereignties” did not lead to the unity of the five former Soviet republics; on the contrary, the New Independent States of Central Asia were rather closed to each other (in some aspects they were more open to external powers than to each other). 14

I am grateful to Catherine Poujol for pointing out this important fact. Koïchev, A. Nacional'noterritorial'noe razmezevanie v ferganskoj doline (1924-27) [National-territorial division in Fergana valley] 1924. pp270. Biskek. 2001; Thorez J. “Enclaves et enclavement dans le Ferghana post-soviétique” in CEMOTI 35: 2003. pp. 29-39. 15 One of the most exemplary adherents to this idea in studies on Soviet Central Asia is Olivier Roy. See: Roy, O. The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations. London, New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers. 2000. 16 “Sovershenno sekretno”: Lubyanka – Stalinu o polozhenii v strane (1922-1934) [“Highly confidencial”: Lubianka to Stalin on the situation in the country (1922-1934)]. Moskva. 2001, 2002, 2003. 17 Morozova I.Y., Sotsial’nyi i natsional’nyi faktory v obrazovanii Kirgizskoi SSR i MNR [Social and National Factors in establishment of the Kyrgyz SSR and the MPR]. In: Iskhakov, S. ed. Revoliutsii v XX veke: natsional’nyi vopros v integratsii i raspade SSSR [Revolutions in the twentieth century: national question in integration and disintegration of the USSR]. Moscow 2005. 18 For such an approach, see: Hostler, Charles Warren. The Turks of Central Asia. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. 1993. 19 See also: Iskhakov, S.M. “Russkaya revoliutsiya 1917 goda i tiurki Tsentral’noi Azii” [“The Russian revolution of 1917 and the Turks of Central Asia”]. Transkaspiiskii proekt [Trans-Caspian project]. 27 November 2002. http://www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/Author/Russ/I/IshakovSM/revolution.html/

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Against the widespread, simplified view of “Imperial Soviet politics”,20 the archival documents verify that the main victims of the new national division in Central Asia were the Russian peasants. Further, the Cossacks (mostly in Semirech’e) were identified as kulaki and eliminated as an opposition class. According to the official definition of the kulaki class they did not essentially differ from Uzbek, Tajik, Kazakh and other rich peasants. However, the campaign against them conducted by the local population turned out to be more vigorous than the “revolutionary struggle” against the indigenous kulaki.21 The ethnic Central Asians received tax reductions and other benefits during the land reform in the 1920s, which the Russian peasants and the Cossacks lacked. By supporting the locals against the Slavs, the Soviet authorities hoped to gain popularity, but the real results of that policy were regular inter-ethnic conflicts, hatred and violence. The Soviet leaders used the existing inter-ethnic conflicts in Turkestan and Kazakhstan to map the new republics. The Soviets supported the titular nations to win popularity. The tactic of promoting the representatives of the titular nations to local administrative positions proved to be effective, especially as it was not a one-sided process: many young political leaders proved to be very co-operative with the Bolsheviks in the “division” of Turkestan. By assisting the Soviets they hoped to, and did, promote themselves, their clans, kinships, regions and cities.22 Even religious figures compromised with the Bolsheviks to survive and achieve strategic goals.23 Kinship and clan relationships were a crucial factor in the social transformation of the 1920s. The new official national division only sharpened the inter-kinships’ and interclans’ struggle. Soviet local authorities were formed according to kinship ties and territorial identities.24 In spring 1924, national languages were still used by local administrators in present-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.25 The kinship principle and local identities tied the new state structures to groups opposed to the Soviets – wealthy peasants, private traders (during the NEP period) and even the Basmachis. The mass collectivization in Central Asia destroyed traditional individual households. It also caused migration into the cities, in turn resulting in a lack of labour in rural areas. People had to join collective farms, so that they would not be exiled or imprisoned. Nevertheless, industrialization in Central Asia dramatically changed the economic map of the region. Modern urban infrastructure was built, and it radically transformed the traditional way of life. However, the geographic landscape of Central Asia made the whole venture much more costly than in the European part of the USSR. There was no proper local labour force to launch industrialization in Central Asia; nevertheless, unqualified Central Asians were recruited to the great construction projects of the five-year plans. Specialists and qualified workers from Russia and European parts of the Soviet Union were sent to the region. These specialists were expected not only to run industrial production, but also to train the local cadres. However, the formation of the working class turned out to be a very slow process. Consequently, the ethno-social urbanrural structure was not even: the majority of the urban population in Central Asia was not of indigenous nationalities. 20

See, for instance, Rywkin, Michael. Moscow’s Lost Empire. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. 1994. “Sovershenno Sekretno” 2001 V. 1. Part 1. pp. 260, 270-271; Part 2, p. 723. 22 See: Chika Obiya, “When Faizulla Khojaev Decided to Be an Uzbek.” In: Dudoignon, S.A. and Komatsu, Hisao. eds. Islam in Politics in Russia and Central Asia (early eighteenth to late twentieth centuries). Islamic Area Studies. London, New York, Bahrain: Kegan Paul. 2001. pp. 99-118; Begaliev, M.M. “K proektu sozdaniya Gornoi Oblasti Kyrgyzov v 1921-1922 gg.” [“To the project of creating the Kyrgyz Mountainous District in 1921-1922”]. http://siteistok.host.net.kg/bibl/Begaliev_2002.htm/ 23 Babadjanov B.M, From Colonization to Bolshevization: Some Political and Legislative Aspects of Molding a “Soviet Islam” in Central Asia. In: Johnson, Popova 2004 pp. 158-161, 168-171. 24 «Sovershenno Sekretno” 2001, V. 2. p. 248. 25 Ibid, pp. 110-111. 21


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The process of creating local administrators (apparatchiks) was much faster, however. If in the 1920-1930s mostly Russian communists organized the work of the republican communist parties (Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Kazakh), by the 1960s national cadres were promoted in all political and social spheres. Clan identity vividly resurfaced after Stalin. It was not officially exhibited, but operated fully at the oblast’ level and the only threat to it could have come from the centre. Integration of traditional social regulations, such as kinships and clans, into the Soviet power hierarchy made the whole political and economic system very stable in Central Asia. Khrushchev’s decision in 1962 to reorganize party organizations along economic, rather than administrative, lines in fact led to complete consolidation of power by republican nomenklatura among all party and state institutions. Brezhnev’s ‘stability of cadre’ policy (1964-1982) was a period in which Central Asian “families” and “clans”26 flourished; later during perestroika, these groups were labelled as mafia and purged, together with their “long-stay” First Secretaries. However, the “clans” reconsolidated and made an alliance in the late 1980s with Gorbachev, the central power, to promote their representatives in the leading posts in the Republics.27 The communist parties of the Republics had identical structures and functioned in the same way as the Russian Communist Party of the USSR. The First Secretary Generals of the national parties (in 1966 all of them had local nationalities) had the opportunity to stay in power, as long as they did not neglect instructions from Moscow and the Second Secretaries of the republican communist parties, who were usually of Slavic nationality. During the communist period, traditional social relationships based on the clanpatronage principle, rights and responsibilities within the kinship did not disappear but were absorbed into the framework of the Soviet state. In other words, in the twentieth century the traditional societies of Central Asia adjusted themselves to the communist stateparty hierarchies. By the 1960s the political-administration system in Central Asia had been completely rebuilt.28 This was possible because the main principle of communist redistribution of power and property and ways of maintaining them corresponded in many ways to the former traditional institutions.29 The clans’ relations and the social cults mutated into the structures of national nomenklatura. For instance, in rural areas of Central Asia (and the Caucasus), the councils of agsakals (influential community seniors) mutated into party cells. The authority of senior officials at city, regional and oblast’ levels in Central Asia also had many features of the former agsakal’stva: official disputes on the work and performance of the first secretaries by ordinary party members were much rarer occasions than in the European Republics of the USSR, and the heads of obkoms, raikoms and gorkoms surrounded themselves with the trappings of prestige, such as elite apartments, summer houses, and automobiles. Kinship still played an important role in choosing a protégé.

26 For the definition of the Central Asian clan as it was formed in the second half of the twentieth century see the chapter by Paul G. Geiss in this volume. 27 Khagai Janna, Constitutional Regimes and Clan Politics in Central Asia. In: Johnson, Popova 2004 p. 204; on the ‘pacts’ between the new Central Asian leaders and Moscow see Collins K. “The Logic of Clan Politics. Evidence from the Central Asian Trajectories” in World Politics 56: January 2004. pp. 235-243. 28 See Morozova, I. “K probleme izucheniya kommunisticheskih obschestv Tsentral’noi Azii” [To the problem of studying communist societies in Central Asia] in Vladimirstevskie chteniya IV. Moscow. 2000. pp. 79-82. 29 I concur with the scholars who attribute the “success” of Soviet rule in Central Asia and Mongolia to traditional social structures adjusting themselves to Soviet state-party hierarchies. See Massell, Gregory J. The Surrogate Proletariat. Muslim Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919-1929. USA: Princeton University Press. 1974. pp. xx, xxii-xxiii; Poliakov, Sergei P. Everyday Islam. Religion and Tradition in Rural Central Asia. New York, London: M.E. Sharpe. 1992. pp. 16-17; Roy 2000.

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Patron-client relations, common across the USSR, were particularly strong in Central Asia: no young party member could expect a promotion without the patronage of an elder comrade. After receiving a higher post he remained loyal to the one who had promoted him. However, it is necessary to realize that patron-client relations were strong up to the oblast’ level. At the national level, and by all means at the Union level, this communal principle of loyalty to one’s patron gave way to the harsh political struggle. The principal difference between the Russian/Tsarist and Soviet administration in Central Eurasia was that in Soviet times indigenous representatives of the local nationalities occupied key positions in the administration of the Republics. No ethnic discrimination existed in official Soviet policy; the interests of nomenclature were above any form of nationalism. In the 1980s the Central Asian national nomenclature proved to be even more stiff, consolidated and bureaucratic than in the European Republics. The reason for such strong consolidation of the Central Asian nomenclature was due to the fact that traditional kinship structures and local identities were incorporated in its hierarchy. I would also argue that in the second half of the twentieth century the old system (external control/ local horizontal administration) was reconfigured in Central Asia: Moscow in the face of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC of the CPSU) and the other central departments operated as the external power, and the local administration functioned according to clan and kinship redistribution principles. The titular nations ran their republican administrations. Conflicts took place at the inter-clan and inter-republican levels.30 This tendency was clearly seen after the USSR’s disintegration, when the Uzbek-Kazakh, Kazakh-Kyrgyz, Kyrgyz-Uzbek, Kyrgyz-Tajik and other conflicts broke out with renewed force. The present social composition of the region is a mix of traditional and Soviet power structures. This special “symbiosis” of traditional society and communist/ socialist legacy is the main stumbling-block for the reforms in the region today, since it leads to misinterpretation of the democratic institutions that the New Independent States claim to be building. Post-Soviet Mythologies, Nationalism and Political Identities After the dissolution of the USSR, most unexpectedly (as this was in many ways for the leaders of the Central Asian Socialist Republics) the new Central Asian states were in need of a nation-scale concept of development. This concept had to underline the new path of the sovereign state and mark out the unique identity of the people. Western democracy was proclaimed as the new path (new party line).31 Conceptualization of the unique identity suitable for a nation concept was much more problematic, however. The strongest state identity was the old Soviet identity of a “titular nation”. It also proved to be the most “comfortable” one for presidents wishing to establish strong rule within their republics and to use against the separatist tendencies shown by opposing clans and ethnic minorities. The former identity of “Soviet citizen” somehow transformed into identities of the citizen of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, etc. Ethnicity/nationality is a key factor in state identity (citizenship), but not in all cases and not equally for all Central Asian

30

See the electronic database on the ethnic conflicts in the USSR (1917-1991) http://www.auditorium.ru/books/469/index_p-1.htm/ 31 On the contradictory interpretations of democracy in Central Asia see: Morozova I.Y, The Public Discussions of the ‘State of Law’ and Contemporary Political Regimes in Central Asia and Southern Caucasus. In: Johnson, Popova 2004 pp. 237-259.


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countries.32 No other state-unifying identity but that of the titular-nation, which had developed over the decades of the Soviet political-social transformation, proved to be acceptable. Religious identity could not be representative on a nation-scale. Although all five states are predominantly Muslim, Islam is unlikely to acquire official state status as it has in some Middle Eastern countries. Firstly, Islam had not evenly spread through Central Asia, and the region’s nomadic peoples had not developed distinct Islamic institutions. Secondly, the stratum of educated Muslim intellectuals was eliminated and the high tradition of Islam vanished during socialist times (popular Islam remained very much alive, however). The secularisation of social life and spread of modern secular education in Central Asia during the Soviet period left little opportunity for any sort of fundamentalist Islamic revolution to break out. Another potential national identity is the pan-Turkic one. However, since the ethnic composition of Central Asia is very diverse and the history of many ethnic groups, particularly Iranian, dates back as far as that of the Turks, pro-Turkic motives did not prevail. The second and more crucial reason for Central Asians’ distancing from the Turkic identity was the need to work out distinct Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and other national concepts. The Soviet titular-nation-building processes made their impact, especially as they overlapped with the already existing ethnic conflicts, which I have illustrated earlier in this chapter. The idea of a united Turkic Central Asia did not win many sincere supporters, since it was often promoted by pro-Turkish political groups. So far, Muslim and Turkic identities did not suit an encompassing concept of nation because they did not represent the Central Asian population as a whole and in many ways contradicted the political direction of the new states. Local identities were much stronger, but were also not suited to a national concept. By local identities I mean unofficial, non-legitimised kinship and clan solidarity groups. The interests of these groups form around access to socio-economic privileges; the ways to obtain welfare lie through the network of personal relationships based on territorial and/or kinship principles. In the formation of group interests, Central Asia possesses much in common with other post-Soviet, post-socialist countries; in building networks to promote interests of a certain group, the region has its particularities. Contemporary interest groups in Central Asia are formed on the basis of traditional tribal, kinship, clan identities that have deep roots in the social history of the region. These have been, however, transferred and mutated in Modern Times, and principally during the Soviet period. Concurring with scholars who study Central Asian societies, I consider the current social system to be a symbiosis of traditional communal and Soviet structures33 and mark out a special type of Central Asian clan. This clan aims to establish its dominance (even in the unofficial, hidden to outside observers form) and guarantee socio-economic prosperity for clan members by obtaining and maintaining political power (as explained below). Obviously, tribal identity in its pure form does not exist in the region nowadays. The current political elite are not recruited according to lineage or nobility. The client-patronage principle plays an important role in the formation of interest groups. At the horizontal level, close kinship (family)34 ties and territorial communities prevail. However, even at the top of society, the distribution of power and welfare runs according to internal hierarchies 32

See, for instance: Olimova Saodat, Natsional’nye gosudarstva i etnicheskie territorii [Nation states and ethnic territories]. In: Malashenko, A. and Olcott, M.B. eds. Mnogomernye Granitsy Tsentral’noi Azii [Multidimensional boundaries of Central Asia]. Moscow: Gendal’f. 1999. pp. 23-24. 33 Geiss, P.G. Pre-Tsarist and Tsarist Central Asia: Communal Commitment and Political Order in Change. London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon. 2003. pp. 97-113; Collins 2004 pp. 231-234. 34 On the dominance of close kinship/family ties over tribal identity among the Kazakhs see: Umbetalieva T.B. “Yavlenie Traibalizma v Kazakhstane” [“The phenomenon of tribalism in Kazakhstan”]. p. 10. http://www.kisi.kz/Parts/IntPol/KS-3%20Umbetalieva.html

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based on family and kinship relationships. In other words, the kinship structures are more stable than tribal/kinship identity. This can most clearly be seen in the still existing patrimonial social cults (of agsakal, for example). Local identities and clan structures manifest themselves in various aspects of Central Asian lives. However, they lead to division and competition among the clans within a state rather than unity and hence cannot form a nation-state identity. Consequently, the clans are not officially recognized or institutionalized by the states,35 but their structures certainly serve the functioning of society. In other words, clans in Central Asia represent a strong informal identity, but are not suitable for the nation-building concept. The current presidents of the republics were brought into politics by the Soviet clanpatronage system; however, their new agenda pushed them to deny this and create mythologized approval for their rule. In most Central Asian republics, research on clans is promoted if it is conducted within the framework of officially allowed criticism – the type that exposes threats to the regime without questioning official practices. For instance, in Uzbekistan, clan legacy and its negative impact on the establishment of democratic institutions are hot issues for Uzbek scholars and publicists. The only restriction is to develop this topic so that President I. Karimov is portrayed as the main actor in the policy of diminishing clan influence: he performs purges in the local administration, and issues edicts to control horizontal appointments.36 In reality, Karimov himself is a product of the ‘symbiosis’ between the clans and the Soviet nomenclature, and his cadres’ politics aims to strengthen his position in the country. Nevertheless, those who promote discussion on clan structures in Uzbekistan make a valuable contribution by pointing out that Central Asian clan identity does not correspond to Western concepts of democracy and civil society, and a compromise is difficult to achieve. As long as the territorial, kinship, family and patronage principle of redistributing power and profits prevails in society, the development of democratic state institutions will remain blocked. In Uzbekistan, official recognition has been given to mahallas – traditional neighbourhood communities that, in fact, never stopped functioning, but transformed: in Soviet times they took the form of local party cells and other collectives. According to the Uzbekistan constitution, mahalla is the local self-government body led by elected agsakals and their advisers.37 The agsakals of significant regions and cities (such as Tashkent, for instance) form the special body kengashi of agsakals38 and have to report directly to the president, who appears to be the head of the republican charity fund “Mahalla”. Granting legal status to mahalla is presented to the public as an important expression of the idea of national independence. Mahalla is called the traditional, historical “specific model of national government” and even the “basic school of democracy”.39 In Turkmenistan, President S. Niyazov has artificially restored and officially institutionalized traditional Turkmen communal structures, such as the Council of Agsakals. In November 2000, Niyazov issued a decree, whereby all political appointments were made

35

On non-legitimized elite groups in post-socialist societies (institutional nomads and flexible organizations) see Wedel, Janine R. “Corruption and organized crime in post-communist states: new ways of manifesting old patterns” in Trends in organized crime Volume 7, Number 1: Fall 2001. pp. 3-61. 36 Taksanov Alisher. “Tsentral’naya Aziya: piramida korruptsii zdes’ prostoit tysiacheletiya” [“Central Asia: the pyramid of corruption will be standing there for ages”] in Internet-Gazeta Navigator. 14.07.2000. http://www.navi.kz/oldnavi/articles/busines140601a.shtml/ 37 Konstitotsiya Respubliki Uzbekistan [The Constitution of Uzbekistan Republic]. Chapter XXI. Article 105. Tashkent: “Uzbekiston”. 2003. p. 29. 38 Kommentarii k Konstitutsii Respubliki Uzbekistan [The Comments to the Republic of Uzbekistan]. Tashkent: “Uzbekiston”. 2001. p. 458. 39 Ideia natsional’noi nezavisimosti: osnovnye ponyatiya i printsipy [The idea of national independence: main concepts and principles]. Tashkent: “Uzbekiston”. 2003. p. 68.


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only after a thorough genealogical check going back three generations.40 This decree followed the President’s sacking of a number of heads of velayats (regions) and etraps (smaller administrative units) for failing with the state purchase plan for cotton and rice. The nature of such domestic policy is historic and not just a Soviet legacy of commandadministrative methods; it is a re-establishment of ancient and medieval practices of tribal organization in the modern state, or de-modernization of the state for the narrow political interests of Niyazov’s clan. Still Turkmenistan is a unique and extreme case. The other Central Asian leaders have tried, at least officially, for foreign observers, to emphasize the modern and democratic nature of their rule. At the same time, they have made distinct attempts to introduce some medieval and traditional concepts of power into the public domain. Such concepts are frequently called the “renaissance of national state traditions” and are eagerly promoted by the intellectual elite who have been recruited by the state. Central Asian intellectuals inherited from Soviet social and historical science the concept of nation-state, which they addressed once again after the USSR’s disintegration without paying enough attention to critics of the concept. The historians who contribute to the creation of new national ideologies postulate that the establishment of a nation-state is a result of a natural and universal historical process. The difference between Western and Asian societies lies in the particular characteristics or age of the state, but not in the principle idea of the nation-state itself. In search of a national idea, the post-Soviet ideologies rediscovered the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, etc. state traditions. The region’s politicians, aided by historians and philologists, aim to add to the new national identity of the independent states by creating links to the legacy and political culture of the former empires and Khanates that existed on Central Asian territory in ancient and medieval times. Government ideologists recreate “the golden past” for their countries, as described in detail in the chapter by Alisher Ilkhamov, although there could be little direct connection between the modern Central Asian nations and the ethnic groups that inhabited the region in the past. In fact, the newly-promoted historians research periods far earlier than the Middle Ages. In Kyrgyzstan, the Institute of History at the National Academy of Science is working on finding not just the first historical references on the Kyrgyz, but the ancient genealogical ties that might have connections with the modern Kyrgyz. The Academy considers the Chinese commander Li Ling (who surrendered to the Hsiung-nu in 99 BC) to be the oldest ancestor of the Kyrgyz.41 The President of Tajikistan, E. Rahmonov, likes to repeat in his speeches that “the Samanid state was not the first Tajik state” and “the ancient roots of the Tajik nation should be found in the ancient civilization of the Aryan”.42 In speculative discourses on “political and cultural heritage”, the role of many traditions, believed to have survived from time immemorial, is obviously exaggerated. Too few regional scholars are able and allowed to write on the essential contradictions between the political culture of the medieval Khanates and ancient empires, the successors of which the present states often claim to be, and the democratic civil society that they declare to be building.43 In official ideologies the “original, historical-traditional and genetic features” of modern Central Asian nations are listed together with Western democratic values. Nobody explains whether and how these diverse systems of values could harmoniously co-exist. The promotion of national symbols (national dress, dishes, literature and folklore) and the pompous celebrations of historical anniversaries that are considered to be of global 40

News. 17.11.2000. www.zakon.kz http://eng.kyrgyzrepublic.kg/president/history/ 42 http://www.tajikistan.ru/tjkvzerkale.htm/ 43 On this topic see: Akishev A. “Tsentral’naya Aziya: novoe srednevekovie?” [Central Asia: new Middle Ages?] http://samal.kz/tamyr2000/3.html 41

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importance (e.g. the 1000-year anniversary of the epos Manas in Kyrgyzstan, the 650-year anniversary of Tamerlan in Uzbekistan, the birthdays of the poets Abai and Dzambula in Kazakhstan and the poet Makhtumkhuli in Turkmenistan and, certainly, Genghis-khan in Mongolia)44 are meant as propaganda promoting the legitimacy of the present regimes. This phenomenon could be referred to the restoration of traditional political culture in Central Asia: the more ancient history the nation has, the better for its identity; the longer the heritage – the more legitimate the regime. The Cults of the Presidents and their Justification All the above-mentioned and many other pseudo-historical discussions can be attributed to the creation of official historical mythologies. The actual legacy of the khans (and sultans) and their lineages can in no way be restored. The aristocratic kinships vanished for ever during the late Tsarist period and in the Soviet purges. The contemporary rulers are of “proletarian” origin. The mythological genealogies they create are some kind of spiritual legacy: the Presidents are usually portrayed as keepers of national character, possessors of unique personal features and, most importantly – deep understanding of the role their nations have played in history and heavy responsibility for the fate of the nation. The title of S. Niyazov – Turkmenbashi (head of the Turkmen, father of the people) is a vivid, although exceptional example. All the Central Asian Presidents have taken up writing and are presented as creative authors of a number of books. Niyazov’s book, Ruhname, was declared to be “the book of all Turkmen”, “the second book after the Koran”. Evidently, against such a background the role of the Constitution is not just nominal, but is practically replaced by another document – the collection of traditional Turkmen customs and laws composed by one man. The President is portrayed as a messenger of “traditional Turkmen values”: a good son, a noble and honest man, kind to children and etc. Anyone trying to gain a picture of Turkmen society and its traditions from Ruhname should bear in mind that real Turkmen customs may have little in common with the book. Although Niyazov has specialist-consultants on Turkmen history and culture at his service, Ruhname is fiction. President A. Akaev is also an author. One of his books, entitled, The Kyrgyz State Traditions and the Peoples’ Epos “Manas”, presents quasi-epic personalities as historical figures and ancient Turks as the founders of the early Kyrgyz state. In Uzbekistan, eleven volumes by I. Karimov have been published. E. Rahmonov writes articles on “the Tajiks in the mirror of history”.45 The nation-building processes also required a re-consideration of the recent past, and a number of myths have been created about the Soviet period. With the proclamations of national independence at the beginning of the 1990s, the governments had to explain what kind of independence was obtained and from whom. The “tough unitary commandadministrative system” populist answer was given by the leaders of all former Soviet republics without exception. Niyazov explained to his people that during the Soviet period the development of the Turkmen nation had come to a halt due to politics and culture that were alien to the Turkmen people.46 I. Karimov found his own rhetoric by talking about the Uzbek people growing cotton that had been “transported somewhere by people foreign to

44

On using historical figures as imagery/ symbols for domestic political needs and controlling/directing history to frame the national identity in contemporary Mongolia see a discursive book by Kaplonski, C. Truth, History and Politics in Mongolia. The Memory of Heroes. London and New York: Routledge Curzon. 2004. 45 http://www.tajikistan.ru/tjkvzerkale.htm/ 46 Research trip to Turkmenistan. May 2000.


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us”, who had been “trying to sell it to somebody at a price unknown to us”.47 In Kazakhstan the Russian colonization of Kazakh lands and the policy of Russification in Soviet times were emphasized. In the current official Kyrgyz historiography, the Soviet period is considered to be the first stage (in modern history) of uniting the scattered Kyrgyz into a nation state. The different stages of the USSR’s integration are interpreted as a development of Kyrgyz state traditions.48 Some Kyrgyz scholars argue that the idea of establishing the independent Kara-Kyrgyz mountainous region within the Turkestan Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921-1922 belonged to Kyrgyz activists, whose initiatives were restrained by Moscow.49 In Tajikistan, the Russian revolution of 1917 is officially positively viewed as a means of re-establishing Tajik state traditions and of forming the national political entity – the Tajik Socialist Republic – within the USSR. One of the goals of the Uzbek President’s cult is to frame the national ideology for the population, with him at its centre. The hypertrophied development of Karimov’s cult influences the general perception of state and law and makes traditional stereotypes prevail over the democratic values. The traditional Central Asian conception of ‘khan’ or master is vividly reflected in modern Uzbekistan: Karimov is a symbol of the state and the father of the Uzbek nation; his image is beyond criticism. His declarations unofficially acquire the status of law. The average Uzbek is supposed to associate his state, law and nation with the President. The Uzbek government did everything possible to add Islam to these associations; the Law on the freedom of faith adopted in 1998 prohibited any religious activity not sanctioned by the government. According to the Constitution, the president of Uzbekistan not only leads and controls the cabinet, but has the right to dissolve the Parliament (mejlis). He also appoints national and regional judges. All these authorities of the Uzbek President, especially as they are interpreted in the comments to the Constitution, give an impression of an authoritarian regime. To avoid the accusation of authoritarianism and dictatorship, presidential academics emphasize the necessity of strong executive power in the transition period: “people need strong power able to protect and express their interests”.50 A frequent point of view among Central Asian (and even foreign) experts is that authoritarian, and even totalitarian, regimes are the only means to prevent further social polarisation, fragmentation, violence and a possible shift towards Islamic fundamentalism in the region. In this way, the cult of the President, the national leader, is created not only from the top by the presidential apparatus and the ruling political elite, but in addition, it is encouraged by wide sections of the population. Such a phenomenon could be also viewed as a psychological crisis in society: against the background of the social destruction the public’s unconscious desire for a powerful national leader (“a strong hand”) could replace rational motivation to choose a better path. For instance, in Azerbaijan (which by many parameters can be compared with the Central Asian republics), former President Aliyev’s authoritarian methods were frequently defended by the Azerbaijani people with the comment: “he had established order in the country”.51 The order in the most popular interpretations did not necessarily mean authority or any commitment to law. It did not have to be legal and it had nothing to do with effective functioning of legitimate state

47

Karimov, I. Uzbekistan: natsional’naya nezavisimost’, ekonomika, politika, ideologiya [Uzbekistan: national independency, economics, politics, ideology]. Tashkent. 1996. V. 1. p. 101. 48 Abytov B. “Mart – mesyats istoricheskii” [“March – a historical month”]. http://echoosha.narod.ru/march2.htm/ 49 Begaliev http://siteistok.host.net.kg/bibl/Begaliev_2002.htm/ 50 Uruzaev Sh. Z, Vvedenie [Introduction]. In: Kommentarii 2001 pp. 20-21. 51 Interviews, Baku. May 2003.

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institutions.52 This order was and still is the control that the group in power has over the main economic resources. It is interesting to note that in Tajikistan, no cult of a strong national leader has been formed. On the contrary, Tajik society found itself in a civil war at the beginning of the 1990s, and the state institutions are still not fully in control of the country. Clan identity in this country turned out to be firmer than tendencies towards centralized rule. Politicians from the neighbouring republics like to use Tajikistan as an example of the destruction that is caused by the lack of absolute presidential authority. The tragic events during the civil war in Tajikistan made the population of the other regional countries believe that an authoritarian regime was the only alternative to anarchy. In post-socialist Mongolia (which is interesting to compare with post-Soviet Central Asia) the personal cult of the President is absent. This is exceptional for the Central and Inner Asian region and worth exploration. The first reason should be sought in the politics of the contemporary ruling party. Over the last few years the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) – which used to be a Mongolian copy of the CPSU in the socialist period – has been consolidating power following the boom periods of democratic parties in the early 1990s and the 1996-2000 democratic majority in the Parliament. Mongolia is the only post-socialist country in Central Asia in which the former ruling party managed to restore its position and remain in power. In former times, the practices used by the MPRP also differed from those of the Soviet national communist parties in Central Asia. Clan/territorial identity in the Mongolian Peoples’ Republic was considerably less important in vertical power structures and political struggle in the centre. There have been always more opportunities for a young, strongwilled and charismatic activist to reach political heights in Mongolia than in Soviet Central Asia. As some scholars have argued, this difference between Mongolian and Turkic political traditions and institutions has been apparent since the thirteenth century and has deepened over time.53(The religious-political institutions implanted into the Mongolian society with the spread of Geluk-pa school of Mahayana Buddhism in the sixteenth century also differed from those in the Muslim states.) In present-day Mongolia, clan and kinship factors do not play a considerable role in political competition between the MPRP and other parties. All parties have contributed to public discussion on the nature of reforms in the country. Whatever kind of text the new program documents of the MPRP contain – about the historical turn to humanitarian democratic socialism,54 the party rhetoric and its real policy, as many times in the past, again do not match. Over the last few years, membership of the MPRP eases promotion to high positions in state and private enterprises.55 Although the parliamentary elections in 2004 brought about half of the seats to the democrats, it was the MPRP candidate N. Enkhbayar, who won the recent presidential elections in May 2005.

52

In fact, the order brought by H. Aliyev in 1993 was the ending of violent ethnic and civil conflicts in the country. This relative stabilization was to a certain extent brought about by the political consolidation of H. Aliyev’s clan. 53 See Kradin N.N, Kochevniki, mir-imperii i sotsial’naya evoliutsiya [The nomads, world-empires and social evolution]. In: Al’ternativnye puti tsivilizatsii [Alternative ways of civilization]. Moscow. 2000. p. 319; Kradin N.N, Transformatsiya politicheskoi sistemy ot vozhdestva k gosudarstvu: mongol’skii primer, 1180(?)-1206 [The transformation of political system from leadership to the state: the Mongolian example]. In: Kradin, N.N. and Lynsha, V.A. eds. Al’ternativnye Puti k Rannei Gosudarstvennosti [The alternative ways to early state]. Vladivostok: Dal’nauka. 1995. pp. 188-198. 54 MAHN-yn Onts Ikh Hural [The extraordinary Congress of the MPRP]. Ulaanbaatar. 1990. p. 60. 55 From the interview with the journalist S.L. Churakov. “The News of Mongolia”. Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, September 2001.


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Conclusion Nation-building in Central Asian states has strong particularities and, thus, may be very cautiously compared with the same processes in other parts of the world. The latter took place in different historical periods: contemporary Central Asia is undergoing neither economic transformation as Western Europe was in the seventeenth century, nor the reformist vitality and identity crisis that the nations in the Far East, South and South-East Asia underwent at the beginning of the twentieth century. In their attempts to rediscover specific Central Asian features for nation building and proclaim adherence to democratic values to the outside world, the governments of these Newly Independent States are trapped between unavoidable particularism and external Western standards, the indiscriminate application of which is not always justified. The current world system puts additional challenges on these young states; being relatively open to foreign observers (as Kyrgyzstan) or almost completely closed (as Turkmenistan), the societies cannot avoid facing common threats. Poor economies and weak state institutionalization make these countries easy to manipulate by international and local players. Aid, assistance, allies and advisers come to the region under the banner of security and human rights, but in fact have their own political and economic agendas. As the last fifteen years of Central Asian independence have shown, criticism addressed by international human rights organizations to the region’s governments, their politics and methods of nation-building, depends on the changing political and geo-political arrangements. Selectiveness of critics puts the governments, elites and society in general in a defensive position. A way out can be found by deepening the nation-building processes by manipulating and mythologizing the past and present. However, the new concepts of the nations sometimes reject cooperation and integration with the outside world. Outside assistance and allies do not necessarily come from legal sources and this is potentially the most dangerous developmental path for the region. As I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, whole sections of the Central Asian population obtain their income from the illicit production of, and trafficking and trade in, drugs and weapons. Marginalized groups, particularly youth, are involved in crime and are easily recruited by terrorist groups. The created nation-state concepts seem to lack the potential to integrate all these groups, especially against the background of the numerous ethnic conflicts and clan struggles in the region; neither have they built a solid shelter against the complex internal and external security threats that the people of the region face.

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Post-Soviet Central Asia: from nationhood mythologies to regional cold wars? Alisher ILKHAMOV Research Fellow, SOAS, University of London Abstract. Nation-state building in Central Asia in the Post-Soviet period has been marked by a combination of authoritarianism and the construction of nationhood ideologies. The latter are created by the mythologization of national history and self, and biased toward ethnocentrism and the political exclusion of ethic minorities. This practice has been partly inherited from Soviet national policy, especially its reliance on titular nations as the cornerstone of the Soviet type of federation. In the Soviet past, domestic nationalism was counter-balanced by the dominance of the Communist ideology and promotion of the Soviet supra-national identity. After the dissolution of the USSR, however, the domestic nationalism that was unleashed has been one of the causes of social, cultural and economic dissection of Central Asia.

Signs of Regional Dissection Perestroika and the post-Soviet period have witnessed growing tensions between former Union republics. Initially, inter-republic disputes and clashes were kindled by grass-roots ethno-nationalism. In Central Asia the worst violence occurred in the Osh province of Kyrgyzstan between Uzbeks and Kyrgyzs in 1990 and between Kyrgyzs and Tajiks in the Isfara district on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the late 1980s.1 Both clashes took the form of disputes over water and land resources and were a projection of vital interests of local ethnic groups led by their community leaders, while authorities maintained a position of non-intervention. Those early clashes at the beginning of independence could be qualified as the awakening of dormant inter-ethnic tensions which had been long downplayed by the Soviet party and its tough administrative system. The national policy of the Soviets was rather declarative when addressing the public, whilst in practice it was based on the active participation of Russian political and security superintendents on the national periphery, and persistently promoted Russification. Inter-ethnic and inter-national tensions did not evaporate with the emergence of the New Independent States as expected, but were transformed. A fresh phenomenon developed: nationalism inspired by the new governments. This does not mean, however, that the governments directly provoked inter-ethnic conflicts; indeed most of them managed to avoid bloodshed. The inertia caused by living together in an ethnically mixed society for many centuries must be taken into account. Further, grass-roots nationalism was traditionally weaker in Central Asia than in the western part of the USSR. Finally, there have been a few positive trends in the last decade:

1 Another bloody event was the massacre of Meskhetin Turks committed by local groups of Uzbeks in the Ferghana province of Uzbekistan in 1989.

A. Ilkhamov / Post-Soviet Central Asia: From Nationhood Mythologies to Regional Cold Wars?

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x

The Presidents regularly meet and communicate; there is no lack of personal contact (though the productivity of regional and bilateral meetings in terms of regional institutional development remains very poor).

x

Borders between the states are being delimited, although the delimitation is not yet complete and there are still some mutual disagreements (mostly between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan).

x

At least one country – Kazakhstan – has not introduced visa restrictions as the other Central Asian countries have done towards each other. Accordingly, Kazakhstan has become a country where not only officials, but civil society activists from the whole region can meet without facing difficulties in obtaining entry visas.

x

There is sporadic improvement in bilateral relations – between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, for instance. A thaw between the two began in November 2004 (following a period of mutual presidential distrust and dislike), but this thaw (sometimes even enforced by inter-dynasty marriages) still needs to prove its sustainability.

At the same time, some governments deliberately provoke nationalistic moods in their own countries, because of which the overall relational environment in the region can be defined as far from harmonious. There are many issues behind the deterioration in regional relations:

2

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Delimitation of borders and disagreements over territories;2

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Numerous violent border incidents;

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Visa restrictions between Central Asian countries introduced since 1999;

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Extortion and abuse by customs and border guards.

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Mining at borders, predominantly at the Uzbek-Tajik border;

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High import tariffs, especially those erected by Uzbekistan;

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Transport tariff war between Kazakhstan and other countries in the region, most of whom have no direct transport access to key international trade routes;

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Disputes over water and energy issues;3

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Migration issues.4

For instance, between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Overall, 1,000 km of the 1,295 km border have been agreed so far. The most important and difficult sections, including the areas near enclaves, mostly between Uzbek Namangan and Kyrgyz Djalal-Abad regions, remain to be delineated (Source: Public Educational Radio and TV, Bishkek, in Russian, 10 June, 2004, BBC Mon CAU 100604/mk). 264,569 ha of land is disputed with Uzbekistan in the Djalal-Abad Region (Source: Obshchestvennyi reyting [Public rating], Bishkek, in Russian 29 Apr, May 04, BBC Mon CAU 180504). 3 Uzbekistan regularly cuts the gas supply to Kyrgyzstan which is forced to compensate for the lack of fuel by increasing water flow from the Toktogul water reservoir in the winter to raise electricity production. The excessive release of water causes flooding in large areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan; it also causes water shortages in the summer which is harmful for agriculture. 4 A number of countries, namely Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, suffer from limited natural resources, overpopulation and poor transportation infrastructure. Much of the male labour force has been forced to seek employment abroad, mainly in Russia and in Kazakhstan. Due to the poor regulation protecting the rights of migrants, there are reports of abuse of migrants by police and organized crime. In Kazakhstan some migrants were even reportedly kidnapped for slavery and extortion.

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Unless addressed on time, these disputes could escalate into a cold war or further into violent conflict. The Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union following the Second World War had three distinct traits: 1) an adversarial relationship, 2) an arms race, and 3) a propaganda battle based on the creation of the image of enemy. These characteristics of cold war are also relevant to the current situation in Central Asia. The new nations in the region are rapidly building up their national armed forces. For justification the governments refer to international terrorism. But the armies can turn against each other, as has almost happened on a number of occasions: for example, there was a military build-up on the border between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan after failed a coup in Ashgabad in December 2002; the coup attempt in Tajikistan by Colonel Makhmud Khudoiberdiev in 1998, allegedly supported by the Uzbek government and; the air bombing of Tajikistan territory by Uzbek jets in 2000 when the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) camps in the Tavildarya district were targeted. The parties sometimes treat each other as adversaries, not partners, especially when they are joining different geopolitical blocks, or seeking a favour from the great powers. Then press propaganda is used to depict neighbours in a negative light. In particular, such media clashes occur between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. But all these cases of mutual mistreatment have become possible in the atmosphere created by the construction of national ideologies. The Communist ideology did, to a degree, unite the peoples within the Soviet Union. This ideology was twofold: on the one hand it declared the right of the nations to self-determination; on the other hand, it did not go so far as to recognize the full independence of the Union republics: instead it tried to promote a supra-national Soviet identity, allegiance and patriotism. Soviet identity was achieved by means of massive propaganda, and unification of cultural life, but when it did not work – by coercive administrative methods and suppression of nationalist expression. With the fall of the Soviet Union, domestic nationalism was unleashed, and without a means to counterbalance its extreme expression. With independence, instead of using propaganda and administrative coercion, inter-ethnic consensus should have been achieved using democratic modes of consensus building. But this did not take place; the newly created nation-states did not develop civil freedoms, but continued to rely on the same tactics of manipulation of public opinion combined with coercion. The effect of manipulation has been reversed: now it brings about partition, not unity. In the early days of independence there were some romantic expectations that Turkestan would be revived – with it the idea of a united people and state for the region. But reality evolved in the opposite direction; the nations became progressively estranged from one another. There are a number of cause-effect explanations for this estrangement, such as the different speeds of adoption of economic reforms and liberalization by national governments, limited resources which were unevenly distributed among the countries, little experience and skills in solving cross-border conflicts, and, finally, the Soviet legacy, especially the way in which the inter-republic borders were created.5 One cause has rarely been discussed – the specific policies adopted in nation-state building. While seeming to be an irrevocable process, nation-state building could take different forms – either drawing lessons from world history, or trying to invent an ‘own’ way of nation formation, or keeping almost untouched the ethnocentric cornerstone of the 5

Here I mean the way the national Union republics were created: it was done specifically to prevent the people of the region from uniting under a single Turkic state entity, a popular idea among local intellectuals, even among those who were later involved in creation of Tajik SSR, which in its ethno-cultural context was opposed to the idea of pan-Turkism. See on this issue: Allworth, E.A. The Modern Uzbeks: From the Fourteenth Century to the Present: a Cultural History, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. 1990; Ilkhamov, A. “Archaeology of Uzbek Identity” in Central Asian Survey 23 (3-4): December 2004.


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Soviet national policy. According to some views of Modernity,6 wars played a critical role in the formation of European nation-states. The question is whether Central Asian states are fated to follow Europe’s path of wars to achieve a comparable degree of democratic nationstate formation. One would hope the new ɋentral Asian leaders were wise enough to avoid internation war. However, it seems that they have adopted backward and archaic philosophies. For instance, Uzbek President Islam Karimov is inspired by “The Establishment” (ulozhenia) by Tamerlane and “The Prince” by Machiavelli.7 This outdated philosophy is interesting on the subject of preserving power, but is not relevant for building modern state institutions based on recognition of civic freedoms, democratic values and respect for human rights. Karimov sees adversaries in neighbours, enemies in critics, and resorts to the principle divide et impera. Hence, his policies, which are based on the construction of images of ‘us’ versus ‘others’, have resulted in the increased social and cultural isolation of the country and even of particular regions within the country. Each border incident may well contain an element of spontaneity or haphazard; but the construction of divided borders in the minds of citizens is caused by deliberately designed nationhood ideologies. These ideologies are made by the distortion of native history and national identity. The practice of administrative subjection of academia and the rejection of academic freedom continues beyond the Soviet Union’s dissolution, with even more arbitrary rewriting of national history. As a consequence, a number of officially adopted historical doctrines produced by court and tame scholars have emerged.8 These doctrines tend to distance the Central Asian peoples, their histories and national symbols from each other.

The Rise and Alienating Impact of Nationhood Mythologies The degree to which a national history undergoes bias and manipulation makes these nationhood ideologies a kind of mythological construction. This sort of mythology does not refer to classical stories based on tradition and legend. The nationhood mythology is a modern phenomenon that emerged in conjunction with the rise of the modern nation; it is a variant of modern mythologies that are still plentiful in our daily social lives, as was observed in Roland Barthes’ work, Mythologies.9 As ancient “myths authorize the cultural institutions of a tribe, a city, a nation by connecting them with universal truths”,10 the nationhood mythology similarly aims to build a particular vision of national history and identity. While national history and identity are constructed by means of their mythologization and sacralization, they become an important source of symbolic capital enforcing those who appropriate and control it.

6

Hall, S. et al (eds). Modernity: an Introduction to Modern Societies. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. 1995. p. 76-78; see also: Dahl, R.A. Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1989; Giddens, A. A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism / Vol.2, The Nation-State and Violence. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1985; Therborn, G. “The Rule of Capital and the Rise of Democracy” in New Left Review vol. 103: 1977. 7 This is according to informal sources. 8 The cadre nomenclatura practice has been preserved, at least in Uzbekistan, where the appointments of senior staff of academic institutions are directly controlled by the Presidential apparatus. 9 Barthes, R. Mythologies. Selected and translated from French by Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang. 1972. 10 Mythology. In: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org

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John Armstrong11 and then Anthony D. Smith12 were first to use the term mythomoteur as a "myth-symbol complex" used for the construction of ethnicity-centred nationalistic ideologies. I will use the notion of nationhood mythology in the same way. Indeed most nations worldwide use mythomoteurs for national mobilization and consolidation; many of these mythomoteurs have been created by national intellectual and ruling elites. Although using the mythologization of history to legitimize the state dates back to ancient times, nation-centred mythomoteurs are a phenomenon of modern history and concurrent with the rise of nationalism and the formation of modern nation-states. According to Liah Greenfeld,13 two types of nationalism should be distinguished – civic nationalism, in the sense that national identity and nationality were in effect identical to citizenship, liberal democracy and individual sovereignty, and collectivist nationalism, which tends to be authoritarian and is imposed from the top down. In reality both are ideal types in the Weberian sense – both intersect with each other, and both types employ national myths and symbols. For the civic type, mythomateurs are somewhat auxiliary factors; for collectivist-authoritarian nationalism, however, mythology construction is one of the main pillars of nation-state formation, where academic institutions are exploited as the drivers of this state controlled myth production. This is the reason that there so few independent voices to be heard among historians from the five Central Asian nations. Kirill Noyurzhanov writes that in Tajikistan the historical narrative has become a political phenomenon, and “interpretation of the historical record invariably takes place under the patronage and vigilant control of the state”,14 which encourages creation of mythomoteurs. The latter along with nationalistic historiography is concerned with the following issues: -

the establishment of a unique Tajik identity based on a long and distinguished prehistory; the identification of historical injustices inflicted upon the Tajiks by extraneous forces (Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Uzbeks, Russians and the Soviets); the justification of claims to specific territories (“historical homeland”), located in neighbouring Uzbekistan – notably Samarkand and Bukhara.15

Kazakh ethnologist Nurbulat Masanov also agrees that “we [in Kazakhstan] bear a lot of myths”.16 He criticizes the growing practice of ascribing cultural phenomena to the Kazakh nation which the Kazakhs – former nomads – did not have any relation to, for example, the ancient cities of Otrar, Sauran and Ispidjan, and prominent medieval figures such as Ahmed Yasavi and al-Farabi. The latter have been included in the historical framework of the Kazakh ethno-genesis for the sole reason that they once stayed on the territory of contemporary Kazakhstan. Masanov believes that for Kazakh scholars, these mythological constructions only hinder the study of the real history, life and past nomadic culture of the Kazakhs. Although the features and parameters of mythology constructs are unique to each nation, we can assume the structure of the constructs has some invariable principles 11

Armstrong. J.A. Nations before nationalism . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1982. Smith, A.D. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. 1986. pp. 58-68. 13 Greenfeld, L. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. 1992. 14 Noyurzhanov, K. “The Politics of History in Tajikistan: Reinventing the Samanids” in Harvard Asia Quarterly, An Online Graduate Student Publication affiliated with the Harvard Asia Center, Monday, 30 August, 2004. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/haq/200101/0101a003.htm 15 Ibid. 16 Interview to Internet media-edition ‘Dialogue’. 20.08.2004. http://www.dialog.kz/site.php?lan=russian&id=74&pub=221 12


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regardless of the cultural context. The actual expression of these principles, however, might be particular to each case. The emerging nation-states with an authoritarian nature use both coercive and ideological means which are distinct but interrelated to consolidate the nation and impose rulers’ will over the society. Coercive measures produce obedience and compliance, but also, as a by-effect, fear. Fear combined with brainwashing through propaganda and “education” creates the desirable result (from the ruler’s viewpoint) of allegiance. I will, however, concentrate on the ideological structures. It is also necessary to distinguish between two sides of nationalistic ideologies and movements – grass-root nationalism and narratives, on the one hand, and deliberate efforts by ruling and intellectual elites to build up a nationalistic agenda, on the other. I will focus upon activities of the ruling elites. In fact, all the Central Asian states are affected by nationhood mythologies, though to different degrees of absurdity, manipulation and distortion of historical and ethnostatistical data. Saparmurat Niyazov’s Ruhnama is an outstanding example of this. I will use his example, as well as a few others, notably Uzbek and Tajik cases, to demonstrate the most salient features of nationhood mythology construction. We will disaggregate the phenomenon of nationhood mythology into its principle elements. Carlo Tullio-Altan distinguishes the following symbolic landmarks of national identity: epos (historical memory), ethos (rules for living together), logos (common language), genos (family relations and lineage) and topos or oikos (territory).17 These landmarks help us to learn more about how mythomateurs have been structured. We would especially denote the landmark of historical memory (epos) and rules for living together (ethos) as the constituent elements of nationhood formation, namely as they are directly inherent to nationhood mythomateurs. I will deconstruct the make-up of a nationhood mythology into the same two categories but distinguish them not as terminal qualities, but rather as clusters to be themselves disaggregated into more specific structural elements. Each of the clusters is comprised of a number of specific features: Epos: Imagined Ancestry and National History: -

Appropriation and nationalization of common regional history; Claim to immemorial ancestry; Imagined golden age of the nation; Petrified national identity; Teleological representation of national history;

Ethos: “Us” versus “Others”: -

Ethnocentrism and politics of exclusion; Narcissism, self-glorification and imagined national virtues; Construction of national virtues, values and norms; Isolationism and rejection of cultural exchange; Conspiracy theory and the image of enemy.

Below I will expand on the meaning of each of these features and try to apply them to the particular cases of the Central Asian reality. I will also show that they are not unique to the region but recognisable in world history. I would like to draw special attention to parallels with European and American accounts where respective nationhood mythologies 17

Tullio-Altan, C. Gli italiani in Europa. Profilo storico comparato delle identità nazionali europee [Italians in Europe. A comparative historical profile of European national identities]. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999. p. 1213. Cit. from: http://www.crvp.org/book/Series04/IV-5/chapter_xi.htm

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not only used but conceptualized in a much more sophisticated manner in the intellectual practice of volkische, a predecessor of Nazism. The Central Asian architects of nationhood narratives, of course, did not go so far as the national-socialism which swept Germany in 1930s. But some Central Asian leaders would readily subscribe to the Nazi’s political slogan ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer’ ("One people, one country, one leader"). Epos: Imagined Ancestry and National History I am using Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an imagined community,18 but with one clarification in respect to the type of collectivist-authoritarian nationalism mentioned above which is applicable to the Central Asian reality: it also implies an imagined and significantly reconfigured vision of national history as a means of ethnonationalistic mobilization. Below we expound specific characteristics of the nationhood mythomoteur from this historical point of view. Appropriation and nationalization of common regional history In the period before the Second World War, Soviet historiography was based on a biased interpretation of history perceived through the prism of class struggle theory. The incursion of the Nazi army in 1941 and first defeats and retreats of the Red Army forced Stalin to make significant corrections to the perception of history by adding an ingredient of nationalism in order to mobilize patriotic sentiment in the country. This was done using a combination of class theory and Russian and domestic nationalisms. Local national elites were encouraged to rewrite their national histories and emphasise ethnocentric ideology. In Uzbekistan for instance, the heroic figure of Tamerlane and the rest of the Chagatay heritage were rehabilitated. Intellectual elites in some Central Asian nations fenced off common regional history into national cultural and historical domains. Fierce clashes took place between Uzbek and Tajik intellectuals over the recognition of “nationality” of certain prominent historical figures, such as Avicena (Abu Ali Ibn Sino), Al-Khoresmi, Al-Farabi, Zoroastr.19 After the creation of the New Independent States this policy and practice of appropriating history increased. The release from Russian patronage and purist Communist ideology was not counter-balanced by the adoption of the alternative restraining force of liberal democracy. As a result we have a number of incompatible nationalistic historical concepts and quarrels over historical and cultural heritage. Some concepts and their creators (mainly in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) have taken for granted the principle that: who was born, or died, on “our” territory is exclusively “our” ancestor.20 Others (chiefly in Tajikistan) demarcated their own historical domain by claiming linguistic affinity with disputed historical figures, religions and cultural heritage. Disagreement

18 Anderson, B. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. 1983. 19 For instance, President Emomali Rahmonov is trying to underline that Ibn Sino’s native language was not Farsi, but Tajik. See his article “Thoughts on the Eve of the 10 Year Anniversary of the Independence” posted on the website of the Tajik Embassy in Moscow: http://www.tajikistan.ru/nezav_rah_sep.htm 20 For instance, Kazakhs celebrate the founder of a Sufi order, Khodja Ahmet Yassavi, and medieval philosopher, Al-Farabi, as national heroes only because they were born on modern Kazakhstan’s territory (in the towns of Turkestan and Farob respectively). Their images or tombs have appeared on national banknotes. The same approach has been taken by Uzbek and Turkmen authorities: the former celebrated “Avesta” because it was created on the territory of Khoresm, and Turkmen have “nationalized” the ancient Baktria kingdom and present themselves as its descendant.


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between Uzbek and Tajik nationalistic elites (supported by their governments) remains fierce and uncompromising. Claim to immemorial ancestry It has become a matter of highly cherished prestige and a proof of legitimacy to assert one’s own origin is ancient. Turkmen President Saparmurad Niyazov, also known as Turkmenbashi (Turkmen chief), declared that the Turkmen nation lasted five thousand years. He exploited the archaeological findings made at the ancient palace-temple complex of Margush21 said to be as old as five thousand years. Victor Sarianidi, head of the respective Margian archeological expedition was rewarded by President Niyazov for his book Margush: Ancient Orient Kingdom in the Old Delta of the Murgab River.22 Today Sarianidi, a world-known archaeologist, is considered the most honoured scholar in Turkmenistan. Sarianidi’s affinity with the dictator is obviously based on a sort of exchange: the archaeologist receives a carte-blanche and funding for his research, and the dictator receives evidence of the ancient existence of the Turkmen people. Such a personal strong interest in historical and archaeological issues is characteristic to almost all Central Asian leaders. History and archaeology have become an integral part of the nationhood ideology. Among Central Asian presidents, Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov, after Turkmenbashi, proved to be one of most prolific in the genre of amateur historical writings. The difference with the case of Turkmenistan is that there are already many historical theories which are taken for granted and being exploited to shape the Tajik ethno-historical identity. Not only President Rahmonov himself, but most Tajik intellectuals are proud to stress that the Tajiks are not only one of, but the exclusive descendants of the Aryans (a hypothetical group of people who spoke the parent language of the Indo-European languages), the people of Sogdiana (a province of the Achaemenian Empire located in the Zarafshan valley in the third century BCE), Baktria (a historical area located present-day northern Afghanistan invaded by Alexander the Great in the 3rd century BC) and the Samanids (a Persian dynasty in Central Asia in 819-999, named after its founder Saman Khuda, the 9th-10th centuries). This claim, as was said, is totally based on the argument of language affinity with these people in the past. In Uzbekistan, officially assigned Uzbek historians similarly maintain that the Karahanid epoch (10th-11th centuries AD) is the cradle of the Uzbek nation, and those Uzbek nomads who invaded the region at the beginning of sixteenth century were just absorbed by the already sedentary Turkic speaking population. This historical paradigm of the Uzbek ethno-genesis was first suggested by Soviet historian Alexander Yakubovsky23 and then iconized by the Soviet and Uzbek academic establishment. Yakubovsky applied the term “Old Uzbek” to the period before the appearance of Uzbek nomadic tribes and as a substitution for the term “Chagatay” which had denoted the Turkic cultural realm in the times of Timurids. 21 The local name of the country known also as Margiana which existed in Bronze age (the early second millennium BCE) is located in present day northern Afghanistan and south Turkmenistan. Its sites, named Margush, were discovered and named by Victor Sarianidi (1976). The name Margush is purely provisional, as what the inhabitants called themselves is unknown. The archaeological site is designated the BactriaMargiana Archaeological Complex. Bactria was the Greek name for northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian province of Margush whose capital was the town Merv located in today's Turkmenistan. See: Sarianidi, V. I. Preface. In: Hiebert, F.T. Origins of the Bronze Age Oasis Civilization of Central Asia. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. 1994. 22 Sarianidi, V. Margush: Drevnevostochnoye tswarstvo v staroi delte reki Murgab [Margush: Ancient Orient Kingdom in the Old Delta of the Murgab River]. Ashgabad, 2002. 23 Yakubovskiy A. Yu. K voprosu ob etnogeneze uzbekskogo naroda [On the Question of the Ethnogenesis of the Uzbek People]. Tashkent: Fan. 1941.

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All these efforts to prolong the age of one’s own nation would be seen to be senseless if the modern origin of the contemporary national formations in the region had been recognized. In the article “Archaeology of Uzbek identity”24 I suggested that there is an important difference in the present-day meaning of Uzbekness and the one used before the twentieth century, notably prior to the creation of the Uzbek Soviet Socialistic Republic in 1924. The modern version of Uzbek identity is closely linked to Uzbek statehood, albeit quasi-statehood, as it was designed by the Soviets. In this point I follow Ernest Gellner’s position of linking the creation of the nation with the emergence of the modern nation-state, although with certain provisos provided by Anthony D. Smith, a critic of Gellner. Smith, clarifying Gellner’s view, claims that nations had grown from certain ethno-cultural raw materials – tribes, social-cultural formations and more or less self-asserting ethnicities which pre-existed the emergence of the national state formations in question. These pre-existing formations did not imagine themselves as a particular nation; rather, they were a fragmented patchwork of peoples with different cultural and linguistic inclinations, combined with a strong sense of territorial affiliation. So the meaningless pursuit for certificates of ancestry would end should the nations conceptualize themselves as genuinely modern formations. Imagined golden age of the nation Another side to nationhood mythology is the selective choice of one particular period and one cohort of people (language group, tribe or state formation), which is identified as a direct ancestor of that particular nation. The evolution of that ancestor group and its mixing with other ethnic groups and cultures is ignored. The ancestor group has to be ancient enough to prove the deep historical roots of the nation. The age of the latter is considered as evidence of the legitimacy and international prestige of the nation. The link between the ancestor group and its current progeny is enforced by a set of carefully chosen national symbols. Most often these are famed historical figures, great warriors or statesmen, philosophers and Islamic scholars, artists and poets who sang of national ideals. The epoch of ancestors is often considered to be the golden age of the nation, revealing its best traits and virtues, and serves as an exemplar for future generations. In Europe and the US, the search for a golden age may be characteristic to only marginal political groups and a minority of intellectual circles. However, in Central Asia it is very much encouraged by central governments and is an integral part of the nationhood ideology. The ruling elites here play a key role by inspiring the construction of a mythologized conception of the nation’s origin and history. Glorifying the figures of the national past has been popular with many representatives of titular nations, especially the native speaking versus the more cosmopolitan, Russian speaking ones. The figure of Tamerlane was perceived as epic long before Uzbekistan acquired independence in 1991. Among the first who started to glorify his personality were Central Asian Jadids (Muslim reformists at the threshold of the 19th and 20th centuries)25 who considered him a symbol to be used to raise Turkestani national consciousness. The current Uzbek political leadership, however, exploits historical and national symbols to legitimize its own grasp of power and justify rule with an ‘iron hand’.

24

Ilkhamov, 2004. Abdurauf Fitrat in his poem “Sorrow at the Motherland” identifies his motherland with the cradle of passed heroes such as Genghis-khan, Tamerlane, Atilla (hero of Hunn people, IV century) and Oghuz tribes. See: Fitrat A. Ozbek qaighusi (sochma sh’er) [Obligation to Motherland (blank verses)]. In: Tanlagan asarlar [Selected Works]. Vol. 1. Tashkent: Ma’naviyat. 2000. p. 31 (in Uzbek).

25


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The ruling elite in each country in the region has chosen a certain period in history as its respective golden age. In Uzbekistan this was the Karahanid period (10th-11th centuries AD) and Timurids dynasties (14th-15th centuries AD), and in neighbouring Tajikistan, the Aryan and Sogd civilization along with the Samanids dynasty were chosen. One of most popular historical narratives of Kazakh self-identity has been the story of the blossom and fall of the Otrar town oasis, the urban centre of pre-Kazakh Kypchaks, which was sacked by Genghis-Khan in the thirteenth century. The proponents of this idea claim that the Kazakhs have not only a nomadic origin but also originated from an urban civilization.26 In Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov has taken the conceptualization of the Turkmen origin and identity into his own hands. His book, Ruhnama, published as a guide for the nation, takes the period of mythical hero Oguz-khan as the Turkmen golden age. According to Turkmenbashi, who borrows from folk legends, Oguz-khan lived five thousand years ago. This uncritical use of legend links the origin of Oghuz Turks with the name of Oghuz-khan, while historical evidence shows that Oghuz tribes emerged only in the sixth century AD. Further, Turkmen were only one of the Oghuzs tribes settled in the current territory of Turkmenistan only in the fifteenth century. However, Niyazov is not concerned with historical evidence. Indeed, scholars are receiving instructions from him as to what should be covered in the national history: in September 2000 he ordered the destruction of new history textbooks for allegedly overstating the role of other nations in Turkmen history and accused the authors of committing treason.27 Niyazov’s concern is not for historical truth, but the certification of the nation’s greatness. ‘The Turkmen people have a great history which goes back to the Prophet Noah. Prophet Noah gave the Turkmen lands to his son Yafes and his descendants”, writes Niyazov in Ruhnama.28 Then he claims: “I say that the ancestor of the Turkmen nation is Oguz Han”.29 Petrified national identity The contemporary theory of nationalism embraces various conceptions, including primordialism, constructivism, pragmatism, and so on, but I will not dispute which of them is more true. However, it seems the primordialist school finds adherents such as Niyazov, Karimov and Rahnonov who depict national identity as fixed and unchanging over time. They oppose ideas of permanent change, transformation and assimilation as highways for nation formation and maturation. The scholars standing far from the statehood ideology suggest an opposite view. For instance, Vasily Bartold has an excellent depiction of how the entities of the Tajiks30 and the Sarts31 have undergone transformations in their meanings. The Sarts were one of the ethnic groups which constituted the modern Uzbek national identity. But yet the ideologists of the Uzbek nation and statehood (initially Russian Soviet historians and later home-bred ones) persist with the idea that the Uzbek nation was formed during the Karakhanids 26

This idea is mentioned and criticized in the above mentioned interview given by Nurbulat Masanov to Internet media-edition ‘Dialogue’. 20.08.2004. http://www.dialog.kz/site.php?lan=russian&id=74&pub=221 27 Kuru, A.T. “Between the State and Cultural Zones: Nation Building in Turkmenistan” in Central Asian Survey: 21 (1): 2002. p. 77. 28 Turkmenbashi, S. Ruhnama. Ashgabat, 2001. p.9. cit. from the online version: http://www.Turkmen.com 29 Ibid. p. 161. 30 Bartold, V.V. Tajiks. In: Bartold, V.V. Sochinenyia [Collected Works], Ɇoscow. 1963. V. 2. Part 1. p. 451–470. 31 Bartold. V.V. Sart. In: Bosworth, C.E. et al. (eds). Encyclopedia of Islam. Volume IX, E.J. Brill: Leiden, 1995. p. 66-68. (in co-authorship with M.E. Subtelney – but the core content of the article belongs to V.V. Bartold).

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dynasty. Scholars who oppose the officially approved doctrine of the Uzbek nation become stigmatized by the state controlled media and academia. Development understood as an evolving chain of transformations and assimilations makes ethnicity and nation formation an open, not closed, system – open to cultural exchange and interactions with “other” ethnicities and nations. The development should be characterized as the result of numerous interactions and exchanges. From this point of view, it is essentially unpredictable, an open-ended process that is, at all times, dependent on specific historical circumstances. At the same time there is often a sequential logic to development, some features of which can be reproduced by different nations. For instance, in 1922 when Vladimir Lenin was considering various options for creating the national republics in Central Asia, his decision was significantly influenced by reports from Turkcomissia (the Turkestan Commission) and especially its expert on national issues, G.I. Broido,32 who paid considerable attention to interethnic tensions in the region – between Uzbeks and Turkmen particularly. At the same time the Bolsheviks had followed a certain logics of colonialist politics mixed with some sense of liberation mission. In contrast to the “open-ended” approach, authoritarian regimes reject the idea of exchange and openness not only historically, but also in current affairs. This isolationist way of thinking has much to do with the practice and policy of ethnocentrism and seclusion. Any borrowing from other cultural contexts is treated as a threat to a genuine national self. For instance, Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov perceives the phenomenon of assimilation as alien to the nation which should be preserved pure: “The assimilation, in our opinion, first of all is connected with the loss of identity in culture, history and ethnicity. From this point of view it is distinct from mutual influence.”33 Such a judgement ignores the many Tajiks and Uzbeks in the Western parts of the country (such as Khodjand, Hissar and Kurgan-Tyube) who have lived together and intermarried for centuries. Many are bilingual – evidently a product of mutual assimilation. In the recent past (under the Soviets), such a phenomenon would be perceived as “progressive”, but times have changed dramatically: now inter-ethnic rapprochement is perceived by senior officials as something close to betrayal of the national course. Teleological representation of the national history It would be mistaken to claim that the designers of nationhood mythologies find the idea of evolution completely alien. They accept it, but as a linear process that does not necessarily imply exchange and transformation. The sequence of historical events is fabled by them in a teleological, Hegelian-like, manner, with the present or forthcoming resurgence of the nation regarded as the natural culmination of native history. Schematically the paradigm of the teleological representation can be circumscribed with the triad: the golden age – ordeals – a new golden age, or the expected advent of “great future”. According to Ruhnama, the Turkmen nation from very beginning had a complete set of merits. These merits could be enriched later with new qualities but the core values remained. Turkmenbashi distinguishes five periods of Turkmen history, which he identified with the evolvement of their spirit. But these five can reduced to the triad mentioned above. The first, golden, epoch of the Turkmen spirit is the period from 5000 BC through to the seventeenth century; this is marked by the mythological figure of Oghuz Khan, Gorkut Ata, by the rule of the Seljuk state, the Ottoman Empire, the Garagoýunlys and Akgoýunlys 32 Nurpeisov, K.I., Grigoryev, V.K. Turar Ryskulov i yego vremya [Turar Ryskulov and his time]. In: Ryskulov, T.R. Sochineniya [Collected Works]. In 3 Volumes. Vol.1. Almaty: Kazakhstan. 1990. p. 33. 33 Rahmonov, E. Razmyshlenia nakanune desyatiletiya nezavisimosti [Thoughts on the eve of the 10 year anniversary of Independence]. 2001. http://www.tajikistan.ru/nezav_rah_sep.htm


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states.34 The period of ordeals was between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries; action and resoluteness were replaced by idleness and waste. The historical creativity of the nation’s spirit ceased to exist and the nation became divided into various groups and tribes.35 The culminating age of the Turkmen nation began on 27 October 1991 (the day the declaration of independence was issued).36 A similar, but more coloured by scientific style, historical paradigm has been adopted in Uzbekistan. The Golden age, as was mentioned, is associated with Timur-Khan (locally known as Amir Temur) and his epoch. The real ordeals (the second stage of the triad) started with the Russian occupation of the region and achieved their heights in Soviet times, notably under the Stalinist regime. Relief has come with independence and the nation is close to entering the “great future”. It is a simple sequential scheme, but characteristic to all ideologies based on the mythologization of history. Ethos: “Us” versus “Others” The arbitrary reconfiguration of national history makes sense if it provides material for shaping the values and morals of the nation, and embeds the nation in a system where there is a strong distinction between the nation as “us” and other nations as “others”. Ethnocentrism and politics of exclusion Using psychological tests and interviews, Theodor Adorno, in The Authoritarian Personality,37 demonstrates the link between authoritarianism and ethnocentrism. Central Asian presidents who have encouraged the creation of nationhood mythologies can themselves become hostages of the biased images of “self” and “others”. They risk falling into a vicious circle of nation-centrist narcissism, a path leading to regional-scale cold wars. Ethnocentrism can be defined as an underdeveloped form of modern nationalism which, in its ultimate expression, presents the nation as a homogeneous entity, thereby neglecting the cultural diversity of the territorial domain. The alternative approach to nation-building – based on principles of inclusion, citizenship, allegiance to a national constitution, and rule of law – has been adopted in most modern democracies. There have been deviations in the United States and Europe, however, such as white racism and the current anti-Muslim hysteria encouraged by the excesses of the War on Terrorism. But the allegiance to liberal values and the so-called constitutional republicanism38 mitigates such extreme cases: racism as a policy in the United States has been decisively overcome; German Nazism has been condemned by the international community and the German state does its best to uproot all possible springs of Nazism. Inter-racial intolerance, of course, is deeply rooted in Europe’s colonial past but is being gradually healed by liberal democracy and maturing civil society. Central Asian societies, on the contrary, risk losing their historic inter-ethnic tolerance due to the effects of official ethno-centric nationalism. Such a risk is conditioned by the way the former Soviet national policy, partly inherited by the New Independent States, defined the concept of nation – as ethnoculturally exclusive in respect to each titular nationality. The national republics, the prototypes of the current nation-states, were created top-down by selecting certain 34

Turkmenbashi 2001. p. 292. Ibid. p.293. Ibid. p.296. 37 Adorno, T. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper. 1950. 38 Habermas, J. The inclusion of the other: studies in political theory. edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greif. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 1998. 35 36

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ethnicities as the core ethnic group and using their name for the title of the nation. The chosen ethnicities enjoy exclusive access to key power resources including the right to shape national symbols and history, and later on the ability to impose their own language upon other ethnic groups. Such a privilege in fact denoted the merge of the titular nation with state power, making it a sort of empowered core-nation within a nation. In socialist state building, the Soviets initially tried to neutralise ethnocentric nationalism by promoting the so called proletarian solidarity which was to be superior to the principle of the national self-determination. After abandoning the idea of proletarian dictatorship, the Communist leaders adopted the ideology of Soviet patriotism quite successfully for a time, but eventually the forces of ethno-nationalism prevailed. As a result, ethno-nationalism has been unleashed without the previous restraining forces of Soviet identity supra-nationalism. The architects of the Soviet national policy initially believed that the newly created national formations and cultures would be national only in form, but socialist in content. They went ahead with the idea of national division and delimitation in Central Asia with the obvious aim of defusing the domestic intellectuals’ drive toward unification of the region under the banner of a federal Turkestan. Ironically, other trends in the socialist world demonstrated that federation states as a rule are less cohesive and hence less resistant to the centre than ethnically homogenous nations. It was probably one of the Soviets’ most farreaching conceptual mistakes. Understanding the elusiveness of having faith in proletarian and supra-patriotic instincts of the populace in national republics, Moscow was more and more forced to rely upon controlling the state and party apparatus in the national peripheries. Thus, the privileged and empowered position of the titular nationality was counter-balanced by the similar empowerment of Russians as representatives of the centre. According to an unwritten rule, the position of second secretary of the republican Communist parties was assigned to Russians. Their task was to control the law-enforcement agencies, especially KGB and Prosecutor offices.39 With the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians lost control over the power apparatus in the national republics; as a result, the titular nationality gained even more status and power, while that of other ethnicities declined. Once established, ethnocentrism leads to the exclusion of other groups, which generates disparity among citizens and therefore undermines the principle of equal citizenship – the cornerstone of the modern nation-state. But ethnocentric power-holding has not always been expressed in open and direct harassment of ethnic minorities: the titular ethnicity could now afford to be generous and forgiving. In Soviet times similar generosity was characteristic for Russians as the most powerful nationality in the Soviet Union. Power holding by a titular ethnicity combined with tolerance for the other ethnicities within the given national boundaries is a sign of imperial nature of the state formation. The link between the ethnocentrism, power holding and imperial principle of the governance is demonstrated by Uzbekistan leader Islam Karimov. He is trying to emulate medieval imperial ruler Timur: “If someone wants to understand what is Uzbek, what is the strength and might of the Uzbek nation”, he writes, “he must recall the personality of Amir Temur”.40 Timur is presented to the public as a strong, wise and fair ruler. His fairness was supposed to apply to all people regardless of their nationality. It partly explains why the internal Uzbek regime features a certain tolerance toward ethnic minorities.

39

Rywkin, M. Moscow’s Muslim Challenge. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. 1982. Karimov, I. Myslit i rabotat po-novomu: trebovanie vremeni [To think and work in a new turn: the demand of time]. Tashkent: Uzbekiston. 1997. p. 163.

40


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Karimov emphasizes that Uzbekistan is a poly-ethnic type of state,41 where peace is regarded above all. Ethnic minorities here indeed are granted certain rights and attention: they are allowed to create their own ethno-cultural associations and societies;42 Radio Tashkent International broadcasts programmes in a number of minority languages – half an hour daily per language; in January 2005 it even started to broadcast in the Turkmen language.43 A similar degree of tolerance is observed in Kyrgyzstan, where the Uzbek community has its own registered associations, Republican Uzbek National-Cultural Centre and The Society of Uzbeks.44 There is nothing, however, comparable to this in Turkmenistan. Still, the generosity of the titular nationality toward ethnic minorities doesn’t annul the ethnocentric character of the nations. Real inter-ethnic equality is displayed in access to key power and economic resources, which are in hands of representatives of titular nationalities, and in the realm of national symbols and history which is dominated by the same titular nation. The history of Uzbekistan is principally presented as a history of the Uzbek people, and the same can be said of the other nations of the region. Although one can recognize that when Uzbek ideologists talk about the Uzbek people in the past, they avoid specific ethno-cultural definitions of Uzbekness and prefer to refer to the Turkic speaking population who historically lived in the Maverannahr territory.45 Tajik nationalists, by contrast, tend to emphasize the distinct linguistic identity of the Tajik nation, considering the Turkic environment as traditionally alien and threatening to the Tajiks.46 In order to claim titular legitimacy, the ethnicity needed to constitute a majority in its respective territory. Anxious to build such majorities, Moscow together with the ruling elites of a respective titular ethnicity resorted to statistical manipulation of census records. For instance, in order to constitute the Uzbek titular ethnic group, the authors of the national delimitation in 1924 united under this ethnonym various Turkic speaking groups, including the former nomadic Uzbek tribes, the Sarts and some other tribes and subethnicities.47 This arbitrary policy in nation-state formation has remained mostly unchanged since Soviet times. The ethnocentric style of manipulation of statistical data has again been demonstrated by Turkmenbashi. At first glance, there should be no concern over the legitimacy of Turkmen as the titular ethnicity; during Soviet times they constituted an overwhelming majority in the republic. Nevertheless Turkmenbashi has artificially increased the ratio of Turkmen in the country. As in all post-Soviet countries, Turkmenistan also witnessed increased outmigration of Russians. At the same time the Turkmen birth rate is one of the highest in the region. But official data shows a decline in the ratio not only of Russians but also of 41

Karimov, I. Uzbekistan on the Threshhold of the Twenty-First Century. Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press. 1997. p. 42. In 2001 there were 118 such registered associations. Source: Zhukova, L. Natsionalno-kulturnye tsentry Uzbekistana. In: Ilkhamov, A. (ed.). Etnicheskyi atlas Uzbekistana [Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan]. Tashkent: Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation Uzbekistan and LIA . 2002. p. 370-382. 43 Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, 12 January, 2005. 44 Fumagalli, M. “Uzbek Communities in the Kyrgyz Republic and their Relationship to Uzbekistan” in Central Eurasian Studies Review 2, Volume 3: Spring 2004. http://cess.fas.harvard.edu/cesr/html/CESR_03_2.html#Fumagalli 45 The ancient name of the territory between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, also known among Europerans as Transoxiana. Currently this territory is under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Uzbekistan. 46 Rahmonov, E. Tadzhiki v zerkale istorii [Tajik people in the reflection of history]. Dushanbe: Ifron. 1999; Masov, R. Istoria topornogo razdeleniya [The history of rude division]. Dushanbe: Ifron, 1991; Negmatov, N.N. Tadhikskyi fenomen: teoria i istoria [The Tajik phenomenon: the theory and history]. Dushanbe: Nashriyoti Oli Somon. 1997. 47 See: Ilkhamov 2004. 42

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Uzbeks, from 9% to 5% (see table 1). Moreover, in his notorious book, Ruhnama, Turkmenbashi spuriously claims that “Uzbeks constitute two percent of our population, and Russians one percent”.48 Uzbeks in Turkmenistan are found mostly in Dashoguz and Chardzhew (currently Lebap) provinces where they have been native residents for centuries and therefore do not have reasons to migrate elsewhere. Some Uzbeks from these regions might migrate to Uzbekistan, though not in such dramatic numbers so as to radically change the ethnic composition of the country. It should also be added that the Uzbeks have a fertility rate comparable with that of Turkmen. Table 1. Ethnicity statistics in Turkmenistan, 1989 -2003 1989* 1995** 2003*** 77% 85% Turkmen 72% 9% 5% Uzbeks 9% 7% 4% Russians 9% 7% 6% Others 10%

100% 100% * 1989 census data. 49 50 ** 1995 census data. **** Source: The CIA World Factbook. 2003.51

100%

What is the reason behind such a strange intention to statistically eliminate the presence of other ethnicities, notably Uzbeks? Apart from the obvious fear that Uzbeks would form a “fifth column”, such a mistrust of ethnic minorities must be attributed to ethnocentrism. The suspicious attitude towards ethnic minorities often leads to ethnic cleansing in various forms – sometimes in a direct way (as shown by events in former Yugoslavia and in the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh), sometimes in form of exclusion of ethnic minority representatives from power structures (as has been happening to Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan)52 and sometimes conceptually, by means of statistical reports. The probable presumption here is that if the ratio of ethnic groups is reduced to a very minor proportion, it would be easier justify the politics of their assimilation and absorption by the titular ethnicity. Otherwise the appeal of a national history imbued with the colours of one ethnic culture would be met with no enthusiasm by those who relate to another ethno-cultural and historical background and who are therefore less susceptible to nationhood mythology. The circumstances and moral grounds for ethnic exclusion in each Central Asian country are different. In Kazakhstan they proved to be a sort of compensation for previous cleansing, genocide and displacement suffered by ethnic Kazakhs – after the insurrection in 1916; during the collectivization and coercive sedentarization of nomads in the late 1920s and early 1930s; and during the campaign of virgin land occupation and reclamation in the mid 1950s. All of these resulted in a tragic reduction of the number of Kazakhs, from 6 million in 1915 to 2.8 million in 1959.53 These traumas in the Kazakh historical consciousness have been likely used as excuses for statistical manipulation in order to “correct” the ethnic composition of the country, the dramatic shift of which is shown in table 2. 48

Turkmenbashi 2001. p. 152. Source: State Committee for Statistics of the USSR, Moscow: 1990. Cit. from the US Department of State’ website: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/24440.htm 51 http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tx.html#People 52 See for instance: Political Transition in Kyrgyzstan: Problems and Prospects. ICG Asia Report N°81: 11 August 2004. p. 18-19; Assessment reports of the Minorities at Risk. (MAR) Project. http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar/assessment.asp?groupId=70302 53 Sarsembayev, A. “Imagined communities: Kazak nationalism and Kazakification in the 1990s” in Central Asian Survey 18(3): 1999. p.325. 49 50


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Table 2. Ethnicity statistics in Kazakhstan according to different sources, 1989 -1999 1989* 1996** 1997*** 1999**** Ethnic groups 42% 51% 53% Kazakhs 40% 37% 32% 30% Russians 38% 21% 17% 17% Others 22%

100% 100% 100% * 1989 census data.54 ** Source: CIA World FactBook, 1996. *** Source: National Agency of Statistics, Almaty: 1997. **** Source: National Agency of Statistics, Almaty: 1999.

100%

Even taking into account the natural growth of Kazakhs (1.5% annually), outmigration of Russians and repatriation of ethic Kazakhs from China and the rest of Central Asia (mostly from Uzbekistan), it is difficult to imagine how such a radical growth in the ratio of Kazakhs (from 40% in 1989 to 53% in 1999) could occur in a decade. Kazakhstan probably occupies a unique position among all Soviet republics and for its incompleteness of the Soviet korenizatsia project (turning native ethnicities into the core domestic cadre). What was begun during Soviet times is now being completed: in 1994, ethnic Kazakhs occupied almost 75 per cent in both the Cabinet of Ministers and Presidential administration.55 Only Kyrgyzstan was not tempted to go too far in reinforcing ethnocentric nationhood. As a concession to the Russian speaking population, Russian was declared the second state language, after Kyrgyz,56 but mainly for pragmatic reasons: Russia has remained an important strategic partner for Kyrgyzstan. Similar concessions were not made for ethnic Uzbeks who lost many of their previous positions in local government institutions.57 The differences notwithstanding, ethnocentric nationalism is recognizably being reproduced and even enforced by the New Independent States in Central Asia. It serves perfectly for legitimizing authoritarian rule and the restriction of civic freedoms. This is why it is an essential part of the nationhood ideology in all these countries. Ethno-narcissism, self-glorification and imagined national virtues Ethnocentrism is often reinforced by a titular nation’s ethno-narcissism and selfglorification. Again, Ruhnama is a classical example where we read: Türkmen is a nation cherished and beloved by Allah. I understand this truth from this fact: since Allah the Most Exalted loves the Türkmen nation, he has let them live for 5000 years. If he did not love them, he would have removed them from history.58

Then he begins to ascribe to Turkmen some achievements of humanity in general: The first type of carriage was devised by the Türkmen. It served to make much of the work of the army and the state easier. In early days Türkmens discovered the art of making various tools with molten ores. “The epic of Ergenekon” shows the 54

Source: State Committee for Statistics of the USSR, Moscow: 1990. Ibid. p. 334. 56 In May 2000 the Russian language was assigned official language status by the Parliament. Source: Eurasianet.org, 6 June 2000, http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav060700.shtml 57 Political Transition in Kyrgyzstan: Problems and Prospects. ICG Asia Report 2004. p. 18-19 58 Turkmenbashi 2001. p. 206. 55

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A. Ilkhamov / Post-Soviet Central Asia: From Nationhood Mythologies to Regional Cold Wars? ancient heritage of Türkmens. This epic mentions the melting of ores from a huge mine, which has a metaphorical meaning, that is, exploring and stretching out to the new territories and world.59

Creation of a cult of the nation is a prerequisite to a cult of personality as has been classically demonstrated in Turkmenistan, where the icon of Turkmenbashi is posted everywhere – on banknotes, walls, in the names of cities and streets, in the form of monuments and so on. In other Central Asian countries the ruling elites did not go to a comparable extreme, though similar tendencies were also evident. The link between the ancestor group and its current progeny is enforced by a set of national symbols. In Uzbekistan, for instance, there is a statue of Tamerlane, incidentally erected exactly where other cult-figures have previously stood: the monument of Marx, some decades earlier that of Stalin, and prior the Bolshevist Revolution, the Russian Emperor, Nikolay Romanov. A few meters from the monument, the palatial Timurids Museum has recently been constructed. It has become a kind of shrine for student visits, now obligatory for all schools in Tashkent city, to illustrate the course of national history. In an unimpressive exposition, a large map shows the domain of Timur’s empire stretching from the Middle East to China. Of course, it is aimed at inspiring visitors’ imagination and implanting pride in a glorious past. The image of Amir Timur appears many times in government newspapers, and in street names in almost every town. Each national symbol is constructed to embody a set of values and virtues. These values are of two kinds – one as a model for rulers, and another for the subjects. This set of symbols and meanings is a message to the current society as to what kind of ruler is needed nowadays and how the citizens are to behave in order to match ideals. An association between the current ruler and the ancestor and the national symbols he embodies is also enforced. In the central hall of the Timurids museum there is a large mural, where among national historic figures, President Karimov occupies a central position. The Turkmen president has gone even further with the establishment of his personality cult. A critical point of the nationhood mythology construction is: for authoritarian political regimes, control over symbolic capital is a matter of primary state importance, as this capital is viewed as one of the few sources of legitimacy.

Figure 3. A caption of the Uzbek government daily newspaper “Narodnoe Slovo” (People’s World). On the top is a quotation from Karimov: “Uzbekistan is the state with a great future”. On the left side the title is the monument to Tamerlane. On the right side is the Uzbek parliament building Olyi Majlis. Source: www.nc.uzpak.uz

59

Ibid. p. 55.


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From construction of national symbols to definition of national virtues, values and norms Niyazov claims that the Turkmen Spirit has evolved over different periods symbolized by different signs – ox, wolf, and horse. “What is a nation?” he asks, “Nation is the transformation of human groups in the context of certain spiritual foundations. A nation is shaped materially according to these spiritual foundations”.60 The rewriting of national history has been undertaken by Turkmenbashi and other Central Asian leaders not to find historical truth, but for an educational purpose – to inspire certain imagined values and norms, and to establish a certain type of governance. Central to the ‘restored’ morality and virtue is patriotism, as it is interpreted by ideologists. What Turkmenbashi writes below corresponds to the national ideologies in neighbouring countries: The Türkmen, whose moral realm was a vacuum, whose links with their ancestors were severed, whose origin was forgotten during the Soviet era should acquire national values once again. The basic feeling in the heart of the individual must be the feeling of national pride… the basic value in the morals of the individual must be Türkmen morals; his dignity must be national dignity; his spiritual belief should carry the characteristics of the Türkmen nation’s belief. In short, the spiritual perspective of the individual must be shaped by national values. The conditions prevailing now mean that this must be so. For only then can we continue our life as a nation state.61

Similarly in Uzbekistan, the ruling regime is building a new version of statehood ideology in response to current challenges to the regime – dissemination of Western liberal views, Islamic propaganda and pro-Soviet nostalgia. For instance, the symbolized and glorified figure of Timur has been associated with the establishment of a strong centralized state,62 iron order and discipline.63 Statehood according to Karimov is to provide an indivisible unity of the Uzbek people that is opposed to the value of civic freedoms: “our people do not attend mass demonstrations and protest rallies, don’t waste time on gossip, but do their business and creative work”.64 As Andrew F. March observes, Karimov’s regime is probably the most persistent for “his systematic, formal and self-conscious efforts to formulate, transmit and impose a new ‘national ideology’ as means of legitimisation”.65 The special course ‘Manaviyat and Marifat’ (spirituality and enlightenment) has been introduced as part of the curriculum at all levels of education, from schools to universities, and includes obligatory readings of Karimov’s works and singing of the national anthem. The core of the course is the so called ‘Ideology of Independence’, but it also includes many other aspects of public, social and private life, for instance personal hygiene, housekeeping, and building intra-family and intra-community relations. It is a comprehensive guide to what is ‘good’ (read: god blessing – halal in Islamic terms), and what is ‘bad’ (read: evil – haram ). The initial versions of statehood ideology (introduced in the mid 1990s) were based on patriotism, with some anti-Russian connotations, secular-style nationalism and adat (patriarchal customary law). The most recent version is a mixture of adat and Islam with an emphasis on a specific ‘Uzbek spiritualism’ as it is presented by court intellectuals who

60

Ibid. p. 160. Ibid. p 202. 62 Karimov, I. 1997. p. 162, 179. 63 Ibid. p. 171. 64 Karimov, Islam. Uzbekistan: natsionalnaya nezavisimost, ekonomika, politika, ideologia [Uzbekistan: national independence, economy, politics, ideology]. Tashkent: Uzbekiston. 1996. p. 100. 65 March, Andrew F. “The use and abuse of history: ‘national ideology’ as transcendental object in Islam Karimov’s ‘ideology of national independence” in Central Asian Survey 21 (4): 2002. p. 371. 61

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claim it to be a distinct feature of the Uzbek national identity.66 This kind of imagined spiritualism is ostensibly opposed to Western values and is based on collectivism and reverence to authorities. Thus, the semantic content of the ‘national ideology’ constructed and introduced in Central Asian countries, notably in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,67 features a combination of ethnocentrism, statehood patriotism, patriarchal values and rejection of civic and liberal values and norms. Objectively these ideologies are conducive to a policy of cultural isolationism. Isolationism and rejection of cultural exchange I have touched on one important aspect of nationhood mythology – representation of the national identity as forever fixed, which does not experience transformative evolvement. Respectively, the academic community has been given a social order – to provide evidence for this primordialist approach. The clientele of the order would hardly accept the idea of cultural exchange. They consider any borrowing from other cultural contexts as damaging to the genuine national self. The designers of nationhood mythologies tend to present the nation and its history as a closed system enduring across time and unaffected by other ethno-cultural systems. They ignore the fact of intersection, exchange and interaction between cultural and racial areas. There is plenty of evidence for such inter-cultural interactions in the region, provided by outstanding historiography on Central Asia. Those rulers who try to confine their peoples from foreign influence neglect the fact that Central Asia has been historically a melting pot for peoples and ethnicities and all religions followed by the peoples of Central Asia, past or present, were imported from other parts of the world. At the same time, it is true that the region’s thinkers contributed to those religions with their own masterpieces in theology and philosophy, architecture and arts. Conceptually “locking up” the nation is always followed by an isolationist policy, for example by limiting the freedom of movement, censorship of foreign literature and so on. In order to travel abroad, it takes Uzbek citizens two years to get an exit visa; such an anachronism is long-forgotten in most post-Soviet states. In 2004 the Uzbek government established a regulation whereby imported books can pass through custom controls provided they have been assessed by a special commission under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. Due to this regulation there have been cases where the commission did not allow some books on ethnicity and human rights published in Russia to pass through customs. In 2004 extra restrictions were introduced: now all publishing and printing houses must get permission from a specially established commission to publish any book.68 Ostensibly this measure aimed to prevent inflow of ‘detrimental’ (from an official point of view) ideas, information and knowledge; it was in fact the re-introduction of the censorship body abolished in 2002. The government has also prohibited the dissemination of the online database of academic journals “EBSCO”, because some articles in a few journals on the database contain critical analysis of the country. This policy is reminiscent of the ‘iron curtail’ politics imposed by the Soviet Union to isolate its citizens from the decaying West by filtering the inflow of information.

66

The idea of a specific Uzbek spirituality was articulated in the article ‘Allegiance to the national spirit’ published in the government daily newspaper ‘Khalq Suzi’ [People’s World], 16 December 2003. The article was signed with the pseudonym Abduazimhuja Sherzodhuja, but allegedly belonged to the then Deputy Prime Minister Alisher Akramhodjayev, known for his extreme nationalist stance. 67 Tajikistan although lagging behind the first two countries is making energetic efforts to catch-up. 68 Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan ʋ 275: 11 June 2004.


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Conspiracy theory and the image of enemy In the teleological triad described above, the middle stage of national development is associated, as we said, with ordeals suffered by the nation. In many cases, if not all, the sufferings are caused by external forces. In Uzbekistan, until the geo-strategic rapprochement of Karimov with Russian President Putin in 2003-2004, the past trials and plights of the nation were associated with imperialist Russia. The anti-Russian undertone in history textbooks has been criticised by Russian diplomats and press. For example, the national history textbook for ninth grade students mentions Russians 292 times in such combinations as “Russian occupiers”, “Russian colonizers”, “Russian spies”, while another side of the Russian presence in the region (assistance in education, health care, industrial development) is neglected.69 The same depiction of the antecedent Russian oppressive rule has predominated in post-Soviet Turkmenistan. In Tajikistan the responsibility for most problems relating to the civil war and economic underdevelopment is laid by some domestic nationalists on Turkic peoples, especially Uzbeks. The ultimate reason of the failure in consolidation of the Tajik nation according to these nationalists is the appropriation by Uzbeks of genuine centres of Tajik history and culture – Samarkand and Bukhara. President Rahmonov himself blames “the cult of strangeness”, the worship of alien cults.70 He writes: “The enemies of our nation tried very hard to erase from the scrolls of history the very name of Tajik. But the Tajik nation, after passing through numerous hardships and miseries, managed to defend in bloody wars its national identity, to preserve its own name, language, culture, old customs and beliefs…” Below the surface of the narrowly positioned nationalism a dichotomous archetype of the mythologization of national self can be revealed. Simplification of the world picture and its division into two opposing forces – good and evil, “us” and “them” has already been studied in social psychology and social identity sociology. The designers of nationhood mythology narratives naturally associate their own nation with good whilst the bad refers to foreigners or the “fifth column” within the national domain. History is approached not as a field of impartial study, but as a set of educational lessons, bad and good exemplars for emulation or, alternatively, for rejection. History turns out to be not a self-regulated academic realm but a means of ideological persuasion of subjects.

Conclusion It is widely recognized in the mainstream social sciences that history in general and national histories in particular must not be treated as a kind of teleological process with the predetermined formation of existing nations. Instead, it should be approached rather as a constantly open-ended diachronic system where in each historical moment there are contesting possibilities, the outcome of which will always be unpredictable. This is why the notion of Transition, as it is understood by some politicians both in the West and in postsocialist countries, is substantially defective. It is no coincidence that authoritarian leaders in Central Asia like to refer to this concept to justify the lack of reforms; they argue that all the deficiencies of the current political regimes are an inevitable part of the long-term transition to a wealthy and democratic society. But between the two mutually exclusive possibilities for each nation – democratic development based on citizenship or autocracy

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Source: http://news.ferghana.ru/detail.php?id=7766802096095.4,143,18683462 Abashin, S. Zarozhdenie I sovremennoye sostoyanie sredneaziatskih natsionalismov [The History of Emergence and the Contemporary Condition of Central Asian Nationalisms] 2005. www.nationalism.ru 70

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fuelled by ethno-nationalist ideologies and the manipulation of national and historical symbols – the second is often preferred. We have noted that at some point the post-Soviet nationhood mythology has inherited a certain characteristic of the Soviet national policy with its fixation on ethnicity as a keystone of the nation. Inter-ethnic conflict and bloodshed was prevented then by the binding net of the party system, and the thorough implantation of the supra-national, Soviet identity. When these factors which had restrained ethno-nationalism fell apart, centrifugal and ethnocentric forces were unleashed. The nationhood myth-creation is just a ramification of this process, but it is reinforced by vested interests of the old-new national ruling elite who borrowed the agenda of the domestic national-democratic movements to legitimise their grasp of power. Nationhood ideologies accompany the creation, establishment and development of the modern nation-states, but become a tumour on the body of a nation when they take the form of tough authoritarian rule, lacking political and economic reforms. Historically, nationhood mythology might be seen as an inevitable phenomenon coinciding with the process of nation-building. Indeed, the practice of mythologization of national history is demanded when a nation, formed from weakly cohesive and diverse ethnic groups, encounters the challenge of national mobilization and integration. But as European history demonstrates the nation-building process carries advantages and risks – in one case it brings democratization and the polity of free and equal citizenship, and in another it might foster ethno-nationalist feelings fraught with excesses of racial hatred and ethnic cleansing. For more than a decade, at least some Central Asian countries have stagnated in their movement toward democracy, and it is no accident that this lack of progress coincides with enforcement of the nationhood mythologies as the way in which rulers maintain national unity and allegiance. This hazardous combination of the lack of democracy and nationhood ideology leads to the risk of regional disintegration and fuels the following processes which can escalate to regional cold wars: -

Conflict of ‘national ideologies’ when the rewriting and reconfiguring of national histories artificially creates inter-national disputes and images of historical, ‘primordial’, enemies; such a conflict is developing between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan which one day can become more destructive than just intellectual clashes;

-

Creating an atmosphere of mutual distrust when rulers who initiate nationalhood ideologies become themselves victims of this atmosphere;

-

Shrinking the space for mutual dialogue and collaborative interaction and reverting the politics of isolationism; reduction of contacts to only meetings on a senior official level while regional civic interaction is not encouraged;

-

Establishing the politics of exclusion: artificially alienating ethnic minorities especially those of diasporas of neighbouring titular ethnicities.

Some manifestations of nationhood mythology take caricature forms that would deserve little but a snicker. But in the way it has been currently constructed and imposed on the nations obliges us to approach the issue with gravity. The seriousness is required if we are to take into account lessons from European history; its numerous wars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were often caused by the destructive forces of nationalism. The long Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to a significant degree been caused by exclusive reading of national history. History is not just an ordinary academic discipline because it is exploited more than others by nationalist ideologists.


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Regionalism and Statehood in Soviet and independent Turkmenistan Paul Georg GEISS German Institute for Middle East Studies, Hamburg Abstract. In Central Asian studies regionalism in Soviet and independent republics with a nomadic background is often identified with the existence of tribalism and the dominance of tribal affiliations in politics. This identification is problematic and based on improper “conceptual stretching” of the term from a non-state organised society to a society which is politically integrated by state structures. This article will elucidate this issue by analysing the changing patterns of statehood and regionalism in Soviet and independent Turkmenistan. It concludes that the Soviet state structures in Turkmenistan were relatively strong, although personal authority relations within the communist party had preserved patrimonial enclaves within the state organisation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union initially led – as in all Central Asian republics – to a re-patrimonialisation of authority relations. In Turkmenistan this process led to an extreme form of neo-patrimonial state organisation due to the personal and arbitrary rule of its ruling president Saparmurat Niyazov.

The analysis of political change in Central Asia imposes conceptual problems on both area studies specialists and comparatists, which cannot be solved by the analytical framework of transitology. As this approach is not based on a theory of society and assumes the European constitutional state as its blueprint of analysis, it pays little attention to the different societal and state contexts of non-European societies.1 Due to the dominance of nomothetic methodology, comparative politics was also unable to develop a typology of non-European political systems, which could inform the selection of case studies of nomothetically oriented comparatists and help area specialists to describe the political development of single countries in a more comparative way. Thus independent Turkmenistan has often been compared with the Stalinist Soviet Union due to a similar cult of personality.2 Scholars such as Michael Ochs hold the view that there has been little political change since independence so that “the analytical tools of Sovietology are more appropriate in Turkmenistan than those applied to systems in transition” which move towards democracy.3 In this school of thought, political continuity seems to prevail in Turkmenistan, which only switched authority relations from a communist to an ethno-national base after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of independent republics. Turkmenistan is also described – like the other Central Asian republics – as an authoritarian regime and regarded as more extreme than the liberal, but also flawed regimes 1

Diamond, Larry,. Plattner Marc F., Chu, Yun-han & Tien, Hung-mao, eds. Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies. Themes and Perspectives. Baltimore-London. 1997; Haggard, Stephan, Kaufman, Robert R. The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1995. 2 Bohr, Anette. Turkmenistan and the Turkmen, in: Graham Smith, ed. The Nationalities Question in the PostSoviet States. London/New York: Longman 1996. p. 356. 3 Ochs, Michael. Turkmenistan: the Quest for Stability and Control, in: Dawisha, Karen and Parrott, Bruce eds. Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Cambridge/New York: CambridgeUniv. Press. 1997. p. 349.

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in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In this view analysts conceptualise political change as a problem of democratisation and democratic consolidation of regimes and describe regime change by measuring the relative success and performance in the assumed transition processes.4 Both normative and descriptive accounts of political change place single contemporary and historical political systems within the continuum of totalitarian, authoritarian and democratic regimes. These different basic regime types became firmly established in the field by Juan Linz’ contribution to the Handbook of Political Science and became a credo in the field of comparative politics.5 Linz’ influential delimitation of authoritarian systems from democratic and totalitarian ones was not based on a theory of state or society, however. It analytically reproduces a more political perception of regime types in Europe and Latin America, which was extended to the analysis of politics in other non-European societies. Later scholarly debates focused on the exact properties which differentiate these system types and distinguishable subtypes which enable measurement of the position of regimes on their way towards liberal democracy. This established trio of “modern” political systems is, however, not useful for the analysis of political change in countries such as Turkmenistan as it focuses on political exchange relations and does not pay enough attention to the other spheres of state organisation: the administrative, legal and constitutional subsystems.6 In addition we have to look at how political institutions are embedded in Central Asian societies and how societal relations constrain administrative and political decision making processes. For this reason it is necessary to sociologise the study of political change in Central Asia, as Robert Cutler demands in his contribution to this volume.7 Nevertheless, I am sceptical about the usefulness of nomothetic theorising for this purpose and prefer to apply the historical comparative method to analyse the societal conditions of Central Asian politics. This paper deals with statehood and regionalism in Turkmenistan for two reasons: the analysis of regional political structures is not only important for understanding state structures in Turkmenistan, but might be also useful for conceptual clarification, as regionalism is often identified with tribalism and the dominance of tribal affiliations in politics.8 When Annette Bohr claims that “at present, Turkmenistan in many respects still constitutes more a tribal confederation than a modern nation” and refers the Teke, the Ersary and the Yomuts as the largest Turkman tribes,9 she makes it difficult for students of Central Asian studies to understand the concepts of tribes and tribal confederations. She could be easily misunderstood as saying that nineteenth century tribal structures continued to shape political life in Soviet and independent Central Asia. This identification is problematic and based on improper “conceptual stretching” of terms from a pre-state to a 4 Parrott, Bruce. Perspectives on postcommunist democratisation, in: Dawisha, Parrott 1997, pp. 1-39; Dawisha 1997, pp. 40-65. 5 Linz, Juan L. Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. In, Greenstein F. I. and Polsby N. W., eds. Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3 (Macropolitical Theory) Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. 1975. pp. 175-412. Recently this article was re-edited as a monograph with a some further reflexions of the author: Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2000. 6 Geiss, Paul G. Regime Types and Political Systems in Non-European Societies – Towards a Typology of Political Systems, 30 p. (unpublished manuscript). 7 See the chapter by Robert Cutler in this volume. See also: Jones Luong, Pauline. ed. The Transformation of Central Asia. States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence. Ithaca/London: Cornell Univ. Press. 2003. 8 For example: Akbarzadeh, Shahram. National Identity and Political Legitimacy in Turkmenistan. In: Nationalities Papers, vol. 27. 1999. no. 2, pp. 282-83. 9 Bohr, Anette. Turkmenistan and the Turkmen. In: Smith, Graham, ed. The Nationalities Question in the Post-Soviet States, London/New York: Longman 1996. p. 348, Ibid., Independent Turkmenistan. From PostCommunism to Sultanism. –In: Cummings, Sally N. ed. Oil, Transition and Security in Central Asia. London/New York: RoutledgeCurzon. 2003. pp. 13-24.


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state organised society and does not sufficiently consider the conceptual travelling problem of terms in comparative politics.10 This paper avoids this problem by analysing political change in a historicalcomparative way. After having outlined our understanding of state structures and the applied theoretical approach I first ask how the establishment of Soviet state structures transformed tribal commitment in Turkmenistan and analyse how the impacts of the Soviet administrative system and its territorial divisions reshaped the political orientations of elites. Secondly, I confront the view that the Teke dominated the Turkman Communist Party and Soviet administration with empirical evidence that is based on an assessment of the regional affiliation of politburo members and holders of major state offices such as the chairman of Supreme Soviet and the Council of ministers and their deputies between 1955 and 1990 and sketch how the Muscovite party leadership tried to balance regionalism in Turkmenistan. In the third section, I focus on how ruling president Saparmurat Niyazov changed state institutions and how these changes affected regional power networks.

State as a Political System In the Weberian tradition of sociology, the state is regarded as a ruling organisation whose regulation is enforced by an administrative staff and its head. The state is also a compulsory organisation, able to impose its order on any agent within a specifiable sphere of operation. The political character of an organisation is linked to the fact that the organisation is also able to guarantee order, and its own existence, by the threat and application of physical force. Thus Weber’s famous definition of state as a ruling organisation whose “administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order”11 does not only imply an efficient monopolisation of physical force within a state territory, but also the emergence of political community structures and a normative political order.12 The political system of a society is the network of social actions based on a normative political order, which establishes binding collective decisions for all its members.13 Due the monopolisation of the use of physical force, contemporary political systems are in most cases states which have faced or face the problem of legitimacy, i.e. to gain more enduring political obedience.

10

Cf. Sartori, Giovanni. Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics. In: American Political Science Review 64, Dec. 1970. p.1034. 11 Weber, Max. Economy and Society, eds. by G. Roth, C. Wittich, Berkeley, Los Angeles/London 1978 (1928), p. 54. 12 For the purpose of this study we propose to analyse the problem of political change and the establishment of political order in non-European societies from the perspective of interpenetration theory, as Richard Münch proposed it in his reconstruction of the contributions of Weber, Durkheim and Parsons to a general theory of society. This reconstruction of sociological theory and going beyond these classical contributions is based on a voluntaristic theory of action, which no longer conceptualises functional differentiation to be the basic evolutionary principle of societal change, but explains social order as result of the interpenetration of conditional and normative selective rules of social actions. For further discussion see: Münch, Richard. Theory of Action. Towards a New Synthesis Going Beyond Parsons, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1987; Münch, Richard. Understanding Modernity. Towards a New Perspective Going Beyond Durkheim and Weber, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1988. 13 In contrast to some schools of sociology which do not at all rely on a concept of society (See Schwinn, Thomas. Differenzierung ohne Gesellschaft. Umgestaltung eines soziologischen Konzepts, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft 2001.) or define society with regard to interaction or communication structures (for example: Luhmann, Niklas. Social Systems, Stanford (CA): Stanford Univ. Press 1995) – many globalisation theorists support the latter’s conceptualisation – we hold society to be politically defined entities. Despite a globalised economy, the nation-state remains the most important political institution in local, regional and global politics.

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The action space of political systems can be analytically differentiated according to the degree of symbolic complexity and action contingency in goal attaining (G), adaptive (A), integrative (I) and structure maintaining (I) action orientations which constitute the corresponding subsystems of the political system: bureaucracy (G) political exchange (A), law (I) and constitution (L).14 These subsystems can be more or less dominant or differentiated, but they differ in terms of regulative and dynamic influences to other spheres. Whereas adaptive orientations are the most dynamic and open, structure maintaining orientations are the most regulating and closing social relations.15 For this reason processes of political exchange (political contestation and participation, law drafting etc.) are most open to change and most adaptive to changing environments; their regulating capacities are low, however, so that mere law or constitutional drafting of parliamentary assemblies is unable make the legal system or constitutional constraints on politics work. In contrast, a differentiated constitutional order is less open to change than the other political subsystems, as they are rooted in value commitments of the polity’s members. If such constitutional order emerges, it will regulate judicial institutions, bureaucracy and political exchange relations, i.e. the political regime in a decreasing way.16 In European societies the legal and constitutional subsystems of the state are highly differentiated: European constitutional states tightly regulate political exchange relations (party systems, interest aggregation, political communication) and balance and constrain governmental and administrative action, whereas state organisations in many non-European countries are dominated by their administrative subsystems and confronted with societal particularism and regionalism which could impede the formation of ruling administrations or lead to failed states, currently visible in countries such as Somalia, Liberia and Afghanistan. If the abundant literature on states and political systems in non-European countries is reviewed, it seems to be possible to refer the different concepts and approaches such as strong and weak states,17 the neopatrimonial18 and rentier state19 on the one hand, and the 14

The AGIL-scheme was introduced by: T. Parsons, R. F. Bales, E. A. Shils. Working Papers in the Theory of Action, Glencoe (Ill.) 1957. 15 Münch 1987, pp. 45-64. 16 These different spheres of the political system emerged through the interpenetration of the politicaladministrative system with the other subsystems of a society: Legal institutions result from the interpenetration of the political-administrative system with the community system which is based on mutual affectivity, regulated by the members’ commitment to shared norms and directed towards the maintenance of societal solidarity. Constitutional constraints on political action emerge from the interpenetration of politicaladministrative action orientations with the socio-cultural ones which are based on discourses about the members’ value commitments, regulated by a discursive order and directed towards binding social construction of symbols. Political exchange is the result of the interpenetration of the political-administrative system with the economic systems which are based on exchange actions, regulated by an order of property and directed towards the allocation of resources and preferences. This interpenetration will be successful, if opposed spheres are able to continue to perform their functions in the interpenetration zones, i.e., the three mentioned political subsystems on a qualitatively new base and increase the potential for the establishment of normative order (Münch 1987, pp. 5-29, 65-75; Münch 1988, pp. 217-34.) 17 Migdal, Joel. Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Societal Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World, Princeton 1988. 18 Eisenstadt, S. N., Traditional Patrimonialism and Modern Neopatrimonialism, London: Sage Publications 1973; Pawelka, Peter. Herrschaft und Entwicklung im Nahen Osten: Ägypten, Heidelberg: C. F. Müller 1985; Medard, J.-F. The Underdeveloped State in Tropical Africa: political clientelism or Neopatrimonialism? In Clapham, Ch. ed., Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in the Modern State, New York 1982, pp. 162-92; Ballot, F. Politische Herrschaft in Kenia: der neopatrimoniale Staat 1963-1978, Rheinfelden 1986;. Callaghy, T.M. The State as Lame Leviathan: The Patrimonial Administrative State in Africa. In Ergas, Z. ed., The African State in Transition, New York 1987, pp. 87-116; Snyder, R. Explaining Transitions from Neopatrimonial Dictatorships. In Comparative Politics, vol. 24, 1992/4, pp. 379-400; Bratton, M. Van de Walle, N. Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa. In World Politics, vol. 46, July 1994, pp. 453-89.


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bureaucratic-autoritarian state20 and the developmental state21, on the other hand, to two basic types of political system which Andreas Wimmer analysed as the neopatrimonial and the authoritarian political system.22 As nomothetically oriented comparatists often confuse regime types with state types, i.e. types of political systems and democracy and authoritarianism representing regime types based on different modes of political exchange relations, I prefer to call these two different types of political systems the neopatriominal and the bureaucratic-developmental state.23 In contrast to the European constitutional state based on impersonal authority relations, both types of state organisations are dominated by the subsystem of the administration and characterised by more undifferentiated legal and constitutional subsystems. However, the embedment of the administration in polity and society is different. In the neopatrimonial state personal authority relations prevail and formal administrative institutions are weak. Due the usurped appointment rights of all ministers and top officials by the head of state and the particularism of the state officials, state institutions are weak and without political and economic development agendas. Becoming an official is linked with the right to use state controlled economic resources for one’s own needs or those of political clients. Thus elites from different regions compete for control of the central state apparatus and try secure top positions for their fellow-countrymen. As a result political clientelism promotes oversized administrative apparatuses which dominate both legislation and judiciary institutions. The legal and constitutional systems remain highly underdeveloped and are not able to regulate political competition and administrative processes. Property rights are not secured or uncertain and security of law does not exist at all.24 In contrast, the political elite of the bureaucratic developmental state aim to overcome the deficiencies of the patrimonial administration by initiating administrative reforms which introduce entrance exams for state officials and formalise their career tracks, and depoliticise administrative offices. The rationalisation of bureaucracy curbs regionalism, strengthens the relative autonomy of the state organisation from particularistic societal demands and enables the political elite to initiate and promote the industrialisation of their countries by channelling private business interests for national goals and promoting public investment in strategic economic sectors. Building up a working legal system is seen as an important means to secure economic stability, although cultural preferences for informal institutions and conflict management continue to prevail. Legal and administrative reforms promote the institutionalisation of the political system and establish independent courts in economic disputes. Overall, the state is an important agent of the industrialisation 19

Beblawi, H. The rentier state, London: Croom Helm 1987; Ismael, J.S. Kuwait: dependency and class in a rentier state, Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida 1993; Amir Mohammad Haji Yousefi. The political economy of development in a rentier state. Iran 1962-1978, London 1996. 20 O’Donnell, G. Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism. – Studies in South American Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press 1973; Ibid.‚ Reflections on Patterns of Change in the BureaucraticAuthoritarian State’, in Latin American Research Review, vol. 13, 1978, pp. 3-39; Collier, D. ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America, Princeton 1979. 21 Leftwich, A. Bringing Politics Back. Towards a Model of the Developmental State, in: Journal of Development Studies, 1995, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 400-27; Johnson, Chalmers. MITI and the Japanese Miracle, Stanford CA: Stanford University 1982. 22 Wimmer, H. Die Modernisierung politischer Systeme. Staat – Parteien – Öffentlichkeit, Wien/Köln/Weimar: Böhlau Verlag 2000, pp. 109-233. See also: Jürgen Hartmann, Vergleichende Regierungslehre und Systemvergleich. In Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Ferdinand Müller-Rommel eds. Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (UTB für Wissenschaften 1391), Opladen: Leske & Budrich 1997, pp. 33-4. 23 Paul Georg Geiss. State and Regime Change in Central Asia, in: A. Kreikemeyer, A. Berg, W. Zellner, eds., Security through Democraticsation?, CORE – IFSH Hamburg, forthcoming. 24 For further discussion see: Wimmer 2000, pp. 111-162; Pawelka, P. Staat und Entwicklung im Nahen Osten: Ägypten, Heidelberg 1985.

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project which is initiated by the elites in order to secure the national independence of the country.25 Nevertheless, both types of state can exist with more democratic or authoritarian regime types, depending on the degree of political liberalisation. Thus regime change is analytically to be differentiated from the change of state structures which are much more comprehensive and do not substantially alter, if free elections take place once or twice. For this reason, we hold the view, for example, that in most African societies democratic transformation at the beginning of the 1990s only affected regime change and not the change of the patrimonial state organisation whose stability was endangered rather than strengthened by the political liberalisation process. For this reason democratically elected presidents were often inclined to secure the unity of the state with authoritarian means or – when they had failed to do so – faced the decay of state structures. If questions of regime change and related security risks are discussed, it is important to define the involved state type of a country, as the political liberalisation of patrimonial political systems tends to weaken the politicised administration and decreases the state’s autonomy and ability to maintain peace domestically. The influence of regionalism on state structures is an important indicator for describing the state structure involved. In order to analyse post-Soviet statehood in Turkmenistan, we have to discuss what type of state structured prevailed in Turkmenistan during Soviet times in the next section.

Soviet Statehood and Tribal Commitment Up to the 1980s Sovietologists emphasised the view that the establishment of the Soviet Union occurred through strong state structures and that its economic and political capacity of societal penetration relied on formal organisational roles. Party and administrative apparatus were submitted to the party leadership in a hierarchical vertical power structure which established central governmental structures much more effectively than tsarist Russia had managed.26 Recent historical scholarship challenged this view and described “anything but tightly organised and centrally controlled party structures outside of Moscow” for well over a decade after the revolution.27 These recent works emphasise that the extension of central control to the regions was based on the personal network of Stalin and his close associates and occurred through the displacement of loyal central elites to the regions and the recruitment of regional cadres for central positions.28 Whereas the intersection of informal structures and formal institutions still differed in the 1930s from region to region 25

For further discussion see: Castell, M. Four Asian Tigers With a Dragon Head: A Comparative Analysis of the State, Economy and Society in the Pacific Rim. In: Richard P. Appelbaum/Jeffrey Henderson, eds. States and Development in the Asian Pacific Rim. NewburyPark/London: Sage Publ. 1992, pp. 33-70; Leftwich, A. Bringing Politics Back In: Towards a Model of the Development State. In: The Journal of Development Studies, vol. 31, 1995, pp. 400-427; Cummings, Bruce. The Origins and Development of the North Asian Political Economy: Industrial Sectors, Product Cycles, and Political Consequences. In Frederic C. Deyo, eds. The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism. Ithaca/London: Cornell Univ. Press 1987, pp. 44-83. Cf. Evans, P. Rueschemeyer, D. Skocpol, T. eds., Bringing the State back In, Cambridge 1985; Johnson, C. E. MITI and the Japanese Miracle. The Growth of Industrial Policy. 1927-1975, Stanford 1982. 26 For example: Service, Robert. Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organizational Change, 19171923, London: Macmillan 1979; Huntington, S. Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven/London: Yale Univ. Press 1968. pp. 1, 334-343. 27 Easter, Gerald M. Personal Networks and Postrevolutionary State Building. Soviet Russia Reexamined, in: World Politics, 48 July 1996. p. 556.; Getty, J. Arch. Origin of the Great Purges, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986; Pethyridge, Roger. One Step Backwards, Two Steps Forward, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1990. 28 See for example: Hughes, James. Patrimonialism and the Stalinist System: the Case of S. I. Syrtsov, in: Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 48, no. 4, 1996. pp. 551-568.


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and led to different implementations of central politics, the Soviet state became a relatively “strong” state in terms of administrative and socio-economic capabilities due to an interlocking of formal institutions and policy oriented informal personal networks within Soviet party and state structures in the post-Stalin times.29 In Turkmenistan – like other peripheral areas of the Soviet Union – the establishment of Soviet power structures was not only linked to the extension of Stalin’s and his close associates’ personal networks over poorly developed and fractious state structures, it was also concurrent with the problem of establishing a Socialist society with its ambitious, radical cultural and socio-economic development goals. The national delimitation of Central Asia and the creation of the Turkman Soviet Socialist Republic initiated a process which promoted nationality as a cultural community by standardising the Turkman literary language, introducing compulsory education and building national cultural institutions. This new type of societal community was expected to overcome tribalism and unite previously inimical Turkman tribal confederacies into a single society.30 The introduction of the Soviet administrative system based on central, regional and district administrations and party organisations, the establishment of the kolkhoz-system31 and Soviet police structures, and the spread of schooling extended state control over the whole population and accelerated the process of detribalisation. Soviet state structures penetrated society to a much larger extent than the tsarist civil-military administration had managed.32 Tribes and tribal confederacies disintegrated as political groups because state officials took control over resources and started to secure the political integration and the personal safety of the population. Research describing tribalism and tribal struggles in Soviet Turkmenistan now usually refers to the population’s identification with tribal descent. In the first decades after the revolution, tracing the genealogical ties of such groups remained the most important social asset for establishing solidarity groups and mutual relations of trust between elites of the newly formed territorial units. The recruitment of local cadres (korenizatsiia) reshaped the political elite’s orientations towards territorial units. Whereas the tsarist administration had restrained tribal political ambitions to the local level and sub-tribal groups had only competed for the office of the volost’ headman (upravitel’), Soviet Turkman elites regained political influence in the republican and regional administrations where political control of resources existed. This change in political orientations corresponded to the transformation of social exchange relations: whereas nineteenth-century Turkman tribalism was based on reciprocal social exchange relations,33 the establishment of the Soviet administration accelerated redistributive forms of social exchange. When state institutions monopolise taxation or resource control and re-allocate goods and services, they enable state officials to acquire a greater share of the resources for themselves and their clientele. The development of clientelism and patronage led to the stratification of society. Informal social networks

29

Gill, Graeme and Pitty, Roderic: Power in the Party. The Organization of Power and Central-Republican Relations in the CPSU, Houndmills/London. 1997. Roy, Olivier, La nouvelle Asie Centrale ou la fabrication des nations, Paris 1997; Geiß, Paul Georg, Nationenwerdung in Mittelasien: Frankfurt/New York: Peter Lang. 1995. 31 The kolkhoz was a Soviet collective farm which emerged from the collectivisation of agriculture at the end of the 1920s. It was headed by an appointed farm director and consisted of several specialised brigades. 32 Geiss, Paul Georg. Pre-Tsarist and Tsarist Central Asia: Communal Commitment and Political Order in Change. London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2003. pp. 58-60, 97-113. 33 Geiss, Paul Georg, Turkman Tribalism. In: Central Asian Survey 18 (1999) 3, pp. 347-358. 30

110 P.G. Geiss / Regionalism and Statehood in Soviet and Independent Turkmenistan

Figure 1. Tribal territories in the nineteenth century


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became political, if their members tried to take control over resources within an established region or district.34 The new regional divisions converged with the homelands of the major tribal groups: the Teke dominated the Ashgabad region (today: Ahal velayat) and the Mary region, the Yomut became the most influential group in the Krasnovodsk (today: Balkan) and Dashoguz regions, while the Ersary homeland was Charjou (today: Lebap velayat). Hence, identification with former tribal territories as homelands was not lost, although tribal political orientations were replaced by regional ones, the new territorial units. These emerging regional elites not only competed for more offices and influence in republican power structures, they also tried to channel and increase agricultural and industrial investments in their regions. The new regional political orientations were also strengthened by the endurance of endogamy among members of major tribal descent groups and the regions’ mutual geographical isolation through the Karakum. These new political circumstances gave rise to political alliances (“clans”) and networks based on mutual trust and economic interests, which are sometimes also identified with mafia structures. As these networks linked people with the same descent affiliation, they are often perceived or described as tribes (plemias). These so-called tribes have little in common with nineteenth century tribalism, however.

Figure 2. Regions of Turkmenistan

The establishment of the Turkman CP and republican institutions did not represent the five regions equally. Most of the leading Turkman communists were Western Yomuts from Mangyshlak (such as Nayrbaӿ Aӿtakov, Chairman of the Turkman Central Executive Committee), Tekes from Tejen (such as Atabaev, head of Sovnarkom) or Tekes from Ahal (such as Halmyrad Sähetmyradov, First Secretary of the Central Committee (CC), 192428). As these areas belonged to tsarist Transcaspia where local elites became familiar with Russian culture and education, these regions were over-represented in central power structures.35 Adrienne Edgar presents convincing evidence that Moscow’s officials were well aware of the struggle between and within regional elites and endeavoured to neutralise regionalism by balancing regional competition. Thus she could find no evidence of a Soviet “divide and rule” policy, as the Soviet regime is commonly portrayed in the region. Soviet 34

Cf. Pétric, B.-M. Pouvoir, don et réseaux en Ouzbékistan post-soviétique, Paris: Presses Universitäres des France. 2003. 35 Edgar, Adrienne. The Creation of Soviet Turkmenistan (1924-1938), PhD Thesis, Berkeley (CA). 1999. pp. 291-301.

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officials from Moscow avoided showing favouritism and often found themselves mediating conflict between rival groups.36 This policy was also typical in the post-Stalinist period, when the regional affiliation of leading Turkman communists were comparable to those of leading communists in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan. Only Tadjikistan was different, as all first secretaries had been recruited from the same northern region of Leninabad (Khojand) since World War II. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union these dominant regional elites were not prepared to share power with other regions and led the country into the bloody civil war of 1992.

Regionalism and Soviet State Structures Students of Central Asian studies often find the view that the Turkman CP and the Soviet administration in Turkmenistan were dominated by the tribal descent group of the AhalTeke.37 As the Ahal region hosts Turkmenistan’s capital and had also more Turkman communists with a Russian education at the time of the republic’s formation, there seems to be reasonable evidence for this claim. Nevertheless, a more systematic study of the regional affiliation of leading Turkman Communists in central Soviet institutions modifies this view. If the composition of the Turkman Politburo from the mid 1950s to the late 1980s is analysed, all First Secretaries were Turkman communists. Whereas the overall number of politburo members varied from 9 (in 1962) to 17 (in 1986), the number of non-European communists fluctuated from 5 to 10, demonstrating that locals had a majority status in postStalinist Turkmenistan.38 It is true that Ahal (the most populous region) had more than twice as many communists in the politburo during this period than the other four regions. Nevertheless, from this over-representation, which may also be typical for other governmental bodies, it cannot be concluded that Ahals were able to promote their region’s interests without constraints. Although politburo members were influential in the republic, and usually held leading positions in government structures, their status was nevertheless vulnerable to Moscow’s cadre policy which promoted regional cadres with good performance records. For this reason local cadres could start a career, if they supported and implemented Moscow’s socio-economic reforms. Moscow’s promotion policy could by manipulated, however, if members of regional client networks mutually supported each other’s promotions by submitting euphemistic reports on their network’s members. Nevertheless, the Soviet institutional settings constrained regional particularism in various ways: Top party appointments such as First Secretary and other secretaries of the CC were decided in Moscow with little or no consultation with Ashgabat; the appointees were expected to serve Moscow rather than local interests. Appointments to the Oblast’ Committee (Obkom) were suggested by the Turkman politburo, but were subject to approval by Moscow. In a similar way the district (rayon) appointments suggested by the Obkom had to be approved by the republican politburo. The Obkoms directly controlled only the appointment process of state farm directors and kolkhoz chairmen which rayon committees (Raykom) of the Turkman CP proposed.39 When a kolkhoz chairman was also a 36

Edgar 1999, pp. 98-121. For example: Bennigsen, A., Wimbush, S. E. Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide, London: C. Hurst & Company 1985, p. 98; Roy, Olivier. La nouvelle Asie Centrale ou la fabrication des nations, Paris: Seuil 1997, pp. 181-2. 38 Ezhegodnik Bol’shoƱ SovetskoƱ Ơntsiklopediia (BSƠ), Moskva: Gos. Nauchnoe izdatel’stvo 1955-1990. 39 Cf. Miller, John. Nomenklatura: Check the Localism? In: Rigby, T. H., Harasymiw, Bohdan, ed., Leadership Selection and Patron-Client Relations in the USSR and Yugoslavia, London. 1983. pp. 62-97. Cleary, J. W. Elite Career Patterns in Kazakhstan. In: British Journal of Political Science, Vol., No. 4, 1974, pp. 323-344. 37

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member of the CC, he could not be removed by his district or regional administrative superiors, but only by a CC’s decision. Moscow carefully selected leading Turkman cadres and balanced regional affiliation by promoting cadres from different regions to senior positions. Thus, for example, if the regional affiliation of incumbents in the three most important offices is compared, there is a strong trend of balancing out the regional affiliation of the First Secretary of the Turkman CP’s CC by recruiting the chairmen of Council of Ministers and of Supreme Soviet’s Presidium from other regions. This was only not the case during the rule of the first Ahal First Secretary Shadzha Batyrov when all three offices were held by Ahal Turkmen (cf. table 1). With regard to politburo membership in the period 1956-1989, all regions were represented in at least 14 years, whereas at least 13 years saw four oblasts represented.40 For example, in 1956 the politbureau consisted of 9 members and 2 candidates, of whom 4 each were Europeans and Ahal Tekes and one each came from Balkan, Mary and Dashoguz. In 1986 the 12 members and 4 candidates represented 8 Europeans, 2 Turkmen from Ahal, 3 from Dashoguz, 2 from Mary and one from Bakan. Unlike the case of Tajikistan where all First Secretaries came from northern oblast of Leninabad (Khodjent), Moscow appointed Turkman First Secretaries with different regional origins. 1st Secretaries of the Turkman CP’s CC Shadzha Batyrov (1946-1951)

Sukhan Babaev (1951-1958)

Table 1: Regional Affiliation of Leading Local Communists Regional Chairmen of the Regional Supreme Soviet affiliation Council of Ministers affiliation Ahal (Ashgabat)Teke

Ahal (Ashgabat)Alili Orphan Mary-Teke

D. K. Karaev (1958- 1960) Balysh O. Ovezov Dashoguz – (1960- 1969) Iomut

Muchmednazar N. Lebap (Charjou) Gapurov (1969-1985)

Sukhan Babaev (1945- Ahal 1951) (Ashgabat)Alili orphan Balysh O. Ovezov Dashoguz (1951- 1958) Iomut D. K. Karaev Mary-Teke (1958) Balysh O. Ovezov Dashoguz (1959- 1960) Iomut K. Redzhepov (1961) ?

A. Annaliev (1961-1963) M. N. Gapurov (1963-1969) Oraz O. Orazmukhammedov (1969-1975) Bally Ia. Iazkuliev (1975-1978) Chary S. Karryev (1978-1985) S. A. Niyazov (1985)

Regional affiliation

Akmamed Saryev (1947-1959)

Ahal

N. Baӿramov (1959-1964)

Ahal

Ahal Lebap (Charjou) Ahal

Annamukhamed Balkan K. Klychev (19641978)

Dashoguz Ahal

Bally Ia. Iazkuliev Dashoguz (1978-1988)

Ahal- Teke orphan Mary

A. Khodzhamuradov Roza A. Bazarova Lebap (1986-1989) (1988-1990) Khan A. Akhmedov Ahal-Teke (1989-1991) Sources: Ezhegodnik BSƠ, 1957-1990; Sh. Kadyrov, Rossiӿsko-Turkmenskiӿ Istoricheskiӿ slovar, tom I, Bergen: Biblioteka Almanakha ‘Turkmeny’ 2001; Interviews with former Soviet party officials in Oct. 2002. Saparmurat A. Niyazov (19851991)

Ahal -Teke orphan

40 Bol’shaja Sovetskaia Ơntsiklopedia, Ezhegodnik 1957-1990; Interviews with Soviet party officials in Oct. 2002.

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Competition between regional clientele networks for more influence was also constrained by European second party secretaries and other European party members who were much more difficult to integrate into informal political alliances. As oblast committees and the politburo collectively decided on or approved appointments, personal clientelism needed the support of other members and could often not be openly pursued. The Soviet cadre policy was based on specialised career tracks which allowed only candidates with specific qualifications to get top jobs in the party and state apparatus. In addition many institutions such as the army, KGB and military industries, which remained under Moscow’s direct control, checked the striving for power of competing regional alliances.41 After World War II the recruitment of first party secretaries became a very sensitive issue, as Moscow decided to appoint Turkman communists to this influential position. According to Shokhrat Kadyrov, Moscow soon experienced difficulties with local leadership when the Turkman First Secretary Shadzha Batyrov used his jurisdiction of cadre issues within the party to promote his clientele network of Ahal Tekes.42 This type of “nationalism” did not find Moscow’s approval and led to first secretary appointments of communists from other regions than Ahal. The following Moscow cadre policy favoured as leaders Russified communists who had been brought up as orphans in seminaries, had European wives and had not served too long in their home region. In this way Moscow tried to install a more neutral leadership which would be less inclined towards regional particularism (mestnichestvo). Thus the next First Secretary position was filled by Alili-Turkman Sukhan Babaev (1951-58) who had served in Charjou as the first oblast secretary (1945-51). His Alili descent affiliation disqualified him from associating with Batyrov’s Ahal network so that his party leadership faced opposition from the latter and from Ovezov’s Dashoguz network.43 His successor, Dzhumadurdy K. Karaev (1958-60) was from Mary and had been oblast secretary in the Dashoguz region (1953-58), before Khrushchev appointed him as Turkman party boss. According to Kadyrov’s research, Khrushchev’s efforts to consolidate power presented an opportunity for the Ahal group around Zh. Batyrov, then president of the Turkman Academy of Science, to promote Batyrov in the role of a “victim” of Stalinism and soon achieved Karaev’s resignation. The next First Secretary, Balysh O. Ovezov (1960-69) from Dashoguz, who had been mayor in Ashgabat (1957-59), was said to have continued Moscow’s anti-Ahal policy and was supported in this aim by the other regions. When Brezhnev had consolidated power in Moscow, Ovezov, nevertheless, had to hand over party leadership to Mukhammetnazar G. Gapurov, who had made his career in his home region Lebap (teacher, party organisation, first Obkom secretary in Charjou (Turkmenabat)), before he came to Ashgabat in 1962 to become chairman of the Supreme Soviet (1963) and First Secretary of the Turkman CP (1969-1985).44 He is said to have also put considerable effort into curbing the influence of Ahal Turkmen clientele networks in the capital.45 When Saparmurat Niyazov was appointed as Gorbachev’s perestroika candidate – he was an orphan, married to a Russian and had spent 8 years in St. Petersburg – another Ahal-Teke took over party leadership in Turkmenistan after 34 years. Like his predecessors, he used the opportunity of cadre renewal to remove his predecessor’s 41

Moses, Joel C. Functional Career Specialization in Soviet Regional Elite Recruitment. In: Rigby/Harasymiw, 1983. pp. 15-61. 42 . Kadyrov, Shochrat Ch. RossiƱsko-turkmenskiƱ istoricheskiƱ slovar’ v dvukh tomakh, tom 1, Bergen 2001. p. 345. 43 Kadyrov 2001, pp. 346-7. 44 Gill, Pitty 1997, p. 165. 45 Kadyrov 2001, pp 348-9.


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appointees and build up his own clientele network within the republic. This clientele network, nevertheless, was embedded in Soviet institutions which diluted the influence of the First Secretary and which provided enough political space for independent leaders like Paӿzylgel’dy Meredov from Mary or Khan Akhmedov from Ahal to challenge Niyazov’s political position.46 I hold the view that Turkman regionalism and competition between rival clientele networks did not imply that the Soviets established the type of “soft state” that Myrdal observed in some African and Asian countries,47 or a “weak state” in terms of state capacities.48 The Soviet state established a strong territorial administration which destroyed tribal politics on the local level and turned it into political clientelism within a hierarchic ruling organisation. Administrative coercive powers were highly developed, as the Soviet power could efficiently organise revenue extraction and promoted ambitious socioeconomic policies although on a lower scale than compared to Soviet European regions and with stronger patrimonial enclaves within the communist party structure. These relatively strong state structures were organised on an intersection of formal bureaucratic organisation and informal clientele networks within the communist party which secured the unity of state structure.49 As Gorbachev’s reform policy disregarded the necessity within such a state structure to care for cadre loyalty, he destroyed his own and the Soviet state’s power base, which is one of the main reasons for the unexpected dissolution of the Soviet Union. Overall, some evidence seems to exist that the Soviet administration in post-Stalin times seemed to have been a kind of mixed type of patrimonial and bureaucraticdevelopmental state. Whereas the communist party represented a patrimonial enclave which depended highly on personal relations of loyalty between communist leaders and their bosses, the Soviet power did promote the formalisation and professionalisation of career tracks within the planned economy and its administration and was highly committed to an ambitious industrialisation project. It established mechanisms of institutional control against local particularism and divided power between central and republican bureaucracies in order to check regionalism and political clientelism. Nevertheless, the legal system remained undifferentiated and under administrative control and was not able to constrain politics.

Niyazov’s Transformation of State Structures In Turkmenistan – like in other Central Asian republics – national independence gave way to the patrimonialisation of state structures. The breakdown of the Soviet planned economy and of the inter-regional division of labour, and reductions in financial transfers and subsidised goods and services limited resources to fund the Soviet welfare state and public spending in the health and education sectors was heavily cut back. Whereas Soviet institutions were split and more balanced by the intersection of external agents (KGB, military industries, Soviet army, Soviet trade unions, prosecutors) and regional elites (local party and administrative cadres) under the leadership of the CPSU and the General Secretary, the breaking up of the Union’s control mechanisms and the introduction of presidential regimes led to forms of more personal rule, which enabled the ruling 46

See also: Kadyrov, Sh. Turkmenistan: chetyre goda bez SSSR, Moscow 1996. pp. 62-78. Myrdal G, The “Soft State” in Underdeveloped Countries. In: Streeten, P. ed. Unfashionable Economics. Essays in Honour of Lord Balogh, London: Weidenfeld&Nicolson. 1970. pp. 227-43. 48 Migdal, Joel. Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Societal Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. 1988. pp. 3-41. 49 Willerton, John. Patronage and Politics in the USSR, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 1992; Rutland, Peter. The Politics of Economic Stagnation: The Role of Local Party Organs in Economic Management. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. 1993. 47

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presidents to decide all important appointments of political and administrative cadres by themselves. Due to the lack of legal regulation of politics or strong military forces, the unity of the newly independent states started to depend more and more on the cadre policy of the presidents.50 President Niyazov did not only start to rule a population whose ancestors were proud of being "people without a head",51 but was also able, as Ahal Teke, to command Turkmen from other regions and different descent groups. Although his bizarre leadership was mainly supported by Ahal Tekes, Niyazov also appointed ministers and senior officials from other regions and appeared in the public arena as all Turkmen’s Türkmenbashy. The loss of his family in the 1948 Ashgabad earthquake gave some plausibility to his claim of being the “Father of the Nation” and not just of one “tribal descent group”. Out of concern for the political unity of all Turkmen and for the political representation of all regions, he established the Halk Maslahaty (People's Council) as Turkmenistan’s highest consultative representative body; it includes members of the Cabinet, deputies of the Mejlis (the Parliament), elected halk vekilleri (people's representatives) of provinces (etraps) and appointed hakims (heads) of all regions (velayats).52 In order to increase confidence in the government, Niyazov also revived local, regional and republican councils of elders (iashuly maslahats) which had decided on the concerns of the local descent groups in pre-Soviet times and aimed at establishing and keeping the consensus of involved groups. These maslahats were expected to discuss the national revival and future of Turkmenistan, although they still have not gained any significant political influence. The disempowerment of formal political institutions is clearly visible in Turkmenistan, as the president holds all important state offices himself: he is not only head of the state but also prime minister; he is chairman of the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan and of the People’s Council; he heads the State Security Council, chairs the Council of Religious Affairs and is supreme commander of the National Armed Forces. The president used to make all major political, economic and cadre decisions and personally supervised all ministeries, state agencies and regional adminstrations. Unsurprisingly his heavy work load challenges his physical constitution. Having become president for life in 1999, the fate of Turkmenistan is closely linked with the health of Türkmenbashy. In the early 1990s Niyazov balanced the increasing influence of russophile Ahal elites in the central state structure by appointing regional leaders as hakims of the velayat administrations. Thus influential politicians such as Kurban Orazov became hakim in Mary and could strengthen his clientele network, as did the hakim of Dashoguz, Sapargeldy Motaev.53 Although both hakims showed loyalty to the president and built splendid recidences for the president, they were nevertheless removed in 1996, when the radicalisation of Niyazov’s regime also changed centre-periphery relations and led to cadre fluctuations in the regions. In the mid 1990s when economic problems had seriously increased and the regime started to curb social spending, the president became increasingly suspicious of the 50

Geiss, Paul G. Legal Culture and Political Reforms in Central Asia. In: Central Asia and the Caucasus. Journal of Social and Political Studies. 2001, 6(12), pp. 114-125. 51 Vámbéry, H. Reise in Mittelasien von Teheran durch die Turkmanische Wüste an der Ostküste des Kaspischen Meeres nach Chiwa, Bochara und Samarkand, ausgeführt im Jahr 1863, Leipzig 1865 (Engl.: Travel in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara and Samarcand, New York 1865), p. 249. Article 48 of the Constitution of Turkmenistan. 53 In Soviet times K. Orazov was First Obcom secretary of Mary. 52


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loyality of his regime’s supporters. Niyazov started to make short-term appointments of ministers and senior govermental officials and increasingly replaced former Soviet russophile “fellow combatants” – such as the Minister of Trade, Valery Otchertsov, or the Minister of Oil and Gas, Nazar Suiunov – with young inexperienced Turkmen. At the same time his officials pushed his cult of personality further and developed a system of “preceding obedience” which allows president Niyazov to rule according to his will; he is no longer bound to informal rules over using and sharing power. In the regions he used the bad harvest of 1996 as an excuse to fire all velayat hakims who had served as representaties of their regions since independence and began to make one-year appointments. More recently he also appointed Turkmen of different regional affiliations as hakims which usually are replaced in autumn for their shortcomings in improving the grain and cotton harvests which the state puchase monopolies continue to discourage. The system of “preceding obedience” had now reached such a state that the spoken word of the president is regarded as law which officials try to implement for fear of losing their jobs. Niyazov has abolished the Turkman Academy of Science and post-graduate studies, he reduced undergraduate courses from four to two years, closed outpatient departments and replaced hospital medical staff with young recruits. The president’s more recent orders include banning students with gold teeth from educational institutions and the removal of state officials with non-Turkman university degrees.54 In July 2004, 3000 residents of the desert village Darvaza were forced to leave their homes because the president did not like the look of the residential houses when he flew over the village on his way to Dashoguz three weeks previously. To prevent the return of the residents, all houses were destroyed and the villagers were only given new spots in villages closer to the capital along the highway where the migrants now live in huts.55 The arbitrary short-term appointments of ministers, leading officials and regional hakims heavily affected clientele networks, as the horizon of political exchange relations diminished to a few months. For this reason newly appointed officials often have no time to establish their clientele in subordinate positions; hence pressure is increased on lower incumbents of offices to give gifts to secure employment. Now, even state employees such as nurses or teachers have to pay part of their low salary to superiours, if they do not want to lose their jobs. In addition, inter-regional tensions became more severe, as state ethnonationalism increased pressure on ethnic minorities such as the Uzbeks in Dashoguz and Lebap. Not only do they face the introduction of the Turkman language in schools as the language of instruction but they have lost all possibility of higher employment in regional and district administrations. By October 2004 most leading Uzbek officials and Uzbek directors of state companies had been replaced by Turkmen. As a result no ethnic Uzbeks remain in the positions of etrap hakims, chairmen of daikhan departments or as school principals.56 Thus the current political system can be described as an extreme form of neopatrimonial rule where the unity of the state relies on the personal loyalty and obedience of officials to the head of state who rules without restraint. Loyalty is no longer backed by the patronage, protection and good will of the ruler, who respects some informal rules in the use of power, but is one-sided. Thus the administrative staff is as

54

IWRS’s Reporting Central Asia: 2004a: No. 278, April 20, (“Turkmenistan: Good as Gold”), www.iwpr.net; IWPR'S Reporting Central Asia, 2004b: No. 285, May 18, (Murad Novruzov, “Turkmenistan: no foreign education”), www.iwpr.net 55 Turkmenistan Weekly News Brief, Sept. 24-30, 2004. http://www.eurasianet.org/turkmenistan.project 56 Turkmenistan Weekly News Brief, October 1-7, 2004, http://www.eurasianet.org/turkmenistan.project

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exposed to the arbitrariness of the ruler as the population. This form of neopatrimonial rule has also been refered to by Max Weber as neosultanism.57

Conclusions If we compare political change in Turkmenistan with other Central Asian republics, the loose distinction between totalitarian, authoritarian and democratic regimes currently used in transitology is of little help in describing the political processes in Central Asia. To transitologists, all Central Asian regimes have become more authoritarian and the major problem seems to be linked to democratisation. With this paper I wish to direct attention to the state types which are established in the region and which set limits to political reform endeavours. Although the state structures were quite similar at the beginning of the 1990s and the dissolution of the Union’s political control mechanism initially caused similar processes of the states’ patrimonialisation, political events and existing or lacking reform agendas have promoted different types of state structures in recent years. Whereas Kazakh president Nazarbayev brought about the “authoritarian” defusing of the 1994 state crisis by strengthening his powers in order to initiate comprehensive administrative and legal reforms and started to push Kazakhstan towards a type of bureaucratic developmental state,58 President Niyazov established an extreme form of neopatrimonial state that allows him to rule without formal or informal constraints. Hence, questions over political succession and the prospects for democratisation have to be differently assessed with regard to the different state-society relations of Central Asian republics thirteen years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.59 The highly personalised state structures and the unbalanced relations between regions put many constraints on political regime change. Western foreign offices, NGOs and international organisations such as the OSCE increasingly express concern over the deteriorating health and education sectors and the systematic disregard for human rights. Thus some Turkman exile opposition groups press for Western intervention or at least the political isolation of Turkmenistan together with economic sanctions to initiate a regime change. If the prevailing state structures are taken into consideration such a scenario of democratic change is unlikely to be successful. Whoever would become the next president of Turkmenistan will have to strengthen and formally institutionalise state structures and secure the unity of the ruling organisation. Such a reform programme cannot be achieved by political liberalisation, but rather by a negotiated pact between central and regional power elites which will normalise centre-periphery relations and secure the region’s representation in central power structures. In the long run such a programme will strengthen statehood if all regions are represented in power institutions and if the next president is able 57 Chehabi, H. E./ Linz, J., eds. Sultanistic Regimes, Baltimore/London 1998, p. 47. See also: Bohr, Annette. Independent Turkmenistan. From Post-Communism to Sultanism. In: Cummings, Sally N. ed. Oil, Transition and Security in Central Asia. London/New York: RoutledgeCurzon. 2003. pp. 9-24. 58 Kazakhstan (the sole post-Soviet republic to do so) reduced the number of regional units from 20 to 16, abolished the corresponding regional administrations, reduced the number of ministries from 24 to 14 and tightened ministerial commissions and committees in 1997. These reforms cut by one third the office positions in the central administration and regulations followed which established career tracks in the civil service and differentiation between political and administrative offices. Furthermore, reforms were implemented in the spheres of property law and the financial sector, and a national land register system was established. In addition the Kazakh government also built independent economic courts with specialised and better-paid judges. 59 Geiss, Paul G. State and Regime Change in Central Asia. In: Kreikemeyer, A., Berg. A., Zellner, W., eds. Security through democratization? CORE – Hamburg, 19 p. (forthcoming).


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to implement legal and administrative reforms. Only if the state as a political system can be pushed towards a type of bureaucratic-developmental state structure – as can partly be observed in Kazakhstan – more enduring forms of political liberalisation are likely to be successful. Nevertheless, the transformation of state structures will be a long process, and will not be achieved by the mere abdication of a dictator or by holding relatively free elections to choose the next president. The highly personalised power structure in Turkmenistan poses many uncertainties for the time after Niyazov. Many regional elites and former supporters of Niyazov had to leave Turkmenistan, return to private life or are in Turkman prisons. As Niyazov frequently reshuffles elites and appoints inexperienced officials with little or no backing from clientele networks, it is highly uncertain whether his successors will be able to prevent the disintegration of the republic into regions or even civil war. Presently, due to the military and political problems in Afghanistan and Iraq, a political will in the United States to intervene is not evident. The influential regional power, Russia, also currently prefers to import cheap gas from Turkmenistan than to take economic and political actions to stop the discrimination of its Russian diaspora, who have lost their dual citizenship. Whether or not the international community, especially the United States, more actively promotes the political isolation or overthrow of Niyazov’s regime, they should be prepared to catalyse the forces within the republic that aim to overcome the regional cleavage in Turkmenistan.

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De-authoritarization in Uzbekistan?: Analysis and Prospects Robert M. CUTLER Institute of European and Russian Studies Carleton University Abstract. This chapter assesses the potentials for and constraints upon progressive political change in Uzbekistan. Its first part establishes a point of reference by discussing the recent reinvigoration of elite theory as a result of studies of postcommunist transformations in East Central Europe in the 1990s. It begins by distinguishing different approaches to the study of those transformations and how the “transformation” approach differs from the “transition” approach. It discusses the implications of the empirical findings in East Central Europe for the classics of elite theory from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then systematizes the differences between the “power elite” and “polyarchy” ideal-types, whereupon it establishes a middle ground between them that offers an empirical criterion representing a starting-point for assessing the degree of “deauthoritarization” (as distinct from “democratization”) of an authoritarian regime such as Uzbekistan's. In order to flesh out certain auxiliary concepts necessary for applying the criterion, it gives an example of the application of that criterion to the Khrushchev era in the Soviet Union (1953-64). The Khrushchev example allows an explanation of how the criterion is implemented with the aid of three auxiliary concepts: (bottom-up) “mobilization of the public sphere”, (top-down) “conformance of civil society” and (middle-level) “consolidation of organized officialdom”. With this framework, the rest of the chapter looks at political change in Uzbekistan since 1983, the necessary starting-point for understanding the present situation. Two cycles of political change are evident. The first stretches from 1983 until 1989 and comprises three phases: consolidation, conformance and mobilization. The second cycle stretches from 1989 to the present and comprises phases of mobilization, conformance and consolidation in that order. What these phases represent is specified in terms of what they imply for the structural transformation1 of the political system (as an ensemble of elite, regime and community sectors)2 and for political articulation and its issue areas.3 The conclusion to the chapter summarizes the insights that arise and consequent prospects for political reform and de-authoritarization in Uzbekistan.

1

Piaget, J. Le structuralisme (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1968). Easton, D. The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science (New York: Knopf, 1953); Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965); Easton, The Analysis of Political Structure (New York: Routledge, 1990). 3 Cutler, R. “Soviet Dissent under Khrushchev: An Analytical Study”, Comparative Politics 13, no.1 (October 1980): 15-35, available at http://www.robertcutler.org/ar80cpx.htm via the INTERNET. 2

R.M. Cutler / De-Authoritarization in Uzbekistan?: Analysis and Prospects

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Elite theory and political change in Central Asia Post-communist transitions and elite transformations Prior to the implosion of the Soviet Union that left its Central Asian republics as newly independent states in world politics, Western political and social science had sketched three different approaches to the study of “transitions”. This first arose from the attempt to explain the various transitions from authoritarian rule in Latin America. It sought to delineate “structural preconditions” for collapse or reform and concentrated principally on elaborating “structural models” of regime transition.4 It drew directly on modern classics that focused on material limits and the timing of economic development, on how these affect political outcomes and on how institutional arrangements limit possibilities for collective action while promoting change in the absence of widespread social confrontation.5 A second school in the transitions literature extended its focus to southern Europe and stressed an agent-centred account of the “transition process” over the definition of structural preconditions and models.6 This literature highlighted the importance of “pacts” and the dynamics of the electoral process itself. It affirmed that institutions solved problems of collective action and resolved failures of co-ordination and co-operation. This approach based itself upon an explicitly economics-inspired epistemology, referring to how institutions reduce transaction costs and ensure Pareto-superior outcomes. However, inefficient institutions can exist and they can retard political stability.7 A third school, broadly identified as “historical institutionalism”, challenged the basis of the second from the standpoint of historical sociology.8 It maintained that political actors do not choose institutions and that institutions limit political action. This approach highlighted the path-dependency of choices that condition political and economic change. Rather than seeing institutions as “chosen structures” facilitating particular outcomes, this school focused on institutions in a wider and more sociological sense. In its perspective, institutions operated so as to “structure choices”, thus limiting political action. This school stressed the path-dependent nature of political and economic choices.9 The third school swung the pendulum back towards structural approaches but no longer ignored agents. Concentrating on the evolution of both agents and structures, it spawned three main currents. First there were, broadly speaking, rational-choice models of transition.10 Second,

4

Kitschelt, H. “The Formation of Party Systems in East Central Europe”, Politics and Society 20, no. 1 (March 1992): 7-50; Seymour M. Lipset, “The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited”, American Sociological Review 59, no. 1 (February 1994): 1-22. 5 Gerschenkron, A. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: A Book of Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962); Huntington, S. Political Order in Changing Societies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968); O'Donnell, G. Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973). 6 O'Donnell, G., Schmitter, P. and Whitehead, L. (eds.), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 4 vols. (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 7 Bates, R. Toward a Political Economy of Development: A Rational Choice Perspective (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press; 1988). 8 Steinmo, S. et al. (eds.), Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 9 Stark, D. “Privatization in Hungary: from plan to market or from plan to clan?” East European Politics and Societies 4, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 351-92; Stark “Path Dependence and Privatization Strategies in East Central Europe”, East European Politics and Societies (Winter 1992): 17-51. 10 Przeworski, A. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

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a more hybrid school emphasized the institutional and social determinants of transitions.11 Third, and particularly amongst sociologists, the whole notion of “transition” was called into question. Adherents to this current argued that whereas a “transition” implied movement from an antecedent state of affairs “A” to a projected or anticipated state of affairs “B”, the notion of “transformation” was more fertile because it expanded the theoretical domain and increased the explanatory power of a theory of change of political and economic systems.12 As studies of the changes in East Central Europe multiplied during the 1990s, the entire third school fell mostly by the wayside.13 The desire to understand quickly how new constitutions were made and how compromises were achieved amongst elite actors contributed to an unexpected revival of elite theory and elite studies that later spread also to the study of Central Asia.14 So the second-mentioned approach gained ascendance over the third. It adapted insights from the first although only after adulterating the latter's emphasis upon economic history by superposing ahistorical frameworks derived notably from game theory. Insights into elite theory arising from the study of the East Central European transitions (or transformations) open a perspective through which Central Asia may be examined with a view towards evaluating prospects for de-authoritarization.15 Empirical work on East Central Europe led to new findings that resolved some issues in elite theory itself, for example the question whether one should expect elites to circulate in postcommunist transitions or instead to reproduce themselves.16 The classics of modern elite theory were divided on such an issue. Pareto17 did not distinguish between the circulation of individuals and that of social classes. Neither did he explain changes in the sociological composition of elites. Elites in the United Kingdom, France and Germany exhibit three constant tendencies during this period: decline of the aristocracy followed by the rise of the middle class and later the entry of the industrial working class. However, processes of elite transformation varied idiosyncratically. In Great Britain the political decline of the aristocratic elite accelerated after the second electoral reform,18 much as in Germany after Bismarck compelled the adoption of universal male suffrage.19 In France, on the other hand, the aristocracy's decline in electoral politics was

11

Bermeo, N. “Rethinking Regime Change”, Comparative Politics 22, no. 3 (April 1990): 359-77; Terry Lynn Karl, “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America”, Comparative Politics 21, no. 1 (October 1990): 1-21. 12 Offe, C. “Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe”, Social Research 58, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 866-92; David Stark, “The Great Transformation? Social Change in Eastern Europe”, Contemporary Sociology 21, no. 3 (May 1992): 299-304; Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm”, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (January 2002): 5-21. 13 Bozóki, A. “Theoretical Interpretations of Elite Change in East Central Europe”, Comparative Sociology 2, no. 1 (March 2003): 215-247. 14 Jones Luong, P. Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions, and Pacts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 15 Leftwich Curry, J. and Faifer, L. (eds.), Poland's Permanent Revolution: People vs. Elites, 1956 to the Present (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1996). 16 Szelényi, I. and Szelényi, S. “Circulation or Reproduction of Elites during the Post-Communist Transformation of Eastern Europe”, Theory and Society 24, no. 5 (October 1995): 615-38. 17 Pareto V. Sociological Writings, ed. and introd. by S.E. Finer, trans. by Derick Mirfin (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield; 1966). 18 Guttsman, W.L. The British Political Elite (New York: Basic Books, 1963); Walter L. Arnstein, “The Survival of the Victorian Aristocracy”, in Frederic C. Jaher (ed.) The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1973), pp. 203-57. 19 Sheehan, J. “Political Leadership in the German Reichstag, 1871-1918”, American Historical Review 74, no. 2 (December 1968): 511-528; Rintala, M. “Two Compromises: Victorian and Bismarckian”, Government and Opposition 3, no. 2 (Spring 1968): 207-21.


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due not to the extension of suffrage, but to the creation of bourgeois political parties.20 Neither Mosca21 nor Schumpeter22 successfully explained the growth of mass political parties the members from non-aristocratic social strata used in order to propel themselves into and amongst the elite in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Neither Mosca nor Schumpeter, nor Marx23 nor Pareto could explain the persistence of elites drawn from the then-emergent political parties; and none of them could explain the appearance of these parties themselves. Michels24 and Ostrogorski25 did a bit better, but no one could adequately explain party systems. Schumpeter explained why the social position of a class depended on its function and its execution of this function.26 Marx and Mosca provide specific examples of this general theory: Marx pointed to possession of the means of production as the social function defining the ruling class; Mosca allowed for influence of intellectual, political and religious elites, but is not as rigorous as Marx. The major finding concerning the East Central European pattern was that there was elite circulation in politics, but elite reproduction in the economy.27 In other words, Pareto was right about politics, but Mosca was right about economics.28 To take the cue from elite theory: Mosca would perhaps conclude that professional politicians came to dominate European political elites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because the political world became professionalized. This conclusion is less tautological if we suggest, relying on Schumpeter, that modern society requires specialization. Then the rise of non-aristocratic political elites (or non-partocratic29 elites by analogy to the post-communist context) results not simply from the growth of the political parties manifesting the strength of non-aristocratic (in the present day, non-partocratic) segments of the various electorates. Rather, it represents a response to the general tendency in society towards differentiation and professionalization.30 This response is key to understanding the potential for civil society to emerge. Recognizing that, the following brief discussion of contrasting “elitist” and “pluralist” ideal-types of political sociologies of the ruling class and its renewal culminates in establishing an empirical criterion applicable to Central Asia yet derived from classical Western elite theory, that is a starting-point for evaluating de-authoritarization. 20 Dogan, M. “Political Ascent in a Class Society: French Deputies 1870-1958”, in Dwaine Marvick (ed.), Political Decisionmakers: Recruitment and Performance (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961), pp. 57– 90; Maurice Duverger, Les partis politiques (Paris: A. Colin, 1951). 21 Mosca, G. The Ruling Class, ed. and rev. with an Introd. by Arthur Livingston, trans. by Hannah D. Kahn (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939). Translation of Elementi di scienza politica. 22 Schumpeter, J. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950). 23 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, 2 vols. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962). 24 Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, introd. by Seymour M. Lipset, transl. by Eden Paul and Cedar Paul (New York: Free Press, 1962). 25 Ostrogorski, M. Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, ed. by Seymour M. Lipset, 2 vols. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1982). 26 Schumpeter, J. Imperialism and Social Classes, ed. by Paul M. Sweezy, trans. by Norden, H. (New York: A.M. Kelley, 1951). 27 Bozóki, A. “Research on Political Elites in East Central Europe”, European Political Science 1, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 54-59. 28 Krishtanovskaia, O. “From Nomenklatura to New Elite”, in Shlapentokh, V., Vanderpool, C. and Doktorov, B. (eds.), The New Elite in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), pp. 27-52. 29 Shtromas, A. Political Change and Social Development: The Case of the Soviet Union (Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1981); Kitschelt, H. The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, with McGann, A. (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1995). 30 Durkheim, E. De la division du travail social, 2nd ed., enlarged (Paris: Alcan, F. 1902).

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De-authoritarization: between “power elite” and “polyarchy” Two theories of political rule, both modern classics, represent ideal-typical descriptions upon which a third model may be based. This third model better accommodates the empirical world and its potentials. It presents clear and realistic criteria by which progress towards de-authoritarization, as distinct from democratization, may be assessed. Those two theories of political rule are Robert Dahl's theory of polyarchy31 and C. Wright Mills's theory of the power elite.32 Each of them has an analogue in economic science; through their contrast, the third model emerges. This contrast and emergence are set out in Table 1. According to Mills, the power elite constitutes a cohesive body representing the interests of an institutional oligarchy within society. The economic analogue is oligopolistic competition: the policies of firms on price-formation are interdependent, a limited number of very powerful firms dominate the market and the barriers against new firms entering the market are high. In a political institutional oligarchy the policy issue-areas are analogously interdependent, a handful of very powerful institutional elites analogously dominate policy and the barriers to entry by sub-elites or counter-elites are analogously high. According to Dahl, on the other hand, polyarchy tends to maximize the degree of pluralism as well as participation. The economic analogy is perfect competition: like the policies of the firms on price-formation, issue-areas are mutually independent; many groups (firms) participate in political decisions (price-formation); and the barriers against the entry by new players into political decision making (the market) are not very high. Table 1. Establishment of the initial criterion for de-authoritarization. C.W. Mills’s “Power Elite”

Middle Ground: (De)authoritarization

R.A. Dahl’s “Polyarchy”

Interrelationship of views in different policy issue-areas

Interdependent (high inter-issue constraint)

Mutually independent except for restricted linkages

Independent (low inter-issue constraint)

Participants in decision making

Handful of institutional elites

Larger but relatively limited number of individuals

Representatives of many groups

Barriers to entry of non-elites and new sub-elites

High

Higher in short run but lower in long run

Low

Economic analogy

Oligopolistic competition

Monopolistic competition

Perfect competition

Adherents to the pluralist theory criticized the elitist theory by showing through empirical studies that the ruling elite, however identified by whatever methodology, are not so interrelated, whether by positional or attitudinal measures, as the elitist theoreticians

31 32

Dahl, R. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971). Wright Mills, C. The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956).


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would suggest.33 However, even if professional ties amongst elite members create loyalties to institutions that compete with one another, it does not automatically follow that the different elements within the elite, taken together, do not represent a coherent “power elite” in spite of their disagreements over specific policy options. But if the existence of this kind of pluralism within the elite is admitted, then maintaining the elitist hypothesis requires the demonstration that the breadth of policies defended within the elite serves only the interests of the institutional oligarchy. It is further necessary then to argue that these institutions are served by both political decisions and political non-decisions, i.e., the explicit or tacit decisions to exclude one or another question from the political agenda.34 Individuals favouring the inclusion of one or another question on the political agenda may be members either of the mass or of the elite; but if conflicts over non-decisions (agenda exclusions) occur only amongst the elite themselves, then the elitist hypothesis becomes invalid. Proponents of the elitist hypothesis are therefore obliged to reason that the questions excluded from the political agenda emerge from the mass population only to find themselves excluded by a unanimous if not monolithic elite. Even if a pluralizing ruling elite remains undivided in such an instance, nevertheless some elements of this elite will see how that question resonates in popular opinion. They may then seek to mobilize at least part of the public so as to gain influence in intra-elite political conflicts. Therefore, proponents of the elitist hypothesis must address questions about elite-mass relations. In particular, they must show that that mobilization of the public on some policy issue, by one faction within the institutional oligarchy against another faction, does not threaten the hegemony of the institutional oligarchy itself. The “embourgeoisement hypothesis”35 sought to address this question by maintaining that those who do not form part of the elite subscribe nevertheless to its value-system. Dahl countered that such an argument is a tautology of the hypothesis of a non-monolithic elite. He could make that assertion because the “embourgeoisement hypothesis” concerning socialization into the elite's value-system is insufficiently precise. Let us sharpen it. The embourgeoisement hypothesis requires that those members of the mass population, if their attitudes in fact threaten the institutional oligarchy, cease to be motivated by those attitudes. This effect may result either from those members of the mass population becoming conservative partisans of the institutional oligarchy or from their becoming its liberal reformers. If some of them make the latter choice, advocating the incremental evolution of policy, then as soon as the channels of political communication are opened to them for this purpose, they will have become members of the ruling elite according to empirical measures. The ruling elite will thereby be modified and widened, since mobilized non-members of the elite will be voicing alternative policies theretofore excluded. Whatever the underlying mechanism of social change, such a mechanism of elite recruitment and such an expanded and pluralizing elite characterize neither a power elite nor a polyarchy. Table 1 distinguishes it from the paradigms of Mills and Dahl. This intermediate model, neither Dahl nor Mills, is analogous to monopolistic competition in economics: (1) policy issue-areas are neither entirely mutually independent nor totally interdependent but rather, like price-formation under monopolistic competition, generally mutually independent except for certain restricted agreements; (2) the number of firms in the market–participants in political decision-making–is neither very large nor very 33

Meisel, J. The Myth of the Ruling Class: Gaetano Mosca and the “Elite”. (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1958); Dahl, R. “A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model”, American Political Science Review 52, no.2 (June 1958): 463-9. 34 Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M. “The Two Faces of Power”, American Political Science Review 56, no. 4 (December 1962): 947-52; Bachrach and Baratz, “Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework”, American Political Science Review (September 1963): 641-51. 35 Miliband, R. State in Capitalist Society (New York: Basic Books, 1969).

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small; and, crucially, (3) the barriers to entry against new elites or non-elites into decisionmaking are neither high as under oligopolistic competition in economics, nor low as under perfect competition, but instead not lower in the long run even though higher in the short run. The model analogous to monopolistic competition succinctly describes the direction of evolution of the Soviet system under Khrushchev (1953-1964), as subsequently institutionalized under Brezhnev before its decline in the late 1970s and early 1980s.36 That model provides an adequate empirical criterion for judging whether and to what degree an authoritarian regime such as Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan undergoes de-authoritarian change, i.e., de-authoritarization. It is convenient to avoid the term “democratization” and speak rather of de-authoritarization for reasons both of realism and of definitional parsimony. As the Khrushchev example illustrates, de-authoritarization is certainly possible without democratization, but it was not yet stagnation and decline. To repeat, the point of departure for evaluating de-authoritarization is the capacity of the system to renew its elite in the long run through recruitment from outside the existing elite. In theory, de-authoritarization does not require free and fair elections to accomplish this. Elections are one means for this, but not the only one.37 Elections have the shortcoming of providing rather little information about specific policy preferences. However, they are the only way for the mass public to choose amongst leaders having different ideas about the political agenda, which is in turn one criterion for democratization. Limited de-authoritarization: example of a political cycle The emergence of civil society manifests the same phenomenon of differentiation38 that leads to the professionalization of politics unexplained by the classics of modern elite theory. Differentiation manifests in civil society insofar as civil actors exist without State assistance, act without official authorization (or despite formal prohibition), find it possible to oppose governmental policies and/or the official authorities and thus function autonomously of the State. The recurrence of such autonomous activity over time establishes a civil society differentiated from the State. Civil society achieves such a relative autonomy from the State, not when any particular level of economic development is attained, but rather when the system as a whole reaches a certain degree of structural stability. Such stability manifests in agreed political values, consensual political models, the circulation and renewal of elites, organizational guarantees from the State to civil society and the possibility for members of political elites to be returned to functions within civil society.39 How are these elements of stability established? Two concepts in addition to that of civil society problematize the issue: the public sphere40 and organized officialdom.41 The public sphere is traditionally considered democratic if it is the forum where opposition amongst political actors (whether civil or official) plays itself out. However, the existence of a public sphere does not have democracy as a prerequisite. Any democratic quality emerges, rather, from repeated public exchanges amongst opposing points of view and by 36

Cutler, “Soviet Dissent under Khrushchev”. Armstrong, J. The European Administrative Elite (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973). 38 Bendix, R. Nation-Building and Citizenship: Studies of Our Changing Social Order (New York: Wiley, 1964). 39 Cohen, J. and Arato, A. Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992). 40 Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. by Thomas Burger (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991). 41 Pearson, T. Russian Officialdom in Crisis: Autocracy and Local Self-Government, 1861-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 37


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the absence of censorship of these. Society is today called “civil society” insofar as citizens appear able to dispute organized officialdom in the public sphere.42 By this traditional definition, a democratic public sphere has systemic prerequisites that inhere in the institutionalized rules governing relations between civil actors and organized officialdom, including their exchanges of views. One such systemic prerequisite is the ability of civil society to replace its representatives in organized officialdom when this is desired. That in turn has the prerequisite that any citizen is able to participate in public debates and election campaigns. These two prerequisites cannot in practice be present in the absence of a third prerequisite, viz., the existence of a legal and legitimate active opposition that espouses political ideas differing from those of the leaders in power and defending a different electoral program. Traditional theorists limited themselves to normative and prescriptive models of democracy emphasizing formal constitutional desiderata such as free elections, the separation of powers and popular sovereignty as bases for legitimacy.43 Models of democratization available today do not offer major explanations of the fall of dictatorships and reopening of public political spaces. That is because the “political transition” approaches did not fundamentally modify a taxonomic tendency towards a developmentalist dichotomy, typified by the distinction between totalitarianism and democracy,44 which is, however, fallacious.45 Once the distinction is made, it becomes irresistible to unify the “opposites” with a continuum. Moreover, the emphasis on formal attributes of democracy today holds the danger of slighting their practical content. The terms “authoritarization” and “de-authoritarization” draw attention to content more than to form. Therefore I discuss here de-authoritarization rather than democratization. Deauthoritarization has none of the above-mentioned prerequisites for a democratic public sphere, but it can lead to their development.46 The evolution of the Soviet system under Khrushchev illustrates the fecundity of the concept of de-authoritarization in conditions where it is difficult meaningfully to apply the concept of democratization. Indeed, the Khrushchev experience is nearly an archetype for how a process of de-authoritarization may begin and then end by running up against and being finally defeated by its own consequences for the ruling elite seeking both selfpreservation and preservation of the political system. Still, the Khrushchev era illustrates how even a totalitarian regime can undergo limited de-authoritarization even if its essential form does not change. It may do this according to a succession of phases wherein (1) mobilization from the bottom up is followed by (2) an attempt to enforce conformance from the top down, after which (3) this tension is resolved by an overall systemic–and not necessarily “democratic”–consolidation.47 The significance of these three terms– mobilization, conformance and consolidation–is captured by the three counterpart concepts of the public sphere, civil society and organized officialdom. Consider the political system as a place where civil and State actors interact and recombine through complex alliances.48 The first phase of a trend of potential de42

Kopecky, P. and Mudde, C. “Rethinking Civil Society”, Democratization 10, no. 3 (August 2003): 1-14. de Secondat Montesquieu, C. De l'esprit des lois [1748], 2 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 1973). Aron, R. Démocratie et totalitarisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1965). 45 Talmon, J. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London: Secker & Warburg, 1955). 46 Curry and Faifer (eds.), Poland's Permanent Revolution. 47 Merkel, W. “The Consolidation of Post-Autocratic Democracies: A Multi-Level Model”, Democratization 5, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): 33-67; Linz, J. and Stepan, A. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: South Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Schedler, A. “Measuring Democratic Consolidation”, Studies in Comparative International Development 36, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 66-92. 48 Boudon, R. and Bourricaud, F. Dictionnaire critique de la sociologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1982). 43 44

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authoritarization is then mobilization of civil society. Civil society is a more or less integrated collection of functionally differentiated institutional and individual civil actors who are autonomous of one another and of the State, and who are able to contest State policy. In its developed democratic form, civil society becomes like a fourth counterweight to the three branches of government existing under the “separation of powers” doctrine, but with the additional capacity of contesting the very rules of governance. The mobilization of civil society is then succeeded by a second phase that is characterized by a top-down response of the political authorities. This results in a restructuring or transformation of the public sphere. The public sphere is not a physical place; rather, it is constituted from out of what is politically “visible” (or becoming visible) on such “platforms” as the media, parliament and the courts. This is possible when what occurs on any of these platforms is ineluctably interrelated with what occurs on others. The manifestation of a public sphere enables public debate both over specific policy issues as well as over general political myths and values. Finally, in a third phase, organized officialdom may be consolidated at the middle levels of the institutions of governance. This is the phase that holds the possibility for the evolutionary transformation of the political regime as a whole. However, organized officialdom is not synonymous with the “political system”; rather, it is a category of the latter, comprising those people elected or appointed to administer the government.49 As such, it includes not just State and state-corporatist institutions concerned with resource allocation, legislation and the monopoly of coercive force, but also societal-corporatist institutions having a pragmatic role and participating in negotiation of consensus on construction of the public sphere.50 The Khrushchev era, schematized in Table 2, illustrates this succession of phases of regime transformation.51 Under Khrushchev the first phase of de-authoritarization was marked by the subordination of the KGB to the Communist Party and the “thaw” in literature and artistic expression. In analytical terms, the spontaneous articulation of interests from the bottom up (from the community sector towards the regime and the elite) became possible with the diminution of coercion exercised downwards immediately after Stalin's death. From 1956 to 1960, following Khrushchev's “de-Stalinization” speech at the Communist Party's Twentieth Congress, the authorities attempted to begin to rein in this mobilization of the public sphere through the imposition of new aspects of political conformance from the top down. These included propaganda campaigns for the “New Soviet Man”, against religious belief and for “New Socialist Legality” reforms, as well as Russification policies especially in the sphere of education. Under such conditions of increased coercion, institutions that the political elite had earlier made responsible for managing flows of coercion downwards became protective “homes” for the expression, upwards, of certain opinions from the public sphere. Institutions that the political elite had earlier made responsible for managing these flows of coercion downwards became receptacles for the expression of opinion from civil society. Those institutions propelled that opinion upwards towards the apex of the political system. As institutions of governance, they necessarily enjoyed a certain legitimacy in the eyes of the elite; however, the need to conserve access to elite-level political resources as well as other privileges made the dissent less radical. Political articulations that found an institutional “home” tended to lose whatever broadly-shared and general quality they may have had and ceased to challenge the system as a whole, limiting themselves instead to 49 Merkel, W. and Croissant, A. “Formale Institutionen und informale Regeln in illiberalen Demokratien”, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 40, no.1 (March 2000): 3-30. 50 Schmitter, P. “Still the Century of Corporatism?” Review of Politics 36, no.1 (January 1974): 85-131. 51 Cutler, “Soviet Dissent under Khrushchev”.


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what could be justified by the political role of their institutional patron. (For example, the Lawyers' Union continued to promote “socialist legality” but to them this did not mean the right to engage in unauthorized demonstrations or advocate political democracy.)52 Table 2. Phases of de-authoritarization under Khrushchev.53 Period

1953–56

1956–60/61

1959/60–64

Characteristic of phase

Mobilization of Civil Society

Conformance in Public Sphere

Consolidation in Organized Officialdom

Structural effect of de-authoritarization

Decreased elite coercion against mid-level institutions (“regime”) and community

Attempt by elite to integrate community into regime

Internal differentiation of the elite and regime sectors

Policies composing this transformation

Subordination of KGB to Party Literary “Thaw”

New Soviet Man and anti-religious campaigns Russification policy esp. in education New Socialist Legality reforms (e.g. creation of druzhinniki)

Creation and co-optation of specialized cadre having technical knowledge Organizational reforms (sovnarkhozy, Party bifurcation, elite committees)

Shared-interest issue-areas

Socialist legality / human rights

Nationality rights

Political democracy

Constituency-specific issue-areas

Artistic freedoms

Religious autonomy

Developmental rationality

The third phase of this political cycle, from 1960 to 1964, saw the reformation of the institutions of governance, namely, the consolidation of organized officialdom. Under circumstances of a new political coercion from the top down (1956-1960/61), the dissident issue-areas tended to consolidate themselves within those institutions. The elite, however, retained control over the dissident activity housed within these institutions, which in turn reflected the particular “functional” interests of the members of the given institution or at least its leadership. This process squeezed out those tendencies of dissident political articulation based on shared interests transcending those institutions (1959/60-1964). During this period, Khrushchev also instituted a number of administrative reorganizations of various elite-level and regime-level bodies, partly in the eventually unsuccessful attempt to keep off-guard and to circumvent institutional and individual opposition to his deauthoritarization policies.54

52

Ibid. Ibid. 54 Ibid. 53

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Political change in Uzbekistan: the 1983–1989 cycle It was not under Gorbachev but rather under Andropov that real changes began to take place in politics in Uzbekistan. So it is necessary to go back to 1983, the year after Brezhnev's death, in order to achieve a perspective adequate for understanding the present political trajectory of Uzbekistan. Since then, using the template of the three-phase political cycle exemplified above, it is possible to discern two political cycles in Uzbekistan. During the first, which lasted from 1983 to 1989, Uzbekistan did not experience a “standard” mobilization-conformance-consolidation cycle as typified in the Soviet experience under Khrushchev. The first phase, rather than being one of mobilizing the public sphere, consisted in the attempt from Moscow to intensify the consolidation of organized officialdom in Uzbekistan. The second phase was characterized by the enforcement of conformity in the public sphere, in contrast to the Khrushchevian analytical template, there was no mobilized civil society seeking to push the envelope of the public sphere. In fact, that mobilization began at the end of the second phase and, exploding in breadth and depth, carried over into the third, until the Soviet regime was ready to be swept away in Uzbekistan. Table 3 sets out this dynamic in a schematic fashion. Table 3. Phases of de-authoritarization in Uzbekistan, 1983-89.

Period

1983–86

1986–88

1988–89

Phase of de-authoritarization

Consolidation of Organized Officialdom

Conformance of Public Sphere


Structural effect of de-authoritarization

Increased coercion by “supra-elite” (in Moscow) vs. elite (in Tashkent), regime, community

Supra-elite attempt to force integration of community into regime and regime into elite

Decreased coercion by “supra-elite” (in Moscow) vs. elite (in Tashkent), regime, community

Shared-interest dissident issueareas

[None]

Nationality rights (refocusing Artistic freedoms and Developmental rationality)

Nationality rights Socialist legality / human rights Political democracy Religious autonomy

Constituencyspecific dissident issue-areas

Artistic freedoms Developmental rationality

Religious autonomy

[None]

Re-consolidating officialdom without public-sphere opposition, 1983-86 The first phase of the 1983-89 cycle lasted until 1986. However, it was not a phase of mobilization of the civil society as were the years 1953-56 under Khrushchev. Rather, Moscow attempted to tighten cadres policy throughout Central Asia and especially in Uzbekistan. Table 3 labels this phenomenon as increased direct coercion from the “supraelite” (i.e., the all-Union elite in Moscow sitting above the Uzbekistani elite in Tashkent). Analytically, it is identical with the last Khrushchev phase in that the Moscow elite sought to restructure the institutions of governance (in the present case, in Uzbekistan) in order to consolidate organized officialdom vis-à-vis emergent civil society. The difference was that


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there was no civil society emerging at the time to challenge the authorities. Ironically, the central policies would, however, provoke such mobilization as a response. Corruption was present throughout Central Asia, but the central authorities in Moscow seized upon the 1983 death of Sharaf Rashidov, who had ruled Uzbekistan since 1959, to ratchet up administrative purges in the republic on the pretext of the “cotton affair” campaign. This campaign emphasized that ethnic networks were the backbone of the “second economy” in Uzbekistan, although this was true elsewhere in Central Asia as well; and it threw strong allegations of corruption into the local relationship between ethnic and economic issues.55 Rashidov was replaced by I.B. Usmankhojaev, who was present in June 1984 when Egor Ligachev, by then a member of the Politburo in Moscow and responsible for cadres policy at the all-Soviet level, attended a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz) to implement the new central policy of the “interrepublican transfer of cadres”. This was a codephrase for moving bureaucrats from one part of the USSR to another in order to shake up the local administration.56 During this time, Uzbekistan came under increasing criticism in all-Union press organs, and the term “Uzbek affair” became synonymous with “cotton affair”, which was a shorthand for corruption requiring purge.57 Table 3 schematizes these developments using the framework set out above. From 1983 to 1986, Moscow began its move against the local bureaucracy by trying to turn the mass public in Uzbekistan against its own elite. In the end, this tactic only resulted in enhancing the status of the latter in the eyes of the former.58 Moscow's attempt to purge the bureaucracy in Uzbekistan led to community-sector protests in favour of “artistic freedoms” as a political claim rising from the bottom up. This claim refers to an upsurge, especially amongst the native intelligentsia writing in local newspapers, in arguments for native culture and especially the use of Uzbek-origin words against Russian-origin words even in Russian syntax. Although this phenomenon had been present under Brezhnev, its visibility increased in the immediate post-Brezhnev period. Beginning in 1985, both the Uzbeklanguage and the Russian-language press in Uzbekistan began to show subtle anti-Islamic signs.59 Moscow's policy of glasnost and greater toleration towards the Russian Orthodoxy was not matched in Tashkent by analogous attitudes towards Islam. This fact would have repercussions in subsequent phases of Uzbekistan's political evolution.60 Arguments in favour of “developmental rationality” also made an appearance, so as to refute the corruption charge. These arguments claimed that budgetary allocations on an all-Union level had been correctly made and implemented. Hyper-conforming the public sphere with a demobilized civil society, 1986-88 During the 1986-88 phase of the cycle, claims for artistic freedoms and developmental rationality refocused against the political centre in Moscow and were transformed into 55

Carlisle, D. “Power and Politics in Soviet Uzbekistan: From Stalin to Gorbachev”, in William Fierman (ed.), Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), pp. 93-120. 56 Carlisle, D. “Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks”, Problems of Communism 40, no. 5 (September-October 1991): 23-44. 57 Critchlow, J. Nationalism in Uzbekistan: a Soviet Republic's Road to Sovereignty (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), pp. 39-53. 58 Carlisle, D. “Islam Karimov and Uzbekistan: Back to the Future?” in Timothy J. Colton and Robert C. Tucker (eds.), Patterns in Post-Soviet Leadership (Boulder: Westview, 1995), pp. 191-216. 59 Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 17-38. 60 Hanks, R. “Repression as Reform: Islam in Uzbekistan during the Early Glasnost' Period”, Religion, State and Society 29, no. 3 (September 2001): 227-39.

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increasingly loud calls for nationality rights of Uzbeks against Russians in Uzbekistan. Here they reversed the pattern under Khrushchev: constituency-specific dissent grew into shared-interest dissent. This occurred for two reasons: first, the centrally inspired purges against the personnel governing Uzbekistan's institutions gave to those who resisted, a common cause with the public at large, against Moscow; and second, the new personnel whom Moscow succeeded in inserting into those institutions were isolated in the context of local networks and therefore lacked both the practical authority and the administrative means to stifle the spill-over of constituency-specific dissent into shared-interest dissent.61 Later, by extension, calls for nationality rights of Uzbeks against Russians in Uzbekistan would turn into calls for the sovereignty of Uzbekistan against the Soviet Union. New propaganda campaigns in January 1986 against Rashidov, the recently deceased leader of the republic, marked a further acceleration of Moscow's attempts to purge the administrative apparatus in the republic. Gorbachev overtly supported the new campaign at the Communist Party's Twenty-seventh Congress in February 1986.62 As a result, Uzbekistan's resistance to central authority began progressively to harden on all levels of polity and society. In the beginning, this resistance was quiet; later, it would grow into more open defiance. Nevertheless, purges in the administrative bureaucracy in Uzbekistan continued to rise from crescendo to higher crescendo throughout this phase.63 The anti-Islamic campaigns and propaganda continued through 1987–88, seconded by Usmankhojaev himself. In the increasingly open all-Union atmosphere of glasnost and favour towards Russian Orthodoxy, some members of the Uzbek intelligentsia even began to hint that Islam should receive the same tolerance. At this stage of development, public demonstrations are in favour of the autonomy of the republic's state-controlled Muslim spiritual directorate.64 This constituency-specific (regime-supporting) issue would later grow into a shared-interest (regime-rejecting) issue, insisting on the directorate's outright abolition. Civil society expands the public sphere and mobilizes against officialdom, 1988-89 The third phase of this cycle is defined by the outbreak of generalized political mobilization amongst the mass public in Uzbekistan. In January 1988 Moscow replaced Usmankhojaev with Rafik Nishanov as head of the Uzbek party. The purges against the administrative apparatus in Uzbekistan continued and accelerated. In November 1998, a group of Uzbek intellectuals formed the first significant opposition movement, Birlik (“Unity”) against the CPUz. Separately, in February 1989, Uzbek resistance to Moscow became more defiant following the publication of a sensational interview with MVD General Didorenko. Reassigned to Ukraine later that year, Didorenko offered a candid analysis of the power structure of the republic. He enumerated different groups, notably including officials sent to Uzbekistan who encounter local resistance and cannot penetrate the existing interpersonal networks of power, Europeans born or long-time resident in Uzbekistan who have been coopted by those networks and share their values, the “loyal” indigenous population, the national “extremist” fringe, “corrupt” officials and gangsters. It is possible that this interview was a Moscow-motivated ploy to shake things up, which backfired.65 At any rate, outrage unified all levels of the polity and society in Uzbekistan against Moscow. 61

Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 137-55. Critchlow, J. “Prelude to 'Independence': How the Uzbek Party Apparatus Broke Moscow's Grip on Elite Recruitment”, in William Fierman (ed.), Soviet Central Asia, pp. 131-55. 63 Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 39-53. 64 Hanks, “Repression as Reform”. 65 Critchlow, “Prelude to ‘Independence’”. 62


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In June 1989, Islam Karimov, an outsider to the traditional large clans, succeeded Nishanov as first secretary of the CPUz. Karimov has formed his own patron-client network since then, promoting people who have been personally supportive of him, particularly creative intellectuals whom he has appointed to responsible positions in government.66 Legislation passed in Tashkent in October 1989 to make Uzbek rather than Russian the official language, represented a culmination of the original (1983-86) artisticfreedoms protest over linguistics and vocabulary, subsequently transformed into claims in favour of nationality rights (1986-88). The subsequent revelation of the so-called “recruit scandal”, which made public the abominable treatment of Uzbek inductees into the Soviet army, did nothing to dampen local indignation against the Didorenko interview and other blunders by Moscow. The population flooded the ranks of Birlik.67 The year 1989 also saw a mass demonstration, in which official as well as unofficial mullahs participated, seeking to depose the mufti who headed the state-controlled Spiritual Directorate. Police were obliged to disperse the demonstrators, stoking further public discontent.68 The outstanding claim for nationality rights was thus ramified by the claim for religious autonomy, which moved from being a constituency-specific matter for a bureaucratic institution to a shared-interest demand taken up by the greater public. The recruit scandal, including deaths of Uzbek youths from hazing in the Soviet army, increased calls from the community for observance of socialist legality and human rights. Birlik succeeded in electing a few representatives to Uzbekistan's Supreme Soviet who echoed the human-rights cry, and some of its members began to demand political democracy in Uzbekistan itself.69 In this way, all the “dissident” issue areas began to catalyze one another through a dynamic resulting in a greater impact than any of the issues would have had by itself. Political change in Uzbekistan: the cycle from 1989 to the present As the end of the Soviet Union approached (1989-91), the mobilization of civil society did not decrease; on the contrary, it grew, and continued to grow after independence (1992-93). However, this was not what Uzbekistan's new sovereigns–now in Tashkent rather than Moscow–sought. Before independence, a period of intra-elite conflict made it impossible for the new leadership to begin to address these new political claims in any important or substantive way. Soon after Karimov consummated his ascendance, an increasingly brutal crackdown was implemented (see 4.2 below). This may be analytically designated as topdown enforcement of conformance to rein in the public sphere so as to put certain questions out of bounds. But this was neither a gradual nor a measured crackdown. It became a thorough political repression, so much so that it spilled over into the subsequent and extended phase of consolidation of organized officialdom, overriding any popular or community expression of political claim through the application of physical coercion of physical persons. Thus the subordination of organized officialdom to Karimov becomes founded upon the achieved subordination of civil society to organized officialdom. The 66

Petrov, N.I. “Political Stability in the Conditions of the Command-Administrative Regime,” in Alexei Vassiliev (ed.), Central Asia: political and economic challenges in the post-Soviet era (London: Saqi Books, 2001), pp. 79-99. 67 Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 137-55. 68 Akiner, S. “Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks”, in Smith, G. (ed.), The Nationalities Question in the Post-Soviet States, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1996), pp. 334-47. 69 “Charter of the Birlik People's Movement to Protect the Natural, Material, and Spiritual Wealth of Uzbekistan”, in Chandler, A and Furtado, C. Jr. (eds.), Perestroika in the Soviet Republics: Documents on the National Question (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992), pp. 517-20.

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brief de-authoritarization of the late 1980s and early 1990s was not just reversed but moreover entirely uprooted. Table 4 schematically summarizes this dynamic. Table 4. Phases of re-authoritarization in Uzbekistan, 1989-present. Period

1989-91

1992-93

1994-present

Phase of de- (or re-) authoritarization


Conformance of Public Sphere

Consolidation of Organized Officialdom

Structural effect of de- (or re) authoritarization

Intra-elite conflict produces coercion vs. regime Community begins to force information directly to attention of elite

End of intra-elite struggle Beginning of regime’s elite-motivated “renewal” and crackdown on community

Increased elite coercion on regime and community Trivial intermittent cycles of release and re-tightening

Shared-interest dissident issueareas

Nationality rights Socialist legality / human rights Political democracy Religious autonomy

Socialist legality / human rights Political democracy Religious autonomy

Religious autonomy

Constituencyspecific dissident issue-areas

[None]

[None]

(Non-Uzbek minority) Nationality rights

Intensified mobilization of civil society, 1989-91 From the middle of 1989 through 1991 there begins a new three-phase cycle of political change in Uzbekistan. The first phase's defining characteristics were the outbreak of violence in the Fergana Valley and the struggle for power between Karimov and Shakarulla Mirsaidov. The riots in Fergana Valley, which broke out in June 1989 and lasted sporadically for the better part of a year, surprised everyone. Apparently as a result, Moscow reversed course on its personnel policy. All cadres whom Ligachev had transferred into Uzbekistan during the long anticorruption campaign were now transferred back out. Nishanov was replaced as head of the Uzbek party with Islam Karimov, who repudiated the anticorruption campaign. Not only were new cadre policies instituted; moreover, the deceased party chief Rashidov, vilified during the long “cotton affair”, was rehabilitated and lionized.70 Once in power, Karimov accomplished his victory over Mirsaidov through a series of bureaucratic manoeuvres. In March 1990 Karimov, then CPUz first secretary, became president of Uzbekistan while Mirsaidov became prime minister. In November of the same year, the post of prime minister was abolished and the Council of Ministers became the president's Cabinet; Mirsaidov was transferred to the post of vice-president. Mirsaidov significantly worsened his own position in August 1991, when he appeared to support the anti-Gorbachev putsch in Moscow. In January 1992 the post of vice-president was 70

Carlisle, “Islam Karimov and Uzbekistan”.


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abolished, and that of prime minister restored. However, Mirsaidov was not given it; instead, he was named a state secretary; soon thereafter, he resigned.71 The Birlik movement split during this period, as the Erk Party broke off from it to concentrate on forming a parliamentary opposition.72 Also during 1990, Uzbekistan's press published a sensational interview with a former prosecutor in the “cotton affair” who gave details how cases were trumped up against officials, wrongful accusations made and dossiers mishandled.73 This further inflamed public opinion against Moscow, reinforcing claims for socialist legality and human rights. Finally during 1990, Uzbekistan proclaimed sovereignty over its territory, although not yet independence of the Soviet Union.74 After the defeat of the August 1991 putsch in Moscow, upon which the republic immediately declared its independence, quasi-legal political opposition appeared in Uzbekistan, based however upon factional struggles within the ruling elite rather than on ideological differences.75 Erk finally was able to register as an opposition party in September. In November, Birlik was granted registration as a social movement but denied registration as a political party. In December, Karimov was elected president of Uzbekistan, taking office in January 1992. The Erk candidate received 12%, while the Birlik candidate was not allowed to stand for election. Throughout 1991 and much of 1992, both Erk and Birlik sporadically published “opposition” newspapers; however, these were shut down in late 1992. The keynote event inaugurating Karimov's presidency was the repression of student demonstrations in Tashkent in January 1992 with loss of life. This violence ignited an anti-Karimov movement that was, in turn rigorously repressed with an uncompromising police crackdown.76 Intensified enforcement of conformity in the public sphere, 1992-93 Whereas in 1991 there was mass mobilization in favour of nationality rights, socialist legality, human rights, political democracy and religious autonomy, by the end of 1993 the proponents of all these norms were under siege and on the defensive. Partly in order to reverse his disadvantage vis-à-vis the apparatus of the regime left over from Soviet times, Karimov created the office of khokim (regional governor) in January 1992 and superimposed this prefectural post upon the old oblast-level administration.77 This was the first indication of his intent to create a strong political executive for independent Uzbekistan, marked that same year also by his creation of the Presidential Council, which effectively became the government, representing the core of the country's political leadership. The intention to install a strong political executive came to fruition with a new constitution in December 1992. The new constitution also conferred official status upon about 10,000 mahallas. These traditional cultural neighbourhood-type associations, which have always existed only informally, were incorporated as administrative adjuncts to the

71 Carlisle, D.“Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and Its Neighbours”, in Yaacov Ro'i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: F. Cass, 1995), pp. 73-103. 72 Bohr, A. Uzbekistan: Politics and Foreign Policy (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1998). 73 Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 137-55. 74 “Declaration of Sovereignty Adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR”, in Chandler and Furtado (eds.), Perestroika in the Soviet Republics, pp. 523-24. 75 Petrov, “Political Stability in the Conditions of the Command-Administrative Regime”. 76 Carlisle, “Islam Karimov and Uzbekistan”. 77 Moder, K. “Kein Ende der demokratischen Eiszeit in Zentralasien”, Osteuropa 51, no. 1 (January 2002): 14-37.

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state apparatus. Karimov intended to use them in order to mediate between the family and the state, facilitating the settlement of disputes and maintaining order and discipline.78 The middle of 1992 saw a serious crisis in Tajikistan: after an upheaval in May in Dushanbe, the country's president was forced to resign in September. The ensuing civil war in Tajikistan provided a pretext for Karimov to close Uzbekistan's borders with the country, reinforce the authoritarian spirit of his policies and also to crack down further upon the domestic opposition.79 In the summer of 1992 Rashidov was further rehabilitated, and the recent Soviet past explicitly became a normative point of reference for the Karimov government. The limited economic reform that had begun to get underway in 1992 was reversed, and other lukewarm liberalizing initiatives were stopped in their tracks. In January 1993, a new law required all publications to register and obtain government approval to publish.80 Domestic crackdowns intensified further in 1993. Also in 1993, political parties were required to re-register and the new registration was denied to the Islamic Renaissance Party and the similarly religiously inspired party Adolat (“Justice”), as well as to Birlik; Erk had refused to submit papers for re-registration.81 This made little difference. In October 1993 both Birlik and Erk were permanently banned.82 Intensified consolidation through (and of) organized officialdom, 1994-present The period from 1994 to the present represents a consolidation of organized officialdom. Dissidence and autonomous political articulation still extant at the end of 1993 have been eliminated. At the same time, Karimov has enhanced his grip on the administrative apparatus. A March 1995 referendum overwhelming approved extension of his term as president until 2000. Further tightening of political controls followed through the rest of the decade. A Democratic Opposition Co-ordinating Council with Mirsaidov at the head formed in October 1995 but dissolved less than two and a half years later.83 In December 1996, a law was adopted giving political parties the right to organize but requiring them to register with the Ministry of Justice, thus allowing legal status to be denied to critics.84 In May 1998, a law was adopted that limited the activities of religious organizations. On 16 February 1999 came the infamous bomb attacks in Tashkent widely believed to have been engineered by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Three months later, laws were introduced to increase punishment for those convicted of affiliation to 78

Sievers, E. “Uzbekistan's Mahalla: From Soviet to Absolutist Residential Community Associations”, Chicago-Kent Journal of International and Comparative Law [serial online] 2002, no. 2 (Spring), available: http://www.kentlaw.edu/jicl/articles/spring2002/Spring2002.htm via the INTERNET, accessed 2004 November 24; Noori, N. “Delegating Coercion: The Institutional Roots of Authoritarianism in Uzbekistan” (Paper presented to Fifth Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Bloomington, Ind., 1417 October 2004). 79 Horsman, S. “Uzbekistan's Involvement in the Tajik Civil War, 1992-97: Domestic Considerations”, Central Asia Survey 18, no. 1 (March 1999): 37-48. 80 Kangas, R. “Uzbek Media Remain Devoid of Criticism”, Transition, 1, no. 18 (6 October 1995): 76-77. 81 Kangas, R. “The Three Faces of Islam in Uzbekistan”, Transition 1, no. 24 (29 December 1995): 17-21. 82 Petrov, “Political Stability in the Conditions of the Command-Administrative Regime”; Abdumannab Polat, “Islamic Revival in Uzbekistan: A Threat to Stability?”, in Roald Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower (eds.), Islam and Central Asia: An Enduring Legacy or an Evolving Threat? (Washington, D.C.: Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2000), pp. 39-67; William Fierman, “Political Development in Uzbekistan: Democratization?”, in Dawisha, K. and Parrott, B. (eds.), Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) pp. 360-408; Roger D. Kangas, “Uzbekistan: Evolving Authoritarianism”, Current History 93, no. 4 (April 1994): 178-82. 83 Smith, G. et al., Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 67-90. 84 Bohr, Uzbekistan: Politics and Foreign Policy.


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“religious, extremist, separatist and fundamentalist organizations”. The mid-February 1999 bomb attacks in Tashkent accelerated the country's slide towards deeper authoritarianism. After Karimov was re-elected president in January 2001, with 92% of the vote, libraries in Samarkand and Bukhara were purged of Tajik-language books, and citizens of Tajikistan who had taken refuge in Uzbekistan from the civil war were evicted. Also that year, two IMU leaders were sentenced to death in absentia. Press censorship was formally abolished, but self-censorship by journalists and publishers continued to permeate the entire media system.85 A February 2002 referendum approved the extension of Karimov's term in office from five to seven years. “Multiparty” parliamentary elections are scheduled for December 2004, but the parties being allowed to put forward candidates are not presenting electoral platforms that criticize the authorities in any manner.86 Parliament has not become a locus of independent political activity.87 Limits on the length of this chapter have necessitated omission of discussion of the economic situation in Uzbekistan.88 For present purposes, it suffices to note that in 1996 the government suspended the convertibility of the national currency, a move only recently reversed.89 The banking system remains mainly unreformed and price controls have been maintained through the whole period discussed, as has been state intervention in microeconomic decision making.90 Conclusion Analytical summary of political development in Uzbekistan since 1983 Uzbekistan has undergone two cycles of political development (or maldevelopment) since Brezhnev's death in late 1982. The first one was not a “regular” mobilization– conformance–consolidation cycle as typified by the Khrushchev era in the Soviet Union. The end of the Soviet period for Uzbekistan began on the Union-republic level with the consolidation of organized officialdom top-down from Moscow (1983-86) rather than with mobilization of civil society bottom-up. This policy created resistance at the grass roots that broke out into open nationality claims (1986-88) after Moscow's pursuit of the administrative purge began as well to threaten the community-sector public sphere, which had important informal as well as formal components.91 When top-down coercion was finally restrained (1988-89), it was too late. The resistance to Moscow now permeated all 85

Shafer, R. and Freedman, E. “Obstacles to the Professionalization of Mass Media in Post-Soviet Central Asia: A Case Study of Uzbekistan”, Journalism Studies 4, no. 12 (February 2003): 91-103. International Crisis Group, Uzbekistan's Reform Program: Illusion or Reality?, Asia Report 46 (Brussels: ICG, 18 February 2003). 87 Yalcin, R. The Rebirth Of Uzbekistan: Politics, Economy and Society in the Post-Soviet Era (Reading, Surrey: Ithaca, 2002), pp. 137-77. 88 Spechler, M. “Uzbekistan: the Silk Road to Nowhere?” Contemporary Economic Policy 18, no. 3 (July 2000): 295-303; Pomfret, R. “The Uzbek Model of Economic Development, 1991-1999”, Economics of Transition 8, no. 3 (November 2000): 733-48; Auty, R. “Natural Resources and 'Gradual' Reform in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan”, Natural Resources Forum 27, no. 4 (November 2003): 255-66; Banerji, and Alam, A., Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan: A Tale of Two Transition Paths? (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2000); Kaser, M. The Economies of Kazakstan and Uzbekistan (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997). 89 Spechler, M. “Returning to Convertibility in Uzbekistan?” Journal of Policy Reform 6, no. 1 (March 2003): 51-6. 90 Bartlett, D. “Economic Recentralization in Uzbekistan”, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 42, no. 2 (March 2000): 105-21; Yalcin, R. The Rebirth of Uzbekistan, pp. 179-233. 91 Jowitt, K. “An Organizational Approach to the Study of Political Culture in Marxist-Leninist Systems”, American Political Science Review 68, no. 3 (September 1974): 1171-91. 86

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levels of the Uzbek polity and it now manifested in the mobilization of civil society, which demanded not only nationality rights but also human rights, religious autonomy and very soon political democracy. The last of these demands directly informed claims for sovereignty and political independence that were soon satisfied on the ground. So the first cycle itself began not with mobilization but with consolidation, even though it was not preceded by a phase of enforced conformance as in the Khrushchevian prototype. Then that consolidation phase was followed by one of conformance even though this in turn was not preceded by one of mobilization as under Khrushchev. Consequently, just after Gorbachev's arrival on the scene, the situation in Uzbekistan represented an attempt to install an artificial public sphere upon the community, in turn upon the back of an ongoing attempt to consolidate Uzbekistan's organized officialdom along Moscow's preferred lines via the “cotton affair” purges. When civil society finally mobilized not long thereafter, in the late 1980s, public sentiment exploded into mass dissent and unrest. Because of the purges, the mid-level regime-sector institutions of governance were unable to administer any effective brakes on the movement. The republic's elite rode that mass discontent to sovereignty and independence, in which direction they were anyway headed. After the disappearance of breathing space for civil society provided by intra-elite conflict between Karimov and Mirsaidov, the mass mobilization that had occurred from 1989 to 1991 was quickly extinguished. The late Soviet-era purges had nearly eviscerated the regime sector of governance, and Karimov himself had no political machine. Consequently, under conditions of independence, he found the state apparatus to be mainly unmanageable. The unavailability of administrative means for governance of civil society made the recourse to coercion by intensive and extensive physical force a very appealing alternative. Karimov did not resist. A period of enforced conformance of the public sphere followed the earlier mobilization of civil society, now along the lines of the Khrushchev-era template, but with much greater intensity. However, when that civil-society mobilization continued after independence, it became very threatening to the republic's newly independent elite. As a result, in 1992-93 there was a massive crackdown that we could call a phase of conformance in the public sphere, except for the fact that the inefficiency of bureaucratic-administrative controls led very quickly to the reliance upon physical coercion as the principal means for restraining civil society's political claims. The period since 1994 has been an extended phase of the consolidation of organized officialdom, of the elite's dominance of the community through it and of Karimov's dominance of the elite.92 Prospects for de-authoritarization Table 1 offered, as one criterion of de-authoritarization, the degree to which new members may be co-opted into the authoritarian elite in the long run. As suggested above, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The comparative study of de-authoritarization permits additional facilitating circumstances to be enumerated according to a three-stage process. First, the domestic anti-authoritarian mobilization, however modest it may be at the start, requires support from at least some segments of the international community and international public opinion. This international support is necessary in order to overcome the danger of regression into the “spiral of silence”,93 denoting the hypothesis that political quiescence arises out of the psychological fear of rejection, which leads to the avoidance of 92 March, A. “From Leninism to Karimovism: Hegemony, Ideology, and Authoritarian Legitimation”, PostSoviet Affairs 19, no. 4 (October 2003): 307-36. 93 Noelle-Neumann, E. The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion, Our Social Skin, 2nd ed. (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1993).


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unorthodox views, which at the same time the media in turn exclude more and more from circulation. If, on the other hand, support from the international community and international public opinion are forthcoming, then it is necessary, second, for political gatekeepers in the authoritarian state to enter into dialogue with representatives of nascent civil society inside the country insofar as these are present. On that basis, third and finally, differentiation becomes possible between bottom-up social and political behaviour on the one hand and, on the other hand, such behaviour as is normatively mandated from the top down. That differentiation marks the birth of civil society. (The degree to which such civil society exists in Uzbekistan or elsewhere in Central Asia is a matter for empirical study.) An authoritarian leadership has ways to short-circuit such a development. In particular, it may offer the weaker amongst its possible civil-society interlocutors inside the country, the privilege of sharing a little power, in exchange for their co-operation in repressing the stronger civil-society interlocutors, whom it invites the weaker to identify as a common adversary. Such a dynamic in fact characterizes much of the history of the North African countries, and the Maghreb in particular. It has been called the strategy of “dangerous alliances”:94 it is “dangerous” for the politically weaker elements of nascent civil society to make such an “alliance” with authoritarian power, because they thereby provide the latter a credibility it would not otherwise enjoy. Such credibility in turn greatly facilitates an authoritarian program of transforming the state organization into a monolithic apparatus, eradicating any extant pluralist public sphere including independent media, destroying any restraining checks and balances and monopolizing discourse in the public sphere. The stabilization and easier maintenance of such a system, which already characterizes Uzbekistan, is precisely the danger posed by the controlled parliamentary elections of December 2004. It follows that a key catalyst for a progressive de-authoritarian dynamic to take hold, concerns the perceptions and predispositions of the leadership of the authoritarian regime regarding their political strategies and relations with the dissidents. Segments of the present-day Uzbekistani elite know that the current situation in the country is sub-optimal and that the present command-administrative system needs to be changed; however, they are at a loss to figure out how to dismantle the old system and replace it with something else.95 The potential self-interest of middle-level officials creates an important motive in favour of satisfying popular demands. Nevertheless, after over a decade of administrative “reform” in Uzbekistan, the local officials in general lack the clan connections necessary for good performance.96 To the degree that they enjoy such local clan connections, they are whipsawed between the local demands and their patron-client ties to Karimov.97 Few if any non-state organizations participate in policy on the mass-public (i.e., “community sector”) level. It may be argued that the institution of the mahalla offers a potential to accustom citizens to local-level (if not fully democratic) political participation. However, the mahalla is an institution of traditional culture, and relations within it are regulated by normative hierarchical order and even a few elements of customary law. This makes it nevertheless a 94

Garon, L. Le silence tunisien: les alliances dangereuses au Maghreb (Paris: Harmattan, 1998). Kandinov, W. “The New Elite in Post-Communist Uzbekistan”, in Shlapentokh, Vanderpool, and Doktorov (eds.), The New Elite in Post-Communist Eastern Europe, pp. 162-78. 96 Collins, K. “The Political Role of Clans in Central Asia”, Comparative Politics 35, no. 2 (January 2003): 171-90; Vaisman, D. “Regionalism and Clan Loyalty in the Political Life of Uzbekistan”, in Ro'i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia, pp. 105-21. 97 Melvin, N. “Patterns of Centre-Regional Relations in Central Asia: The Cases of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan”, Regional and Federal Studies 11, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 165-93; Daria Fane, “Ethnicity and Regionalism in Uzbekistan: Maintaining Stability through Authoritarian Control”, in Leokadia Drobizheva et al. (eds.), Ethnic Conflict in the Post-Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 271-302. 95

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political institution even if it does not have direct administrative relations with the state as such.98 New banking regulation restrictions on cash-flow accounting have caused many domestic NGOs dependent on external funding to fold up shop. Almost the only quasiNGOs left are government-organized (hence the acronym “GONGO”). Recent research suggests that these do not operate on democratic bases and are not the best incubators of democratic culture.99 The happy ending typifying such countries as Hungary, Poland or Germany is not preordained. Parts of the former Soviet and Yugoslav territories illustrate the unhappy alternative, where rising nationalism promotes conflicts and even ethnic cleansing. (In North Africa,100 other “logics” of cleansing–such as by religion, sex or political opinion– have characterized Algeria and Tunisia.)101 For a tipping point to be decisive, two factors must come together in a manner that is hard to plan. These are the organization of antiauthoritarian dissent inside the country and the organization of a lobbying movement outside the country. On the basis of the Maghreb and East Central European experiences, it seems clear that the long-term activity of networks of dissidents on the ground both inside and outside the country is another necessary condition of de-authoritarization. (The failure of democratic reforms in Algeria after the fall of the single-party regime, for example, may be explained by the absence of pressure from an international support network: the latter did not exist.) The temporary construction of an “alternative” public sphere outside the country can represent an effective long-term solution to the problem of closure of the public sphere inside the country. The fact that the networking of international support is part and parcel of this process does not necessarily mean that a Georgian/Ukrainian scenario is the most likely future for Uzbekistan.102 Cross-border and transnational influences appear to account for the halt and even reversal of de-authoritarization by demobilizing civil society. One of the most important influences is the isolation of dissident exiles within the international public sphere and international public opinion. Such isolation allows the propaganda of the authoritarian state to neutralize every critical expression. When the authoritarian state's propaganda floods the international public sphere, it can succeed in transforming domestic dissidents into threats to law and public order. Authoritarian leaders take advantage not only of the submission of domestic civil society to their coercion but also, on the international level, of docile partners. By relaying the authoritarian state's propaganda into the domestic public spheres of such countries, the international community can end up providing the authoritarian elite with a significant margin of manoeuvre, through which the latter consolidates its legitimacy both domestically and internationally. Such a development renders subsequent deauthoritarization, let alone “democratic transition”, more problematic. In respect of Uzbekistan, one political myth may be of use if a means can be found to propagate and implement it: the Jadidist tradition, a reformist branch of Islam that 98 Tookey, D. “The Mahalla Associations of Uzbekistan: Catalysts for Environmental Protection?” Helsinki Monitor 15, no. 3 (2004): 160-70. 99 Abidjanov, A. and Adams, L. “GONGOs in Uzbekistan and the Development of Civil Society” (Paper presented to Fifth Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Bloomington, Ind., 14-17 October 2004);. Farmer, A.M and Farmer, A.A. “Developing Sustainability: Environmental NonGovernmental Organizations in Former Soviet Central Asia”, Sustainable Development 9, no. 3 (July 2001): 136-48. 100 Jones Luong, P. “The Middle Easternization of Central Asia”, Current History 103, no. 10 (October 2003): 333-40. 101 Garon, L. Le silence tunisien: les alliance dangereuses au Maghreb; L. Sadiki, “Political Liberalization in Bin Ali's Tunisia: Façade Democracy”, Democratization 9, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 122-41. 102 Garon, L. and Cutler, R. “Expliquer les faillites des mouvements démocratisateurs: la trahison des clercscandidats” (Paper presented to the XVIIIth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Quebec City, Que., 1-6 August 2000).


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existed especially amongst the Bukharan intellectuals and found sympathy amongst the progressive social strata in Central Asia about a century ago.103 A revival of this could provide an ideological basis for a liberal-participant type of citizenship. The problem is that the political and cultural regionalization of the country104 leaves it unclear how far such a myth would travel even if it could be revivified.105 Also, the growing popularity of Jadidism amongst intellectuals and academia is to a degree supported by the regime for its own legitimation through the favourable rewriting of Uzbek national history. In addition, independent Uzbekistan has not done well in creating the socio-economic strata that would be susceptible to subscribe to any particular Jadidist revival, state-sponsored or not.106 A nascent public sphere emerging from a network of civil organizations is capable of modifying relations between the elite and community sectors of the political system (i.e., leaders and led). An authoritarian leadership may in fact share some power under such circumstances so as to preserve a minimum of consensus around its governance, but it will do so only when the alternative of repression is perceived to carry an unacceptable political cost.107 The spiral of silence ensuing from repression becomes reversible only by international protests and publicity. As the Soviet experience from 1953 to 1991 shows, even nuances such as strong diplomatic pressure not to eliminate the dissidents physically or imprison them, can have significant results in the long run. Yet in both the Maghreb and East Central Europe, public freedoms have been attained only under pressure from civil society. In the Arab world, democratic transitions decreed from the top down have in the past lasted little longer than the time it takes to pronounce the slogan “democratic transition”. Success over longer periods–beginning, for example, in the 1930s in the case of Morocco–comes only when civil liberties have been acquired slowly and consolidated through the process of differentiation, as described above. Morocco as well as communist Poland shows how political pluralism can survive and develop even without democratic reforms. Yet it can do so only if civil society succeeds in mobilizing an organizational infrastructure inside the country while also creating a support network abroad. The influence that such a development may have in Uzbekistan will depend in part upon the degree to which the state has been “patrimonialized” under Karimov versus the degree to which it retains from the Soviet period any inherited bureaucratic-authoritarian structures that might still assist in regulating political competition and a marketizing economy during some future de-authoritarizing period of Uzbekistan's political system.

103

Khalid, A. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998); Anita Sengupta, “Imperatives of National Territorial Delimitation and the Fate of Bukhara, 1917-1924”, Central Asian Survey 19, nos. 3-4 (September 2000): 394-415; Babadjanov, B. “Official Islam versus Political Islam in Uzbekistan Today: The Muslim Directorate and Non-Hanafi Groups”, Revue d'Études Comparatives Est-Ouest 31, no. 3 (September 2000): 151-64. 104 Carlisle, “Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks”; Carlisle, “Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and Its Neighbours”. 105 Khalid, A. “A Secular Islam: Nation, State, and Religion in Uzbekistan”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 35, no. 4 (November 2003): 573-98. 106 Richard H. Rowland, “Urban Growth in Uzbekistan during the 1990s”, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 42, no. 2 (June 2001): 266-304; Akimov, A. “Population Dynamics in Central Asia and Adjacent Countries from 1960 to 2020”, in Zhang, Y. and Azizian, R. (eds.), Ethnic Challenges Beyond Borders: Chinese and Russian Perspectives of the Central Asian Conundrum (London: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 123-44; Reuel R. Hanks, “Emerging Spatial Patterns of the Demographics, Labour Force and FDI in Uzbekistan”, Central Asian Survey, 19, nos. 3-4 (September-December 2000): 351-66. 107 Apter, D. Ghana in Transition, rev. ed. (New York: Atheneum, 1963), pp. 273-90; Apter, Choice and the Politics of Allocation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971).


Part III Economic Reform and Social Security



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Growth Accounting for Eight Eurasian Economies: Factors Differentiating Future Prospects from Soviet and Transition Experience Michael KASER Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and European Research Centre, University of Birmingham Abstract. After the ‘extensive’ growth which the five Central Asian and three Caucasus economies of the USSR had experienced in the 1970s and the first part of the 1980s – that is expanding economic activity by increments to capital and to labour rather than by improving factor productivity (which was in five of the countries negative) – the eight states suffered adversely from the break-up of the Soviet Union. Measured GDP exaggerated that decline because the ‘shadow economy’, which had been relatively small in the Soviet period, greatly expanded everywhere during the 1990s. Recovery from that recession is examined both through the prism of total factor productivity and the influence of increased openness to trade and to the inflow of foreign investment.

Data for Growth Accounting The identification of the contributors to economic growth and their use to derive trends in aggregate economic activity both for historical analysis and for projections into a mediumterm future requires the collection of statistics which reflect reality. Time series for two inputs – net increments in labour and capital – and one output – gross domestic product – are the prime requirement, but if meaningful interpretation of total factor productivity (output changes not directly attributable to inputs of labour and/or capital) is to be made, data must be found on conditions affecting the return to labour and capital, such as the provision of education, of health care and of incentives to work, innovation and entrepreneurship. Information must be available to evaluate the country’s quantitative and qualitative circumstances, notably the initial conditions when the time series begins, how at each date the relationships are endogenously affected by the previous condition (path dependency) and the impact of exogenous shocks, of which a political example would be revolution and an economic one a substantial change in the terms of trade. Unlike in developed industrial economies, statistical collection, aggregation and publication in the eight countries under review which formed part of the USSR until the end of 1991 – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – had formed part of a central-planning system. Reporting or sampled entities in the main then generated statistics relating to plan targets or indicators and were in the format required by planning authorities. Only towards the end of the Soviet period were state-owned enterprises (the dominant production sector) encouraged to operate on autonomous finance and hence to evaluate their operations with measures similar to those used in market economies. A contemporary volume devoted to Soviet

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statistics surveyed the shortcomings of the system, among which was the overstatement of industrial growth occasioned by the conversion of produced quantities into 1967 wholesale prices in the period considered in this paper.1 The ‘partocracy’ which governed the country until the end of 1991 was not averse to publishing statistics which overstated growth, though the termination of practices linked to central planning was motivated by the fundamental policy switch towards a market economy. Five major developments affected statistics for growth accounting. The most important took place on 2 January 1992 when, in pursuance of a programme determined the previous October, the government of the Russian Federation liberalized all wholesale and retail prices, save for those of energy (an exception later regarded as an error) as well as foreign trade. The Soviet rouble remained the currency of the newly-established Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) until each member adopted its own unit (in 1993, except that Ukraine changed in 1992 and Tajikistan delayed until 1996) and none could hence maintain the extensive price control of the Soviet period. Some comparisons are made below with Mongolia which had followed Soviet-type planning since the Second World War and which dismantled at about the same time as neighbouring Soviet republics: in the case of prices, most were liberalized in January 1991 and the rest were decontrolled in two stages in March and September 1992. Despite some continuing subsidization in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, price decontrol in all eight states released a period of hyperinflation, mainly due to supply rigidities as ‘state orders’ were abandoned to enterprises which often exercised local monopoly power, but also due to unfamiliarity with market practice. Given the volatility of relative prices during rapid inflation and the accompanying disorderly depreciation of exchange rates, factor productivities estimated during the 1990s were unlikely to remain valid for subsequent periods. Secondly, the interpretation of long-run trends of growth-accounting relationships of the post-Soviet decade is vitiated because of the severe recession in all republics during the first half of the 1990s, and hence capital equipment was under-utilized and employed labour was under-occupied. Thirdly, market mechanisms were only gradually put in place and were not introduced at all in Turkmenistan. As Table 1 shows, the ‘transition indicators’ compiled by the EBRD reflected a full transition to market mechanisms in none of the eight ‘states of operation’. 2 A simple averaging of the indicators suggest that the three Caucasian economies, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic had by mid-2004 progressed in step with each other, at least in the territory controlled by the central government, i.e. excluding Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan, all of which would probably rank lower.3 Tajikistan ranked next, with its separatist Badakshan likely to have ranked higher than the main part of the country. The authoritarian regimes of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan allowed their economies little movement towards liberalization. Fourthly, the Soviet statistical service enlarged the production boundary for economic activity in 1988 (see the last annual abstract of the Soviet period),4 from net material product to gross domestic product, thereby adding services previously adjudged ‘non-productive’ (which, in a Marxian context, were remunerated from the income of the sectors generating physical goods and closely-associated services such as transport). The

1

Treml, V. G. and J. P. Hardt, eds. Soviet Economic Statistics. Durham NC: Duke University Press. 1972. EBRD Transition Report. London: EBRD. 2004. As noted below (note 41), the World Bank in 2000 estimated that the reunion of Nagorno-Karabakh would add 5 per cent to Azerbaijan GDP. 4 Goskomstat, Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1989g. statistichesky ezhegodnik. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika. 1990. p. 696 2 3


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change had not extended to the statistical services of the USSR and of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) by the time each disappeared.5 Finally, quantitative comparison in the post-Soviet period is limited by the reluctance of some governments to publish economic data and by their reversion to the old Soviet practice of publishing statistics which give more favourable values than representatives of international organizations judge realistic. Turkmenistan shows up worst on this count. The CIS statistical yearbook for 2003 thus gives few statistics beyond 1996, or at most 1998.6 Further, GDP in 2003 was, for example, officially reported as 23.1 per cent above the previous year, which in turn was reported as a 21.2 per cent over 2001: the EBRD estimated respective increments of 11.4 and 5.1 per cent as realistic. Table 1. EBRD Transition Indicators in 2004 Country Enterprises Markets Finance Infrastructure Average Armenia 3+ 4 2+ 4+ 4+ 2 2+ 2 2 3 Azerbaijan 2 4- 2+ 4 4- 2 2+ 223Georgia 3+ 4 2 4+ 4+ 2 3- 22+ 3 Kazakhstan 3 4 2 4 3+ 2 3 2+ 2+ 3 Kyrgyz Rep. 4- 4 2 4+ 4+ 2 3 2+ 23 Tajikistan 2+ 4- 24- 3+ 22- 1 1+ 2+ Turkmenistan 1 2 1 3- 1 1 1 1 1 1+ Uzbekistan 3- 3 23- 2- 22- 2 22 Average 3- 4- 24- 3+ 2 2+ 22 3Source: ERBD 2004, Table 1.17 Notes: The indicators by column under each head are: Enterprises: Large-scale privatisation; Small-scale privatisation; Governance and enterprise restructuring Markets: Price liberalization; Trade and foreign-exchange system; Competition policy Finance: Banking reform and interest-rate liberalization; Securities markets and non-bank financial institutions Infrastructure: Infrastructure reform Average: arithmetical average of one point per grade from 1 for 1 to 11 for 4+

These many caveats are additional to well-known problems for comparisons among market economies of the outcomes of economic activities. Much has been accomplished by the international standardization of articulated national accounts by the United Nations and the OEEC/OECD, and the application of cross-country comparison by conversion at purchasing-power parity exchange rates, generally to the equivalent of what a dollar would buy in the United States. National accounts do not identify changes in national wealth effected negatively by environmental damage or positively by the diversion of resources to environmental repair. Such changes have been significant in Central Asia, as exemplified in the desiccation of the Aral Sea, the salination of irrigated plantations, and oil and sulphur dispersal in the Caspian region. Growth during the last two Soviet Decades It may be argued that the period 1965-1985 was the most ‘normal’ for Soviet central planning. Until Stalin’s death, the Five-year Plans were accompanied by mass imprisonment and death to implement his autocracy and to coerce new economic institutions (such as the collectivisation of Ukrainian farmers and Kazakh nomadic herdsmen in the 1930s), while Khrushchev (1953-64) re-arranged economic institutions 5

SEV Secretariat Statistichesky ezhegodnik stran-chlenov SEV, Moscow: Finansy i Statistika. 1990. p. 5 CIS Commonwealth of Independent States in 2003: Statistical Yearbook. Moscow: Statkomitet SNG. 2004. 7 EBRD. 2004. Transition Report. London: EBRD. 6

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with disturbing frequency. Kosygin’s restoration of the ‘industrial ministries’, below which state enterprises were managed with more rational and consistent targets within Brezhnev’s political ‘stagnation’ of 1965-1982 provided a stable economic environment into which Gorbachev’s (1985-91) perestroika brought some elements of market practice. The wholesale price lists introduced in 1967, while still serving as predetermined parameters to measure variables in physical units, were more similar to cost-relativities than had any price-structure since the application of the ‘constant prices’ of 1926/27. Soviet growth policy remained, nevertheless, as ‘extensive’ as it had always been, that is, generating centrally-chosen economic activity by increments of labour and capital, instead of an ‘intensive’ growth’, achieved by improving productivity. Table 2 shows annual rates of change in the eight Union republics of capital per worker over 1970-1990 and Table 3 shows the corresponding changes in total factor productivity in generating net material product (NMP). Table 2. Capital in NMP per Worker: Annual Percentage Change during 1970-90 Industry Agriculture Transport Construction Trade Armenia 3.8 5.7 6.1 4.0 5.4 Azerbaijan 3.4 4.4 4.8 6.1 4.5 Georgia 4.7 6.1 4.4 4.2 3.7 Kazakhstan 5.2 4.9 4.3 5.5 4.0 Kyrgyz Rep. 4.8 3.6 5.2 4.0 4.7 Tajikistan 5.0 2.8 3.3 4.2 2.2 Turkmenistan 6.0 2.9 7.5 4.7 4.3 Uzbekistan 4.2 4.8 5.3 4.0 4.9 Source: Easterly, W. and S. Fischer (1992)8

Total 4.0 3.4 4.0 4.5 3.6 3.3 4.3 4.1

Table 3. Total Factor Productivity in NMP: Annual Percentage Change during 1970-90 Industry Agriculture Transport Construction Trade Total Armenia 1.8 -3.1 2.8 1.1 0.4 1.8 Azerbaijan 2.5 0.1 -1.2 0.3 -0.2 1.4 Georgia 2.6 0.1 1.3 0.3 1.0 2.3 Kazakhstan -1.5 -6.4 0.2 -0.3 -1.2 -1.1 Kyrgyz Rep. 1.1 -3.9 1.7 -0.2 -0.7 0.2 Tajikistan -0.3 -2.9 1.8 -1.1 0.9 -0.4 Turkmenistan -3.0 -4.0 -2.1 -0.3 -0.3 -2.0 Uzbekistan 0.5 -3.7 0.6 -0.6 -0.1 -0.4 Source: Easterly, W. and S. Fischer (1992)7

Over those twenty years, inputs of both labour and capital continued at typically Soviet ‘extensive’ rates – the labour inflow being favoured by high demographic expansion, by then already slowing in the Slavic republics and falling in the Baltic republics. Investment throughout each of the eight economies increased capital per worker at the remarkably high rate of 4 per cent annually, but in only four was this accompanied by a productivity gain. Four Central Asian republics demonstrated actual decline in total factor productivity and the Kyrgyz Republic showed little change. By contrast, the three Caucasus republics experienced the highest productivity gains of the Union, equalled only by Belarus (2.2 per cent annual increment). The productivity declines in Central Asian agriculture were 8 Easterly, W. and S. Fischer. ‘Growth prospects for the ex-Soviet Republics: Lessons from historical experience’, paper given to the Tenth Congress of the International Economic Association, Moscow, August 1992 [a revised version was published under the same title in Aganbegyan, A. Bogomolov, Oleg and Kaser, M. eds. Economics in a Changing World: vol. 1, System Transformation: Eastern and Western Assessments. London: Macmillan. 1994. pp. 59-86, with the statistics shown as bar diagrams]


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serious, due significantly to the expansion of the cotton area into marginal land which involved substantial investment in irrigation, and a subsequent wasteful utilization of water; the yield per hectare of raw cotton declined in all five republics, though it was partly offset by increasing the planted area of fine-staple varieties, the yields of which increased. Construction and trade in Central Asia showed negative factor productivity, whereas, Azerbaijan’s trade excepted, the Caucasus republics showed gains. Central Asian industrialization yielded poor returns in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Despite equipping each worker in industry with proportionately more new capital than in the Caucasus republics (though not better than the Slav or Baltic republics) productivity growth was poor or negative in those three states. This variant experience was at least partly due to differential changes in the industrial product-mix. As Table 4 shows, these three republics exhibited much more rapid growth in consumer goods or light industry, whose prices were lower than those of intermediate or heavy industry. Table 4. Production of consumer goods, 1970-86 (percentage increments of output in physical units) Mn sq. m textiles Mn pieces of knitwear Mn pairs of footwear Kazakhstan 311 67 17 Kyrgyzstan 246 18 13 Tajikistan 54 127 62 Turkmenistan 107 65 38 Russia 19 28 5 USSR 39 44 18 Source: Goskomstat (1990)9

This price divergence can help to explain the contrasting Kyrgyz experience, where less capital added per industrial worker than the average for the region or for the USSR as a whole, yielded 1.1 per cent annual productivity growth, the mean for the entire Union, and better than Russia. Almost certainly this may be attributed to the installation of defence industry plants in Kyrgyzstan (strategically far from NATO borders) and the drafting in of trained Slav workers: by the 1989 Census, 20 per cent of residents of the Kyrgyz Republic were Russians. The increment in textile output is due the production of cloth for military uniforms; almost the entire Soviet requirements were supplied by that republic and at higher prices than for civilian textiles. The boom ended with the sharp reduction in defence spending when the 15 republics broke loose. By 1995 one in five of the Russians in Kyrgyzstan had returned to Russia, a larger proportion than in neighbouring Kazakhstan, where one in ten of the 1989 population (37 per cent Russian) emigrated. The initial stock and growth of human capital was positively correlated with productivity. Georgia and Armenia, which exhibited the greatest productivity gains, had the highest share of higher education graduates in the labour force in the Union, while Azerbaijan was middle-ranking on both variables, but better than the showing of the smaller Central Asian republics, which had (with Moldova) the lowest higher-educated share. By the 1970s Kazakhs ranked fifth among Soviet nationalities as ‘highly-educated’,10 partly attributable to the establishment of space programmes in the Republic: by 1989 there were 55 higher education institutes in Kazakhstan and 44 in Uzbekistan, but only 28 in the three other Central Asian republics together.11 Georgia and Armenia, with respectively 19

9

Goskomstat, Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR za 70 let yubileiny statistichesky ezhegodnik. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika.1987. pp. 189-91. 10 Lane D. The End of Inequality? Stratification under State Socialism. Penguin Books. 1971. p. 95. 11 Goskomstat. Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1989g. statistichesky ezhegodnik. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika. 1990. p. 202.

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and 13 institutes, exported some of their well-trained labour to other republics (three of Moscow institutes’ top economists in the 1950s and 1960s were Armenians). A useful comparison may be made with Mongolia during the closing period of a Soviet-type economy: the writer can draw upon visits to the State Planning Commission in Ulaanbaatar in 1981 and 1988 first to confirm the correspondence of its system with that of the Central Asian republics,12 and secondly to perceive, as does Cheng,13 that a later start than the USSR to industrialization indicates 1980 as a suitable beginning point. It may also be argued that the 1970s were abnormal, as the economy readjusted after the expulsion of Chinese workers and technicians following the Soviet break with China in 1961. Cheng’s results are summarized in Table 5. Just as in the developing Soviet republics substantial inputs of capital (and in the second half of the 1980s of labour) were accompanied by negative total factor productivity (TFP). The order of magnitude of that productivity decline was similar to that of Turkmenistan (Table 3). Table 5. Contributions to GDP Growth in Mongolia (percentage changes) 1980-84 GDP growth 7.11 Contribution of capital 7.34 Contribution of labour 0.50 Contribution of education 0.43 Contribution of TFP -1.17 12 Source: Cheng, K. C. (2003)

1985-89 5.51 4.98 2.08 0.43 -1.98

The post-1990 Recession

The external trade of all eight states at the time of the Soviet break-up in December 1991 was (and for decades had been) overwhelmingly with states equivalently involved in the change from central planning to a market economy. Four were already affected by conflict –Armenia and Azerbaijan had been in conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh since February 1988, the Georgian government had been confronted by armed separatism in Abkhazia since February 1989 and with South Ossetia since December 1989 and a thousand were reportedly killed in ethnic clashes in the Kyrgyz Republic in June 1990 – and Tajikistan would be involved in five years of civil war starting in May 1992. All shared the initial conditions of a command economy (which were permeated with fewer market influences than most other communist regimes) and had to establish the infrastructure for independence, a process made less disruptive because each of the ruling communist parties retained tight political control under a mere change of name. The latter process took place at the expense of democratization, favouring a statist rather than a market-competitive economic system. On the one hand, release from the supervision associated with Communist Party control of all public organizations permitted the formation of a broader civil society, the traditional roots of which had persisted during Soviet times (as Morozova’s chapter in this volume shows), such as the mahalla system in Uzbekistan. On the other hand, corruption and clan affiliations (discussed by Geiss in this volume) became much more pervasive than in Soviet times, hindering economic stabilization. 12 Kaser, M. ‘The industrial revolution in Mongolia’. The World Today. vol. 38, 1982. pp. 12-17; Kaser, M. ‘Economic developments’, in Akiner, S. (ed.) Mongolia Today. London: Kegan Paul. 1991. pp. 94-122; Kaser, M. ‘Mongolia’ in I. Jeffries (ed.) Industrial Reform in Socialist Countries: From Restructuring to Revolution. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 1992. pp. 166-76 13 Cheng, K. C. (2003) Growth and Recovery in Mongolia during Transition. IMF Working Paper no. 03/217 Washington DC: IMF.


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Among economic conditions for the recession, part of the national capital stock became disused as obsolete or uncompetitive, or was not redeployed to uses indicated by the new market conditions. The latter failure was due to cumbersome (or delayed) privatisation, in contrast to the situation in Central Europe, notably in Poland where liquidation helped the redistribution of machinery and equipment among new entrepreneurs, thereby shortening the period of recovery. Unemployment, scarcely known in the Soviet system, rose as labour requirements fell. Table 6 sets out some key indicators of the time-scale of GDP decline and recovery. Armenia and Mongolia, which had by 2004 moved furthest along the path to a full market economy, were those which had the shortest period of recession, three years each (this was also the average for Central and East Europe and the Baltic States); those which had the longest declines, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, have made the least progress towards the market, measured on the transition indicators of Table 1. Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic had the same number of years of decline as Uzbekistan, but, each ruled by a somewhat less autocratic leader, have reached the average marketization of the region. A shorter time in recession by definition allowed more time for structural reform, but the severity of the recession seems to have influenced governmental determination to change, at least in the cases of Armenia and Azerbaijan. By contrast, Mongolia which moved more quickly to a market economy (as well as towards democracy) endured the smallest, as well as the shortest recession. Table 6. Cumulative Percentage GDP Change before and after Initial Recovery (IR) and Years of Decline 1990-2001 Decline to IR Growth from IR Years decline to IR Period change Armenia -64.3 +58.8 3 -43.3 Azerbaijan -58.2 +53.3 5 -35.9 Georgia -72.5 +41.5 4 -61.0 Kazakhstan -38.6 +28.0 5 -21.5 Kyrgyz Rep. -49.1 +38.1 5 -29.7 Mongolia -20.3 +26.4 3 +0.7 Tajikistan -61.4 +32.5 6 -48.8 Turkmenistan -60.0 +15.4 7 -8.6 Uzbekistan -18.0 +22.9 5 +0.8 Source: Cheng, K. C. (2003)14

14

Cheng, K. C. (2003) Growth and Recovery in Mongolia during Transition. IMF Working Paper no. 03/217 Washington DC: IMF. Appendix Table 4.

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Table 7. Index numbers of GDP, Fixed Capital Formation and Employment (1990=100) GDP Capital formation Employment Lowest 2002 Lowest 2002 Lowest 2002 Armenia 46.8 (1993) 83.9 7.9 (1993) 8.1 77.6 (2001) 78.6 Azerbaijan 41.9 (1995) 71.5 35.8 (1993) .. 97.5 (1995) 100.6 Georgia 27.6 (1994) 41.5 18.5 (1993) .. 62.7 (1995) 66.6 Kazakhstan 61.4 (1995) 86.4 17.8 (1998) 28.6 78.2 (1999) 86.0 Kyrgyz Republic 50.7 (1995) 70.1 34.0 (1998) 50.3 93.9 (1995) 103.8 Mongolia 79.7 (1993) 104.7 26.7 (1992) 95.1 97.0 (1994) 111.1 Tajikistan 29.7 (1996) 43.2 .. .. 89.2 (1996) 95.8 Turkmenistan 59.6 (1997) 96.4 .. .. -b 125.0 a Uzbekistan 81.1 (1995) 107.2 50.0 (1994) 81.0 -b 122.4 Source: UN ECE( 2002, 2004),15, 16 Cheng, K. C. (2003),17 ; ADB (2004),18 CIS (2004)19 a 2001 b Employment did not decline within the period Note: In the light of the disturbed conditions of the period and the difficulties of statistical data collection, all figures (which, unless otherwise noted, are from the ECE Common Database for 19902002) should be interpreted with caution. Moreover, some are linked to the ECE series by other estimates and hence subject to further caution. The three series on Mongolia are from Cheng,16 extended to 2002 from the ADB (2004) report,17 the series which is of gross domestic capital formation (GDCF) and hence includes change in inventories; the GDP deflator it reports was applied to the current-priced values. The ECE series for gross fixed capital formation in Azerbaijan starts in 1992 and was spliced to a 1990 base by the estimates for that year and that for Georgia ends in 1995; that for Uzbekistan is from the graph in Schneider and Klinglmair (2004)20 which shows more years than in the CIS data.21

Table 7 sets out estimates of the two physical inputs, capital formation and employment, and the standard measure of output, GDP, in index numbers based on 1990, the last full year of the Soviet Union. For some republics output in 1989 was higher and might hence be chosen as a more ‘normal’ year, but for others output was then lower; 1990 was preferred because the UN ECE index numbers for capital and employment were mostly based on that year. The table also shows that the nadir for GDP was 1993-95 for all but two countries. Of the latter Tajikistan gained peace from its civil war only in 1997, its production understandably bottoming-out, while the state control and ownership maintained in Turkmenistan kept output relatively high throughout the 1990s. The capital formation series exhibits the principal characteristic of the recession. With no series in real terms available for Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, and the state-run system in Uzbekistan maintaining capital expenditure at least to half the 1990 level, the bottom for investment was in 1993 as low as 8 per cent of 1990 in Armenia and 36 per cent in Azerbaijan. In 1993 a peace plan was agreed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and NagornoKarabakh, though it did not become a definitive cease-fire agreement until July 1994; the war made 1993 the nadir for investment in Azerbaijan. Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and the Kyrgyz Republic (in ascending order) showed low points between one-fifth and onethird of the 1990 level. Labour was not laid off to anything like the extent that investment was cut, partly because state-owned enterprises maintained staff as a social responsibility, and to deter general unrest, with many of the governments controlling these firms – a 15

UN ECE (2002) Economic Survey of Europe 2002, no. 2 Geneva: United Nations. UN ECE (2004) Economic Survey of Europe 2004, no. 2 (Geneva: United Nations). Tables B.1, B.3, B.5. 17 Cheng, K. C. Growth and Recovery in Mongolia during Transition IMF Working Paper no. 03/217 Washington DC: IMF. 2003. Appendix Table 3. 18 ADB (2004) Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries Manila: Asian Development Bank 19 CIS (2004) Commonwealth of Independent States in 2003: Statistical Yearbook Moscow: Statkomitet SNG 20 Schneider, F. and R. Klinglmair (2004) Shadow Economies around the World: What Do We Know? IZA Discussion Paper no. 1043 Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor. p. 193. 21 CIS (2000) Commonwealth of Independent States in 1999: Statistical Abstract. Moscow: Statkomitet SNG. p. 27; CIS (2004) Commonwealth of Independent States in 2003: Statistical Yearbook Moscow: Statkomitet SNG, p. 35. 16


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continuation of the Soviet-period communist parties. Privatization and the emergence of new businesses in the private sector absorbed much of the lay-offs as obsolete or uncompetitive plants were closed. In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan no fall in employment took place and the lowest to which employment fell in Azerbaijan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Mongolia was still above 90 per cent of the 1990 level. Factor Productivity The project which inspired this chapter, the Global Development Network (GDN) sponsored by the World Bank, quotes annual rates of change of total factor productivity (TFP) for six world regions in which market economies operate22 and which may hence be noted as exemplars as the Central Asian economies adopt market processes themselves. The first (summary) volume in the series shows that between 1960 and 1994 annual average productivity growth has been calculated for large regions within a range from –0.66 to +1.34 per cent. 23 Among these regions the group of industrially-developed countries showed positive increments, the values cited for 1960-94 on three variant calculations being +0.06, +0.25 and +1.1 per cent. Among many analyses for developed economies in the 1990s, the OECD 24 cites 15 publications relating to 11 developed countries: labour productivity contributions to growth rose between 1990-95 and 1995-2000 in six countries (from a mean of 1.7 per cent annually to 2.8 per cent); although the increments decelerated in the other cases, the unweighted average in 1995-2000 was still 2.4 per cent annually, to which cumulated other factor productivity contributions averaging 0.7 per cent annually for 1999-2000. Studies of the European transition economies show that their recovery, after the early-1990s recession, was predominantly due to similar efficiency gains. The source for studies of the CIS is Ofer and Pomfret,25 who cover all save Georgia and Azerbaijan (for which no national team could then be recruited). In Armenia Manasyan and Jrbashyan26 show that in the Soviet period TFP had improved from –0.14 annually in 1970-9 to +1.08 in 1980-89, but provide no quantitative estimate for the post-independence period. The IMF does not seem to have made specific calculations, but writes of its expectation of ‘continued investment in the tradable sector and high productivity growth’.27 Although the IMF does not appear to have undertaken any growth accounting on Azerbaijan, the government’s report on it emphasizes diversification away from current reliance on oil exports and on regional development to alleviate poverty, suggesting that productivity will not furnish substantial gains: 28 the data in Table 6 of much greater increments in investment and in employment than in GDP also imply negative factor productivity. Table 6 also shows for Georgia a rate of investment increase far outstripping that of GDP, at least to 1995, the last year for which ECE cites a figure, though of a decline in employment close to that of GDP. The IMF calculated on one assumption of the ratio of the capital stock to GDP three years of negative TFP (1999, 2000 and 2001) and one of 22

Soludo, C. and J. Kim, 'Sources of Aggregate Growth in Developing Regions: Still More Questions than Answers?' In McMahon, G. and L. Squire (eds) Explaining Growth: A Global Research Project. London: Palgrave. 2003. p. 43. 23 McMahon, G. and L. Squire (eds) Explaining Growth: A Global Research Project. London: Palgrave. 2003. 24 OECD (2003) Growth Performances in OECD Countries. Paris: OECD. Table 2.4. 25 Ofer, G. and R. Pomfret (eds) The Economic Prospects of the CIS: Sources of Long-Term Growth Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 2004. 26 Manasyan, H. and T. Jrbashyan (2004) ‘Explaining growth in Armenia: the pivotal role of human capital,’ in Ofer and Pomfret (2004), pp. 134-5. 27 IMF (2003) Republic of Armenia: Third Review under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility Washington DC: IMF. p. 9. 28 IMF (2003) Azerbaijan Republic: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Washington DC: IMF. p. 49.

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positive (+2.9 per cent in 2002) and on an alternative assumption, one of virtually zero (+0.1 in 1999), two years of negative (2000 and 2001) and one of positive TFP (+.5.5 in 2002).29 But another report was so scathing in its call for ‘addressing critical problems in the business climate such as corruption, inefficient financial intermediation, lack of security, inadequate infrastructure and shortcomings in the legal, regulatory and fiscal regimes’ that a positive trend can scarcely be expected. 30 One of the GDN papers, by Kalyuzhnova, Pemberton and Mukhamediyev, 31 exhibits for Kazakhstan a remarkable turnround in TFP in the mid-1990s: its contribution was –5.57 between 1991 and 1996, but +5.85 per cent annually between 1996 and 2001. The IMF considers that Kazakhstan has ‘potential for large long-run gains in productivity.’32 The paper on the Kyrgyz Republic by Mogilevsky and Hasanov33 furnishes the longest series in the GDN set as so far published: TFP in the Republic was negative at slightly above one per cent annually from 1971 to 1985, became positive in 1986-90 (+2.2), returned to a negative value in 1991-95 (-6.9), but regained a positive contribution (+2.6 per cent) in 1996-2000. The authors point out, however, that all the TFP gain was made in 1996, and that if that year were excluded, the 1997-2000 period would show no change in TFP. The IMF describes that period as one of ‘dismay and frustration’ leading to ‘realism and pragmatism’ for 2001 and attributes most of the expected 5 per cent GDP growth during 2003-06 to come from productivity gains.34 The IMF paper on Mongolia by Cheng offers estimates for the period 1990-2001 (Table 8), which conform to the pattern for the region’s transition economies, negative TFP during the first half of the 1990s, and modestly positive in the second half.35 Table 8. Contributions to GDP growth in Mongolia (percentage changes) 1990-94 1995-2001 GDP growth -4.99 +2.54 Contribution of capital -1.60 -0.03 Contribution of labour -0.24 +0.42 Contribution of education +0.43 +0.43 Contribution of TFP -3.58 1.72 Source: Cheng, K. C. (2003)34

The IMF points out that Tajikistan is ranked 124th out of 133 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index; 36 it endured civil war until 1997 and still shows a ‘slow pace of structural reform and … vulnerability to external shocks’, and the GDN paper by Umarov and Repkine stresses deindustrialization and mass emigration of skilled (Slavic) workers in the 1990s as likely to have generated negative TFP.37 Repkine’s GDN paper on Turkmenistan comes to similarly pessimistic conclusions 29

IMF (2003) Georgia: 2002 Article IV Consultation – Staff Report. Washington DC: IMF. p. 54. IMF (2003) Georgia: Joint Staff Assessment of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Washington DC: IMF. pp. 7-8. 31 Kalyuzhnova, Y. J. Pemberton and B. Mukhamediyev ‘Natural resources and economic growth in Kazakhstan’. In Ofer and Pomfret 2004. 32 IMF (2003) Republic of Kazakhstan: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix. Washington DC: IMF. p. 30. 33 Mogilevsky, R. and R. Hasanov. ‘Economic growth in Kyrgyzstan’. In Ofer and Pomfret (2004), pp. 22448. 34 IMF (2003) Kyrgyz Republic: 2002 Article IV Consultation, Second Review under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. Washington DC: IMF. pp. 6-12. 35 Cheng, K. C. (2003) Growth and Recovery in Mongolia during Transition. IMF Working Paper no. 03/217. Washington DC: IMF. 36 IMF (2003) Republic of Tajikistan: Second Review under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. Washington DC: IMF. pp. 11, 21. 37 Treml, V. G. and J. P. Hardt (eds) Soviet Economic Statistics. Durham NC: Duke University Press. 1972. 30


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for a country where the ‘government did disappointingly little in terms of implementing market reforms’ and financed ‘investments that produce little or no pay-off’.38 No TFP is calculated, but the large share of projects which, when completed, generate scant increment in economic activity (statues, fountains, ostentatious public buildings) imply a negative value. No IMF consultation has taken place since 1999. The Penumbra of Unmeasured Economic Activity By definition the value of unmeasured economic activity must be more difficult to compute than the measured activity embraced by GDP. But there is consensus that its ratio to measured GDP is greater in the states of this region than it was in their Soviet period and that for most countries it was at a peak in the 1990s. For the USSR as a whole in the 1980s the addition of the ‘shadow economy’ to measured GDP seems (in the absence of reliable contemporary estimates) to have been low, but it grew rapidly in the 1990s, as Table 9 shows. The share in Mongolia was estimated at about the same share as exhibited in the OECD countries, which Schneider and Klinglmair put at 16.7 per cent in 2001/02;39 but at the other extreme, Azerbaijan and Georgia are comparable only to Bolivia (67.1 per cent). The other states of the region are as afflicted as most African nations, the mean for which is 41 per cent. Criminal and illegal activity is not covered by these estimates, which concern those avoiding tax, undertaken as barter transactions or are otherwise concealed from the authorities. In analysing Armenia, Manasyan and Jrbashyan 40 describe developments in the aftermath of independence which exacerbated a shadow economy: measures taken to stabilize the economy, such as restrictive money issue and heavier taxation, overwhelmed the adjustment potential of economic agents; a vacuum of authority weakened accounting discipline and supervision; and a social environment of low incomes and high unemployment encouraged illicit transactions. As they note, the impact of those activities varied considerably by branch: in Armenia in the mid-1990s, when the estimates they cite for aggregate addition to GDP were between 31.6 and 44.4 per cent, the addition to value added in housing services was 79.7 per cent and in trade and catering was 75.8 per cent. In the other two states of the Southern Caucasus, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the weakening of state authority due to civil conflict and loss of any control over part of the territory must account for an extraordinarily high share of economic activities being generated outside the official purview. The IMF, in noting its estimate for 1999 that a peace agreement with Armenia would increase Azerbaijan’s exports by 11 per cent and raise its GDP by 5 per cent, now judges those ratios optimistic due to the destruction of infrastructure that occupation and conflict have caused.41 With respect to Georgia the IMF cites an estimate by the Georgian Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade of the shadow economy as being 34 per cent of the overall economy, and 60-70 per cent in tobacco products.42 It observes that ‘the extent of the shadow economy jeopardizes macroeconomic stability…represents an impediment for real sector growth…[and] touches all economic sectors’. Referring to corruption, ‘a major impediment to enforcing laws and 38

Repkine, A. ‘Turkmenistan: Economic autocracy and recent growth performance’ In Ofer and Pomfret (2004), pp.157, 172-3. Schneider, F. and R. Klinglmair. Shadow Economies around the World: What Do We Know? IZA Discussion Paper no. 1043. Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor. 2004. Table 13. 40 Manasyan, H. and T. Jrbashyan. ‘Explaining growth in Armenia: the pivotal role of human capital,’ in Ofer and Pomfret (2004), p. 143. 41 IMF (2005) Azerbaijan Republic: 2004 Article IV Consultation, Fourth Review under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. Washington DC: IMF. p. 18. 42 IMF (2003) Georgia: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Washington DC: IMF. p. 16. 39

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regulations…reducing corruption will increase the formal economy’, and noting an official Anti-Corruption Programme, it admits that ‘no visible accomplishments have been seen so far.’ Illumination of that ‘shadow’ into the tax-paying sector and a concomitant moderation of corrupt practices join with further structural reform as necessary conditions for rapid growth and integration into the world economy. Although the ‘shadow economy’ is not corruption (see the chapter by Imanov in this volume), manifestations of it are often protected by corruption. Another factor influencing the size of the ‘shadow economy’ is the relative value of migrants’ remittances (substantial into the Caucasus states and Tajikistan) because much of the funds not used for household consumption are directed into small businesses and many may well escape official taxation and measurement. The issue for the measurement of TFP is whether entrepreneurial and technological activity once harnessed to state enterprises moved during the transition into the shadow economy. On the one hand, the activities are more labour intensive and have higher labourto-capital ratios, that is, with less scope for productivity gain, but on the other hand the remuneration per person employed is generally much higher than in state employment – a person moving from the Soviet system into the capitalist penumbra would earn more, an increment measured as a productivity gain. The few (and tentative) indicators of the proportionate ‘shadow economy’ by branch show it, as would be expected, among labour intensive activities, such as trade, rather than in capital-intensive branches such as oil and natural gas extraction and metals production; even so, there is quite extensive small-scale extraction of oil in Azerbaijan and placer mining of gold in Central Asia. At such modest scales of production, lower profit margins are acceptable and avoiding VAT, income tax and import duties (where the product is in ‘shuttle trade’) is comparatively easier. Table 9. Addition of ‘Shadow Economy’ to Measured GDP (percentages) 1990/93 2000/01 Armenia 40.1 46.3 Azerbaijan 45.1 60.6 Georgia 45.1 67.3 Kazakhstan 31.9 43.2 Kyrgyz Republic 35.2 39.8 Mongolia .. 18.4 Uzbekistan 22.1 34.1 Source: Schneider and Klinglmair (2004)43

External Productivity-Enhancing Transfers

The final consideration in this chapter for assessing when and why TFP became positive in the region is the impact of trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) on improving human capital, such as by training given by foreign enterprises, introducing modern plant and equipment and applying more productive technology. Two measures indicative of such inflow are the openness of the economy to trade (ratio of foreign trade to GDP) and the accumulation of FDI. Additionally, developing countries receive concessional loans, grants and technical assistance from international agencies and bilateral partners, but Mogilevsky and Hasanov point out for the Kyrgyz Republic that, although during 1995-2000 foreign aid amounted 6.5 per cent of GDP, a large part was for importing consumer goods and that only about 15 per cent of technical assistance payments was expended in the country.44 In 43 Schneider, F. and R. Klinglmair. Shadow Economies around the World: What Do We Know? IZA Discussion Paper no. 1043. Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor. 2004. 44 Mogilevsky, R. and R. Hasanov ‘Economic growth in Kyrgyzstan’ In Ofer and Pomfret (2004), pp. 235-9.


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principle, an open economy is more receptive to productivity-enhancing transfers than a more closed economy. But in the Soviet period the openness of Union-Republics and Mongolia was to other Union-Republics and other non-market economies. The centralization of supplies of capital and technology under Gossnab (State Supply Committee) and Gostekhnika (State Committee on Technology) assured a sharing among them of a limited pool, because the Cold War, especially the West’s strategic embargo enforced by CoCom (Consultative Group Coordinating Committee), prevented the USSR and its partners in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) from receiving many of the innovations and technological developments taking place in the rest of the contemporary world. In that sense, the openness of the economies was to the ‘wrong’ partners, those without the spur of competitive innovation, production and distribution. For example, in 1989 for Armenia, the share of imports was 51.6 per cent of GDP, but 78.4 per cent of those imports were from other Union-Republics, as Manasyan and Jrbashyan cite. 45 Its exports amounted to 38.9 per cent of GDP, but were scarcely exposed to foreign competition because 97.5 per cent went to other Union Republics. Armenia was the most open of all the Soviet Republics other than the Baltics, but those in the region of this chapter were not much less open. In 1990, Kyrgyz imports were 50 per cent of GDP, Tajik 48 per cent, Uzbek and Turkmen both 44 per cent, Georgian and Kazakh both 43 per cent, and Azeri 35 per cent. As Table 10 indicates, the rank correlation of openness on growth is weak, but is improved by the omission of two outliers – Tajikistan imports into which were heavily of military and other current goods while Russian troops were deployed on the Afghan frontier and the civil war raged, and Uzbekistan the growth rate of which was smaller due to protection of Soviet-period industry while other states experienced severe recession. During that region-wide recession the trade turnover of all ex-Soviet states shifted substantially away from mutual exchange (with the exception of persistent Tajik reliance on it), while Mongolia further reduced its dependence on Russia (see Table 11). All such economies, therefore, should have benefited from the influence of world-wide choice on their tradeables sector. The non-CIS shares of foreign trade derivable from Table 11 indicate the extent to which that widening had occurred by 2003. Russia by its proximity remained the main trading partner for many states (China in the case of Mongolia), but Italy was the biggest export market for Azerbaijan, Germany for Kyrgyzstan, and the Netherlands for Tajikistan; the second biggest source of imports into Kazakhstan was from Germany and into Uzbekistan was from the Republic of Korea.

45

Manasyan, H. and T. Jrbashyan. ‘Explaining growth in Armenia: the pivotal role of human capital.’ In Ofer and Pomfret (2004), p. 139.

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Table 10. Indicators of Openness (trade as ratio to GDP) and Rank with Respect to Openness and to Growth during 1990 to 2001 Imports + exports Exports Openness rank Growth rank Armenia 1.31 0.44 4 22 Azerbaijan 0.84 0.37 18 20 Georgia 0.64 0.25 20 25 Kazakhstan 0.63 0.31 21 15 Kyrgyz Republic 0.86 0.39 17 17 Mongolia 1.14 0.52 10 8 Tajikistan 1.31 0.62 5 23 Turkmenistan 0.69 0.33 19 11 Uzbekistan 0.59 0.30 24 7 Source: Cheng, K. C. (2003)46 Note: Cheng ranks 26 transition countries, the lower the rank the more open the economy and the better the growth performance.

Table 11. Percentage Share of CIS Countries in Foreign Trade, 1991 and 2003 Imports 1991 Imports 2003 Exports 1991 Exports 2003 Armenia 81 22 98 19 Azerbaijan 80 32 93 13 Georgia 64 32 94 50 Kazakhstan 88 47 92 23 Kyrgyz Republic 80 57 99 35 Mongolia 40ab 35b 11ab 6b Tajikistan 79 68 87 17 Turkmenistan 87 35 c 98 52 c Uzbekistan 89 37 c 94 26 c Source: CIS (2004),47 except for Mongolia, ADB (2004)48 a 1995 b Russia only c 2002

Cumulative FDI per capita over 1989-2003 (Table 12) was the highest in the CIS for Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Armenia in that order: because the first three of them overwhelmingly attract investment in the exploitation of their hydrocarbons (and metals in the case of Kazakhstan), the inflow does little to diversify the economy into other branches and hence enhance productivity in them. In time the economy may be expected to diversify as the appropriate macro and institutional conditions are established. Among them is a viable mechanism for the allocation of resources, in which both FDI and the intermediation of commercial and investment banks have an important role. In terms of banking reform, the EBRD accords positive scores (3 on its 1 to 4 scale) to Georgia and Kazakhstan, but gives a 2 to the other CIS states, save for Turkmenistan, which, with a 1, ranks at the bottom. 49 Capital inflow into Armenia and Georgia is substantially from the diaspora and enhances the equipment and technical competence of small and medium enterprises. Much of the capital inflow into Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia is to ore-mining and milling (for gold and copper), but Japanese investment in the latter’s cashmere industry has been productivity-enhancing. 46

Cheng, K. C. (2003) Growth and Recovery in Mongolia during Transition IMF Working Paper no. 03/217. Washington DC: IMF. Appendix Table 7. CIS (2004) Commonwealth of Independent States in 2003: Statistical Yearbook (Moscow: Statkomitet SNG. p 840. 48 ADB (2004) Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries. Manila: Asian Development Bank. 49 EBRD (2004) Transition Report. London: EBRD. Table 1.1. 47


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Table 12. Net Inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (millions of US dollars) 1995 2003 1989-2003 Dollars per capita Armenia 25 136 868 277 Azerbaijan 330 2,090 7,214 873 Georgia 6 306 1,257 272 Kazakhstan 964 2,188 15,730 1,094 Kyrgyz Republic 96 17 413 85 a Mongolia 10 132 304 121 Tajikistan 10 32 223 34 Turkmenistan 233 218 1,613 269 Uzbekistan -24 70 917 35 Source: EBRD (2004),50 ADB (2004)47 for Mongolia. a 1989-1994 estimated, 1996-7 interpolated.

Expenditure on research and development (R&D) is modest throughout the region, but Comin has recently shown that its contribution to productivity growth in the United States is smaller than three to five tenths of one percentage point.51 He explains that this is so because most innovation generated by R&D is embodied in capital. Thus the small scientific staffing of the countries in the region does not necessarily hinder growth, but an educated labour force is required to apply and to operate new technologies and plant as well as other professional tasks in the economy (accountancy, advertising, human relations, marketing etc). It is in the provision of such a labour force that the curtailment of both secondary and tertiary education in Turkmenistan since 1993 and especially since 2001 is a threat to prospective productivity growth. Conclusions Studies of the transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe show that strong GDP growth requires good TFP growth, as Crafts and Kaiser show;52 openness to foreign trade and capital attracts productivity enhancement. Nevertheless, as noted in a study by this author and Santosh Mehrotra, ‘the high trade dependence of these economies leaves them highly vulnerable to exogenous shocks and external forces over which they have limited control.’53 The volatility of the price of energy and of non-ferrous metals, major export products of the region, endangers the supply of capital, technology and training from abroad and underscores the need for industrial and service diversification – tourism, for example, is as yet under-developed and could attract significant income from abroad. The same volatility affects savings and, where the economy significantly depends on export earnings, the proportion of GDP devoted to investment.

50

EBRD (2004) Transition Report. London: EBRD. Table A.2.8. Comin, D. (2004) ‘R&D: A Small Contribution to Productivity Growth’. NBER Working Paper no. W10625. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. 52 Crafts, N. and K. Kaiser. ‘Long-term growth prospects in transition economies: a reappraisal’, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics. vol. 14(1), 2003. pp. 1-19. 53 Kaser, M. and S. Mehrotra (1996) ‘The Central Asian economies after independence’. In. Allison, R (ed.) Challenges for the Former Soviet South. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press. pp. 217-305. 51

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Table 13. Gross Domestic Capital Formation as Percentage of GDP 1998 2000 Armenia 19.0 18.6 Azerbaijan 33.4 20.7 Georgia 24.4 18.2 Kazakhstan 15.8 18.1 Kyrgyz Republic 15.4 20.0 Mongolia 35.2 36.2 Tajikistan 15.8 11.6 Turkmenistan 54.9 39.2 Uzbekistan 20.9 19.6 Source: For Armenia and Georgia, IMF;54 for others, ADB55 a 2001

2002 21.0 32.8 18.4 25.7 18.5 29.0 16.6a 37.3a 21.1a

Under the heading ‘Saving for the future’ the present writer56 drew attention to the region’s low rates of investment around 2000 and to the low rates of return that could be anticipated where capricious megalomania dictated the use of funds in Turkmenistan and where tariff and exchange-control protection directed them into internationally-uncompetitive projects (Uzbekistan). The creation of ‘oil funds’ in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, partly to stabilize revenue over oil-price cycles and partly to assure a flow of income from investment as oil reserves are consumed, underwrites an expectation of regularity at higher investment shares. Rising oil prices have brought the three oil-producing countries to high investment shares, while Mongolia continued as a high saver. Openness to FDI and to world technology should enhance capital productivity but governments with ample funds at their disposition may be tempted towards the construction of prestige projects with very low, if any, productive return (as evident in Turkmenistan). Labour also requires updating consistent with technological progress and industrial diversification. Expenditure on education and opportunities for study and training abroad are among inputs for labour productivity enhancement to which some governments of the region accord little priority. Openness to the economic gains to be derived from globalization need not weaken the distinctive culture and historical tradition which governments seek to protect and adapt to the needs of contemporary society.

The writer is grateful to the participants of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop in Leiden and to Leonid Friedman, Silvane Malle and Irina Morozova for comments which have improved this version of the workshop paper.

54

IMF (2003) Republic of Armenia: Third Review under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. Washington DC: IMF; IMF (2003) Georgia: 2002 Article IV Consultation – Staff Report. Washington DC: IMF. 55 ADB (2004) Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries. Manila: Asian Development Bank. 56 Kaser, M. ‘The economic and social impact of systemic transition in Central Asia and Azerbaijan’, in Amineh, M. and Houweling, H. (eds), Central Eurasia in Global Politics: Conflict, Security, and Development. Leiden and Boston: Brill. 2004. p.155.


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Living Standards and National Security of Central Asian Countries Leonid FRIEDMAN Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute of Asian and African Studies Abstract. National security depends on a combination of various external and internal economic, social and political factors; however, the main measure of stability is the dynamics of indicators characterizing living standards of the majority of the population. In this chapter we analyze both value indicators (salaries and pensions, household consumption, the volume of retail trade turnover) and so-called “natural” indicators (food, clothes, durables, education and healthcare) for the five Central Asian republics. In years of economic crisis, the incomes of the majority of former Soviet citizens rapidly declined, along with real wages, purchasing power of pensions and the volume of trade turnover. For the first time after dozens of years of the USSR’s existence, under- and unemployment became a threat to millions of people. Nutrition of the main mass of the population worsened and it was particularly the case for such products like meat, milk and eggs. People returned to bread-vegetablepotatoes rationing that had been common in the 1950-60s. There was a negative dynamic in consumption of such durables like TV sets, refrigerators and washing machines in the majority of Central Asian countries. The social systems of recreation and vacation, pre-school education and summer camps for children deteriorated. Although at the end of the 1990s-beginning of the 2000s the situation slightly improved, even now the level of real wages and purchasing power of pensions, the average retail trade turnover, as well as consumption of food products remain lower than the maximum pre-crisis level. The positive development was in the preservation of secondary education, despite budget cuts, and the increase in university students in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Soviet system of medical service was also conserved in Central Asia and helped to avoid mass epidemics even in the conditions of rapid decline of living standards of the majority of the population. Nevertheless, the social-political instability remains and sometimes has even increased in connection with the deep structural changes of the economy. The current transition process from administrative-command to market economy is complicated by the negative tendencies in the political sphere, such as authoritarian tendencies and personality cults of the presidents.

Introduction National security of Central Asian countries depends on various factors determining their external positions and internal situation, including government foreign policy, military defense systems and so on. Each of these problems deserves special analysis; however, from our point of view, stability in the region finally depends on the extent of success in providing social peace and preventing massive domestic conflicts, as well as political drift towards authoritarianism and totalitarianism. In other words, regardless of the aspect of international or home politics, the defense systems we choose to observe in these countries and the decisive role in the end belongs to

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the real social-economic conditions of the population. More than that, we can say that national security of every country, in historical perspective, is determined by the security of each of its citizens, the degree of their security (or insecurity) from such threats as hunger, poverty, illnesses, and so on. That is why we find it necessary to analyze the changes that have happened in these countries after the disintegration of the USSR and their transition to market economies. The dynamics of general economic indicators, from one side, and the structural changes in national economy and labor market, from another side, present us with a rather contradictory picture for Central Asian countries. If we base our judgment on the changes in GDP in the second part of the 1990s-beginning of the 2000s, we can have the impression that the worst is already in the past and, consequently, the most potentially dangerous period for social discontent has gone and the situation is gradually normalizing and improving. Table 1. GDP Indexes of all CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries: (percentage for 2003-2004 towards the pre-crises maximum) GDP

GDP per capita

Our estimation

Kazakhstan 95% 105 100-105% Kyrgyzstan 75% 65-68 60-65% Tajikistan 40-45% 30-35% 30-40% Turkmenistan 90-110% 70-90% 70-80% Uzbekistan 110-112% 90-93% 85-90% Russia 75-85% 80-90% 80-90% Source: compiled and calculated on: Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimyh Gosudarstv v 2003 [Commonwealth of Independent States in 2003] (further – CIS in 2003). Moscow. 2004. p. 25; Economic Survey of Europe 1, Geneva: 2004; IMF, World Economic Outlook, Washington, April 2004; statistical publications by the Central Asian countries are also used.

Indeed, according to this data, in 2003-2004 in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the general GDP nearly reached or exceeded the pre-crisis level. However, in terms of GDP per capita this level has been reached only in Kazakhstan, while in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan it remains less than the “Soviet” maximum by 10-30%. At the same time, in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan the situation is still difficult or very difficult. Nevertheless, in all the countries of Central Asia the situation has considerably improved in comparison with the first part of the 1990s, when the economic crisis was especially sharp. At the same time, long and deep production decline, as well as structural changes in the economy and employment in these countries led (maybe temporally) to under- and unemployment of millions of people who had to change the character of labour activities, their work and place of living, their usual way of life; they lost former social ties and desperately had to create new ones. These people suffered strong emotional-psychological shock, for a long time (and some possibly forever) and lost confidence in the future; they might have felt for the first time insecurity, uncertainty or even ephemerality of their position in the new and rapidly changing world. They realized or instinctively felt their complete dependency on unclear and unpredictable forces that lay beyond their power. In addition, the majority of the population occurred to be in some kind of ideological vacuum, having lost former social stereotypes and not finding new and distinct values. We would argue that although there is a certain tendency to economic stabilization and economic growth happens in these countries for the last 7-9 years, social insecurity is still increasing, since it is closely connected with deep structural changes, unavoidable hardships, contradictions and other drawbacks of the process of transition from an administrativecommand system to the market economy, state of law and civil society (unfortunately, still in a distant perspective).


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In general, from our point of view, while evaluating the general economic and political situation in Central Asian countries, as well as the dimensions of their internal security and insecurity, we should first take into consideration the dynamics of such indicators that characterize the main aspects of average living conditions–such valuable indicators as real incomes, wages and pensions and household consumption; about mainly “natural” indicators that characterize food, clothes, durables, housing and communal services, as well as people’s education and medical services. The Dynamics of Wages and Prices In Central Asian countries hired workers account for 50-70% of the active population, which is why the dynamics of their real wages is of particular interest. The calculations based on the materials of the official statistics show that in the years of the deepest decline in production– approximately the middle of the last decade–real wages of hired workers (the majority of the population in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) were diminishing 2.5-4 times. For instance, in Kazakhstan, according to official data, the real average monthly salary of workers and people engaged in services at the peak of the 1994 crisis accounted only for 26% of the 1991 level and even in 2000 did not exceed 36% of that level, which in its turn was considerably lower than in 1988-89. According to our estimations, in Kyrgyzstan, in the same period of 1994 this indicator (according to various data published by the state statistics departments) was 1/4 to 1/3 from the 1991 level, and in the second part of the 1990s (according to the same sources) accounted for 30-34 to 4951%. These differences in numbers were the results of numerous recalculations of nominal salaries and especially the dynamics of the consumption prices made by the statistical departments of the countries. The decline of real wages of workers and people engaged in services in Turkmenistan was approximately on the same scale; in this country the indexes of consumption prices were not published in the open press for a long time, so we have to use the information on the dynamics of the GDP deflator. Our calculations show that in 19941997 the index of real wages in Turkmenistan was changing from 15-20 to 28-31% of the 1991 level. Using the materials of official statistics and the GDP deflator we can assume that in Uzbekistan real wages in the second part of the 1990s accounted for 45-71% of the precrisis level, and in 2000 there was a considerable diminishing of this indicator in comparison with 1995-1999. It could have been connected with the drought and bad harvest that damaged some important branches of agriculture, namely, cotton production. Nevertheless, in general, the decline of real wages in Uzbekistan, at least in the first part of the 1990s, occurred to be less substantial than in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan. In Tajikistan, the awful 8-10 times decrease of real wages even by the end of the 1990s (and this is according to official data) could be explained by the civil war and its consequences; however, in other Central Asian countries this was happening in peaceful times, although full of economic and political changes and sometimes shocks. We do not know any examples of such a decline in real wages of the majority of workers and state civil servants in the countries in transition beyond the post-Soviet space.1 However, any conclusion made on the basis of these figures, regarding according decline of the whole sum of real income of the majority of the population, would be premature and in fact wrong. Salaries in terms of money actually accounted for 60-70% of all the incomes of the households in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, 50-60 % in Kyrgyzstan 1

Made and calculated according to the materials of statistical annual reports of the CIS in 1996, 1999 and 2000, as well as IMF, Finance and Development, Washington, September 2000. p. 42; Economic survey of Europe. Geneva 1: 2002. p. 230.

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and Uzbekistan, but only 30-40% in Tajikistan. Among other sources of family income (aside from pensions, allowances, donations and loans) agricultural production from private country-lands and gardens had an important place. Their share in the family income was between 11 and 20%. This helped both village and city citizens to survive the heaviest years of crisis; in addition, many members of the families of workers and civil servants received incomes from extra work in the informal sector of the economy. However, all the data on the changes in real wages does not give us a clear picture of their comparative absolute quantity in the different Central Asian countries. This is because by the middle of the 1990s individual national currencies were already functioning in these states. (Before the introduction of these currencies it had been possible to compare the levels of nominal wages in rubles.) Hence, the dollar equivalent is often used for comparisons of the wages’ levels in various countries. By all means, such data reflects mainly the purchasing power of salaries and pensions in relation to imported goods, and a much more precise indicator could be the figures calculated on the purchasing power parity (PPP) rates of the currencies in relation to all consumer goods and services. In fact, the internal prices on the goods produced in these countries are below world prices. However, since we do not possess the proper data, we have to limit our speculations and point out that the dollar equivalent understates the general level of wages, albeit to a different degree. These figures are more understated in countries where the proportion of domestically produced goods and services is higher, and less understated in countries where the imported goods bought on world prices prevail. As usual, the share of import in the GDP is higher in small countries and lower in big ones. All the Central Asian countries belong to the category of states with a relatively small (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan) or middle-numbered population (Uzbekistan and partly Kazakhstan). That is why the dollar equivalent of wages is more understated in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and less understated in the other three republics with relatively small populations. Taking into consideration the above-mentioned, let us give the data for 1995, in the period of maximal decline in production and wages. At that time the dollar equivalent of the monthly salary of workers and civil servants was about $79 in Kazakhstan, $34-36 in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, $7 in Tajikistan, and $117 in Russia. A higher level of wages in dollar equivalent was reached in 1997: in Kazakhstan $112, in Uzbekistan $48, in Kyrgyzstan $39, in Tajikistan (1998) $12 and in Russia $164. However, after the financial crisis of 1998 in Russia, which influenced the Central Asian countries as well, the wages in dollar equivalent again dropped and became $90-91 in Kazakhstan, $27 in Kyrgyzstan, $910 in Tajikistan and $62 in Russia. In Uzbekistan, according to official exchange rates, the salary reached $57; however, since the free exchange of national currency into dollars did not exist, its real value was not likely to exceed $25-$35. In 2003, according to estimations based on official exchange rates, salaries in Kazakhstan were 155.7 dollars ($262 in December 2004), 179.6 in Russia ($312 in December 2004), $44 in Kyrgyzstan and 15.3 in Tajikistan (28.8 in December 2004). We do not possess official data on Uzbekistan, but based on the real exchange rate it could hardly exceed $30-$40.2 These numbers demonstrate, first of all, the sharp difference in wages in dollar equivalent–in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan they are three times less than in Kazakhstan, and in Tajikistan the official number is even ten times lower; secondly, if before 1998 the dollar equivalent of wages in Russia considerably exceeded the same in Kazakhstan (not to mention the other Central Asian countries), in 1998-2001 the dollar equivalent of wages in Kazakhstan was the highest among all the CIS countries. Only in 2002 the salary in Russia, in its dollar equivalent, again, but very insignificantly, exceeded the level of the same indicator in Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, we should reiterate once again 2

See: 10 years of the Commonwealth of Independent States (1991-2000). Statistical Abstract. Moscow. 2001 (further – 10 years…). p. 125; CIS in 2003... Moscow 2004. p. 134; Statistics of the CIS. Statistical Bulletin 2 (353). Moscow. January 2005; the materials on market exchange rates of the Uzbek national currency were also used.


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that the dollar equivalent in general understates the real level of wages in an international comparative perspective to the extent that local production makes up the relatively bigger part of consumer goods and services. That is why in Russia understatement of this kind is usually higher than in Kazakhstan, not to mention the other Central Asian republics with their relatively small population. However, even considering these circumstances it becomes obvious that the dollar equivalent of wages for the main part of workers and civil servants in the Central Asian countries in the 1990s did not differ significantly from the same indicators of other developing countries of Asia and Northern Africa with the same level of GDP per capita, and it was 20, 30 and even more times lower that in the developed Western countries. A considerable and at the same time increasing part of the Central Asian population is pensioners, and in this regard it is quite characteristic that the dollar equivalent of their pensions in the second part of the 1990s was fluctuating in Kazakhstan between $28-47, in Kyrgyzstan $9-18, Uzbekistan $9-27, Turkmenistan $6-19 (there is no official data on the dollar equivalent of wages in Turkmenistan) and in Tajikistan $1.5-3. Household Consumption and Retail Turnover We argued earlier that salaries and total incomes in money do not entirely reflect average living standards and the dynamics of incomes of households. This can particularly be seen during the systemic crisis of transition period that negatively influenced all the CIS countries on their way to market economies. The matter is that during this period, the socalled “informal sector” of the people’s economy was growing practically everywhere, and its size and share were only partly reflected in official statistics of the countries under study. Hence, the data on final expenses on household consumption gives us another picture of the dynamics of the real incomes of the population. According to this data, consumption in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the worst years of the crisis was reduced by approximately 35-40%; in 2001 all the household expenses in these countries accounted for about 71% of the level in 1991, but in Kazakhstan, taking into consideration the decline of its permanent population, they may have accounted for 78-79% of that level per capita. At the same time in Kyrgyzstan, where the population, as opposed to Kazakhstan, had grown by 11% within one decade, even in 2001 household consumption per capita remained 40-42% less than in 1990 (a relatively “good” year in comparison with 1991). As far as 1995 is concerned, when the crisis in this country reached its apogee, consumption per capita accounted for not more than 51% of the 1990 level, according to data of the national statistical reports. In Uzbekistan, in the period of maximum decline in production, the share of all household incomes in GDP decreased from 61% in 1990 to 50.65% in 1995. If we take into account that the value of GDP in 1995 accounted for only 81.6% from the 1990 level, while the country’s population had grown by 9% within those five years, we can suppose that household consumption per capita in 1995 did not exceed 61-62% from the 1990 level, even if we judge according to the official data. Thus, despite the fact that the whole GDP of Uzbekistan declined “only” by 18%, consumption per capita diminished by 38% or, taking into account the inexactness of all this data, approximately by 35-40%. Hereby we have the same proportion as in Kazakhstan, where the GDP decline occurred to be nearly twice as much as in Uzbekistan. In other words, when we speak about the real dynamics of human consumption in this or that country, it would be incomplete to use only figures on the decline in production of goods and services–the GDP value–since it depends, among other parameters, on dynamics of the share of the household consumption in GDP and the dynamics of population growth, and both indicators can be changing not only with the different speed,

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but also in different directions (for instance, in Kazakhstan in that period the population was diminishing, while in Uzbekistan, on the contrary, it was growing relatively quickly). Returning to the dynamics of household consumption in Uzbekistan and analyzing the period of the second part of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s, we can draw a conclusion that nowadays consumption of the country’s population in general has significantly increased in comparison with the mid 1990s and, according to the official and, perhaps in this case, strongly exaggerated data, practically reached 80-85% of the 1990 level. If we take into consideration that official dynamics of GDP in Uzbekistan, as argued by a number of scholars, exaggerated to a certain extent the tempo of its growth for the last years, than we can suppose that the present level of consumption in this country accounts for 70-75% of the highest level reached in the Soviet period. In Tajikistan, where civil war coursed especially hard consequences for both the economy and every-day life of the people, the scale of household consumption (even according to official data that in every country tends to colour the truth) in general may have decreased by the mid 1990s by four, and per capita even by 4.5 times. More than this, even in 2001, the indicators per capita remained three times less than in 1990. These figures may seem absolutely impossible and in this particular case we should not exclude the possibility that in the calculations of the whole GDP and in the estimations of household consumption there was a certain underestimation of those additional incomes, or to put it simpler, additional consumption, that was guaranteed to the rural population and also to many urban citizens by their small pieces of land in the countryside, gardens and kitchengardens. More than this, and perhaps even more importantly, in the highest crisis period (and for the last years) hundreds of thousands of Tajik citizens went to Russia to earn money. Whatever low payments in comparison with the average Russian indicators they received, they still managed, living in extremely hard, sometimes not even human conditions, to collect not small (according to the Tajik scale) sums to be transferred to their families in Tajikistan. For those who for many years have studied living standards of rural and urban labour migrants in African countries, such a picture very much reminds of the situation typical for the countries of this continent in the 1950-70s. At that time it was highly unlikely that anybody in the USSR, including Central Asia, could have imagined that such labour migration, similar to the same processes in Tropical Africa, would revive in new forms and under new circumstances in independent Tajikistan, and in some other Central Asian states as well. Most obviously, nobody can give exact figures of the money and “goods” transfers from Russia made by the Tajik (and also Kyrgyz or Northern Kazakh) labour migrants and their input into consumption of dozens and hundreds of thousands of families. If we, nevertheless, endeavor to suggest at least a very approximate first estimation of these figures, it could reach many dozens, or to be more precise, even hundreds of millions of US dollars. As we have already pointed out, statistics on Turkmenistan are incomplete, contradictory, and after 1998, on most indicators, simply not sent by Turkmenistan to the CIS interstate statistical committee. Nevertheless, taking into account the data on GDP dynamics and also the information on the share of household consumption in 1999 and 2000 that can be found in the international statistical publications, we succeeded in calculating the whole volume of consumption and also per capita indicators for these two years. In this regard, we would like to remind the reader that in 2000, Turkmenistan managed to overcome the maximum of GDP decline that happened in 1997, when GDP diminished practically twice. According to the data of international statistics, by 2000 it accounted for about 74% of the 1990 level. At the same time, the share of household consumption in Turkmenistan, even in the Soviet period, in 1990, remained at a very low level, not exceeding 49% of GDP. In the years of crisis, in some Central Asian countries the share of household consumption in GDP increased or remained at about the same level. In Turkmenistan the situation was dramatically different: in 2000 this indicator did not


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exceed 35-40%. Taking into consideration GDP dynamics and the share of household consumption, as well as population growth in the country, we can easily estimate that also at the end of the 1990s consumption per capita in Turkmenistan accounted only for 40-50% of the 1990 level, in other words, it diminished twice. As far as the former years are concerned, despite our lack of information on the share of household consumption in GDP, we can conclude that these figures are unlikely to be higher than the indicator of 2000.3 Let us analyze one more important indicator that illustrates changes in living standards, namely, the volume of retail turnover. The official statistics of the countries under study show that in the mid 1990s, in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan retail turnover declined by 3-4 times in comparison with its maximum pre-crisis level. In Uzbekistan it declined practically by half, and in Tajikistan, however impossible it may seem, by 10-14 times.4 To make a comparison, let us point out that in Russia, the same indicator declined by the mid 1990s by approximately 12%. By 2003 the volume of retail trade in Central Asian countries considerably increased, and in Kazakhstan it reached, according to various official data, corrected many times by the statistical departments, 77-90%, and in Kyrgyzstan respectively 57-67% of the 1991 level. Quite differently from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in Uzbekistan retail turnover, measured in so-called comparable prices, already in 1999 reached 112%, according to official statistical data, and in 2002 it reached about 134% of the 1991 level and 104% of the 1990 level.5 However, if we take into account that in 1991 retail turnover in Central Asian republics did not exceed 82-84% of the 1990 level, it becomes obvious that its real decline was much worse. For instance, in 2001 in Uzbekistan, the volume of retail turnover accounted for 132% of the 1991 level (according to official data), but only 104% of the 1990 level, and calculated per capita it did not even exceed 80-85%. Obviously, the indicators per capita for Kyrgyzstan were even lower, since in this country even the whole volume of retail turnover in 2003 remained considerably lower than the 1991 level, not to mention the 1990 level.6 At the same time, in Tajikistan, according to the data we have, there was no significant improvement at all in trade in the second part of the 1990s, and even in 2003 the physical volume of retail turnover through all the channels of realization did not exceed 15% of the same indicator in 1991. It is interesting to note that in Russia, the maximum decline in the volume of retail trade was not in the first half of the 1990s, but in 1999. However, already in 2003 the volume of retail trade in Russia, according to new official data, reached 123% of the 1991 level and calculated per capita, it even accounted for 125% of the 1990 level. Generally speaking, during the whole period of the 1990s the decline in retail turnover in Russia did not exceed 5-12%. This accounts for why, as we will demonstrate further, Russia performed better than Central Asian countries based on the indicators of provision of population with household durables. The data on turnover better reflects the correlation between the incomes of the populations in Russia and in Kazakhstan than the figures of average salaries in their dollar equivalent. Certainly, retail turnover does not entirely show the dynamics of all resources of household consumption, since it does not include “natural production” in the households of the rural population and a major part of the urban population as well: peasants and many urban citizens consume products harvested on their small private pieces of land and gardens. For instance, in Kazakhstan, the area under crops belonging to common citizens 3

Compiled and calculated on: CIS in 2001… Moscow 2002; CIS in 2002… Moscow 2003; The World Bank. World Development Indicators 2002. Washington. 2002. 4 Potrebitel’skii rinok v SNG 1996 [Consumer Market in the CIS Countries in 1996]. Moscow. 1997; CIS in 2003… pp. 24-25. 5 See: 10 years… p. 33; Uzbekistan v tsyfrah 2001 [Uzbekistan in numbers 2001] Tashkent. 2002. p.10; CIS in 2003… p.45. 6 Consumer Market in CIS Countries in 1996… Moscow 1997. pp. 173, 196, 265, 286; CIS in 1996... Moscow 1997. p.34; CIS in 2003… Moscow. 2004. p.45.

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increased from 156,000 hectares in 1990 to 382.7 thousand hectares in 1999, and crop capacity of cereals, technical cultures, vegetables, watermelons, melons and gourds, and oil-bearing crops produced in this area was higher than in the agricultural enterprises (the former collective farms) and higher even than in the peasantry households.7 However, aside from agricultural products that accounted for about 62% of all the value of goods and services, private small households produced other consumer goods (2729%), and also provided transportation, construction, repair services and other types of private services that accounted for 8-10% of the whole value of all produced products and services.8 Table 2. Volume indices of retail turnover in Central Asian countries (through all channels of sale) 1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

1) 2)

100

83.4 100

41.4 49.7

37.3 44.7

35.6 42.7

33.5 40.2

34.1 40.9

37.1 44.5

41.1 49.3

41.4 49.6

44.3 53.3

47.4 57.6

50.7 61.0

1) 2) Turkmenistan 1) 2)

100

82.3 100

48.5 58.9

61.9 75.2

56.0 68.0

53.5 65.0

65.3 79.3

73.5 89.3

83.9 101.9

91.8 111.5

95.4 121.0

104.1 132.0

100

84.6 100

81.9 96.9

75.2 88.9

49.3 58.3

36.0 31.2

35.3 30.6

36.7 31.8

37.5 32.4

100

84.4 100

56.2 66.6

47.2 55.9

29 27.8

24.5 29.1

33.6 39.8

44.3 52.5

52.8 62.6

54 64

55.5 67.1

63.7 77.0

100

26.0

20.4

14.5

11.2

10.6

11.5

12.5

13.0

10.3

11.0 12.0

96.8 100

93.4 96.4

95.2 98.2

95 98.0

88.4 91.2

88 90.8

91.2 94.1

88.1 90.9

81.1 83.2

88.3 94.0

97.7 104.

Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan

Kazakhstan 1) 2)

69.4 84.0

Tajikistan 1) 2)

Russia 1) 2)

100

113.

Calculated on: Consumer Market in CIS… Moscow. 1997. pp. 173, 196, 265, 286; CIS in 1996… Moscow. 1997. p. 34; CIS in 1999… Moscow. 2000. p. 31; CIS in 2000… Moscow. 2001. pp. 217, 292; CIS in 2002… Moscow. 2003. p. 45.

Nevertheless, the data on real wages of workers and civil servants, on incomes of pensioners and on retail turnover is directly connected and reflects the level of life of considerably large groups of the population, for instance, those who did not have additional work, private land in the countryside and pensioners without additional income and assistance from relatives. The number of such people was always large; this group also included people whose salaries were paid from the state budget–those involved in education, health services, culture, and also people employed by a number of state enterprises and institutions. These people especially suffered from a sharp decline in their living conditions as they were employed in the modern sector of the people’s economy and their needs and demands had been formed on a modern basis, under the demonstrative effect of developed countries. The Spread of Poverty and Destitution The sharp decline in living conditions of the majority of Central Asian countries led to an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line. To measure this indicator, 7 See: Sel’skoye, lesnoye i rybnoye khoziaisTVo Kazakhstana. Statisticheskii sbornik 1999 [Agricultural, forestry and fishing in Kazakhstan. Statistical Abstract 1999]. Almaty. 2000. pp. 43, 46-48. 8 See: Uroven’ zhizni naseleniya v Kazakhstane 2001 [Level of living of the population in Kazakhstan 2001]. Almaty. 2003. p. 71.


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national and international criteria are used; however, they do not always correspond to each other. That is why in many publications one can find data based on the more “narrow” and also on the “wider” understandings of the category of poverty as it is. In addition, the calculation of the living minimum and, consequently, identification of the group of people living on incomes that do not reach this minimum, are often changed, specified or corrected by the national statistical and international organizations. All these do not let us give a “final estimation” of the share of people, who live below the poverty line. Nevertheless, these official and half-official estimations have allowed us to characterize the size of the spread of poverty and destitution. For instance, in Kazakhstan, according to official statistics, about 35% of the country’s population had incomes below the minimum living level in the mid 1990s, and in the second part of the 1990s up to 43% of the population received such incomes. In Kyrgyzstan, the same indicators reached respectively 40 and 51%. In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan this data is published, but only covers the period of the first crisis years. According to this data, in 1993 people living on less than $1 per day accounted in Turkmenistan for about 21% of the whole population, while 59% of the population had less than $2 per day. In Uzbekistan, the same year, around 27% of the population lived on less than $2 per day. It is necessary to note that these figures are not based on calculation of official exchange rates, but on the purchasing power parity of the currencies; in other words, they more precisely reflect the compared indicators of real wages of the population in different countries. At the end of the 1990s, in all Central Asian countries an investigation on distribution of incomes among various groups of society was made. UN experts calculated the value of the Gini coefficient that characterizes the scale of inequality of distribution of income. The results of these calculations demonstrated that in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan the value of the indicator was fluctuating in the range 30.6–35.4, while in Turkmenistan it reached 40.8, and in Uzbekistan even 44.7 (let us point out for comparison that the value of the same indicator in the USA was 40.8, in Turkey 41.5, and in Russia even 48.7). The scale of inequality in distribution of incomes nowadays usual for the postSoviet Central Asian republics, does not differ a lot from the value of the same indicators in some typical developing countries of Asia. For instance, in India the Gini index used to reach 0.378; in Pakistan 0.312; in Indonesia 0.365; at the same time, these figures many times exceed the same data on Eastern European transition economies, such as Hungary, Poland or Czech Republic. In this situation the majority of the population of Central Asian republics experiences the beneficial consequences of the turnover growth at the end of the 1990sbeginning of the 2000s to a much lesser degree than the “upper” 10-20% of the lucky ones, who managed to adapt to the new realities and improve their positions considerably at consumer market. So far, among all the Central Asian states, Uzbekistan was the country with the highest degree of inequality in redistribution of goods. There are other facts that prove our point: only 1.2% of all the incomes were the share of 10% of the population with the lowest income, while in Turkmenistan the same indicator was 2.6%, in Kazakhstan 2.7%, and in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan 3.2%. At the same time, the concentration of wealth in the hands of 10% of people with the highest incomes reached the largest scale also in Uzbekistan: in this country the rich got 32.8% of all the incomes of the population, while in Turkmenistan 31.7%, in Kyrgyzstan 27.2%, in Kazakhstan 26.3%, and in Tajikistan 25.2%. Thus, based on this indicator, the degree of the gap between the poor and the rich occurred to be the biggest precisely in Uzbekistan. For comparison, let us note that this indicator in Uzbekistan exceeds the same figure in the USA (30.5%). Naturally, all these do not work for the maintenance of social-political stability in Uzbekistan, especially under the circumstances, when the average GDP per capita, even calculated on the PPP of the currencies, were 22 times less than in the USA in 2002. As a result, only this one condition leads to increase of social instability and conflict. Since all the indicators of the gap between the rich and the poor not only in Uzbekistan, but in the other Central Asian

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republics, are significantly higher nowadays than the figures typical for the Soviet period (for instance, in 1989, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan the above-mentioned Gini index accounted for 0.289 and 0.287 respectively), the features of social-political instability can be seen everywhere, even in the conditions of the on-going economic growth.9 Food, Clothes and Shoes of the Population Up till now we talked about the indicators of value, which according to their own nature, cannot pretend to be exact in the conditions of radical change of price proportions, unavoidable in the transition period from command-administrative to market economy. That is why even more descriptive can be the other indicators that we may call natural indicators. In this regard, it would be useful to analyze the data that characterizes the dynamics of change in the sphere, which to a great extent determines the living standards. We mean food consumption of the majority of the population: the expenses on food in Central Asian countries in the 1990s accounted for 50-86% (in Tajikistan in 2001) of the whole budget of households.10 According to official statistics, during the 1990s in all Central Asian countries there was a decline in consumption of high quality food products. This decline was especially sharp during the crisis years, however, still continued in some cases even in the revival period. Practically everywhere, the consumption of meat and milk per person diminished by 30-40%, fish, eggs and sugar 2-4 times and, however paradoxical it may seem, even the consumption of fruits and berries diminished quite often. In Kazakhstan, where agricultural production provides food for the population more than in other Central Asian republics, from 1991 to 2000 consumption of meat and meat products per capita (annually) diminished from 72 to 44 kg, consumption of milk and milk products from 308 to 235 kg, eggs from 209 to 102, sugar from 37-39 (1990-1991) to 21 kg, fish and sea products from 10 to 3 kg, and finally, fruits and berries from 17-23 to 7-9 kg. In Kyrgyzstan, where agriculture also mainly provided the population with domestic food products, the consumption of meat and meat products for the same period declined from 48-54 kg to 40-41 kg, fish and fish products from 6 to 1 kg, milk and milk products from 266 to 204-209 kg, eggs from 154 to 48, sugar from 37 to 11-12 kg. As these figures demonstrate, by the end of the 1990s the consumption of high quality food products (meat and milk) in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was relatively at the same level, however, Kyrgyzstan as usual was far behind Kazakhstan with the consumption of eggs, sugar, and vegetable oil. At the same time, the Kyrgyz population consumed more potatoes, vegetables, watermelon, melon and gourds at the end of the 1990s. Contrary to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and particularly in Tajikistan the consumption of meat, milk, fish, and eggs was always at a lower level. For example, even during the Soviet period the consumption of meat in Tajikistan was three times lower than in Kazakhstan, and in Uzbekistan 2.3 times lower. In the period of economic crisis of the first half of the 1990s the indicators decreased even more. The most difficult situation was evidently in Tajikistan. First, official statistics published clearly false figures on food consumption per capita: for instance, according to the data of the budget investigations, from 1990 to 1995 consumption of meat declined less than twice from 26 to 14 kg, milk and milk products from 160 to 130 kg, eggs from 111 to 110 and so on. And only in statistical year book 2002 was there a table on Tajikistan with rather realistic information on the dynamics of basic food consumption from 1991 to 2001. 9

Compiled and calculated on: The World Bank. World Development Report 2003. New York. 2002. pp. 236237; see also: Republic of Kazakhstan. Statistical Yearbook 2000. Almaty. 2000, p. 80; The World Bank. World Development Indicators 2004. Washington. 2004. p. 16. 10 See: CIS in 2002… Moscow 2003. pp. 129-130.


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According to this data, consumption of meat from 1991 to 1996 declined from 26.1 to 3.6 kg, milk and milk products from 171 to 50.4 kg, eggs from 88 to 11, sugar and confectionery from 12.6 to 3.6 kg; fruits, berries and grapes from 31.9 to 16.8 kg. The consumption of vegetables, watermelon, melon and gourds, potatoes and vegetable oil also diminished. Only the amount of bread and corns consumed by the population did not change. This means that the majority of the population during these years received the necessary amount of calories mainly from bread, while consumption of meat declined by 6.5 times, milk products by 3.5, eggs 8, and sugar practically by four times.11 In the second part of the 1990s, as we mentioned above, the economic situation in Tajikistan improved, and in 1996-2003 the process of reconstruction of its economic potential took place. Even in 2003, GDP per capita still accounted for not more than 40% for the former maximum level. All this to a certain degree influenced consumption; however, the achieved results occurred to be more than modest. In 1996 the consumption of meat per capita was 4 kg, 5.8 in 2001, eggs, accordingly 11 and 19, potatoes 24 and 26.6 kg, vegetables 72 and 73 kg, milk and milk products 50.4 and 49.9 kg, vegetable oil 9.6 and 9.2 kg. The consumption of sugar from 1996-2001 grew practically twice (3.6 and 7 kg), but as usual remained considerably lower than in 1991 (12.6 kg). And only the consumption of fruits, berries and grapes in 2000 and 2001 slightly exceeded the value of the same indicator in 1991. However, this last point is explained largely by the fact that in 1991 weather conditions were not good for growing fruits and berries. As far as high quality foods and organism products such as meat and milk are concerned, the level of their consumption remained rather low and did not differ a lot from the analogue figures in the less developed countries of Asia and Africa. But if in the latter regions people always consumed very little of these products, for the people in Tajikistan such rapid worsening of the food allowance was perceived especially sharp and painful. In Turkmenistan, with its traditionally developed cattle-breeding, in 1991-1995 the consumption of meat declined from 43 to 30 kg, fish from 4 to 3 kg, milk from 212 to 178 kg, eggs from 101 to 62 and sugar from 32 to 11 kg. In Uzbekistan, according to official data, in the first part of the 1990s consumption of meat did not decrease (30-33 kg), however, consumption of fish declined from 4.9 to 1.4 kg, milk from 210 to 160 kg, eggs from 120 to 53, sugar from 25 to 10 and so on. In the second half of the 1990s, in official statistical publications, no information on food consumption per capita in these two republics can be found. However, the materials on agricultural production and also data on their import let us suppose that even now the situation in this most important sphere of life has not improved, and based on some indicators, even worsened.12 Our calculations show that in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan the consumption of meat, milk, fish, eggs and sugar in a number of cases “returned” to the level of the first half of the 1960s. As far as Tajikistan is concerned, the situation there occurred to be incomparably worse, since as a result of the civil war and its economic consequences, food production diminished practically to the same degree as the whole GDP of this country.

11 See: Statisticheskii Ezhegodnik Respubliki Tajikistan (offitsial’noye izdaniye) [Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Tajikistan (official, edition)]. Dushanbe. 2002. p. 91. 12 10 years of CIS…Moscow 2001. pp. 136-137; CIS in 1996… Moscow. 1997. pp. 44-45; CIS in 2003…Moscow 2004. pp. 134-136; Rossiya i strany mira 1998 [Russia and countries of the World 1998]. Moscow. 1998. pp. 66-68, 70; Kyrgyzstan v tsifrah [Kyrgyzstan in numbers]. Bishkek. 2000, p. 240; Sel’skoye, lesnoye i rybnoye khoziaisTVo Kazakhstana. Statisticheskii sbornik 1999 [Agricultural, forestry and fishing in Kazakhstan. Statistical Abstract 1999]. Almaty. 2000. p.84.

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Milk and milk products

Eggs

Sugar

Vegetable oil

Fruits and berries

Fish and sea products

Meat and meat products

Vegetables, watermelons, melons and gourds

Potatoes

Cereals and bread

Table 3. Consumption of food products per capita (kg annually)

307 308 275 260 251 229 211 196 206 211 235

222 209 179 170 143 97 70 69 79 90 102

39 26 19 18 20 19 18 18 20.3 20.3 21

10.9 9 6.0 7 7.2 7.6 7.4 6.5 6.8 7.2 ?

23 17 14 10 10 11 10 9 7.0 9.0 ?

266 249 206 193 183 183 185 187 196 200 204 209

154 144 128 81 46 31 34 37 45 45 48 48

37 36 24 14 15 13 14 16 12 12 12 11

10.6 8.7 7.4 5.2 5.6 5.2 6.2 4.1 5.5 2.7 ? ?

16 18 25 10 20 11 18 25 21 17 ? ?

161 171 127 135 134 130 50.4 46.8 47.2 55.5 64.9 49.9

111 88 34 23 12 10 11 6 6 16 18 19

12.6 12.6 9.7 9.7 ? ? 3.6 7.4 5.9 6.4 6.7 7

13.3 10.5 8.1 11.2 ? ? 9.6 9.8 7.9 9.5 10.2 9.2

31.9 27 17 20 ? ? 16.8 24.5 19.6 17.3 50.8 35.5

101 82 75 75 64 62

32 25 20 15 13 11

8.4 8.8 8.5 11.3 11.5 11.6

19 36 31 33 23 23

Kazakhstan 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

146 150 156 180 203 185 185 200 137 136 105

85 76 92 80 77 70 67 68 60 60 66

75 63 63 50 54 56 52 55 70 76 86

71 72 63 59 58 52 50 50 45 44 44

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

139 134 135 135 134 108 146 109 121 130 125 127

69 62 68 59 58 68 70 87 97 98 108 121

78 73 75 50 52 49 63 65 90 118 128 141

54 48 46 44 43 39 40 41 42 40 40 41

10 7 4.8 4.8 5.2 4.8 4.6 3.5 3.6 3.0 ? Kyrgyzstan 6.3 3.7 1.9 0.7 0.3 0 0.2 0.5 1.0 1.0 ? ? Tajikistan

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

167 155 158 135 155 155 154 147 152 167 148 150

35 33.2 32 31 30 28 24 25 22.3 24.1 37.8 26.6

95 94.2 101 98 97 97 72 55.5 59.9 92.4 98.5 73

26 26.1 18 14 15 14 4 4.9 5.1 5.7 4.4 5.8

3.3 2.7 1.3 1.2 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Turkmenistan 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

165 167 170 142 147 147

26 19 23 33 30 30

123 123 92 95 95 97

43 38 38 33 30 30

4.3 3.1 1.5 1.2 1.9 2.0

212 176 185 196 183 178

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Fruits and berries

Vegetable oil

Sugar

Eggs

Milk and milk products

29 25 27 25 25 23

Fish and sea products

Potatoes

170 167 164 162 152 157

Vegetables, watermelons, melons and gourds Meat and meat products

Cereals and bread


Uzbekistan 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

107 114 124 122 130 120

32 30 27 27 33 33

4.9 3.1 1.6 1.4 1.4 ?

210 196 175 177 173 160

120 107 80 74 63 53

25 22 12 12 9 10

12.6 13.6 12.4 13.6 13.5 14.0

23 24 32 20 24 29

Russia

35 106 89 69 20.3 386 297 32 10.2 35 112 86 69 15.8 347 288 29 7.8 32 118 77 60 12.3 281 263 26 6.7 29 127 71 59 11.9 294 250 29 7.0 28 122 68 57 10.4 278 236 28 6.6 29 124 76 55 9.4 253 214 27 7.4 31 125 75 51 9.0 232 207 26 7.9 32 130 79 50 13.0 229 210 39 8.4 123 78 48 15.0 221 218 44 ? 27 117 83 45 ? 215 222 35 ? ? 118 86 45 ? 216 229 35 ? ? Exemplary indicators of optimal norms of food consumption (based on different sources) 117139782438080 117-95 290 38 ? 100 146 90 17 405 Compiled on: CIS in 1999… Moscow 2000. pp. 41-42; CIS in 1996… Moscow 1997. pp. 44-45; Rossiya i strani mira 1998 [Russia and countries of the World 1998]. Moscow. 1998. pp. 66-68, 70; Kyrgyzstan v tsyfrah [Kyrgyzstan in numbers]. Bishkek. 2000. p. 240; Sel’skoye, lesnoye i rybnoe khoziaisTVo Kazakhstana. Statisticheskii sbornik 1999 [Agricultural, forestry and fishing in Kazakhstan. Statistical Abstract 1999]. Almaty. 2000. p.84, 212-215. 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

119 120 125 124 124 121 117 118 118 119 118

If we take into account that even in the Soviet period, food allowance of the majority of the Central Asian population was more modest than in the Slavic or Baltic Republics, it becomes more evident that the situation in Central Asian countries occurred to be especially hard in the transition period. In principle, we can state that from the food allowance of the 1970-80s, which was not only based on bread, but partly on milk and meat and, thus, acquired some feature that brought it closer to European, to be more precise, Eastern European (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary) standards, Central Asian countries returned to the food allowance typical to them in the 1950-60s. That food allowance could be called “mainly bread-vegetable-potatoes”. Apparently, if we take into consideration the average consumption of cereals, vegetables, potatoes and also, although in much less quantities, meat, milk and eggs, we cannot talk about hunger in the direct meaning of this word. The majority of people receive enough calories; however, sharp qualitative worsening of the food allowance is indisputable and evident both for urban and rural citizens. In this respect, as well as in many others, the population in Central Asia seems to be thrown 30-40 years back in time. It also means that according to character type and quality and level of nutrition, the inhabitants of Central Asia moved away from Eastern-European standards and closely approached typical Asian or South-Asian standards. At the same time we should not forget that due to extreme inequality (or even polarization) in redistribution of wealth, the average norms of consumption of quality and, consequently, more expensive products such as meat, milk and

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eggs have demonstrated that the great part of the population (or even the majority) realistically could purchase 2-3 times less meat, fish, eggs and sugar. Naturally, if and where rural and small town citizens cultivated small pieces of land, fields and kitchengardens, they compensated money shortages with natural production to some extent. Namely, the citizens of big cities occur to be in the most difficult situation, being under or un-employed, receiving small wages, etc. And since it is in big cities and capitals, where prosperity and poverty exist very often next to each other, luxury looks particularly provocative against destitution. All these lead to accumulation of social frustration, sharpening of potential and real contradictions, explosions of motivated and random violence, increased crime, etc. Going back to analysis of negative changes in nutrition of the majority of the Central Asian population, we would indicate that bread and cereals as in former times provide the basis of the food allowance, and in this respect only Kazakhstan and mainly Kyrgyzstan provide their own demands through domestic production. The presidents of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have proclaimed an ambitious goal: to reach self-sufficiency in grain. However, in reality, despite considerable enlargement in grain production, they have only managed to diminish the demands in import. With increasing population growth, provision of food and primarily of grain remains a serious problem for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In all Central Asian countries in the 1990s, consumption of clothes and shoes per capita declined 1.5-2 times;13 however, the assortment of goods available widened a lot due to commodities imported mainly from China and Turkey and other low-waged countries. At the same time, textiles and shoes, produced in Central Asian countries, appeared to be unable to compete with foreign goods, and by the end of the 1990s these industries practically stopped existing in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. However, in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the state supported national industries, and in these countries the scale of textile production either declined less or (in Turkmenistan) even increased. Let us give the relative figures, characterizing not just crisis, but in essence collapse of light industry (clothes and shoes), from whose provision the population largely depended on in former times. While in 1991, in Kazakhstan, production of textiles was 249 million m2, in 2000 it hardly exceeded 6 million m2; however, in 2002 textile production slightly increased and reached 18.6 million m2; in Kyrgyzstan the relative figures were 143 and 8.5 million m2 in 2002. In Tajikistan, the same indicators were 183 and 20.8 million m2. In Uzbekistan, the production of different types of textiles fell, however, less than twice from 665 to 400 million m2 in 2000, while in Turkmenistan, according to official data, in 19911994 it diminished from 52 to 33 million m2, but then started increasing and by 2001 had already reached 63.9 million m2. This is the only case in the CIS, when textiles exceeded the pre-crisis level of production. The same processes had been happening in the shoe industry. For instance, in Kazakhstan in 1991, 34.1 million pairs of shoes were produced, but in 2000 only 0.6 million pairs of shoes, and in 2002 only 0.7; in Kyrgyzstan, accordingly, 9.5 and 0.1, for 2002 only 0.2; in Tajikistan 8.6, 0.1, and 0.07 million pairs of shoes in 2002, in Turkmenistan 4.2 and 0.55 million pairs of shoes; and, finally, in Uzbekistan in 1991 it was 45.4 million pairs of shoes and in 1999 only 3.7. Later, shoe production in Uzbekistan decreased even more and in 2002 its index diminished 10 times in comparison with the precrisis level. The dynamics of these figures illustrates that in all Central Asian countries the shoe industry stopped existing as a more or less developed branch. This all implies that the populations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan can only meet their needs with the importation of shoes. If food provision (even on a narrowed scale) is guaranteed mainly by domestic production, the consumption of clothes and shoes depends almost entirely on imported supplies. This distinctly signals that economic security 13

Calculated on: CIS in 1999… Moscow. 2000. pp. 304, 354, 498, 529, 570; Consumer Market of CIS in 1996. Moscow. 1997. pp. 176, 199, 266, 289, 311.


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of Central Asian countries in the important segment of consumption cannot be considered to be completely satisfactory: the necessary means can be accumulated only by the revenues from exports that, on their side, are not permanent and stable due to the unavoidable fluctuations of prices on the exported goods, the amplitude of which, as the practice has shown, may be rather wide.14 Consumption of Household Durables The narrowing sphere of consumption of household durables in a number of Central Asian countries influenced social and even political processes. During the 1990s, practically everywhere in these countries, the number of functional TV sets, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, tape recorders, etc., reduced by 30-40% and frequently even twice. The scale of sales of these goods in the markets of Central Asian countries during the first half of the 1990s diminished even more sharply. The most complete data on this question is collected and published by statistical organizations of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan: they include information not only on selling goods by trade organizations, but also take into account their purchases in non-organized markets. That is why the data on the above-mentioned republics is the most representative. So far, according to official data, in Kyrgyzstan, in 1991 for every 100 families there were 90 TV sets, but only 41 in 2000; tape recorders, accordingly 54 and 31; refrigerators and freezers 80 and 33; washing machines 87 and 58; vacuum cleaners 35 and 20; automobiles 23 and 16. In Uzbekistan, for every 100 families in 1991 there were 87 TV sets, in 1999 only 34; tape recorders, accordingly 51 and 36; refrigerators and freezers 78 and 39; washing machines 68 and 34; vacuum cleaners 30 and 14, and so on. So far, judged on this data, in Uzbekistan, where according to official statistics, in 2001 the pre-crisis level of production was practically restored, provision of the population with durables in fact reduced twice or even to a larger extent. However, budget investigations on the population conducted recently in Uzbekistan reveal questions about their representation. According to this data, at the end of the 1990s, families with TV sets and refrigerators occurred to be much higher. Nevertheless, in reports of the same study there are figures illustrating the narrowed sphere of using other household electric durables. For example, if according to this investigation, in 1999 for every 100 rural families there were 41 radio sets and for every 100 urban families 33, in 2001 these indicators fell to 20 and 29. Based on the same source, for each 100 rural families in 1999 there were 66 sewing and knitting machines, and for every 100 urban families 57, but by 2001 the according figures diminished to 40 and 43. The same processes were observed in the sphere of provision of the population with motorcycles and moto-rollers (12.2 in 1999 and 6.2 in 2001), and also cycles and mopeds (39.19 in 1999 and 26.14 in 2001). Thus, the tendency to radical limitation of the sphere of using the above-mentioned household durables was vividly noticeable not only after the worse years of crisis, but also after (according to official data) the maximum Soviet volume of retail turnover was excelled. That is why the data in this budget investigation on TV sets and refrigerators, exceeding the data previously published by official statistics, seems to be clearly exaggerated.15 The same type of data on Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are less precise, but they generally draw the same picture. According to this data, published before 2001, in Kazakhstan, in 1991 for every 100 families there were 118 TV sets (113 in Russia), and in 14

Compiled and calculated on: 10 years of CIS… Moscow 2001. p. 51; CIS in 2002… Moscow 2003; some statistical data on Turkmenistan were also used. 15 See: Sel’skoye khoziaistvo respubliki Uzbekistan 2001 [Agriculture in the Republic of Uzbekistan 2001]. Tashkent. 2002. p. 75; 10 years of CIS…Moscow 2001. pp. 138-139; CIS in 2003… Moscow 2004. pp. 137138.

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2000 only 64 TV sets (124 in Russia); and accordingly, 54 and 34 tape recorders, 92 and 49 refrigerators and freezers, 109 and 54 washing machines, 47 and 28 vacuum cleaners, but also 20 and 26 automobiles, the number of which was evidently increasing. However, in the CIS annual statistical book of 2001, we can find absolutely different figures regarding the spread of TV sets (103 in 1991 and 140-142 in 2000-2001). On refrigerators we also can see the indicators witnessing just about opposite dynamics: 101 in 1991 and 120 in 2001. The same changes happened with the data on washing machines and vacuum cleaners. At present, we can hardly explore the reasons for such drastic differences that completely change our idea about the dynamics of spreading the usage of the above-mentioned durables in Kazakhstan. In Tajikistan, where the economic crisis was especially deep, in 1991 for every 100 families there were 86 tape recorders, and in 2001 only 32; refrigerators and freezers, accordingly, 69 and 33, washing machines 61 and 30, vacuum cleaners 39 and 8, automobiles 23 and 11 (in 2000). We do not possess official indicators for Turkmenistan; however, based on another source, we can note that in 1991-1996, the period of sharpest economic crisis, the average number of automobiles for every 100 families increased in this country from 26 to 27-29.16 Commenting on these figures, we should point out: firstly, contrary to the Central Asian countries (perhaps excluding Kazakhstan), whereby provision of durables in the 1990s rapidly reduced, in Russia which also suffered the economic crisis, all the indicators on refrigerators, TV sets, washing machines, tape recorders and vacuum cleaners more or less considerably increased. At the same time, in 1991 for every 100 families there were 19 automobiles and in 2000 already 43. Secondly, if in 1991 the differences in provision of some of these goods were not so great between Kazakhstan and Russia, and the relative number of TV sets, washing machines and automobiles in Kazakhstan was even higher than in Russia, by 2001 the situation had radically changed (if we use the indicators published before 2002). Based on these indicators, the provision of Russia’s population with durables is significantly greater (in some cases twice and more times) than in Kazakhstan, not to mention the other Central Asian republics. However, if we use new data on Kazakhstan that was published in 2002, we will see that the same indicators in this country are still higher than in Russia on practically all durables (for instance, in 2001 there were 142 TV sets for every 100 families in Kazakhstan, while in Russia there were 127; tape recorders, accordingly, 121 and 58, refrigerators 120 and 112, washing machines 105 and 93). Of course, we could explain this situation (if the last figures on Kazakhstan do reflect the reality) by some facts, for instance: the figures of salaries in dollar equivalent in 1998-2001 in Kazakhstan were higher than in Russia. Nevertheless, we think that many other indicators, regarding economic and social infrastructure and also sphere of consumption, remain higher in Russia than in Kazakhstan. We could also take the data on provision of the population with tape recorders, clocks, cameras, bicycles, motorcycles, etc., which portrays negative tendencies in this sphere,17 and add it to our data on “natural consumption” of durables. More than this: the 1990s reveal a clear tendency of increase in emigration and labour migration not only of the Russian population, but by Kazakhs to Russia. This is first of all true for Northern and Central Kazakhstan. One can presuppose that in the coming years the stimulus to labour migration and/or migration of primarily Russian-speaking citizens of Kazakhstan (and especially the other Central Asian states such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) to Russia would increase against the background that in Russia since 2002 salaries in dollar equivalent again exceed the same indicators in Kazakhstan. In general, we have to acknowledge that we do not have the final answer to the question: which materials on the spread of durables in Kazakhstan (published before or after 2002) are representative. This question remains open. 16 17

10 years of CIS… Moscow 2001. pp. 138-139. See: Republic of Kazakhstan. Statistical Yearbook 2000. Almaty. 2000. p. 318.


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Going back to the question of declining provision of the Central Asian population with durables, we should emphasize the negative consequences of this ongoing process. The consequences are rather diverse and can mean a return to manual labour, the increase of work input, first of all by women, and broadly a tendency toward primitivization and even archaization of life and living standards of 40-50% of the whole population in these countries. Unambiguously, the majority of rural citizens especially painfully suffer from that. However, the degradation of living standards is not the only problem: when the TV set switches off and the radio stops working, people find themselves isolated from information about the outside world, the information that they got used to receiving “here and immediately”. Nearly one half of the population happens to be “de-modernized”, has to return to traditional, practically forgotten forms of pastimes. These people in such conditions become much more sensitive to the propaganda of traditional, also religious fundamental values and stereotypes that exist now beyond the sphere of permanent, everyday and direct impact of state politics and propaganda. If to take into consideration that in the 1990s there were processes of forced agrarization, de-industrialization, de-investment, relative de-urbanization, partial “de-scientization” (obeznauchivanie in Russian) of economy and society in Central Asian countries, the following becomes obvious: in each republic, although to a different extent, there was accumulation of elements of demodernization, primitivization, archaization of various spheres of economy and living standards of the considerable part of the population (or even majority); the economy and social sphere partly reminds one of the 1960-1970s, so went 20, 30 and sometimes 40 years back in time. Contradictory Changes in Living Standards of Different Groups Deterioration of living standards of the majority of the Central Asian population was the one, albeit very important, among a number of other directions of social-economic transformation in Central Asian countries. Simultaneously, practically everywhere, there was another process going on–the process of accumulating “new wealth” made on oil, gas, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, cotton, etc. It was reflected in statistics of the increase in automobiles, construction of new villas and big flats with many rooms, imports of luxury commodities, etc. All this illustrates that in the conditions of forming “wild capitalism” burdened by the Soviet, pre-Soviet and sometimes feudal legacy, Central Asian countries were confronted with not just differentiation of society according to level of income and living standards, but with social polarization against the background of very slow and small-in-scale formation of a middle class. As the history of Western countries shows, it is the broadening and increase of a middle class and incorporation of the majority of the population into this class that provides social-political stability as the main precondition to sustainable social-economic and political development. According to our estimations, in Central Asian countries, the share of people who received direct benefit from the reforms and improved their living standards does not exceed 5-15% of the whole population, while the group of the “defeated”, the poor, whose conditions transparently worsened, accounts for not less than 30-45% of the population (and in Tajikistan this figure is evidently bigger and may reach 80-90%). Between these polarized groups exists the most outnumbered layer of the population–people whose general conditions are very contradictory, reflecting practically directly opposite tendencies of improving and worsening of various spheres of life at the same time. As the poor strata, they suffered from rapid reduction of incomes (although not to such an extent, not on the same scale); first of all, the fall of real wages. Their families lost confidence in having permanent jobs and the threat of under- or unemployment became evident. The quality of their food (mainly the consumption of meat, fish, milk products and

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eggs) clearly worsened; the rapid decline of incomes narrowed other opportunities–the usual forms of rest, recreation, entertainment and perception of culture and art. At the same time, they may, for the first time in their lives (more precisely after the restoration of economic growth), be getting rid of permanent shortage of goods and services, and in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, these people have received an opportunity to enjoy some, although limited, but still democratic, rights and freedoms: freedom of speech, access to information and spread of information, traveling inside and outside their countries, the rights of organization of trade unions and political parties. Unambiguously, these opportunities and rights are rather limited, since the tendencies to authoritarianism and regime of personal power became apparent in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As far as other Central Asian countries are concerned, they exhibit many distinct features of authoritarian rule with the appearance and strengthened cult of their leaders; free press practically does not exist and information about the outside world is limited. However, it would be a simplification to suppose that material conditions of life of the majority of the population directly depend on the correlations between democratic and authoritarian tendencies in the political system of this or that country. In Central Asia, many things are determined by the presence or lack of such valuable and expensive energy resources as oil and gas, partly uranium and coal, and also rare and precious metals, mainly gold. In this respect, the position of the more “democratic” Kazakhstan and “authoritarian” or probably “totally” totalitarian Turkmenistan, possessing large hydrocarbon reserves, in principle and in perspective is much more profitable than the position of the relatively “democratic” Kyrgyzstan and “authoritarian” Tajikistan. These differences would be especially persistent in the present decade, when Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan will be able to realize their potential advantages to a larger extent by increasing exports of oil, gas and other “currency-extracting” commodities to the world market. At the same time, Kyrgyzstan, depending on foreign energy supplies and lacking a number of other valuable export resources, will be in a less profitable position and will have more problems with maintaining its social-economic and political stability. Predicting possible future changes in Central Asia, we should take into account the situation of the 1990s, when despite the evident decline in living conditions of the majority of the population, the governments of these countries, except Tajikistan, managed to maintain relative socio-political stability and in a broader context, national state security of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Since political and socio-economic stability depends mainly on the condition of the majority of the population that generally had been worsening during the whole period, one important question arises: what stimulated the maintenance of relative stability of the situation as a whole and the political regimes in these countries? Firstly, despite the clear worsening of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of food allowance, the majority of urban and rural citizens did not face mass hunger and permanent malnutrition. Secondly, during the 1990s in all Central Asian countries, the main elements and contents of the Soviet economic and social infrastructure were generally preserved and sometimes even widened. Here we talk about not only electro-stations, transport networks, systems of transmission, but also, and maybe primarily, about education and healthcare systems. Let us, nevertheless, stress that in these spheres the situation was also very contradictory in the 1990s. In a number of cases the indicators, reflecting the unarguable deterioration of the situation, dominate. For instance, according to our estimations, all the state assignations for “social-cultural aims”, namely, education, healthcare system, culture and art, reduced 2-4 times in real expression and in general, remained at crisis level even by the end of the 1990s-beginning of the 2000s. In all the countries, albeit to a different degree, the sphere of pre-school education and upbringing of children rapidly and repeatedly narrowed. In the Soviet period, it was usually as a paid service (different from school education); however, the fees for a child in kindergarten were not high and,


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consequently, it was an affordable service even for low-income families. In the transition period, the growth of prices in the sphere of paid services (also for kindergartens and crèches) occurred to be particularly high. In conditions of rapid decline of real wages of workers and civil servants, the pre-school organizations became practically unreachable for the majority of children of appropriate age. And many kindergartens and crèches, on their side, were made bankrupt. As a result, they were closed, and their buildings were taken or purchased (very often for a symbolic price) by different commercial structures. We have an opportunity to follow this process on the examples of two republics, where relatively radical reforms had been launched and conducted. Thus, in Kazakhstan, the number of pre-school organizations reduced practically eight times in 10 years, and the number of children attending these organizations more than eight times. This was especially painfully perceived by the citizens of rural areas, where by the end of the 1990s the number of children attending kindergartens and crèches, diminished 23 times in comparison with the beginning of the 1990s. In Kyrgyzstan, the number of permanent preschool organizations and the children attending them reduced 3.5 times. And if at the beginning of the 1990s the permanently functioning pre-school organizations served approximately 23% of all the children of appropriate age, by the end of the decade this indicator fell to 8%. In this republic the deterioration of the system of pre-school organizations for children was especially rapid in rural areas. The same situation was formed in the other Central Asian countries, but in Uzbekistan the system of pre-school education and upbringing of children was preserved to a larger degree. The sharp narrowing of the sphere of pre-school education and upbringing of children will definitely negatively affect the future lives of the young generation of these countries. In conditions of economic crisis and the accelerating process of de-industrialization of Central Asian countries, the number of pupils, students and teachers in the system of vocational training schools considerably diminished, although we can see some positive developments in this sphere by the end of the 1990s. However, the most important and probably the only achievement of Central Asian countries in the social sphere is preservation and even broadening of the system of primary and secondary education. In the conditions of ongoing growth of the population in all Central Asian countries, except Kazakhstan, not only the number of pupils and teachers increased, but the according indicators, calculated on each 10,000 people, also increased. For instance, in Kyrgyzstan from 1991-1992 to 2003-2004 the number of pupils of day schools increased from 950,000 to 1,154,000 people; in Tajikistan from 1.31 to 1.64 million people, in Uzbekistan from 4.66 to 6.06 million people. And even in Kazakhstan, where the population reduced by more than 10% within 10 years, the number of pupils diminished to a less extent–from 3,147,000 to 3,045,000 people. Even more amazing results were achieved in the system of high education in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The number of students in Kazakhstan increased from 288,000 in 1991 to 658000 in 2002–thus, more than twice; and in Kyrgyzstan, accordingly, from 58,000 to 203,000, thus, more than three times. In Tajikistan, despite all the destructive consequences of the civil war, the number of students also increased nearly 1.5 times.18 As a result, by the beginning of 2004 in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan the number of students on each 10,000 citizens approximately corresponded to the value of the same indicator in the most developed Western countries by the beginning of the 1990s. Unmistakably, such a rapid broadening of the system of high education in conditions when there was no considerable construction of new study corpuses, laboratories, hostels and so on, this rapid broadening was unavoidably followed by decline in the quality of education in many universities and institutes, especially peripheral ones. Simultaneously, the number of students in elite educational institutions that managed to widen their international ties, and the exchange of students and teachers with 18

See: Republic of Kazakhstan. Statistical Yearbook 2000. Almaty. 2000, p. 459; Obrazovaniye v Kyrgyzskoy respublike [Education in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan]. Bishkek. 2000. pp. 2, 7-8; CIS in 2003… Moscow 2004. p.142.

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many universities of Western Europe and Northern America, grew. In the educational institutions of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, located in the capitals of these countries the possibilities of book exchange widened and in recent years a new possibility of information exchange through the Internet appeared. Contrary to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (and also Tajikistan, where the number of students also increased), in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan the total number of students in high education rapidly decreased (twice in Uzbekistan), which reflected the concerned politics of presidents Islam Karimov and Saparmurat Niyazov, who might have been afraid of the students’ strengthening social-political activity that in former days had acquired opposition to the regime character. Nevertheless, the president of Uzbekistan, taking into account the experience of Taiwan and South Korea, chose secondary and vocational education as a special focus in his strategy of development of education. Not by chance, in Uzbekistan after the whole number of students reduced from 337,000 in 1991 to 158,000 in 1997, first slow, and then more and more accelerating growth of the number of students started. As a result, in 2001-2002 the general number of students reached 207,000.19 The consequences of such development of events in two groups of countries may be different. For instance, in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan such rapid and large broadening of the system of high education can unavoidably lead to increase of highly educated underand unemployed if there is no adequate increase in jobs, appropriate to the level of knowledge, qualification and preparation of the graduates. At the same time, the rapid decrease in the number of universities and institutes, as well as students of high education, in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan can lead to shortage of professors and teachers–those cadres that require long time and huge expenses to prepare. Contrary to the system of education, in healthcare the changes of indicators that illustrate its functionality were mainly of negative character. Practically in all Central Asian countries, the number of doctors and middle medical personnel, calculated on 10,000 citizens, decreased; more than this, in the majority of Central Asian countries the number of hospitals diminished and the number of hospital beds rapidly declined, and the same unfortunate tendency was true for the so-called capacity of policlinics and ambulatories (the number of patients served by them within one shift). For instance, in Kazakhstan the indicator of this capacity calculated on every 10,000 people declined from 197 to 166 within one decade; in Kyrgyzstan from 140 to 114; and only in Uzbekistan it increased from 136 to 160, while in Tajikistan it remained at the same level. However, another important indicator illustrated the functionality of the healthcare system–the number of hospital beds (also calculated on 10,000 people) in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan decreased practically twice; in Uzbekistan more than twice; and in Tajikistan approximately by 40%. The process of decreasing numbers of middle medical personnel also went on approximately the same scale. Finally, we should point out that in all Central Asian republics within the last 10-12 years the number of practicing doctors also diminished, although the scale of this decrease was relatively small. The worsening of economic and social conditions, as it happened, practically always in crisis years, led to the increase of the sick with active tuberculoses, drug and toxic addiction, as well as syphilis and other social diseases. The number of registered drug and toxic addicts increased at an alarming rate (8-10 and more times) in these Central Asian countries that occurred to be at the crossroads of drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe. Here we would like to emphasize that we are talking only about registered drug addicts, while the real scale of the spread of this dangerous social disease many times exceeds the figures of formal statistics.20 As far as medical services were partly commercialized, the price for medication as usual grew, and against the background of reduction of state financing, a great part of the expenses on medication was in fact put on the shoulders of the sick and their families. The 19 20

10 years of CIS… Moscow 2001. p. 678; CIS in 2002…Moscow 2003. p. 148. CIS in 2003…Moscow 2004. pp. 146-147.


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condition of the sick in need of hospitalization especially worsened; more and more often they had to obtain necessary medication themselves, bring their own bedding and sanitary and hygiene products to the hospitals. However, despite all this evidence of deterioration in the healthcare system, the Central Asian states managed not to let the epidemiologic situation sharply worsen. Medical statistics data illustrate this. For instance, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan the crude death rates increased accordingly from 8.2 to 10.7 and from 6.9 to 8.3 in the first part of the 1990s, the worst years of the crisis. However, by the end of the decade they again started to diminish, and in Kyrgyzstan even returned to the level at the end of the 1980s. As far as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are concerned, in these republics, based on official statistical data, the crude death rates occurred to be substantially less at the end of the 1990s than at the beginning of the decade. However, the accuracy of this data always provoked serious objections. According to some information from the press,21 the United Nations Children's Fund published a report which stated that the level of child death in a number of post-Soviet countries exceeded the official data. For instance, in the official statistics on Tajikistan it was pointed out that in 1991 the indicator of infant mortality was 40.6 on every thousand children born, and then it grew to 47 in 1993, and after that diminished by 20-28. At the same time, in the report of the United Nations Children's Fund there was a statement that the value of the infant mortality indicator in Tajikistan in reality reached 89. In general, based on the data of this source, child death in Central Asia exceeds the same indicators in Central and Eastern Europe by five times. Although the situation in Tajikistan was negatively influenced by consequences of the civil war and the awful destruction in economic and social infrastructure, it is likely that in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan the official indicators of infant mortality (20-22) were 1.5 times and, probably, twice understated.22 It is commonly known that in Soviet times much medical statistics data was “improved” and “prepared” to meet political and ideological aims; nevertheless, we cannot exclude the possibility that although the general level of infant mortality is clearly understated, its dynamics, at least in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and probably in Uzbekistan could have reflected some weak positive changes in these republics. In general, despite the above-mentioned proof of worsening of many indicators, characteristic for the medical services for the population, the healthcare system created in the former decades stood. However, if in future state financing of healthcare and education does not increase, it can lead to a sharp worsening of the quality and functionality of both systems that are the most important ones and provide the basis of social infrastructure. The main demographic indicators do not depend only on the work of the healthcare system, but are distinctly connected with general living conditions–both in statics and in dynamics. This becomes especially evident if we analyze another important demographic indicator, namely, birth rate. In all Central Asian countries during the 1990s it rapidly declined: in Kazakhstan from 21-22 to 14.6, in Kyrgyzstan from 29 to 19.7, in Tajikistan from 38-39 to 27, in Turkmenistan from 32 to 18.5 (1999) and in Uzbekistan from 34-35 to 21.3 (1991 and 2000 accordingly).23 Such quick and sharp decline of the birth rate could be explained by various reasons: the decline in living standards of the population, increasing insecurity and uncertainty about the future by the majority of “common” citizens, and by changes in orientation of the lives of young people and young families and their adoption of values of a consumer society during the transition to market economy. However, there was another reason at the same time: as we mentioned above, under conditions of insecurity and uncertainty about the nearest future, people much more rarely decided to procreate. For 21

See: “Izvestiya”, 26.07.2003; The World Bank. Transition, July, August, September 2003. V.14, ʋ 7-9. pp. 9-10. See: CIS in 2003…Moscow 2004. pp. 106, 108. 23 10 year of CIS…Moscow 2001. pp. 105, 108, 109. 22

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example, according to official statistics in all Central Asian countries, including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (where social-economic structures, as well as norms and traditions in the social sphere had been changing much more slowly), from 1991-1999 crude rates of marriages of the population reduced by 40-50% and sometimes even more than twice. As a result of all these processes, in all Central Asian countries crude rates of natural increase in population diminished in the same, although not identical for each case, proportion. Consequently, it will have an impact on the whole development of Central Asian countries, but in a more narrow perspective–to some extent it relieves the pressure on all life-support systems for the populations in these countries. The situation in the communal housing system was also very contradictory. The construction of new flats radically declined: in the worst years of economic crisis, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan 4-5 times fewer flats were built than in 1990-1991; in Tajikistan, due to well-known reasons, the scale of this decline was even greater (seven times); and only in Uzbekistan, even during the crisis years, the construction of new flats was “only” twice less than in the Soviet period. Later, the scale of construction of flats in all Central Asian countries slightly increased; however, at the beginning of the 2000s the putting of new housing into exploitation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was still 3-4 times less than at the beginning of the 1990s; in Tajikistan five times; and in Uzbekistan by 25% less than the values of the same indicator at the beginning of the 1990s.24 However, though it might seem strange, the average figures characterizing the provision of urban and rural citizens with housing, remained at the same level or even partly increased. In general, at the beginning and at the end of the 1990s, there were from 12-14 m2 of general living space for every citizen of Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Only in Tajikistan, this figure occurred to be lower (9 m2), and in Kazakhstan, on the contrary, it increased from 14.4 to 16.4 m2 due to the emigration of about 2 million people from this country. Of course, all these statistics do not take into consideration the aging, amortization of flats and houses built many years ago. Mainly it is attributed to multi-story houses, of which mass construction started in Central Asian countries in the 1960-80s and was not of very high quality, but full of imperfections and not entirely finished blocks, as was the case everywhere in the USSR. Although in the 1990s there were no direct collapses of the entirely decayed flats, these processes acquired considerable scale, particularly in Kazakhstan, where “dying” cities appeared, mainly around one-company enterprises. However, since governmental assignations on repair works and construction of new flats, energy-systems, gas, water-pipes and sewerage reduced many times, and after the privatization of houses, the state tends to put these expenses on the owners; thus, the condition of communal housing services can rapidly decline in the nearest future and create a threat to normal functioning of the main centralized life-supporting systems in cities and rural areas. General conditions of every-day life of people include many components, among which, aside from the above-mentioned, are such important spheres of people’s economy such as transport and communication, culture and art. That is why there is much use in considering the situation in these spheres from the point of view of dynamics and qualitative characteristics. In this regard, scholars note one fact: in all post-Soviet republics, including Central Asian countries, transition to a market economy especially painfully impacted on the development of mail communication and also, although to a smaller extent, traditional public transportation systems. By the end of the 1990s, in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan the number of posted newspapers, journals, letters and parcels diminished 10-30 times; telegrams 5-8 times. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, mainly due to the same reasons, the number of passengers of different types of transport reduced by 40-50% (in fact, in Kyrgyzstan in 2000 the number of passengers for the first time increased by 10% in comparison with the previous year; this mainly happened as a result of the intensified bus 24

CIS in 2001…Moscow 2002. p. 144; CIS in 2003…Moscow 2004. p. 139.


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transportation), and even to a larger extent the so-called passenger-turnover, the total number of passenger-kilometers. This meant not only the decrease of long-distance trips; too expensive became trips by buses and local trains and also inter-city voyages that were not only an important means of maintaining family ties and friendship, but also a form of recreational activity–“domestic tourism”. For example, in Kazakhstan the number of passengers of inter-city bus communications reduced more than twice just from 1996-1999, and the number of passengers of local trains nearly four times. The total number of passengers transported by all means of transportation diminished 2.1 times within those three years. These figures show that in these countries, where transport was commercialized and privatized especially quickly, with a particular high rate and on a large scale (in Kazakhstan, in 1999 the private transportation and communication sector already involved more than 43% of all people employed in this sphere), the prices on transportation services grew even more rapidly, pushing the population to economize even more on short and longdistant trips. At the same time, there was another picture in those Central Asian countries, where the state preserved control over transportation means: the number of passengers was diminishing not so considerably or even increased. For instance, in Uzbekistan in the 1990s, the total number of passengers transported by all means of public transport, even increased by 10%; however, passenger turnover declined approximately by one-third. Air transportation became particularly inaccessible for the majority of the population: the number of passengers traveling by air diminished 4-5 times. All these had an impact on life: every-day activities, personal communications and social ties of the majority of families, depriving them of usual conditions, forms and ways of recreation and rest, narrowing their horizons in the direct meaning of the word, making their lives less interesting, without new impressions. People’s opportunities to learn about different cultures and art became limited. Since growth of people’s activity is one of the factors of public progress and personal development, the decline in mobility of the majority of the population in Central Asian countries should be attributed to the number of regressive tendencies and processes in these states. However, contradictory changes were reflected in this sphere as well. The appearance of pagers, mobile phones, faxes, PCs and access to the Internet is currently not that common among many people, although their number is rapidly increasing. For instance, in Uzbekistan in 2001 about 130,000 mobile phones were registered, and in Kazakhstan 822,000. Nevertheless, I would like to stress that the number of the newest means of information and communication, such as PCs and mobile phones, is increasing very quickly; simultaneously, although less quickly, there is growth in the number of ordinary private phones, and even quicker growth in the number of inter-city telephone communications. The broadening of the telephone network is characteristic for all Central Asian countries (except Tajikistan): in Kyrgyzstan by 20-25%, in Kazakhstan by 8-10% (although in 1996-1999 telephone subscribers’ stations diminished), in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, approximately by 30%. The 1.5-2 times increase of the number of inter-city and international communications unmistakably signals intensification of exchange of information, and this process involves the wide sections of the population, particularly, urban citizens. However, telephone communication could not substitute the 1.5-2 times’ reduction of personal communication, with its social and physiological benefits–going together on trips, vacations, school and university holidays, etc. In this sphere we can also see the co-existence of contradictory tendencies: on the one hand, the majority of Kazakhs being forced to economize, reduce the frequency and duration of trips to the countryside and other cities or from rural regions to the closest and distant cities; on the other hand, in the 1990s, they for the first time received an opportunity to go abroad freely. In 1999, in this country about 106,000 people used the services of tourist agencies and firms, and about 400,000 people went abroad. However, at the end of the 1990s, not really an increase, but

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decrease of such trips happened: in 1996 more than 527,000 people had made trips to foreign countries. The majority of tourists visited countries far abroad, but not near abroad (in 1999 fewer than 4,000 Kazakh tourists had visited near abroad countries as tourists). The relative freedom of traveling around the world became a great benefit for hundreds of thousands, and totally for the 1990s–even for millions of people in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but it is not always granted to the citizens of other republics.25 For those who could not afford to go on distant trips or just to the countryside (and it was the majority during the hard crisis years), the usual forms of recreation–going to the cinema or theatre, museum or the nearest club–also became much less affordable. In new market conditions, the state or municipal donations to institutions of culture were reduced a lot or cut entirely. Theatres and museums, not to mention cinemas, had to considerably raise the prices of entrance tickets, which led to a decline in attendance of these culture and art institutions by the main mass of urban and rural citizens, whose real incomes had diminished. For instance, in Kazakhstan by the end of the 1990s, the number of people attending theatres and museums diminished 2-2.5 times; in Kyrgyzstan, theatre attendance became four times less; in Turkmenistan (within four years) three times less; and in Tajikistan twice. In Kazakhstan, the number of public libraries reduced nearly four times, and the number of readers, only within three years (1996-1999), reduced by half. In Kyrgyzstan, the number of libraries declined “only” by 40%; hundreds of libraries closed in other Central Asian countries as well, although this process did not acquire such broad scale there. Under the new circumstances, club institutions that had formerly been financed by trade unions or received donations from the budget, were transferred to self-repayment and soon closed due to lack of funds. As a result, in Kazakhstan, the total number of these institutions declined 7.5 times, and in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan 1.5 times. In all Central Asian countries the industry of cinematography practically collapsed, the number of cinemas declined a few times, and people attending cinemas dozens of times. However, while in rich, developed countries the same process was connected with the spread of television and the appearance of video recorders, in the majority of Central Asian countries it was induced under conditions of constant narrowing of the TV users’ cycle, and video recorders did not spread widely.

25

CIS in 1999…Moscow 2000. pp. 299, 349, 493, 524, 565; CIS in 2003…Moscow 2004; Republic of Kazakhstan. Statistical Yearbook 2000. Almaty. 2000. pp. 119, 307; Kyrgyzstan 2001. Bishkek. 2001. p. 66.

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L. Friedman / Living Standards and National Security of Central Asian Countries Table 4. Provision of Central Asian population with cultural institutions and the attendance of these institutions

Kazakhstan 1991 2001

Kyrgyzstan 1991 2001

Tajikistan 1991 2001

Turkmenistan 1991 2001

Uzbekistan 1991 2001

Number of visits to museums

3.7

3.3

0.8

0.7

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.3

6.2

3.5

4.0

1.3

1.4

0.2

1.1

0.4

0.7

0.2

4.6

2.8

1.2

0.3

1.3

0.6

1.5

1.1

5.7

31.6

0.3

29.8

0.3

46

9

125.7

(millions) Number of visits to theaters (millions) Number of pay cinemas

9.8

(thousands) Number of visits to cinemas

149.7

(millions)

0.6 (1999) 0.5 (1999)

1.7 (1999) 3.5 (1999)

Number of public libraries

9.5

3.2

1.6

1.0

1.7

1.4

1.6

1.5

7.6

5.9

9.0

1.2

1.1

0.7

1.4

1.1

1.4

1.3

4.5

3.1

(thousands) Number of clubs (thousands) 1999 Compiled on: CIS in 1999…Moscow 2000. pp. 310, 360, 503, 534, 575; CIS in 2001…Moscow 2002. p. 147.

Increasing inflation, and for many people, working overtime and frequently at more than one job, all reduced time for recreation, opportunities for devoting this time to arts and attending public entertainment. Thus, many adults and children were refused the usual, already traditional for them, forms and ways to get in touch with classical “high” culture, which more and more often was substituted with “cheap” entertainment. In this way forced commercialization of the majority of institutions of culture and art weakened their important educational functions. At the same time, in those Central Asian countries where former social-political structures (albeit under the new names) persisted, the remaining cultural clubs, libraries, museums and even theatres transformed sometimes into forced distributors and popularizers of official ideology and state politics, often conducted under the slogan “returning to national roots”, refusal of “foreign” Western (and also Russian) culture, revival of Islamic and Turkic traditions and so on. Conclusions and Generalizations The dynamics of living conditions in Central Asian countries is determined by correlations of various economic, social and political factors and not all of them have quantitative estimation. More than this, we are talking about such diverse and incomparable processes that can “move” into different and often opposite directions. For instance, in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan in the 1990s the decline of real wages and worsening of food quality had been going on simultaneously with broadening of high education, in conditions of relatively free access to information. The diminishing of retail turnover was accompanied by the spread of

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freedom of choice for consumers and abandoning of the notorious Soviet shortage. That is why, without claims for a “final” balancing conclusion on these contradictory changes, we are giving a simple scheme in which we list and group different indicators of the improvements (gains) and worsening of life of the majority of the Central Asian population. Table 5. Examples of improvement and worsening of working and living conditions and consumption in Central Asian countries in the 1990s Indicators of improvement and progress

Indicators of worsening and degradation

1.

Establishment of trade unions, not entirely dependent on the authorities, more or less (in different periods) patient attitude of the state towards strikes and other collective actions to defend economic interests (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan).

1.

Decline of incomes of the majority of urban citizens, diminishing of real wages and purchasing power of pensions; loss of personal savings accumulated by the beginning of the 1990s.

2.

Overcoming shortages, consumer choice.

of

2.

Spread of delays in paying salaries, pensions, loans, particularly massive at the beginning and middle of the 1990s.

3.

Development in use of personal cars in Kazakhstan and broadening of telephone use in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan; appearance of new communication technologies and communication (PCs, pagers, mobile phones, access to Internet) to a larger extent in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, partly in Uzbekistan.

3.

Unemployment and spread of all forms of underemployment.

4.

Freedom of choice in leisure activities, relative freedom of getting cultural and political information in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

4.

Worsening of food, massive return to cereals-vegetables-potatoes diet.

5.

The beginning of more or less mass trips to the “far abroad”, mainly in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

5.

Decline in sales of clothes, shoes especially noticeable in the first part of the 1990s; rapid narrowing of distribution of durables in the majority of Central Asian republics.

6.

Preservation of the system of secondary education under declining financing.

6.

Deterioration of the systems of free time recreation and provision of vacation rest.

7.

The growth of higher education in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

7.

Degradation of the systems of pre-school and summer vacations of children.

8.

A certain accelerating in the last few years in salary increase and broadening of retail turnover at the end of the 1990s-beginning of 2000s in comparison with the hardest period of economic crisis in the mid 1990s.

8.

Diminishing of primary and secondary vocational education; growth of pupils expelled from schools and the spread of child labour.

9.

Rapid reduction of construction and a threat (and in some regions the beginning) of the collapse of modern communal housing services; strengthening of tendencies to primitivization and even archaization of life in a number of countries and regions of Central Asia.

freedom

10. Narrowing of the sphere of higher education in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.


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11. Worsening of free medical services, narrowing of the sphere of hospital treatment. 12. Formation and consolidation of authoritarian political system and the regime of personal power in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, factual prohibition of independent trade unions, public organizations and parties, particularly in these countries. 13. Limitation of freedom of choice for recreation and entertainment, receiving and spread of cultural and political information in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

14. Factual limitation on the rights to leave the country freely, leave and return in Turkmenistan and partly Uzbekistan.

The comparison of improving and worsening conditions in Central Asian countries allows us to make a number of evident conclusions. The key point for any further generalizations is in the specifics of the transformation process: this process of deep transformation of all economic and wider social-political structures led not only to onedirection changes, but to very contradictory changes of various sides, elements, components, levels and general living conditions of the majority of the population. As we can see in Table 5, some indicators of changes improved, while others rapidly worsened. Some indicators are not in the scheme–those which we can hardly judge whether they had worsened, improved or remained without considerable changes. At the same time, the general correlation between improvement and worsening in Central Asia shows that the first list in its most full form is applicable mainly to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. However, even in these two republics, the improvements as they are, and particularly the part involving democratic freedoms and proceedings, are not always well-determined and persistent, as, for instance, in Russia, where they differ a lot from the same institutions in countries with developed socially-orientated market economies and deeply-rooted democratic norms and traditions. In other words, the freedom of functioning of trade unions, various public organizations, oppositional movements and parties in these Central Asian countries is much more relative and limited (if we can talk about it at all) even than in Russia of the 1990s. As far as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are concerned, in these countries authoritarian political regimes were formed and in practice they do not allow the existence of freedom and independence from government parties and public organizations, to the utmost that they limit the freedom of receiving and spreading of political and cultural information. The situation in this sphere in a number of cases not just failed to improve, but worsened even in comparison with the last years of the USSR’s existence and the beginning of the 1990s. The governments of some Central Asian countries justify, with more or less reasoning, such bans and limitations as forced and temporal conditions dictated by the necessity to struggle against the spread and sometimes direct aggression of extremist terrorist organizations acting under the banner of Islamic fundamentalism and threatening the basis of constitutional order in Central Asian countries. This is a complicated problem that requires special analysis far beyond the context of this article. We would, nevertheless, like to stress that authoritarian political systems and regimes of personal power limit not just democratic freedoms as they are, but also prevent the organized struggle of hired workers for their social rights and improvement of their economic situation. However, one should not conclude that economic conditions of the majority of the population in all countries with authoritarian regimes always get worse to a larger extent than in the

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countries with more democratic (precisely–less authoritarian) political systems. Such a situation can be explained not only by objective factors (inequality in natural resources), but also by strategy and tactics of economic and social development underway in each country. At the same time, it is not by chance that in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with their more democratic or, to be more exact, less authoritarian political structures, high education developed at the end of the 1990s-beginning of the 2000s, while in countries with authoritarian regimes, high education declined (although in Uzbekistan there is a recent tendency of broadening of students’ ranges). Herewith we are coming to an important conclusion: it is unlikely to be possible to make a principle decision “once and forever” on what is more important for the majority of the population in these times of change: limitations in freedoms, but less reduction in real incomes or more democracy, free access to information, opportunities for higher education and a deep decline in real wages and volume of retail trade? People of different professions, levels of education, different economic and social backgrounds might have different answers to this question. Nevertheless, even taking these conditions into consideration and remembering the relativity and incomparability of some indicators, we can make this most general conclusion: in the majority of Central Asian states the list of worsening factors is twice longer than the list of improvements, and in these countries, in the 1990s, negative tendencies evidently prevailed. But we cannot stop here. In the second part of the 1990s, and especially, by the beginning of the 2000s, after the lowest point of transformational, systemic crisis had been overcome, economic growth started and is still going on in all Central Asian countries. Unambiguously, this growth is not followed by adequate improvements of living standards of urban and rural citizens everywhere. However, by the end of the 1990s and especially at the beginning of the 2000s, we can fixate the widening of retail turnover, tendency to increase in wages (in comparison with its crisis level), some increase in the scales of housing and social-cultural construction and further development of secondary and postsecondary education in the majority of the states. The situation with food allowance of the majority of the population is not entirely clear yet. The nearest future will show: firstly, whether we can consider current economic growth sustainable enough; secondly, whether it really contributes to the improvement of living standards of the majority of the population or whether it helps the narrow layer of political and economic elite to prosper even more; thirdly, if Central Asian countries manage to overcome the most dangerous part of the way from the old commandadministrative economic and political system to the modern social market economy in the conditions of at least relative social stability that is so vital for the increase of growth rates on the basis of internal and external resources; and fourthly, if Central Asian countries can find their place in the world market and gradually integrate into the complex system of international economic structures and institutions. This will finally determine the fate of the majority of people in Central Asia.


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Gradual Economic Reform in Uzbekistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back1 Martin C. SPECHLER Professor of Economics, IUPUI, and Faculty Affiliate, Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, Indiana University, USA Abstract. Uzbekistan has adopted a state-led, gradualist path to market reform. This paper outlines its step-by-step approach: liberalization of prices, (incomplete) stabilization, small-scale privatization, corporatization of state-owned enterprises and incipient, mostly “inside” privatization. Legislation has included tax and banking reform, welfare provision through the neighbourhood mahallah system (which also provides control), and protection for foreign investors. Uzbekistan has redirected its trade to world markets, earning better prices for its cotton, gold, and other minerals than it received under the USSR. For several reasons, though, it has received very little foreign direct investment. While trying to expand its international trade and investment, it has nevertheless increased self-sufficiency in food and energy, occasionally also in consumer goods. By expanding its trade and services sectors and maintaining administrative control over exportable agriculture and mining commodities, Uzbekistan has managed about 4% real growth since its mild transition recession ended in 1996. The most important setback on the “Uzbek road” was the period of inconvertibility and multiple exchange rates from 19962003, during which manufacturing stagnated. At present Uzbekistan, which has returned to current account convertibility, officially states that it has achieved an overall GDP level, relative to 1991, ahead of all other CIS countries. Uzbekistan has managed latent conflicts with its neighbours over water allocation, borders and trade without significant use of force since 1992. Its reluctance to enter into workable regional cooperation agreements, however, has prevented the region from developing any meaningful economic, political or military integration beyond a common effort to hold off drug smuggling and terrorism from the south.

Newly independent Uzbekistan could be considered the key country among the five countries of Central Asia. Uzbekistan alone borders all the rest, possesses the largest and most skilled population (25 million), military and industry, and was the centre of Soviet-era influence in the area.2 Uzbekistan has an authoritarian regime under Islam Karimov, an exCommunist economist and president of de facto indefinite tenure. International observers have never considered any election anywhere in this region as free or fair. Uzbekistan has neither an opposition party nor a free press. Uzbekistan may be the least appreciated of all the major countries in this part of Eurasia. Remote and culturally alien to Westerners, few outsiders visit the country for long. Though it has fabulous sites at Samarkand and Bukhara, there are few tourists. Uzbekistan 1

This research, based on dozens of interviews throughout the country, has been partially supported by the Global Development Network. The contributions and assistance of Farrukh Suvankulov, Akmal Namozov, and Alisher Akhmedjonov are gratefully acknowledged. The judgments included here are, however, solely the responsibility of the present author. 2 Uzbekistan’s land area is about one-sixth smaller than France, or about the size of California. Uzbekistan is one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world.

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M.C. Spechler / Gradual Economic Reform in Uzbekistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

claims to be self-reliant in using its own border troops to defend itself. It requires little outside technical assistance to exploit its petrochemical resources or official aid to assure social stability. The country has achieved self-sufficiency in oil and it exports only a small amount of its abundant natural gas. Unlike Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, therefore, Uzbekistan is of minor interest to the world’s energy producers. The country also has major deposits of gold, uranium and other non-ferrous metals. Its obstinate bureaucratic procedures and opaque statistics, however, make it unattractive to most Western businessmen. Until recently the Tashkent airport was served only by Uzbekistan Airways, Turkish, El Al and minor Russian carriers. Uzbekistan’s press is informally controlled and not very informative, and most internet sites dealing with the former Soviet republic – mostly originating in Russia – are stridently and adversely opinionated. Thus the world’s image of Uzbekistan is based on little first-hand information. Having been challenged by Islamic radicals from its south, Uzbekistan eagerly joined the military effort against the Taliban in Afghanistan, supports the American-led coalition in Iraq, and suppresses political Islam within the country.3 Moreover, its authoritarian regime frequently attracts criticism from human rights activists resident in the country for its rough treatment of prisoners and opposition figures and its corruption. Uzbekistan’s smaller neighbours fear its supposed hegemonic ambitions. Its average international aid per capita from 1994 to 2001 was a paltry $3.53 billion, by far the lowest in Central Asia.4 This report is intended to contribute a more balanced and nuanced account of the country’s progress since its independence from the USSR in 1991.5 Uzbekistan’s economic situation is frequently described in journalistic reports as “disastrous” or “in crisis”. If that were so, its political and strategic value would be highly questionable. However, Uzbekistan is in some ways the most stable and promising of the Central Eurasian states, and its economic reform has made progress little recognized by policymakers and journalists in the West. While the reform legislation has been steadily expanding in familiar directions, enforcement of market relations and private property has lagged behind. In particular, during 1996-2003 the country retreated from its commitment to open trade and convertible payments, and a liberal foreign trade regime has not yet been fully restored. This paper seeks to explain what has been accomplished, how it could be improved, and how NATO and other Western institutions should encourage those improvements, without necessarily embracing the negative elements of the political system now in place in the country.

Uzbekistan among the Central Asian States Table 1 gives some basic indicators for Uzbekistan and the five other Turkic (or Tajik) countries of Central Eurasia. Uzbekistan is one of the poorer economies of the region, if judged at purchasing power parity conversion rates.6 Note that Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and 3

Muslim clergy are controlled in their political expression, much as they were in Soviet times. World Development Indicators. 2003. 5 Our team commissioned about two dozen interviews of business people throughout Uzbekistan. Anonymous excerpts from these interviews are available on request. 6 This ranking would persist even if earlier, somewhat higher, estimates of the World Bank had been used. Indeed, the figure for Turkmenistan is extremely dubious and subject to revision. Angus Maddison calculates GDP per capita at purchasing power parity for 1998 at $4809 for Kazakhstan, $2042 for Kyrgyzstan, $830 for Tajikistan, $1723 for Turkmenistan and $3296 for Uzbekistan. Maddison, A. The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. Paris: OECD. 2001. pp. 183-85. Obviously, these differ considerably from the World Bank estimates. 4


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Turkmenistan have displayed impressive rates of growth during the last few years due to their export of oil (or leases to explore for it) and natural gas. But neither Kazakhstan nor Turkmenistan has yet achieved the GDP it recorded in 1989 at the very end of the Soviet Union.7 This paradox can be partially explained by the deep “transitional depression” suffered by those two countries. Consider this exercise in arithmetic: a country which declines 60%, then recovers 60% over four or five years, would still be at a mere 64% of its previous peak. Both Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan lost a great deal of their manufacturing base with the break-up of the Soviet market. Along with Kyrgyzstan, the agricultural sector in Kazakhstan has suffered from organizational disruption, environmental disaster, lack of credit and cheap inputs. Much of the new wealth of the petroleum-rich states, moreover, has accrued to the well-connected or entrepreneurial strata of these countries, perhaps onequarter to one-third of the entire population at most. These people are concentrated in the capitals and largest cities. (Obviously, illicit incomes are poorly reflected, if at all, in official statistics.) The petroleum-dependent countries all have high reported Gini coefficients. A Gini coefficient of 0 means completely equal incomes; a coefficient of 1 means one person receives all incomes in society. The share of incomes going to the top ten percent of recipients confirms the picture of substantial inequality.8 Uzbekistan’s shallow transitional depression and steady recovery has been attributed to the low level of industrialization in Soviet Uzbekistan, to its reliance on cotton and its self-sufficiency in energy.9 As argued in another paper,10 the ability of the Uzbek government to maintain its cotton production and to direct it to more advantageous world markets is a significant institutional achievement, though not accomplished without strongarm methods and monopsonistic exploitation of cotton farmers. Furthermore, the country devoted a great deal of attention and money to expanding its production of fuels during the first years of independence. Had the secret been merely a low level of industrialization, both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan would also have had shallow transitional recessions. As shown in Table 1, they did not, as they are still far from their 1990 levels. Table 1. Basic Economic Data for Central Asian States GNI/capita, Growth index, Growth, % agriculture+ Gini 2002, real GDP, real manufac-turing, Coef@ppp 1990-2002 GDP 2001 ficient 2002/01 Azerbaijan $3010 115 10.6% 36% .365 Kazakhstan 5630 82 9.8 25 .313 Kyrgyzstan 1560 77 -0.5 50 .290 Tajikistan 930 43 9.1 45 .347 Turkmenistan 4780 89 14.9 .. .408 Uzbekistan 1640 110 4.2 44 .268 Source: 2004 World Development Indicators (World Bank, 2004) .. indicates no data available Country

% income, top 10%

29.5% 24.2 23.3 25.2 31.7 22.0

7 According to the CIS statistical committee, Kazakhstan had achieved 106.2% of its 1991 level by 2003, while Uzbekistan registered 112.3% of its real GDP in that last pre-independence year. No other CIS country exceeded Uzbekistan’s recovery mark. www.cisstat.org/ 8 For a more comprehensive analysis of the other Central Eurasian economies, see Spechler M. “Central Asia on the Edge of Globalization” in Challenge, vol. 47, no. 3: July-August, 2004. pp. 62-77. 9 Zettlemeyer J. “The Uzbek Growth Puzzle” in IMF Working Paper no. 98/133. Washington D.C. 10 Spechler M, Bektemirov K, Chepel S, and Suvankulov F, The Uzbek Paradox: progress without neo-liberal reform. In: Ofer, G. and Pomfet, R. eds. The Economic Prospects of the CIS, Sources of Long Term Growth, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. 2004. pp. 177-97.

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Since 1996 Uzbekistan has experienced steady growth, at least according to official statistics. This has been achieved despite fluctuations in the world price for cotton and gold, the two main exports of the country. Our analysis indicates that trade and services, general government, mining and agriculture have been growth sectors, with manufacturing seriously lagging during 1996-2003. While Uzbekistan’s figures were called into question during the early 1990’s by the IMF, they have been less challenged since,11 except by opposition figures relying on personal impressions. According to confidential figures, though, personal consumption has been falling about 1% per year since 1996 through 2002. As a partial offset, public consumption has been rising. Given the inexperience of Uzbekistan’s statistical service and the political sensitivity of the figures, one should regard the figures with caution and perhaps scepticism. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (ERBD), which has been critical of Uzbekistan’s reform record, records growth rates of between 2 and 5% for the years 1996-2002, and its 2001 level at 105% of that in 1989. Their estimates of the 2001/1989 index for the other Central Asian countries are similar to those given in Table 1. There is some evidence that the unmeasured or “shadow” portion of these Central Asian economies has increased during the 1990s. Based on electricity use or other physical indicators, this missing part of the GDP increased from about 20-22% for Uzbekistan in 1990-93 to 28% by 1994-95 and to 33% by 2000-01.12 If true, that would imply that the growth rate has been underestimated by at least 0.9 percentage points per year or as many as 1.2 points. F. Schneider estimated the share of the working population engaged outside the official economy as 33% for Uzbekistan. The underestimate of the growth rate implied for Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan would be slightly less; for Kyrgyzstan practically nil. Schneider estimated the size of the “shadow economy” as highest in Azerbaijan (more than half of the labour force), next highest in Kazakhstan, lowest in Kyrgyzstan. By these methods, OECD countries have about one-sixth of their full GDP in unmeasured sectors. The Human Development Index, developed by the United Nations (UNDP), goes beyond material product to include such indicators as life expectancy, reported adult literacy, and education. All the Central Asian states ranked at the “medium” level as of 2000, with Kazakhstan at 0.75, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan at 0.73, Uzbekistan at 0.73, Kyrgyzstan at 0.71, and Tajikistan at 0.67.13 Given the inaccuracy of the underlying data, these ratings (except for Tajikistan’s) should be regarded as essentially identical.

The Uzbek Road When the Uzbek Communist Party leadership reluctantly accepted independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union, they immediately set about choosing a strategy to stabilize the country, assure its independence and promote both the rule of law and economic prosperity 11

For 2004 the IMF mission projected growth at 7.1 percent, “very close to the official projection of 7.6 percent,” with the difference owing to how international trade is measured. IMF, “Concluding Statement of the December 2004 Staff Visit,” December 17, 2004. The IMF also projects a higher CPI than the official figure. 12 Johnson S., Kaufman D., and Shleifer A. “The Unofficial Economy in Transition” in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: 1997; Johnson, Kaufman, and Zoida-Loboton P. “Regulatory Discretion and the Unofficial Economy” in American Economic Review, vol. 88, no. 2. pp. 387-92; Schneider F. “The Size and Development of the Shadow Economies of 22 Transition 21 OECD Countries” in IZA Discussion Papers, no. 514: Bonn Institute for the Study of Labour, as cited in Kaser M, The Economic and Social Impact of Systemic Transition in Central Asia and Azerbaijan. In: Amineh, M., Houweling, H. eds. Central Eurasia in Global Politics, Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill. 2004, pp. 145-60. 13

UNDP, Human Development Report 2002. New York: Oxford University Press. 2002. I am indebted to Michael Kaser for calling my attention to these data.


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– as did all the other former Soviet nations. Islam A. Karimov, who had just before been appointed head of the Communist Party of Soviet Uzbekistan, assumed the Presidency of the new Republic of Uzbekistan and set about eliminating political and regional opposition to his rule. The Birlik party, a nationalist grouping formed in 1988 to promote the Uzbek language and democracy, was suppressed, as was its moderate offshoot, Erk. The hokim (leaders) of the dozen oblasts (provinces) were soon replaced if they did not promise sufficient loyalty to the new President. Rejecting both Marxism-Leninism and Islamism, the President based his regime on multi-ethnic nationalism, including revival of the Uzbek language with the Latin alphabet, a secular regime controlling Muslim institutions but tolerating private religious observance for all indigenous faith communities, and independence from all its neighbours, most particularly the new Russian Federation.14 Instead of a “big bang” shock therapy, which was urged by some Washington institutions, Karimov set out a gradual plan of development in stages, but without a fixed time framework for moving from one to the next. In this he was explicitly influenced by his prior experiences in China, the Republic of Korea and elsewhere in Asia, where “traditional values” of stability and hierarchy were upheld. These values naturally attracted his attention as suitable for the Uzbek national character and his own ambitions to keep the country together and independent of outside powers. “The Orient understands democracy on the basis of collectivism, paternalism, and the priority of shared meanings,” he said to the parliament in February 1995. Nonetheless, the Marxist-Leninist education of the leadership left a noticeable residue. Industrialization and trade aversion had been guiding ideas of development throughout Soviet times. Any notion of agriculture- and service-based development was hard to accept by the older nomenklatura and is only lately being seriously contemplated after a decade of instinctively favouring capital-intensive industrial projects. Moreover, as in Soviet practice, the state took upon itself the role of stabilizing incomes and set price controls, subsidies, and targeted taxation. “To inflict no pain,” was one of Karimov’s slogans. “Just imagine what would happen if in Uzbekistan we adopted Gaidar’s principles of shock therapy? One only needs to bear in mind what the results might be in a country where half the population consists of either children or adolescents,” he said.15 As in many other poor countries, Uzbekistan’s stated objectives included growth and technological modernization, but also a widespread sharing of the benefits of reform. In fact, compared with the richer countries of East-Central Europe or Russia, social stability and equality assumed a more significant role than material growth.

Main Elements of the “Uzbek Road” x Gradual reform to preserve stability and national unity x Centralized state role in guiding and financing investment priorities x Self-sufficiency in energy and food to insulate the economy from global price swings x Legal basis for private sector and overall social development x Social protection of weaker sectors of the population

14

Spechler M. “Russia and Uzbekistan” in Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 49, no. 1: January-February 2002. pp. 63-67. 15 Quoted in Levitin, L. and Carlisle, D. Islam Karimov, President of the New Uzbekistan. Vienna: Agrotec. 1995. p. 44. Yegor Gaidar was prime minister of the Russian Federation under Boris Yeltsin.

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Uzbekistan’s civil service has been overworked and poorly paid, increasing both turnover and temptations to exploit one’s position. Secrecy with ordinary financial data still resembles late Soviet practice and impedes improvement of statistics to world standards. The World Bank rates Uzbekistan below average (21st percentile) for all 173 countries studied for “government effectiveness,” at the 28th percentile for “rule of law,” and only at the 11th for “regulatory quality”.16

Phases of Reform It will be useful to distinguish four phases of the reform in Uzbekistan: stabilization from 1991 to 1993, initial market reforms 1993-1996, retreat from inconvertibility 1996-2002, and return to convertibility, 2003-2005. During all these periods basic institutions have been reformed by the Presidential decrees and parliamentary legislation. External conditions, however, including pressure and incentives from outside agencies, have significantly influenced how economic policy has been carried out. During the first two years after independence, the emphasis was on preserving social stability in the Soviet-style while disengaging from the Moscow influence. Though significant budgetary subventions from central budgets were terminated, the Russian ruble continued to serve as CIS currency. Uzbekistan had the privilege of issuing ruble credits until the Russian Central Bank ended the practice in 1993. Then the Uzbeks created their own currency, the soum. It was convertible for current account purposes under Article 8 of the IMF Articles of Agreement, to which the country quickly adhered. Until 1993, though, exports were limited to prevent shortages, and quite a few prices were controlled. Subsidies were paid to prevent unemployment at major factories, many of which now lacked their former CIS customers. Subsequent release of prices led, quite predictably, to a four-digit rate of inflation for a year or two. Uzbekistan has maintained Soviet-style administrative orders and control of irrigation water in the cotton sector, which had been expanded on orders from central planners, but cotton fibre was now sold at world market prices, instead of the concessionary prices set by Moscow. This was to the good, but until the country could develop food and energy self-sufficiency, its terms of trade hardly changed. Cotton was profitable but hard on soil and water resources, so the new Uzbekistani government ordered conversion of some land to grain, replacing imports from Kazakhstan. It also had to pay market prices for manufactured consumer goods. In sum, then, according to the calculations by David Tarr, Uzbekistan’s overall terms of trade decreased a mere 3%.17 With the advent of legalized markets, the Uzbeks busied themselves plugging the gaps left unfilled by Soviet planning practices. Almost at once, private shops and restaurants opened, as they did everywhere in the post-Soviet space. By 2002 small- and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) provided 19% of GDP, while other individual enterprises added 16% to that. So-called shuttle traders, often bulky women with matching bags, began to ply the bus routes from Almaty’s vast emporium to Tashkent’s bazaars. Farmers filled these open markets with fruits, meats, and vegetables from gardens and personal subsidiary plots.18 All this improved life for ordinary Uzbeks.

16

World Bank Institute. Governance Matters II: Updated Governance Indicators for 2000-01. These indicators all improved from 1997/98 to 2000/1 and are now comparable to other former Soviet Union states.

17

Tarr D. “The Terms-of-Trade Effects of Moving to World Prices on Countries of the Former Soviet Union” in Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1). pp. 1-24. 18 By 2002 these plots provided almost 2/3 of agricultural produce, according to official statistics.


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Meanwhile, by late 1992 the government was putting forth its main fiscal reforms. A VAT and income tax would replace the Soviet turnover tax. State-owned enterprises would be “corporatized,” preparatory to privatization, if and when investors could be found.19 Liberal laws favoured foreign direct investment, and the government invested lavishly in a new international airline, oil and chemical refineries and a number of manufacturing ventures, such as the UzDaewoo car plant. These days Uzbekistan’s Daewoo “Nexia”, a serviceable if unexceptional sedan, sells for $10,000 in Tashkent, but is marketed, rather weakly, at $6000 in nearby Kazakhstan. By 1993-94 the government began to control its budget better with the advice of the IMF, whose program Uzbekistan adopted. Inflation rates fell from an official 1132% in 1994 to 28% by 1997. Although the regular budget deficits were in the range of only 1-2%, off-budget government-guaranteed credits to favoured enterprises continued to add to the fiscal pressure. Utilities and some other prices were still controlled, so the GDP price deflator rose even faster than consumer prices. During this period the country also expanded its foreign trade with reduced tariffs and controls. With a strong soum, bargain import prices helped keep the consumers satisfied at stores, even though bazaar prices rose with the black market price of the dollar. Labour market reforms enacted in 1995-96 created a liberal set of rights for employers to hire and fire at their discretion, replacing the Soviet practice of effective “job rights”. The minimum wage is negligible, and pension payments, while nearly 40% on employer and employee, are required for only 11% of the workforce. After a probationary period, sacking workers is still not difficult, though severance pay of two months’ wages is due if a contract is terminated. Special protections are extended, however, to pregnant women and the handicapped. After a number of years of preparation, in which the banking sector was composed mostly of specialized banks set up by the government or by state enterprises, basic banking laws were passed in conformity with international practice. A chief objective was to facilitate credit flows to SMEs. A continuing effort is being made to improve the qualifications of banking employees; with abolition of salary caps in 2002, which had been widely circumvented anyway, the banking sector is free to hire well-educated personnel. However, owing to restrictions on cash withdrawals and other violations of privacy, the public’s suspicion of banks has not been overcome, as evidenced by a decrease in deposits and the consequent increase of M2 velocity.20 Banks have made dollar-denominated loans to firms earning mainly soums. With the 500% devaluation of the soum over the last three years, these loans became effectively non-performing. The government guarantees of most development loans have yet to be tested, as they are routinely “rolled over”, but this financial manipulation fools no one. Several banks have been commercialized, albeit with state ownership wholly or in part. The top five banks controlled 85% of assets as of mid-2002. Foreign participation in the banking sector has begun, but on a limited scale.21 There are now six representative offices in the country, notably Asaka Bank of Andizhan (which is still waiting to be sold by the state, reportedly because of wide differences over its net value), ABN Amro, Saderat Bank of Iran, and Uzbek-Turkish Bank. Obtaining credit for SMEs is now easier, according to our interviews, but customers report still having to pay kickbacks (usually 5%), fill out many forms, and then wait. The 19

Investment funds to permit participation by small savers were organized in 1996. M2 is a broad measure of money, including time deposits, and velocity is the number of times this money stock is used, on average, to finance economic activity in a year. 21 As of April, 2002, the government still had 45% of the registered capital with another 20% controlled by predominantly public joint stock companies. Foreign participation is as yet insignificant; in Kazakhstan, by contrast, 22 of 50 commercial banks have some foreign ownership. 20

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big commercial banks have large government-guaranteed loans on their balance sheets, and these are partially exempt from prudential regulation, making the solvency of the banks less reliable to outside depositors, particularly if the soum value of foreign liabilities would rise as a result of likely depreciation. With Uzbekistan paying an estimated 5.8% interest on its total external debt, there is a clear danger that the debt burden will rise unless export surpluses allow some repayment of principal (or the growth rate rises well beyond its normal 4% recently).22 As elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, the banking sector remains a shortcoming in economic reforms. The Central Bank of Uzbekistan is not independent of the government and must monetize any deficit on demand, though it has not done so recently. By 1995-96, as we have recounted, Uzbekistan had completed its first round of market reforms. International agencies were reasonably satisfied. According to the World Bank structural reform index, Uzbekistan’s rating rose from 0.3 to 0.57 (on a scale from 0 to 1) in 1993-95. But like most of its neighbours (except Kyrgyzstan), Uzbekistan experienced setbacks during the rest of the 1990s. Uzbekistan’s World Bank rating fell off to around 0.50 by 1999. At that latter date Russia was at 0.64, Kazakhstan at 0.72, Kyrgyzstan at 0.79, and Belarus at 0.37.23 The cause of the widespread retreats was overoptimism and monetary over-expansion, resulting in real appreciation of the post-Soviet currencies. In Russia, this led to the 1998 crisis. In Uzbekistan, high cotton and gold prices early on, which induced government spending increases, resulted in a loss of foreign reserves and a build up of foreign debt. (By 2000 the foreign debt had ballooned to 60% of GDP by 2000 and necessitated short-term borrowing at high rates of interest.) Loss of foreign reserves led directly to the critical decision of late 1996 to reverse the free convertibility of the soum for current transactions. Soon a curb rate for dollars appeared along with the official ones, and the difference between the illegal and best legal rate (obtainable only for approved imports) grew to 400% by 1999.

A Retreat to Inconvertibility Like many other low-income countries, the concentrated structure of Uzbekistan’s primary exports made it vulnerable to external real shocks. Most less developed countries have lacked the experience or external support to adjust successfully to negative trade shocks; even positive ones are badly met.24 Cotton fibre had been the source of about 45% of total exports, or 75% of Uzbekistan’s hard-currency revenues. Gold provided another quarter of exports, with uranium and other metals most of the rest. High prices for these exportables during the first years of independence produced a kind of “Dutch disease,” involving reduced manufactured exports and a rising real exchange rate. This result, theoretically to be expected,25 may have been obscured by the systemic changes which the economy underwent. Rather too soon the favourable external environment shifted. A combination of poor cotton harvests and worsening relative terms of trade forced the government’s hand. Owing 22

Since the debt burden is conventionally evaluated in relation to GDP (or exports if the external interest rate exceeds the rate of growth of GDP), the burden will increase, unless part of the debt is repaid.

23

ǖslund A., Boone P., and Johnson S. “Escaping the Under-Reform Trap” in IMF Staff Papers, vol. 48: 2001. pp. 88ff., quoting the work of Martha DeMelo, Cevdet Denizer, and Alan Gelb of 1997. 24 Collier, P. and Gunning, J. Trade Shocks in Developing Countries. London: Oxford University Press. 1999. 2 vols. 25 Corden W.M. and Neary J.P. “Booming Sector and De-Industrialization in a Small Open Economy” in The Economic Journal, vol. 92: December 1982. pp. 825-848.


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mostly to a steep fall of 26% in the price of cotton from the first quarter of 1995 to mid1996, Uzbekistan’s external balance turned sharply negative, and its commitment to an open economy faltered. President Karimov, who had been publicly committed to a strong soum, now found it convenient to blame “cheap” imports from China for the problems, ignoring the obvious fact that many of his poorer countrymen could afford nothing more. Uzbekistan could not waste its scarce currency on “chewing gum and ketchup,” he said. The retreat from Uzbekistan’s obligations under the IMF Articles soon alienated the Fund, which cancelled the pledges it had made for adjustment loans. By 2000, after an acrimonious meeting with Stanley Fischer, deputy director of the IMF, its resident representative was withdrawn, too. This separation lasted for about two years, until the events of 9/11 changed Uzbekistan’s strategic value in Washington. For most Uzbeks, conditions during the retreat were not favourable. Various administrative measures, like a 50% surrender requirement for hard currency proceeds, made exports very unprofitable and imports hard to obtain. Tariffs were raised – and sometimes collected. According to the World Bank, unregistered imports and capital flight reached 4-6% of GDP during 1998-99 and pushed the black-market premium to its peak at the beginning of January 2000.26 Banks were enlisted to register and in fact to regulate imports to prevent over-invoicing; withdrawals of foreign currency, even for NGO’s, became difficult to impossible.27 Exportable industrial output began to fall, though chemical and food output managed to rise after 1997. Profitability of the industrial sector actually declined during 1996-2000. Employment in the critical SME sector decreased by nearly half between 1995 and 1998,28 and agriculture operated at a loss throughout. While the government had hopes for selling off some of its state-owned enterprises for hard currency, inconvertibility and its accompanying bureaucratic controls, together with weak conditions on world markets, meant that 96 of the original 258 enterprises approved for large-scale privatization in November 1998 had to be withdrawn.29 Of those actually privatized, large amounts of shares were sold to managers and workers of the firm itself (“insiders”), as has occurred throughout the former Soviet Union, owing to lack of outside or foreign buyers. Because of high tax exactions, Uzbekistan’s shadow economy was estimated to constitute about 9 per cent of GDP during 1998-9.30 According to business people’s perception of corruption, as surveyed by Transparency International, Uzbekistan rated 1.8 on a scale from 10 (no corruption) to 1 (highly corrupt). This rating compares with 2.4 for Russia, 2.3 for Kazakhstan, and 2.2 for Kyrgyzstan. Those surveyed estimated they expended an average of 4.4% on bribes, a figure fitting just below Kyrgyzstan and just above Kazakhstan.31 While such surveys are clearly rough estimates, there is little reason to doubt that a significant part of small business incomes in Uzbekistan’s “shadow economy” still goes unreported and may partially offset any overstatement in the official statistics for 26

World Bank. Republic of Uzbekistan Country Economic Memorandum no. 26525-UZ: April 30, 2003. p. 9. For a detailed analysis of the measures taken under inconvertibility, see Spechler M. “Returning to Convertibility in Uzbekistan?” in Journal of Policy Reform, vol. 6, no. 1: 2003. pp. 51-56. 28 “Malyi i srednii biznes: Prioritety razvitiia” [Small and medium business: priorities for development] in Bisnes-Vestnik Vostoka 50: December 16-20, 1999. p. 2, quoted in Trushin Eshref and Trushin Eskender. “Challenges to Economic Policy in Central Asia: Is a Miracle Possible?” In: Rumer, B. ed. Central Asia: A Gathering Storm? Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. 2004. p. 51. President Karimov said in his speech to the EBRD in 2003 that SMEs account for 34% of GDP. 29 Dimitriev A. “Prodavat nelzia, zhdat,” [Impossible to sell, wait] in Bisnes-Vestnik Vostoka 51: December 23-29, 1999. p. 1, quoted by Trushin and Trushin, in Rumer, p. 47. 30 Schneider F. and Enste D. “Hiding in the Shadows: The Growth of the Underground Economy” in IMF Economic Issues Series. 2002. 31 “New Corruption Indexes of Transparency International: Wide Range of Scores” in Transition 10: 1999. p. 2. 27

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GDP. Corruption may, however, discourage potential business deals, if they are too overt, and it also prevents cooperation between business and government. Foreign direct investment also fell to a negligible level. During this period of retreat, real wages for most workers did not increase and unemployment became more common, owing in part to urban migration of secondary school graduates seeking employment. Towards the end of the period of inconvertibility, as the government was trying anti-inflation measures to prepare for a free rate for the soum, wages and pensions were not paid out regularly. This provoked several large strikes, unreported except by word of mouth. Three major work stoppages broke out in industrial plants in the sensitive Fergana Valley and elsewhere over wages not paid for the last six months. Eventually, the government caved in and paid the workers. Other plants are distributing wages in chits or in kind. Most recently, intrusive and arbitrary regulations of bazaar traders sparked a near riot in the west of the country. Regional differences grew at the expense of Karakalpakstan in the arid far west and other rural oblasts.32 In some rural districts, according to our interviews, most of the ablebodied men departed for Kazakhstan or Russia for work. In the city of Urgench, south of the Aral Sea, more than 100 pensioners protested when the local administrator admitted he had no money to pay pensions but offered food and free electricity instead. Local tax revenues were down, he pleaded. Much of the region’s budget went to host a national youth sports competition in May 2003. While the actual figures are secret, real per capita consumption had been falling about 1% per year since 1995, and the situation in the impoverished countryside was even more critical. By 2000 President Karimov and the country’s governing elite were becoming aware33 that administrative direction of Uzbekistan’s industry was not working to assure the exports needed to sustain further growth in the country. The “seven lean years” had to be brought to an end. Renewal of support by the IMF was accelerated by the consequences of September 11, 2001, and Uzbekistan’s role in the subsequent war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The U.S. government was eager to have basing rights in the Republic of Uzbekistan and made several overtures and promised aid to obtain them. We will see below that it took about three years to reverse direction and begin to restore an open, more liberal economy. Meanwhile vested interests had fortified their positions, and an oligarchic class began to build its villas around Tashkent, though in a more discreet fashion than in Almaty or Moscow, as I have personally observed. Large Mercedes-Benz’ and BMWs are also fewer in Tashkent. After the disappointing early going, as described above, Uzbekistan managed to privatize 374 enterprises in 2000, more than twice as many as were on the original plan. Substantial minority shares of some enterprises and utilities were placed on the stock exchanges. According to one report, the government is ready to sell its minor shares (‹25%) at any price. There is a view that major Uzbek businessmen may be buying Uzbek assets through foreign companies.34 Would this replay, in a minor key, the loans-for-shares deals to established national oligarchs? It does not seem to be exactly like this. President Karimov and his apparat easily retained control through unfair elections, continually

32

Pauline Jones Luong and her associates have called attention to the center-periphery struggle for power in several of the Central Asian states – another carry-over from Soviet times. Jones Luong, P. ed. The Transformation of Central Asia, States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2004. 33 Conversations of the author with mid-level economic specialists in Tashkent, July 2000. Up to that point, and perhaps beyond, there was some indecisiveness among top Uzbek policymakers. 34 International Crisis Group “The Failure of Reform in Uzbekistan: Ways Forward for the International Community”. Osh/Brussels. March 11 2004. p. 19.


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dismissing regional governors for alleged corruption or incompetence.35 Cotton and gold revenues, as well as foreign assistance, are still available to support the regime, which supervises budgetary allocations centrally with little real delegation of taxation or expenditure policy to the regions or localities.

International Economic Relations of the Republic of Uzbekistan Because of the inconvertibility of the Uzbek soum, the lack of foreign exchange reserves, and the extremely small volume of private investment, Uzbekistan’s imports during the 1996-2003 period were limited to its export revenues plus grants or loans from international financial agencies, particularly the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the EBRD, and the EU. Exports during 2000-02 were about $3 billion a year, with about one-third (and falling) to CIS countries. Cotton fibre now provided about one-quarter of total proceeds, energy about 10%, ferrous and non-ferrous metals about 7%, and food about 4%. The miscellaneous category, including gold and uranium, was 30-37%.36 CIS markets took a large share of Uzbekistan’s energy and food exports, while efforts to export machinery and equipment beyond the CIS showed some progress.37 With its reliance on cotton, energy, and non-ferrous metals, by 2001 Uzbekistan had the “most balanced structure” of exports of all the countries of the Central Asian region.38 Whether this was fully intended or not, the result has been that the country is now less vulnerable to world commodity prices than it had been in 1993-96. Compressed as they were because of the shortage of foreign exchange, imports were slightly less than exports in total value, leaving a modest trade balance each year. In accordance with the government’s policy of import substitution for food, energy, and raw materials, however, the share of machinery and equipment in permitted imports rose from 35% in 2000 to 41% in 2002. Chemical products, notably agricultural ones, increased their share, too. Reflecting increased American involvement in the country after 9/11, the USA was the second largest importer into Uzbekistan in 2002, after Russia, and that has continued.39 Turkey, Germany, and Kazakhstan were also important providers of imports. 35

Most recently, the prosecution of Ismoil Jurabekov, a prominent member of the Samarkand clan, has been thought to strengthen its rival, Tashkent. Kimmage D. “Uzbek Eminence Falls from Grace” in RFE/RL Central Asia Report, vol. 5, no. 7: February 23 2005. In other cases where officials have been dismissed, no clan association can be ascertained. The purpose usually appears to be deflecting blame from the top leadership. 36 State Committee on Statistics of Uzbekistan, as quoted in Center for Effective Economic Policy, Uzbekistan Economy. Statistical and Analitical [sic] Review, Annual Issues. 2002. Tashkent: CEEP. 2002. pp. 60-61. Russia’s share in Uzbekistan trade declined as a result of the 1998 crisis but has since recovered. Kakharov J. “Uzbek-Russian Economic Relations and the Impact of the Russian Economic Performance on Uzbekistan’s Growth and Foreign Trade” in Central Asia and the Caucasus 1 (25): 2004. table 1. 37 The large shares in exports reported for the UK (7%), Switzerland (6-8%), Iran (rising to nearly 6%) may reflect the immediate destination of cotton fibre and gold, rather than the ultimate customer. Enterprises with foreign capital (EFC) accounted for 15% of Uzbekistan’s GDP in 2002, including UzDaewoo car and van production in Andijan, Newmont mining in Navoi oblast, Kabool-Uzbek and Daewoo textiles, and Kyzylkum cement works. These EFCs accounted for about 14% of exports in 2000-02, but their imports of equipment and semi-fabricates (such as car parts) were 25-30% of total imports. Uzbekistan Economy 2002. pp. 64-65. 38 Becker A.S, Some Economic Dimensions of Security in Central Asia and South Caucasus. In: Oliker, O. and Szayna, T.S. eds. Faultlines of Conflict in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Santa Monica, CA: RAND. 2003. p. 55. 39 In 2003-04 American support of Uzbekistan showed up more clearly in the trade statistics. Trade volume with the USA rose about a third to $335 million, including more than $100 million in weapons, and this acceleration continued into 2004. During the first quarter of 2004 imports from the USA were $125 million, or 167% higher than the similar period of 2003, while exports were up some 31%. American firms, including financial institutions, have invested $2.4 billion in the country, about 60% as loans and credits, in about two

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This pattern of staple exports and priority imports is part of “export globalism,” conducted at a constrained level since 1996, rather than universal import substitution (ISI), as is sometimes said. Despite its ambivalent attitude towards Uzbekistan’s reform process, the World Bank has continued lending to the country. Commitments during 1999-2003 varied from $29 million to $127 million (with no trend) for a total for FY1994 to FY2003 of $599 million, while disbursements have totalled $268 million, also with no discernible trend. The leading target sectors since 1994 have been water and agriculture (42%), industry and trade (30%), and law and public administration (11%). USAID, UNDP, and the EU TACIS project have been involved in natural resource and environmental projects, while EBRD has also been lending for telecommunications and infrastructure projects. Most recently the Islamic Development Bank announced support for four projects, and the Asian Development Bank intends to lend about $150 million to Uzbekistan through 2008.40

Return to Convertibility Early in 2002, as part of a distinct warming of its relations with Washington, the government of Uzbekistan signed a new Memorandum with the IMF, which listed about two dozen liberalization steps, including eventual convertibility of the soum.41 Among the other measures promised or taken immediately were a unification of the official foreign currency rates, an increase in the quota of hard currency saleable to citizens, and a further devaluation for the benefit of exporters. Export duties were banned, and import duties unified. Promises had long been made by the Bush Administration, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank, and others to support this return to an open economy. Things did not go smoothly, though. During my interviews with the diplomats, I acquired information that the U.S. Treasury halted all budgetary assistance until and unless reforms were implemented. The Uzbeks responded to American backtracking by holding up implementation of the IMF Memorandum. To prevent capital flight they retained import contract registration and price verification, as well as limits on advance payments for imports and exports, as impediments to trade. During 2002-03 a number of administrative measures were put in place to squeeze the demand for dollars in preparation for return to convertibility. In particular, shuttle trade to the bazaars was blocked on the pretext of encouraging domestic industry to produce more and better consumer goods. As a result of these and other measures, the parallel market rates for the soum strengthened in 2002-mid-2003 from a peak of about 1500 soums/$US to just over 1200, with the official rate standing at about 1000. Thus the gap between official and free rates of exchange nearly closed in the months before decisions of summer 2003. Returning to Uzbekistan in August 2003, I found the country gripped in a painful austerity. Like all bad news in this tightly controlled country, the situation filtered through to us in Tashkent from travellers to the provinces, gossip, and internet sites which can’t be completely silenced by the regime’s electronic blockade. Almost everyone in the country, from diplomats to pensioners, was sure things had gotten worse. Businesses had closed, and dozen “priority projects.” Of 316 enterprises involving American investors, 227 are joint ventures and 89 wholly owned. These are in mining, chemicals, consumer goods, foodstuffs, and machine manufacturing. Such enterprises with American capital constitute roughly 10% of the total number. CDI Russian Weekly. July 28 2004. p. 17. 40 41

RFE/RL. October 6 and 21 2004. Spechler 2003.


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the bazaars were full of fruits and vegetables waiting for the occasional customer. Many older Uzbeks privately told me they would gladly return to Soviet times, though there was and is still much more freedom than was permitted 15 years ago. People were living on wages of 20-30,000 soums per month – $20-30 at the going exchange rate – pay which permitted only a modest basket of food and essential transportation for most ordinary people, unless they found help. Fortunately, family and clan solidarity is a major defence against political or economic adversity for many Central Asians. As a consequence of administrative pressure and better export prices, a current account surplus of $530 million for the first half of 2003 created an opportunity to revert to a convertible soum at the relatively strong rate of UZS 980/USD. With Uzbekistan’s terms of trade better and U.S. foreign aid coming in, the government moved on October 15 – at long last – to make the soum convertible for exporters and tourists, if not for investors or emigrants. According to one of our informants, this was largely the result of American pressure.42 Convertibility may also have become more attractive with the acceleration of growth rates in neighbouring countries – Russia and Kazakhstan chief among them – at a time when Uzbekistan’s growth rate was not improving. According to an official of the Council of Ministers interviewed, another strong incentive for the return to convertibility was the desire to increase Uzbekistan’s quite small receipt of foreign investments. Knowing that the IMF was in any case unwilling to lend to support that rate that initially overvalued exchange rate, Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov declared that the government saw no need to borrow in the near future, since Uzbekistan had gold and foreign exchange reserves adequate for six months of imports. Limits on personal purchases of hard currencies were thus eased, though some reports indicated that large withdrawals were still difficult. About the same time the country cancelled required pre-registration of imports that had been imposed as part of the currency control system.

Recent Conditions in Uzbekistan Official figures indicate that Uzbekistan’s economy did pretty well during 2003, with a 4.4% growth rate, including 6.2% for industrial growth.43 There was an increased export surplus of $761 million for the full year, owing to higher prices for gold and cotton on world markets and the start of gas exports to Russia. The grain harvest set new records, though the cotton harvest was below 3 million tons for the first time in a decade.44 Because of tight monetary policy45 and a negligible budget deficit, consumer inflation was down to 3.8% for 2003. There is a strata of rich (according to the local level) people in Tashkent and some of the other cities we visited in the summer of 2004. Luxury villas are going up and a few more of the bigger Western cars belong to citizens, as shown by their license tags. Many more handsome public buildings have appeared since I was first there in 1997. More recently, the government invested millions in building or refurbishing half a dozen luxury-class hotels ahead of the conference of the EBRD. That meeting convened in 42

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reportedly told President Karimov at the White House that without economic reforms the USA would not be able to help. The Treasury wrote the Uzbekistanis a similarly tough letter. Very little of the $200 million in aid for Uzbekistan has been in the form of budgetary support, and in light of much higher aid to Pakistan, the Karimov government stalled almost all of the work on the IMF Memorandum items for a while. 43 The IMF has questioned this estimate; the EBRD gives a “more conservative estimate” of 1%. 44 EBRD Transition Report 2004. p. 78. 45 One odd element of monetary policy is the continual unwillingness to print notes of higher value. Exchange of one $100 bill current yields two large wads of the largest bills available!

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Tashkent, at the government’s insistence, in 2003. It was a fiasco, as undiplomatic recriminations from the Europeans on delicate issues such as torture in the country’s prisons, as well as more mundane matters such as the slow pace of economic reform, led to sullen stonewalling from President Islam Karimov and Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov. (On both of these issues, the government later gave in to international pressure.) Now these beautiful, new hotels are practically empty. Government figures indicate increased inequality between the well-kept capital and the western provinces, as well as between moderately prosperous cities and the impoverished countryside (where 60% of Uzbeks live). In the villages (kishlak) people survive on subsidized bread, milk, fruit and occasional meat. New clothes are usually beyond their reach. Discontent over economic hardship has not yet surfaced on a considerable scale.46 The suicide bombers of July 30, 2004, presumably Islamic militants opposed to the trials of earlier bombers, left no programmatic demands. Besides the procuracy, the other targets were the American and Israeli embassies. Though perceived economic hardship in the country may tempt the terrorists, their intent can hardly have anything to do with “human rights”, as understood in the West. Uzbek television and the semi-official press continue Uzbekistan’s self-congratulation, though there has been a noticeable, if still modest, rise in frankness. The real situation is not reported, except on internet sites, which also regularly feature highly critical broadsides from dissidents residing abroad. Islamic radicals such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan have made little headway since 1999. Their salafi or jihadi message goes against the secular Uzbek urban life-style, which features liquor, birth-control and freedom for women.47 A few more peasant women these days wear head-scarves, but in Tashkent 95 per cent do not. Uzbeks see what political Islam has done in neighbouring countries like such as, Afghanistan and war-torn Tajikistan. The radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has been impaled, and pan-Islamist Hizb-ut-Tahrir discouraged by arrests and driven underground. Foreign missionaries, who receive less support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran than in the early 1990s, pose a smaller threat than before, while traditional, nonradical forms of Islam can be encouraged by the regime. Numerous NGOs function in the country, though the local financial support for them is still paltry, according to my interviews.

Latest U.S. Policy towards Uzbekistan The U.S. State Department regards Uzbekistan’s human rights and democratic record with suspicion, and various human rights NGOs and evangelical missionaries view it with downright contempt. On the other hand, the American Defence Department (and NATO) have long regarded Uzbekistan as a stalwart and cooperative partner in the “war against terrorism”, as the country borders on Afghanistan and welcomes American troops in the continuing effort to pacify that country following the initial defeat of the Taliban. 46

A spontaneous demonstration in Kokand on November 1, 2004, occurred when tax officials tried to confiscate goods at the bazaar, but the crowd dispersed when the mayor promised to delay the regulation which had prompted the protest. The BBC’s Uzbek service also reported unrest in Jizzakh. RFE/RL. November 2 2004. 47 Jones Luong notes that “other social forces in the post-Soviet Central Asian states have exercised greater influence than Islam.” Neither militant Islamic movements nor “broad-based nationalist movements on a par with those that developed in other former Soviet republics” have been influential in the many NGOs which have emerged in all these states (except Turkmenistan) – mostly around social welfare, labour, environmental and even human rights issues. Jones Luong 2004 Introduction.


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Uzbekistan’s independent stance in relation to Russia and China make it attractive to the West, but its unsettled, authoritarian political system makes it a perilous long-run commitment. During 2003, while on official assignment, I came to believe that Uzbekistan’s priority in American foreign policy had slipped. For several months no ambassador was appointed.48 The U.S. Embassy staff was occupied fighting off baseless allegations coming from Washington. Several experienced American advisors had decamped for Iraq, like ambitious young officers seeking combat to bolster their promotion dossiers. With the gradual stabilization of Afghanistan and the existence of alternative forward bases in the area for emergencies, America has gradually reduced its aid and programs in the country.49 Early in 2004, possibly in response to the “rose revolution in Georgia,” in which George Soros’ Open Society Institute supposedly had a role, the Uzbek government singled OSI out and made re-registration more difficult, according to its Tashkent representative. In response, OSI soon departed. Apparently the OSI action, as well as threats of expulsion for Freedom House and two other NGOs, was one of the factors which convinced Secretary of State Colin Powell to refuse to certify Uzbekistan’s progress under the 2002 Strategic Partnership Framework. On July 13, 2004, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announced that “up to $18 million” of the FY 2004 aid appropriation would be negatively affected. Despite “some encouraging progress with respect to human rights,” he said, the U.S. had been disappointed by lack of progress on democratic reforms, as well as restrictions on “US assistance partners on the ground,” a seeming reference to the Soros-sponsored group. Boucher went on to declare continued American interest in cooperation with Uzbekistan in the future. Evidently military relations and efforts to thwart terrorism would be unaffected. According to David Lewis of the International Crisis Group, which has been highly critical of Uzbekistan, “this decision is the result of a battle in the administration between the State Department and the Defence Department. Decisive for this new sign was not so much that the human rights situation in Uzbekistan got slightly worse [sic], but that the pressure was building on the administration to acknowledge it”.50 In February 2004, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had acknowledged Uzbekistan’s support in the war against terror and stressed that “human rights are just one aspect of US-Uzbek relations.” So evidently the views of human rights activists and the State Department prevailed over those of Defence. Indeed, while the American decision to cut civilian aid was not announced publicly in Tashkent, a sign of embarrassment, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilkhom Zakirov responded by saying, “I am not disappointed by the State Department’s decision. We understand that the full amount of the earmarked $18 million will not be lost, but there will have to be a decision by the State Department on every single development project.51 The military cooperation will continue.”52 Undersecretary of State for Europe and Central Asia Elizabeth Jones visited Tashkent the next day in an apparent effort to soften the blow. She told Uzbek television on July 18 that a plan for political and economic reform in Uzbekistan had been drawn up and added, “The relationship between the United States and Uzbekistan is really very good.”53 48

Ambassador Jon Purnell arrived in the spring of 2004. U.S. bilateral aid has been declining since 2002. According to Martha Brill Olcott, a long-time specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “This is a sign that Central Asia is less important than it was three years ago.” Asia Times. July 16 2004. 50 Boehm P. “US Yanks Aid to Uzbekistan” in Christian Science Monitor: July 15 2004. 51 Asia Times. July 16 2004. In August U.S. Army General Richard Meyers visited Uzbekistan and announced an additional $21 million in aid “to prevent proliferation of biological weapons.” Kimmage 2005. 52 Ibid. 49

53

RFE/RL. July 19 2004.

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The Uzbek reaction was quite predictable. In a parliamentary speech and press conference at the end of April 2004, President Karimov had already been adjusting his orientation. “A new level of trust is forming between Russia and Uzbekistan,” he said. Uzbekistan should abandon the resentments of the past and realize that “Russia does not pose a threat to us.” Always hedging his bets, though, Karimov also cautioned that his comments should not be interpreted “that we are oriented toward Russia and against the interests of a third country, in particular the United States.”54 At the May 28 summit of the Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO) in Astana, Kazakhstan, he said the Russian Federation “has traditionally been playing a significant role in the geo-political and geo-economic processes taking place in Central Asia. We are all unanimous in recognizing the long-term strategic interests of our northern neighbour in the region and its role in ensuring regional stability…Russia has the most advanced relations with regional countries in all fields, plays the role of a natural partner of the CACO.”55 At that meeting Russia was accepted as a new member. The possible mutual use of military facilities, provision of Russian arms and equipment (usually provided at below cost), and training of Uzbek servicemen were mentioned. Joint military exercises are to be held in 2005. At the same meeting in June at which Karimov expressed dissatisfaction with his American connection, the Uzbek President – in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin – welcomed a new stage in the Uzbek-Russian “partnership.” The Russians have also made widely publicized deals to respond to these openings. In the near future Russia is expected to buy more Uzbek gas and seems interested in reviving normal commercial and investment ties. The Russian energy conglomerate Gazprom is set to invest $1 billion to develop Uzbekistan’s gas potential, and Lukoil has agreed to a separate production-sharing deal for a gas-condensate field at Ustyurt near the Turkmenistan border. The Uzbeks will receive 10% of the ownership and between 50% and 80% of the output of up to 8.8 billion cubic meters. Russia’s Mobile TeleSystems recently announced purchase of 74% of Uzdunrobita, the dominant player in Uzbekistan’s growing cellular market. The Russians paid a fairly high price of $121 million for this and took an option on the remainder for at least $37.7 million. These deals are not entirely political; they also satisfy businessmen within the Russian elite, who are appropriating more and more shares of such companies. Commenting on the July 13 decertification by the USA, Uzbekistani political analyst Marina Pikulina commented that the warming of relations with Russia will be far more relevant for ordinary Uzbeks because the business community hopes the Russian border will be opened up.56 Many otherwise unemployed Uzbeks now work seasonally in Russia, and some educational exchanges continue.

Managing Conflicts in Central Asia Foreign security policy often mirrors economic policy. In the case of Uzbekistan, the objective of both has been independence and political stability. As is widely observed, Central Asian countries themselves have failed to develop any regional security or economic cooperation institutions, despite several attempts.57 Nor have the Russiansponsored Collective Security Treaty Organization or NATO’s Partnership for Peace been 54

RFE/RL May 4 2004. p. 2. BBC Monitoring Unit. May 30 2004, from Uzbek television May 29. 56 Boehm 2004. 55

57

See for example Bohr A. “Regionalism in Central Asia: new geopolitics, old regional order” and Roy A. “Regionalism, regional structures, and security management” in International Affairs, vol. 80, no. 3: May 2004.


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effective in dealing with or preventing conflicts in the region.58 These include border squabbles, water regulation and ethnic tensions, all of which were suppressed during Soviet times. What has worked, however, is bilateral diplomacy, often involving would-be hegemonic Uzbekistan.59 That country’s arbitrarily drawn Soviet-era borders are being demarcated with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, just as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have worked out arrangements bilaterally with China. Crises over untimely release of water from Kyrgyz reservoirs have been dealt with, though the long-term matter of water allocations on the Syr Darya and Amu Darya defy resolution for the time being. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have so far overcome several crises involving their mixed-population border area, but Niyazov’s plans to build a huge lake in Turkmenistan, using water which might otherwise drain into the Aral Sea, remains a threat to regional security. Uzbekistan has successfully pressured its weaker neighbours to deal with Islamic Movment of Uzbekistan (IMU) terrorists intent on overturning the Karimov regime, and when that did not work, temporary incursions of Uzbek troops (and American strikes) accomplished the task. Drug and arms smuggling continue over the southern borders, but the adverse effect is felt mostly by the rest of Eurasia, not Central Asia itself.

Conclusion and Prospects Although Central Asian states in general, and Uzbekistan in particular, are hardly guaranteed sustainable growth and political stability, they have managed to get through fourteen years without major inter-state armed conflicts. This positive result owes almost nothing to regional institutions or big-power influence. All the countries have grown lately, and the otherwise sceptical EBRD says “medium term growth could rebound to 6 per cent per annum.”60 Growth can continue indefinitely, given peace, at modest rates (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) or at higher, but variable ones (Kazakhstan). Economic reforms have been put in place, as this article has illustrated, though implementation has been problematic. Both American and Russian assistance and investments have been helpful. It does not appear, moreover, that outside pressure will significantly accelerate progress towards democracy. Discreet persuasion might work better. A small middle class of educated professionals is developing which will support liberalization, but it is still dependent on various external and internal political groups.61

58

SwanstrĘm N. “The prospects for multilateral conflict prevention and regional cooperation in Central Asia” in Central Asian Survey 23 (1): March 2004. pp. 41-53. This Swedish expert attributes the failure of NATO to the “Central Asian states’ refusal to see their security problems as a common problem”. Most activities have been bilateral. 59 We analyze this in Spechler D. and Spechler M, Conflict and Cooperation in Central Asia after 9/11. In: Cohen, A. ed. Eurasia in Balance: The U.S. and the Regional Power Shift. Ashgate. 2005. This paper is available on request from the editor and authors. 60 Transition Report 2004. p. 79. 61

Adams L, Cultural Elites in Uzbekistan, Ideological Production and the State. In: Jones Luong 2004. pp. 93-119.


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Labour Migration and its Impact on Social Stability in Central Asia Elena Y. SADOVSKAYA Center for Conflict Management (Almaty, Kazakhstan) Abstract. The paper analyses external labour migration in the Central Asian republics: of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in comparative perspective and its impact on social stability in the region in the 2000s. The paper consists of three parts: changing migration trends in Central Asia, labour migration profiles by country and social and political effects of labour migration. Labour migration study includes analysis of causes of migration, estimation of the number of migrants, their social and demographic composition, countries/regions of origin and destination, and main employment spheres. Remittances and their role in improvement of the living standard of migrants’ households, social and political effects of labour migration and labour migrants’ rights are of a special focus in the paper.

Introduction In analysis of the security problems in Central Asia an interdisciplinary approach is necessary. We may analyze economic processes and indicators, but if one third of the gross national product (GNP) in the country is produced in the “shadow” economy, it is difficult to operate with official statistics to justify the conclusions. The same is true of political analysis: the answer to the question of social stability cannot always be found in studying political processes and structures. In societies, where alienation from the state, politics and economics is enormous, sociological study is important to understand what is going on in various social groups. How do individuals and communities survive in Central Asian countries? Social tension is often great, but social protests are local and rarely transformed into large-scale violent conflict (with the exception of Tajikistan, which went through civil war in 1991-1997), in spite of the fact that–according to official statistics–poverty leveling is high and unemployment, especially among youth, is steadily increasing. In Soviet times, guaranteed employment and a social protection system ensured social stability in spite of low salaries and lack of freedom. After the crash of the social protection system, and unpredictability of economic and political reforms during the transit period of the 1990s, millions of individuals lost their jobs and were left insecure and doomed to survive on their own. Labour migration became one of the alternative means of employment, and helped hundreds of thousands of migrants to support their families. The author would argue that external labour migration became one of the socially “stabilizing” processes in Central Asia in the 1990s. The process of external (international) labour migration is to be understood as nationals leaving their country to join the labour force of another country. According to the author’s estimations, in some Central Asian countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, 20 to 35% of the economically active population is involved in labour migration. This paper focuses on external labour migration from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajiki-

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stan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In these countries, labour migration is massive, but predominantly irregular. Irregular labour migration is not registered, controlled or managed in Central Asia. There is no methodology and statistics, even an estimation of migrant numbers is problematic. The impact of labour migration on the standard of living for migrants, development of local business, and social and political effects of labour migration are poorly studied topics. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the study of external labour migration in Central Asia in a comparative perspective and its impact on social stability. The author formulates the primary tasks as the following: investigating the causes of migration, estimating the number of labour migrants in each country; identifying country profiles including sociodemographic composition of migrants, countries/regions of origin and destination and main employment spheres. Remittances and impact of migrants’ income on living standards of their households are given special focus, as well as some other social and political effects of labour migration. The first research on modern labour migrations in Central Asia was implemented in Kazakhstan in 20001 and the rights of labour migrants in 2002.2 Research of labour emigration from Tajikistan was carried out in 2002-20033, social status of migrant workers from Tajikistan, working in construction in the city of Moscow and Moscow region4, and Tajik policy in labour migration was studied in 2004.5 In Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan representative study has not yet been carried out; however, various aspects of internal and external labour migration have already been analyzed by local scholars.6 In 2004, the Baseline Research of external labour migration in Central Asia, Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan was conducted under the auspices of International Organization for Migration (IOM) by two local scholars (with participation of the author).7 Baseline re1

Sadovskaya, E.Y. Migratsiya v Kazakhstane na rubezhe XXI veka: novye tendentsii i perspectivy [Migration in Kazakhstan by the beginning of the XXI century]. Almaty. 2001; Sadovskaya, E.Y. Trudovaya migratsiya i eio rol’ v adaptatsii k ekonomicheskomu krizisu v Kazakhstane [Labour migration and its role in the adaptation to the economic crisis in Kazakhstan]. Almaty. 2001. 2 Sadovskaya E.Y. Trudovaya migratsiya i prava migrantov v Kazakhstane [Labour migration and rights of migrants in Kazakhstan]. Scientific report. Almaty-Moscow. January 2003. 3 Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana [Labour migration from Tajikistan]. Dushanbe: Scientific-research centre “Shark”. 2003. 4 Sotsial’nyi status rabotnikov iz Tajikistana v stroitel’noi otrasti v Moskve i Moskovskoi oblasti [Social status of the labour migrants from Tajikistan in construction in Moscow and Moscow suburbs]. Moscow: The Institute of comparative research on labour relations. 2003. 5 Tajikistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii i vozmozhnye podhody k formirovaniiu politiki. Analiticheskii document [Tajikistan: problems of labour migration and possible approaches to policy-making. Analytical document]. Dushanbe. 2004. 6 Dmitrienko V.N, Trudovaya migratsiya: obschaya kontseptsiya problemy [Labour migration: the general concept of the problem], and Lomakova V.D, Sotsial’nyi portret trudovogo migranta [Social portrait of labour migrant] In: Kyrgyzstan: problemy v sfere trudovoi migratsii i vozmozhnye podhody k formirovaniiu politiki [Kyrgyzstan: problems in the sphere of labour migration and possible approaches to policy-making]. Bishkek. 2004; Maksakova, L.P. Migratsiya naseleniya Respubliki Uzbekistan [Migration of the population of the Uzbekistan Republic]. Tashkent: “Eldi-nur”. 2000; Maksakova L.P, Elebaeva A, Vyezdnye zarabotki kak istochnik razvitiya biznesa i predprinimatel’stva: primer Kirgizii i Uzbekistana [Wages from labour migration as a source of business and entrepreneurship development: the example of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan]. In: Zaionchkovskaya, Zh. ed. Trudovaya migratsiya i zaschita prav gastarbaiterov. Praktika postkommunisticheskih stran [Labour migration and defense of the rights of guest-workers. Practice of communist countries]. Kishiniov. 2003. p. 90-95; Uzbekistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii i vozmozhnye podhody k formirovaniiu politiki. Analiticheskii document [Uzbekistan: problems of labour migration and possible approaches to policy-making. Analytical document]. Tashkent. 2004; Elebaeva A, Migratsionnye protsessy i rynok truda v stranah Srednei Azii [Migration processes and labour market in Central Asian countries]. In: Maksakova, L.P. ed. Migratsiya i rynok truda v stranah Srednei Azii [Migration and labour market in Central Asian countries]. Moscow-Tashkent. 2002. 7 Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii, Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Afganistane i Pakistane. Analiticheskii obzor. [Labour migration in countries of Central Asia, Russian Federation, Afghanistan and

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search (“bazovoe” issledovanie) is a sociological study undertaken because of insufficient data and analysis of contemporary labour migration flows in Central Asia and Russia. Research was based on more than 250 experts’ interviews using unformalized questionnaires; informal interviews with migrant workers; statistical data such as from State Statistics Committee and data from specialized agencies (Ministry of Interior Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State Security Committee, etc.); analysis of previous sociological surveys,8 and research publications.9 Baseline research was implemented 15 March to 15 September, 2004. An analytical overview based on its materials is forthcoming. The author also uses the findings of individual research on labour migration in Kazakhstan, implemented as a McArthur fellow in 2004-2005. The major problem for the research in this field is an objective factor; i.e., the half-legal character of contemporary labour migration in Central Asia, and also lack or scarcity of data, limited access to sources of information, insufficient level of study of this topic, and such subjective factors as unwillingness of some governmental officials to share information. This makes further study of this complex social process necessary. Findings of the research have been used in this paper to analyze regional labour migration flows and to compare social and political effects of migrations in different Central Asian countries. Since the comparative analysis of regional labour migrations is undertaken for the first time in this paper, many issues may be interpreted as formulation of the problem and a starting point for further analysis and theoretical considerations. Sociological and sociodemographic perspective is complementary to economic and political analyses of the situation in the region represented in this volume. The author of this article believes that analysis of labour migration is significant for general understanding of actual mechanisms of stability and perspectives for development in contemporary Central Asia. Changing migration trends in Central Asia: causes and scale Contemporary migration in Central Asia: major trends The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional structure, which evolved after the collapse of the USSR; and, in terms of migration processes, represents a common migration system. The former Soviet republics are still connected by common infrastructure, transportation and communication systems, economic, financial and sociocultural relations and human ties. The most economically advanced country, Russian Federation attracts migrants from all CIS states. The character and size of migration movements have changed over the past decade. Pakistan. Analytic overview]. European Commission, International Organization on Migration. Almaty. (forthcoming) 8 Zaionchkovskaya Zh.A, Trudovaya migratsiya v SNG s pozitsii obschestva, sem’i i lichnosti [Labour migration in the CIS from the point of view of society, family and personality]. In: Vorob’iova, O.D. ed. Migratsiya naseleniya, Trudovaya migratsiya v Rossii [Migration of the population. Labour migration in Russia]. Issue 2. Moscow. 2001; Prinuditel’nyi trud v sovremennoi Rossii. Nereguliruemaya migratsiya i torgovlya liud’mi [Forced labour in contemporary Russia. Unregulated migration and trade of people]. Moscow: International organization of labour. 2004; Sadovskaya, E.Y. Trudovaya migratsiya i eio rol’ v adaptatsii… 2001; Sadovskaya E.Y. Trudovaya migratsiya i prava migrantov… 2003; Zaionchkovskaya, Zh.A. ed. Trudovaya migratsiya v SNG: sptsial’nye i ekonomicheskie effekty [Labour migration in the CIS: social and economic effects]. Moscow. 2003; Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana 2003. 9 Krasinets, E., Kubishin E., Tiuriukanova, E. Nelegal’naya migratsiya v Rossiiu [Illegal migration to Russia]. Moscow: Academia. 2000; Migratsiya naseleniya v SNG v 1996 gg. [Migration of population in the CIS]. Geneva: center of technical co-operation in Europe and Central Asia, MOM. 1998; Migratsiya naseleniya v SNG v 1997-98 gg. [Migration of population in the CIS in 1997-98]. 1999 edition. Geneva: center of technical co-operation in Europe and Central Asia, MOM. 1999; Sovremennaya demograficheskaya situatsiya v Kyrgyzskoi Respublike i al’ternativy eio razvitiya [Current demographic situation in Kyrgyz Republic and alternatives for its development]. Bishkek: UNFPA. 2001.


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Throughout the 1990s, forced migration–as a result of the “pushing” factors such as economic crisis and nation-building policies and discrimination against ethnic minorities in newly independent states–formed the bulk of the migration flow, mainly of Slavic groups, into Russia. In the 2000s, due to favorable economic conditions (first of all, high oil prices) and relatively dynamic economic reforms, the socioeconomic situation in Russia and Kazakhstan has been changing and they have become major receiving countries for labour migrants. The labour migration flows to Russia come mainly from Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, the Transcaucasian states, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan became a regional destination country for Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Both are also transit countries and migrant-sending countries. The native population of Central Asian countries prevails in contemporary labour emigration flows. CIS countries have also become involved in global migration movements. In particular, Central Asian countries have become transit countries for migrants from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asian countries. Often, it is not just transit labour migration, but also illegal migration into/via/from regional countries, trafficking in persons and drugs, smuggling of weapons and other criminal processes, threatening national and regional security. Causes of labour migration in Central Asia Labour migration emerges because of different “pushing” and “pulling” factors: socioeconomic and political, ethnic and demographic, cultural and psychological, geographic and historic, in the countries of origin and destination. Socioeconomic and demographic factors are predominant in Central Asia. “Pulling” factors in the Republic of Kazakhstan are mainly economic. In 2000-2004, the GNP had been increasing annually by 9-10%, and the average monthly salaries increased steadily. Kazakhstan had the highest living standard and relatively high average salary among the Central Asian countries–23,221 tenge, or $165 in 2003.10 Political liberalization and migration legislation adopted in Kazakhstan in 1990s were also conducive to migration growth. Demographic consequences of large-scale emigration of the 1990s had a negative impact on the contemporary labour market in Kazakhstan. About 3.8 million people emigrated from Kazakhstan in the last 15 years (out of its total population of 16.5 million); net migration (the difference between the number of emigrants and immigrants) comprised 2.3 million people while 63-65% of emigrants were able-bodied people, and around 45% (older than 15) were people with higher and advanced special secondary education. Consequently, Kazakhstan now suffers from lack of a labour force, especially highly qualified specialists and skilled workers. Kyrgyz Republic is a relatively small land-locked country. The economic crisis of the first half of the 1990s led to a decline in production, growth of unemployment and an increase of poverty. Kyrgyzstan comes second in the CIS in terms of poverty: 44.4% of the population in 2002 were estimated as “poor” (those with an income lower than subsistence minimum).11 At 70% are the absolutely poor (those with income insufficient for satisfaction of physiological needs and minimum social standards) and are mainly rural residents.12 10 Kratkii statisticheskii ezhegodnik Kazakhstana 2004 [Brief statistic annual book of Kazakhstan 2004]. Agency on statistics of Kazakhstan Republic. 2004. p. 5. 11 Kyrgyzskaya Respublika: oɢschaya otsenka sostoyaniya strany. Sistema OON v Kazakhstane [Kyrgyz Republic: general estimation of the country’s condition. The UN system in Kyrgyz Republic]. Bishkek. 2003. p. 11. 12 “Bednost’ v Kazakhstane: prichiny i puti rpeodoleniya. PROON v Kazakhstane” [“Poverty in Kazakhstan: reasons and ways of overcoming. The UN Programme of Development in Kazakhstan”]. Almaty. 2004. pp. 17-18, 111-112.

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The Kyrgyz economy heavily depends on foreign investment. In 1992-2000, the republic received $1.7 billion in foreign assistance ($370 per capita). Structural reforms undertaken by the government in the second half of the 1990s led to stabilization of the situation, but they haven’t become systematic and only a few sectors of the national economy, such as extraction of mineral resources, gold, in particular, and chemical production, enjoyed economic growth.13 A sharp decline in foreign investments in the 2000s led to the fall of production and a rise in unemployment. According to the Kyrgyzstan Ministry of Labour, only 1.8 million people were employed in Kyrgyzstan (data for 1 October 2004). General unemployment was 8.8% of the total economically active population. The depressive status of small industrial towns engaged in mining and energy production have also led to the loss of jobs and an increase in labour migration. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessment, unemployment is at 20% in Kyrgyzstan.14 South oblasts (regions) of Kyrgyzstan and Osh oblast in particular, are major “sending” areas. About 50% of the labour resources of this area are young people, unemployment among youth is more than 20%, the highest in the republic. More importantly, because of unemployment, neither young people nor their parents are able to pay for higher education. This limits their job and life opportunities. The ethnic composition is diverse, including the Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Tajiks. High birth rates and population growth are expected in the coming years, because those who were born in the early 1980s (the period of a favourable social policy targeted at increasing the birth rate) have become able-bodied and the share of working-age population will increase in the next few years, which could increase pressure in the labour market. In such an ethnically variegated society as the one in the south of Kyrgyzstan, these complex negative factors could lead to ethnic tensions and conflicts. However, labour emigration of the young and middle-aged population appeared to be a mitigating factor in the labour market and communities in the south of the Republic, and in Kyrgyzstan as a whole. Republic of Tajikistan. The civil war of 1992-1997 greatly influenced the nature of migration flows, as it caused flows of forced migrations out of Tajikistan. About 698,000 people or 11.5% of the total population have become internally displaced persons, 60,000 have become refugees in Afghanistan, and 195,883 refugees in various CIS countries.15 The structure of employment of the population in Tajikistan in 1991 was the following: agriculture 45%, industrial production (metallurgy, machine-building) and construction 21%, non-industrial sector 22%, all other sectors 12%. During the civil war, many agricultural and industrial enterprises were destroyed. Highly qualified specialists and skilled workers from other CIS countries, who had been working in the industrial sphere, emigrated from Tajikistan. According to estimations, about 200,000 persons left, and their emigration led to a further fall in production and a rise in unemployment.16 After the Agreement on National Reconciliation had been signed in 1997, military actions stopped, and post-conflict reconstruction started with international donors’ financial and technical assistance. The majority of displaced persons have returned to Tajikistan. However, as a result of the civil war, the traditional system of employment collapsed. The number of employed in industrial production fell from 21.0% to 8.2%, in transportation and communication from 5% to 2.3%, and the share of employed in the agrarian sector, and in the private agrarian sector in particular, increased from 45 to 67.6%, but there were not enough jobs.17 Unemployment, especially among youth, low salary levels, and poverty were among the major causes of labour emigration. According to the United Nations De13

Kyrgyzskaya Respublika: obschaya otsenka… 2003. pp. 9-11. Ibid, p. 12. 15 Migratsiya naseleniya v SNG v 1996 gg. 1998. p. 111. 16 Tajikistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004. pp. 12, 15. 17 Ibid, p. 70. 14


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velopment Programme (UNDP), the poor accounted for 60% at the end of the 1990s. Consequently, external labour migration increased, with the peak of emigration in 1999, when the number of migrants from Tajikistan reached 800,000 according to an expert’s estimate.18 Many thousands of Tajik citizens remain in other CIS countries today. Since the 1990s Tajik nationals have formed compact settlements and spheres of employment outside the country (mainly in Russia). Avlod–traditional kinship based community–plays a vital role in Tajiks’ life and forms migrants’ networks ready to help new Tajik migrants in finding jobs, apartments, support and protection in case of being detained or put into prison for illegal employment.19 Demographic and socioeconomic factors play a “pushing” role in the Republic of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is relatively rich in mineral resources and has favorable climatic conditions; however, the rates of economic development in Uzbekistan remain the lowest in comparison with other Central Asian countries and CIS on the whole. For example, the GDP of Uzbekistan has increased to 104.5% in 2003 in comparison with 2002, and to 103.0% in 2002, in comparison with 2001, and as a whole has not exceeded GDP level of Uzbekistan in 1991. Comparatively: the same rate in Kazakhstan has reached 110.6% and 109.5%, and the average in the CIS countries 107.0% and 104.0%, respectively.20 According to official data, the population of Uzbekistan was 25.565 million in 2003 (compared to 19.905 million in 1989). A high birth rate is the basic factor providing growth of population. Youth prevails in the population age structure of Uzbekistan. Labour resources consist of 13.6 million people, or over half of the population of Uzbekistan. Experts estimate the level of unemployment at 6.0% of the total economically active population.21 The average density of population in Uzbekistan is 56.9 persons per sq km with more than 500 in several oblasts (e.g., 544.2 persons per sq km in Andizhan oblast and 414.6 persons per sq km in Ferghana oblast).22 Agrarian overpopulation in the Ferghana valley, unemployment and worsening of the socioeconomic situation stimulates labour migration, both internal and external. Uzbek diaspora in Kazakhstan is 409.7 thousand people (2004). This is the third largest ethnic minority of Kazakhstan, 90% of it residing in the southern oblasts of Kazakhstan and neighboring Uzbekistan. Economic deterioration in Uzbekistan and kinship relations stimulate irregular transborder migration from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan. Turkmenistan. “Pushing” factors in Turkmenistan are mainly economic (a high level of unemployment) and political. The cult personality of president Saparmurat Niyazov led to some inadequate decisions, for example, reduction of general school term to nine years instead of 11-12 years, an all pervasive ideologization of education, which in turn leads to a decline in the quality of education. To prevent young people from going abroad to receive higher education, the president decided that “foreign” university diplomas (even from the former USSR or CIS universities) would not be recognized in Turkmenistan as of 1 June 2004. Many highly educated specialists were dismissed from their jobs in education, healthcare and administration in 2004, which forced them to seek new jobs and carrier opportunities outside the country. Central Asia Republics have similar problems to post-Soviet transit countries: a crash of the “socialist economy” and social protection system, lack of a market economy infrastructure; authoritarian regimes which slow down economic and political reforms, corruption; social stratification and in many societies, like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, social po18

IOM in Central Asia bulletin. 2002. Central Asian News. Tajikistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii. 2003. p. 51. 20 Kazakhstan i strany SNG [Kazakhtan and the CIS countries]. Agency of statistics of the Kazakhstan Republic. Quarterly journal 1: Almaty. 2003. p. 3. 21 Uzbekistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004. pp.19-21. 22 Demograficheskii ezhegodnik Uzbekistana 1991-2002 gg. Stat. sbornik [Demographic annual book of Uzbekistan 1991-2002. Statistical book]. Tashkent. 2003. p. 15. 19

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larization; unemployment and low standards of living. Country specifics, such as economic stagnation in Kyrgyzstan in the 2000s, hardships of post-conflict reconstruction in Tajikistan, political pressure in Turkmenistan, overpopulation and economic deprivation in Uzbekistan intensifies out-migration from these countries. Scale of labour migration: estimate of the size of migration flows External labour migration in Central Asian countries is divided into uneven flows. The first is legal immigration of a foreign labour force into a country (or employment of Central Asian countries’ citizens abroad), which is carried out by state or other authorized bodies. The second flow, which is many times larger than the first one, is spontaneous, irregular, labour migration (nereguliryemaya migratsia). Irregular (unregulated) migrants are persons legally staying in a receiving country, breaking some of its rules and regulations of admission and stay, and economic activities on the territory of this state.23 For example, Tajikistan had 16.8 thousand legal migrant workers in Russia in 2002, while, according to survey, the actual number of irregular, unregulated labour migrants was 632,000.24 Uzbekistan had 16.1 thousand legal labour migrants, while, in accordance with experts’ estimates, the labour emigration from Uzbekistan is around 600,000 to 700,000 persons.25 Another flow is illegal migration. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommends distinguishing between illegal migrants and irregular migrants. Illegal migrants (nelegal’nyi, or nezakonnyi migrant) in one way or another violate immigration laws: they enter a country bypassing checkpoints, have a forged passport or an expired visa or receive an admission permit in an illegal manner.26 The specifics of labour migration in Central Asia and CIS are that the latter has “common visa-free space”. Almost all of the CIS countries enjoy a visa-free regime among each other. The only exception is Turkmenistan, which has a visa regime with all countries, and Uzbekistan, which has a visa regime with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Thus, migrants enter other CIS countries legally, but then find a job without signing a formal employment contract, which makes him or her illegally employed. Paying attention to illegal employment is crucial, highlighting the most sensitive issue, which should be targeted by legislators, law-enforcement agencies, local authorities and international organizations in Central Asia. “Official” (licensed) labour force and illegal migration are not considered in this paper because their size is considerably low in comparison with irregular migration. Irregular labour migration is a common trend not only for Central Asia and CIS, but also globally. Assessment of its size is based on expert estimates, results of sociological surveys, comparative migrant households’ surveys, ministerial statistics, or indirect indicators. (See Table 1 for details.) The specifics of labour migration in the CIS are that a large portion of labour migrants are engaged in commercial migrations, or “shuttle” trade (chelnoks). Commercial migrants are engaged in trade; they purchase goods in foreign countries and carry them back to their 23

Bilsborrow, P.E., Gram, H., Oberai, A.S., Zlotnik, Kh. Statistika mezhdunarodnoi migratsii: rekomendatsii po sovershenstvovaniiu system sbora dannyh [Statistic on international migration: recommendations on improving systems of collecting data]. Ɇoscow: Academia. 1999. p. 37. 24 Trud i zanyatost’ v Rossii. Statisticheskii sbornik [Labour and employment in Russia. Statistical book]. Moscow: State Committee of the Russian Federation on statistics. 2003. p. 295; Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana… 2003. p. 21. 25 Trud i zanyatost’ v Rossii… 2003. p. 295; Trudovaya migratsiya v SNG… 2003. p. 148. 26 Za spravedlivyi podhod k trudyaschimsya-migrantam v global’noi ekonomike [For a fair approach towards working migrants in the global economy]. International conference on labour. 92 cession. 2004. Geneva. 2004. p. 11.


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country of origin to resell them at a higher price. Commercial migrants are typical for the “informal” nature of their activities. They are frequently engaged in trade business without proper registration with state authorities. These semi-latent activities lead to violation of law and corruption, especially as they did at the beginning of the 1990s. Some specialists argue whether commercial migrants may be considered labour migrants at all. The fact that commercial migrants are not always registered and avoid paying taxes, prevents some governmental bodies and experts from classifying (defining) them as labour migrants. Another problem arises with regard to statistics: chelnoks, as a rule, make several commercial trips annually. It is difficult to count the number of traders, as they should be counted by number of individuals, but not by the number of times they cross the border (during their shuttle trips). However, commercial migrations are the most massive. In fact, commercial migrants may be classified as employed (paid) workers under the definition of the IOM Convention on Protecting Migrants’ Rights, since these are people whose commercial activity involves regular exits from and entries into the country of domicile with the purpose of having profits. It is conventionally agreed upon in scholarly community in the CIS countries, that commercial migrations represent one of the types of labour migrations. The typology and methods of assessment should be properly developed to avoid discrepancies and distortions (and, consequently, any inappropriate economic and political solutions with regard to “shuttle traders”). In the 1990s in Kazakhstan internal and external labour emigration was widely spread. According to research conducted by the author in 2000, 10% of Kazakhstani households had family members who had migrated within and outside the country and worked, regularly or occasionally in other countries.27 At the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s, Kazakhstan emerged as a receiving country. The number of foreign licensed workers employed in Kazakhstan was 11.8 thousand in 2002. The number of irregular immigrants was 20-50 times higher. According to the expert’s estimations (governmental representative in the city of Almaty), from 220,000/250,000 to 300,000 migrant workers are employed now in the country.28 According to data by the Kyrgyz Embassy in Kazakhstan (Astana), the number of Kyrgyz labour migrants came to 80,000 to 120,000 in peak ‘seasonal’ periods in 2003 and it ranged from 40,000 to 100,000 in 2004.29 In compliance with a study carried out in 2004 by Uzbek specialists, around 235,000 Uzbek nationals were employed in the southern oblasts of Kazakhstan alone. According to the estimations by a co-ordinator of the programme for legal assistance, around 50,000 Tajik nationals are currently working in Kazakhstan.30 Based on experts’ interviews and official statistical analysis, the author’s estimate of labour immigrants’ number is from 300,000 to 500,000 or 4-6% of 7.9 million of the economically active population of Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan is a sending country. Kazakhstan gets only part of its labour migration flows from this neighboring republic–major flows are directed to Russia. According to the latest official estimates of Kyrgyzstan, there are around 500,000 labour emigrants from Kyrgyzstan: 350,000 work in Russia and 120,000 in Kazakhstan.31 The widely-spread assessment of labour migration by experts and state authorities vary from 400,000 to 700,000 27

Sadovskaya. Trudovaya migratsiya i eio rol’ v adaptatsii… 2001. p. 57. Materials of experts’ interviews conducted by the author in 2004 in the framework of the Baseline research under the auspices of IOM in Kazakhstan Programme Dialogue and Technical Capacity Building in Migration Management Programme in Central Asia, Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan and funded by the European Commission, and MacArthur Foundation grant No 04-81339-000-GSS, conducted in 2004-2005. 29 Materials of experts’ interviews conducted by the author in 2004-2005 (Bishkek, April, Oct., 2004). 30 Materials of experts’ interviews conducted by the author in 2004 -2005 (Almaty, June, Nov., 2004). 31 IRINnews, 17 September, quoted from IOM Ɍɋɋ bulletin, 17th September 2004. 28

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persons.32 It means that 20-35% of 1,981,000 of the economically active population in Kyrgyzstan are engaged in external labour migrations. The gap between estimations can be even broader. According to estimations by experts and representatives of state bodies of Kyrgyzstan who deal with labour migration in the National Statistic Committee and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the irregular labour migration from Kyrgyzstan ranges from 120,000/200,000 to 1,000,000 persons, correspondingly.33 Tajikistan. The same discrepancies were observed in Tajikistan. According to the data of the households survey, initiated by the Tajikistan Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population in 2003, the number of simultaneous (edinovremennyi) labour emigrants was 190,000 as of August 2003. Another sociological survey conducted in Jan-Feb 2003, has shown that the total labour migration from Tajikistan was 632,000 persons in 20002002.34 This means that up to 33% of the total economically active population in Tajikistan are involved in external labour migration. Discrepancies in the estimated labour migration size are caused by different research methodologies–mainly, the Ministry doesn’t take into account chelnoks, but scholars do. Turkmenistan. New types of labour migration have emerged in the 1990-2000s: immigration of a foreign labour force into Turkmenistan, emigration of Turkmen nationals seeking employment abroad and mass commercial migrations. The share of emigrants with university education remained high throughout the 1990s, and the brain drain continues in the 2000s. No research of external labour migration has been implemented. It is considerably hard to compare official data (provided by the State statistic agency of Turkmenistan, Turkmenmillikhasabat) with the information received from independent sources. Access to official statistical data is limited and information generally distorted. It is worthy to note that the UNDP office stopped publishing Human Development Reports on Turkmenistan since 2001 due to unreliability of official data. Discrepancies are especially clear in statistics on population, including natural growth and migration. The population of Turkmenistan was 6,298,800 persons as of 1 January 2004 according to official sources.35 In September 2004, Turkmenistan's National Statistics Institute announced that the population size surpassed 6,455,000.36 Thus, the Turkmen population increased from 3.5 million persons in 1989 when the last Soviet census was held to some 6.5 million persons or by 86% over 15 years. Given the inaccuracy of official statistics, we may estimate the number of permanent residents at around 5,000,000 persons. The assessment takes into account rural/urban and ethnic breakdown, share of women of reproductive age, decline in the birth rate following the collapse of the USSR, and large-scale emigration in the 1990s. It coincides with the UN prognosis according to which the average annual population of Turkmenistan was 4.876 million in 2003, would be 6.549 million in 2025 and 7.541 million people in 2050.37 The 1990s were characterised by active foreign investments in Turkmenistan and establishment of foreign and joint ventures and encouraging of foreign labour force immigration. There is a deficit of highly-skilled specialists and workers in the labour market of Turkmenistan because of emigration of specialists during the 1990s. The principal “suppliers” of a foreign workforce are Turkey, France, Ukraine, Iran and Russia. Foreign and joint companies are working in construction and textiles as well as in the gas and oil sector, energy sector and trade. Iranian companies mainly deal with road construction, in particular, that of the four-lane Ashgabad-Turkmenbashi highway from the capital to the Caspian Sea. Turkish and French companies sometimes employ a low and 32

Materials of experts’ interviews conducted by the author in 2004 -2005 (Biskek, April, Oct., 2004). Ibid. 34 Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana… 2003. p. 21. 35 http://www.demoscope.ru/ Interfax. 19 January 2004. 36 http://www.eurasianet.org/turkmenistan.project 37 http://www.unpopulation.org 33


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Turkish and French companies sometimes employ a low and unqualified workforce from India and Pakistan. By preliminary assessment, the number of labour migrants in Turkmenistan may be estimated as 50,000 and above. Commercial, chelnok migration is the major type of labour emigration. Uzbekistan. Labour migration from Uzbekistan is mostly irregular. As monitoring by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of Uzbekistan shows, 180,000 to 280,000 persons at a time were abroad from Uzbekistan (at the end of 2003).38 Official assessment of external labour migration depends on seasonal fluctuations of around 100,000 to 500,000 persons, excluding frontier migrations, as they are rampant and difficult to assess.39 In accordance with the other Uzbek expert’s estimation, labour emigration from Uzbekistan is around 600,000 to 700,000 people.40 According to official state statistics, out of a total 25.565 million population (2003) of Uzbekistan, labour resources comprises 13.597 million persons. The economically active population in Uzbekistan is 9.621 million persons, and 9.589 million persons are employed in economics.41 It means that around 6-7% of the economically active population of Uzbekistan are involved in external labour migration. Among the total population, the number of persons under 15 years is 9.604 million, the majority living in rural areas.42 This means that in the coming years, Uzbekistan’s labour market will be filled with young able-bodied people looking for work, aggravating the social situation because these graduates will not have high educational levels and qualifications. The major reason for this is the critical social sphere situation they find themselves in. Among other reasons, the forced transition of the educational system to Latin graphics in the 1990s could be mentioned–a transition which did not allow flexible responding to market transformations and to adjusting the professional training systems in schools.

38

Ibid. Uzbekistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004. p. 27. 40 Trudovaya migratsiya v SNG… 2003. p. 148. 41 Data of the State Statistics Committee of Uzbekistan Republic, quoted from: Uzbekistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004. p. 71. 42 Demograficheskii ezhegodnik Uzbekistana… 2003. pp. 34, 54. 39

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Sources: Kratkii statisticheskii ezhegodnik Kazakhstana 2004 [Brief statistic annual book of Kazakhstan 2004]. Agency on statistics of Kazakhstan Republic. 2004. pp. 9, 15; Osnovnye indikatory rynka truda v Respublike Kazakhstan za vtoroi kvartal 2004 g. [The main indicators of labour market in Kazakhstan Republic for the second quarter of 2004]. Reference book. Series 13. Zanyatost’ naseleniya i oplata truda [Employment and wages]. Statistical Agency of Kazakhstan Republic. Almaty. 2004. p. 7; Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming); Kyrgyzstan v tsyfrah. Natsional’nyi statisticheskii komitet Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki. Stat. sbornik [Kyrgyzstan in numbers. National statistical committee of Kyrgyz Republic. Statistical book]. Bishkek. 2004. p. 42; Kyrgyzstan: problemy v sfere trudovoi migratsii… 2004. p. 12; Dmitrienko 2004. p. 75; Trud i zanyatost’ v Respublike Tajikistan. Stat. sbornik [Labour and employment in Tajikistan Repiblic. Statistical collection]. Dushanbe. 2004. p. 4, 14; Tajikistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004. p.17; Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana 2003 p. 21; Smailov, A.A. ed. Statistical Yearbook of Kazakhstan. Almaty. 2001. p. 496; Uzbekistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004 pp. 21, 71; Zaionchkovskaya Trudovaya migratsiya v SNG… 2003 p. 148; http://www.eurasianet.org/turkmenistan.project/ * **

Estimation of total number of labour migrants includes primarily irregular labour migrants. Data not available.

Though Uzbekistan has great labor resources, it neither provides enough jobs, nor creates a proper environment for small and medium businesses. As in many post-Soviet countries, commercial migration (both external and internal) is widely spread in Uzbekistan and has became one of the ways to earn money and to survive; however, the policy towards commercial migrants and petty traders has always been restrictive and not conducive to legal economic activities. One of the latest examples is the Enactment on re-registration and new rules of trade for chelnoks adopted by the government on 1 November 2004. According to the enactment, the chelnoks have to go through registration again and obtain new permissions, including licenses and certificates. They must have a document issued by Customs on each imported good, to prove that the trader bought these goods himself, not via middlemen. The rules have breached the “established” system of trade: earlier, many traders used to outbid inexpensive Chinese and Kyrgyz goods at the large marketplace near the “Dostyk” checkpoint on the Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan border and at the “Hippodrome” market in Tashkent to further resell those goods at other markets in cities of Uzbekistan. Every trader, even from a remote kishlak (village), must now go abroad to buy up commodities himself. In addition, chelnoks have to pay for wholesale goods via banks. Every small trader must have a cash register, and all sales procedures must be deposited with a bank daily. The government of Uzbekistan justified the toughening of tax and customs rules by citing struggle against shadow cash turnover. Not surprisingly, government enactment of these new rules led to mass protest actions of small traders in Kokand, Samarkand, Tashkent, Bukhara. The government controls external employment as well: Uzbek citizens have a right to go abroad for work under private labor contracts, but only having issued permissions from the Agency for External Labor Migration of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population. The state does not allow private recruitment agencies to operate. In 1996-1997 recruitment agency operations were excluded from the list of licensed activity categories. There is no state body responsible for migration processes regulation; the law on migration has not been adopted in Uzbekistan yet. External labor migration is regulated by the Enactment of the Cabinet of Ministers N 505 which has a restrictive character as well. Poor legal framework, weak institutional structures for labor migration management, tough state control over migration, as well as lack of political will to change the situation, are factors that adversely affect labor market in Uzbekistan and the social stability of Uzbekistan in the whole. Against the background of demographic pressure, agrarian overpopulation, tensions in the labor market and a high level of unemployment, such a policy may trigger

Materials of experts’ interviews conducted by the author in 2004-2005. (Tashkent, May 2004).


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social conflict. The tragic events in Andijan in May 2005 have shown how quickly conflict scenarios become possible and, unfortunately, may have further negative development. Experts’ estimations and official data on the size of migration flows in all Central Asian countries demonstrate dispersion and discrepancies of data. They reveal insufficient organization of registration of labour migrants; lack of monitoring of migration movement; lack of correct estimations, analysis and methodologies; absence of database and/or access to official information; insufficient cooperation among responsible state bodies and lack of coordination of all the actors working in the migration sphere in Central Asian countries. Country labour migration profiles: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan The Republic of Kazakhstan As a receiving country, Kazakhstan has three “centers” especially attractive both for licensed and irregular labour migrants: Almaty (the ex-capital), Astana (the new capital since 1997) and the western region. The western region–Atyrau, Aktobe, Mangistau and Western Kazakhstan oblasts attracts foreign migrant workers since it has a concentration of oil pipelines, refineries and gas processing plants under construction and has a booming infrastructure, transportation and communications systems. The largest number of foreign workers comes to this region by governmental quota. Many specialists and technical personnel from CIS countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan come beyond quota and work without any contracts. Irregular labour immigration into Kazakhstan is mainly of seasonal character. Workers stay for 3-6 or nine months, especially if they work on farms. Annually, starting in March and going until October, depending on specifics of crops such as cotton, tobacco, rice, onions, melons and watermelons, and other vegetables, grapes, etc., migrant workers arrive in the southern oblasts (Almaty, Djambyl and Southern Kazakhstan) and go back home when the season is over. The construction industry is booming in Almaty and Astana. Trade and services is also notable for large-scale employment they provide, especially in Almaty. Chelnoks arrive from all Central Asian countries and China. A number of qualified specialists come to Almaty looking for highly-paid technological, financial or managerial positions. The Kyrgyz Republic Irregular labour emigration is a major flow from Kyrgyzstan. CIS states are main destinations for labour migrants, with Russia and Kazakhstan running first in this category. According to a sociological study, Kyrgyz nationals in Russia are primarily concentrated in eastern and Western Siberia, in particular in Sverdlovsk oblast and the city of Yekaterinburg. They also work in Novosibirsk, Samara, Barnaul, Orenburg, Omsk, Moscow, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk and other cities.44 Basic migrant activities abroad are chelnok business, construction, services and farm work. Men are usually engaged in seasonal work (construction, services, and agriculture), while women are predominantly commercial migrants and service providers. China and Turkey are primary destinations for commercial migrants. By certain estimates, in some periods 300,000 to 500,000 were engaged in chelnok migration alone. Experts consider that at least another 100,000 were engaged in the chelnok business infrastructure by providing

44

Lomakova. Sotsial’nyi portret trudovogo migranta. 2004. pp. 93-94.

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transport, distribution, loader and security guard services.45 In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz migrants mainly headed to Almaty, Astana, Shymkent and the Jambyl oblast. Some of the Kyrgyz workers are employed in construction, but the majority work in the agricultural sector of the Almaty and Jambyl oblasts at tobacco and rice plantations and vegetable farms. Sociological study demonstrates that men prevail among external labour migrants accounting for 60% of the total number. Males of 25-44 years age comprise 2/3 of the respondents. The prevailing women’s age ranges from 20 to 40 years. Ethnically, labour migrants from the southern regions are Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, and those from central and northern regions are Russians, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs. Most labour migrants are well-educated, but women’s level of education is higher than men’s46 due to the fact that women were among the first to become unemployed when education, healthcare and other “budgetary” organizations lost their state financial support during the economic crisis of the 1990s (women were predominant in these spheres in the Soviet period). They had to look for alternative means of employment and commercial migration, and shuttle trade was one of the ways to earn money and to support their families. There is also irregular immigration into Kyrgyzstan from Uzbekistan, in particular, transborder migrations at the south border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Thousands of Uzbek citizens work in the southern regions of Kyrgyzstan. Due to low living standards in contemporary Uzbekistan, the residents of its frontier regions cross the border for an opportunity to work in retail trade, at farms and as unskilled workers in the neighboring country. Goods from China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan for sale in Uzbekistan are also transported mainly from the southern Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan border near the city of Osh. Some of the labour migrants come from Tajikistan and illegally find jobs in Kyrgyzstan. Republic of Tajikistan Tajikistan is a “sending” country. Tajik labour migrants’ profile is based on the data of sociological survey, conducted under auspices of IOM in Tajikistan. According to survey, the main countries of destination are Russian Federation (the city of Moscow, Moscow oblast, and Siberia region), as well as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Basic spheres of activity of the Tajik migrants in Moscow are construction (51% migrants), trade/commerce, and service (34%). The highest concentration of Tajik migrants can also be found in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Nizhnevartovsk, Surgut, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhnekamsk and other cities of Siberia. The Tajik migrants work there in housing construction, and in various oil and gas or chemical industries.47 In general, labour migration from Tajikistan is seasonal migration. Around 25% of labour migrants from Tajikistan (except for chelnoks) work fewer than six months, 53% stay in the receiving country more than six months, 22% stay over a year up to three years. A few migrants stay abroad over three years. Male migrants prevail in the labour emigration structure from Tajikistan (89%), while females make up 11%. People aged 18-40 make up two thirds of labour migrants. Ethnic composition includes Tajiks at 88%, Uzbeks at 10%, Russians at 1.2% and other nationalities at 0.8%. The most numerous group of migrants is young people with secondary or incomplete secondary education. More than half of labour migrants from Tajikistan (57%) have no qualifications. This is the first labour experience for many young Tajiks.48 In Kazakhstan, the majority of Tajik labour migrants are employed in construction and repair works in the cities of Almaty and Astana, and a minority consists of chelnoks and

45

Sovremennaya demograficheskaya situatsiya… 2001. p. 55. Lomakova. Sotsial’nyi portret… 2004. pp. 91-94. 47 Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana… 2003. pp. 22-30. 48 Ibid. 46


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traders. Some labour migrants are working at various enterprises of oil and gas industry in the western oblasts of Kazakhstan, and some are working in agriculture in the south oblasts. Turkmenistan The number of labour migrants in Turkmenistan may be estimated at 50,000 and above, but further research is necessary to study both internal and external labour migration. Chelnok migration is the major type of labour emigration. Chelnok trade with Iran at the Iranian-Turkmen border is very intensive, because two countries have a mutual simplified visa regime. Four checkpoints operate at the Turkmen-Iranian border. Turkmen citizens arrive at the Iranian border from Ashgabad or any other locality using their own transport. They receive visas there and drive down a highway to a local wholesale market in Meshkhed. The traders spend one or two days there buying goods and return home. Many Turkmen shuttle traders travel to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. They obtain a tourist visa for these countries for 5-7 days or two weeks and travel to their destination and back by plane. Many buy goods at the regional wholesale and retail market in the suburbs of Almaty or at the Dordoi market near Bishkek. Commercial migrants send goods in containers via a local (usually, Kazakhstani) company. Upon return from their shop tour in Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries, chelnoks either sell goods at wholesale, or at retail at the so-called Russian Bazaar in downtown Ashgabad and at the “Tolkuchka” market, the biggest in Turkmenistan. Transborder migration from Turkmenistan spreads to Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the east. The destinations and spheres of employment of labour migrants also depends on their financial capacity and transport infrastructure. Qualified oil and gas specialists and technical personnel find jobs in the west of Kazakhstan and the Tyumen oblast of Russia. Some Turkmen nationals work as builders in the Moscow region and small towns of the European part of Russia. However, the majority of Turkmen, especially those from rural areas suffering from the highest unemployment rates, have no chance of going abroad. The AshgabadMoscow train stopped running in 1994, and a considerably reduced sea and motor transport in the 1990s between Turkmenistan and Russia has had a negative impact on labour emigration. Republic of Uzbekistan The majority of Uzbek migrants are employed in construction and trade in Shymkent, at cotton farms of the Southern Kazakhstan oblast. According to some estimations, at least 10,000 Uzbeks are engaged in housing construction and repair in Aktobe. The growing numbers of Uzbek workers seek jobs in construction sites of Astana, Almaty and the Almaty oblast.49 Sociological surveys show that basic sending regions in Uzbekistan are the city of Samarkand and Samarkand oblast, Karakalpakstan, Kashka-Daria and Sourkhan-Daria oblasts, the city of Andijan and Ferghana oblast, and industrial centers, where production has been stopped–Termez, Andijan and Angren. The lowest level of labour migration has been observed in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. There is also data that Tashkent is the center for trafficking in migrants from Uzbekistan.50

49

Materials of experts’ interviews conducted by the author in 2004-2005. (Astana, May 2004; Tashkent, April 2005). 50 Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming)

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Men predominantly participate in external labour migration from Uzbekistan–up to 80% of the total amount of migration. Male migrants are employed abroad in the construction and agricultural spheres as unskilled workers. The main spheres of female activity abroad are commercial migration, the services sector and public catering, and agriculture. People of middle and older age prevail among labour migrants. As the survey conducted in Uzbekistan in 2003 has shown, less than 20% falls to youth aged under 30, 45% to those aged 30-40, and about 35% above 40 years. Ethnically the migrants belong to the Uzbek nation (75%). There are also Kara-Kalpaks, Russians, Tatars, and Tajiks among them (25%). More than 50% of respondents with qualifications have been working in other specialties.51 For the last five years more young people with secondary education and with no profession or labour records not only from Uzbekistan, but also from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, are getting involved in migration.52 On the contrary, the educational level of labour migrants leaving for developed countries is rather high; as a rule, they have higher education and academic degrees. Some of them find legal opportunities to work in Western Europe, the USA and Israel.53 Impact of labour migration in Central Asian countries: social and political effects Remittances Remittances studies, the influence of income accumulated abroad on living standards in Central Asian countries started only at the beginning of the 2000s. As first studies showed, in the period of economic crisis of the 1990s, labour migrations helped hundreds of thousands people not only to survive, but also to increase their living standards. Labour migration in Central Asian countries still plays a great stabilizing role in society. Remittances (money transfers) of migrants and their impact on increasing living standards is the first and most important result of labour migration. Migrants not only transfer money via banks, but also bring money themselves or hand it over with the help of friends and relatives. For example, remittances from Tajik migrants comprised $78 million in 2002. Total income from external migration in Tajikistan in 2002 was estimated at $200230 million and included remittances, import of foreign currencies, and import of goods such as expensive household utensils, clothing, etc.54 The Tajik government has taken measures to organize money transfers via official channels and has reduced the rate for transfer from 30% to 2-3% in 2003. As a result, bank remittances to Tajikistan increased up to $256 million in 2003 in comparison with $78 million in 2002.55 However, in Tajikistan many migrants still hand over earned money unofficially via friends, relatives or by the hawala system, an informal way of money transfer. Hawala is the alternative money transfer system that has been operating parallel to the common banking system. It exists beyond or in parallel with traditional banking and financial channels. Currently, hawala is used in many countries. It differs from other money transfer systems because it is based on trust and extensive use of family connections and regional affiliations. Money transfer is carried out thanks to the ties existing between the members of the network of hawala dealers.56 51

Ibid. Tajikistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004; Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana… 2003; Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming) 53 Trudovaya migratsiya v SNG… 2003. p. 151. 54 Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana… 2003. p. 86 55 Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming) 56 The hawala alternative remittance system and its role in money laundering. Interpol General Secretariat, Lyon, January 2000. http://www.interpol.int/Public/FinancialCrime/MoneyLaundering/hawala/ 52


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According to some data, in the 2000s more than $120 million dollars were transferred annually to Kyrgyzstan in remittances from citizens working abroad and can be compared with the profitable part of a budget (dokhodnaya chast’ biudzheta) which comprises 315 million soms, or $7.7 million ($1= 41 som).57 For comparison, in 2003 GDP of Kyrgyzstan was 83.481 million som or about $2 billion58 and remittances accounted for about 6% of GDP. The increase in the number of Western Union offices in Kyrgyzstan and in Bishkek in particular may be indirect evidence of the growing number of migrants, remittances, increase in incomes and potentially-improving living standards. No official assessments of the remittances from external labour migration have been available in Uzbekistan so far, as there is no state banking system to transfer the migrants’ money. The only exception is South Korea: a labour migrant from Uzbekistan may save up to $300 a month there. The hosting organization transfers a part of the migrant’s earnings to an account in Uzbekistan every month (as a rule, $200). In Uzbekistan, the money is paid to the migrant’s family members in national currency, converted at the current rate of the National Bank of Uzbekistan. The family loses some money as a result of the conversion, but it is a profitable system anyway, because of the reliability and stability of this way of remittances. Transfers may be provided through other official channels, e.g., through Western Union, having above 200 branches in Uzbekistan. Western Union opened its first office in Uzbekistan in October 2003, and $1 million has been sent to Uzbekistan in one month (November) only.59 According to some studies, more than half of migrants from Uzbekistan bring money themselves, or send money with relatives or friends.60 Labour migrants also bring to Uzbekistan expensive household (electric) utensils, clothes, footwear and other goods, usually for their family members, and rarely, to be offered for sale. According to experts’ estimations, volume of incomes from migration in 2003 including remittances, independentlybrought money and imported goods, amounts to at least $400 million.61 World Bank studies point out that remittances to some developing countries in recent years have surpassed the annual ODA (Official Development Assistance) and foreign investment in these countries.62 Social and political effects of labour migration No nation-wide research of the role of labour migration in general and remittances in particular, in all Central Asian countries has been carried out so far. According to the data of a sociological survey conducted by the author in Kazakhstan in 2000-2002, labour migration improved living standards of the majority of households, which was pointed out by over 60% of respondents.63 The earnings of migrant workers help them not only to solve their “material problems” (purchasing houses, furniture and clothes), but also to ensure a better quality of life, especially in terms of healthcare, education and recreation. According to the survey, 16% of respondents in Almaty and 14.5% in the cities of the Karaganda oblast managed to start their own business or assisted their children or other relatives to do so using migrant incomes. In addition, 57% of Almaty and some 45% of Karaganda oblast migrant workers financially help their relatives on a regular or occasional basis. In fact, 10% 57

Quoted on: Kyrgyzstan: problemy v sfere trudovoi migratsii… 2004. p. 30. Kyrgyzstan v tsyfrah… 2004. p. 63. 59 Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming) 60 Uzbekistan: problemy trudovoi migratsii… 2004. p. 31. 61 Ibid. 62 http://www.worldbank.org/ Adams Richard H. Jr. and Page John. “International Migration, Remittances, and Poverty in Developing Countries”. World Bank Working Paper No.: 3179ɛ: December 19 2003. 63 Sadovskaya Trudovaya migratsiya i eio rol’ v adaptatsii… 2001. pp. 75-76. 58

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of the respondents in all the cities according to the above-mentioned survey, fully maintain their relatives.64 Research in Tajikistan has demonstrated that migration earnings are a basic source of income, as testified by 81.7% of the respondents. Migration incomes helped to improve living standards for 67.4% of the respondents, and 14.8% of the respondents considerably improve living standards. At the same time, for 16.3% of the respondents living standards had hardly changed, and 0.8% respondents faced worsened living conditions.65 Foreign currency revenues and higher living standards are not the only positive effects of labour migration. Labour emigration of the Kyrgyz to some extent solves the problem of an excessive labour force and unemployment in Kyrgyzstan. The positive impact of labour migration also includes accumulation of initial capital for starting up new business, improvement of migrants’ qualifications and acquiring new skills under the new market conditions, that could be used upon return to Kyrgyzstan also.66 Employment abroad influences migrant workers in terms of their ability to take up the burden of risks and responsibility for their families and business: they don’t have any state social protection and have to adapt themselves to unpredictable financial innovations and structural changes of transit economies. Labour migration, especially commercial migration, led to specialization and diversification of activities; new business structures developed and new types of companies emerged: purchasing, trading, transport and brokerage firms among others. Institutional and structural changes towards a market economy gradually are taking place in society. Mass labour migrations of the 1990s and the 2000s have played a positive stabilizing role preventing social and political tensions and conflicts in both receiving and sending countries. To give only one example, today money earned by Uzbek migrants in Kazakhstan helps hundreds of thousands of households to survive in poor agrarian regions of Uzbekistan. Emigration of the excessive labour force can mitigate the situation in the labour market, preventing social tension and unrest. However, labour migration has a negative impact as well. It is sometimes detrimental for the health of migrants, especially commercial migrants. Many migrants have little time to spend with their children. Sending countries witness negative demographic consequences of long-term labour migrations since males, who are the heads of households, are usually the main migrants. Brain drain has a negative impact on national economies in the long run. Loss of professional skills and disqualification of hundreds of thousands of specialists, their “internal emigration” and employment in the trade and services sphere and occasional employment all have a negative impact on the quality of labour potential in sending countries. In receiving countries, the fact that a qualified labour force is employed for low-qualification technical jobs decreases the overall effectiveness of the labour force. The consequences of illegal employment of migrant workers are contradictory. The “economic benefit” received by employers is that cheap workforce is used which does not require any social expenses. Migrant workers, thousands getting a relatively small amount of money, do not pay taxes, and thus, get an opportunity to support their families in the countries of origin. On the other hand, there is economic damage to the state resulting from non-payment of taxes to the national budget (the overall figure of taxes evaded is high given the entire number of migrant workers); capital and workforce flow into the “shadow” economy. Unregistered migrant workers suffer from exploitation, low wages and lack of proper working conditions and social protection. Employers do not pay any social bonuses and other deductions. As a rule, migrant workers do not pay taxes and have no chance to appeal 64

Sadovskaya Migratsiya v Kazakhstane na rubezhe XXI veka… 2001. pp. 133-160. Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana… 2003. pp. 93, 95. 66 Maksakova, Elebaeva 2003 pp. 90-95; Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming) 65


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to court or other governmental bodies when their rights are violated since they are violators themselves. This was proved by findings of sociological studies conducted in Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and in Uzbekistan in 2000-2004.67 Since labour migration into/via/from Central Asian countries has recently acquired international status, violation of the migrants’ rights is widely spread due to low legal awareness of migrants and shortcomings in the legislation. The violations are two-way: by migrants themselves and by state bodies personnel. Migrants fail to register and sign employment contracts which is a reason for detaining and deporting them back to their countries of origin. Representatives of interior ministries sometimes abuse migrants, extorting money from them. Despite the availability of registration and a special insert in passports policemen seize them and destroy registration cards. Immigrant workers are often the objects of hostility from locals who view them as competition in their labour markets. Xenophobia and migrantophobia has spread in Kazakhstan, one of the basic receiving countries in the region; social unrest is growing. There is also growing interethnic tension in the communities where compact settlements of migrant workers are found. Spontaneous migrations and illegal employment, accompanied by violations of law, growth of corruption and social unrest at the local level may be transformed into intestate conflicts. The author’s prognosis is that labour immigration into Kazakhstan and Russia will be growing, especially from Uzbekistan, which currently suffers from low living standards and excessive labour force. Central Asian labour migrants may substitute labour forces from Ukraine and Moldova (in Russia), which became directed to Central and Western European countries after the latest political reforms in the European Union. According to some data, due to the problems in small and medium businesses in Uzbekistan, there may be a drain of capital to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.68 It is problematic to define sources of income of some individuals and groups, since they sometimes depend on drug trafficking. Sometimes migrant networks are used for the shadow economy and by criminal groups. Therefore, it is crucial to prevent labour migration from becoming a channel for semi-criminal elements and increasing “shadow” incomes. Rights of labour migrants The basic violations of migrants’ rights include abuses by employers, unavailability of social infrastructure for labour migrants (hospitals, schools and so on) and lack of any life and health safety standards for labour migrants. The most frequent violations of the migrant workers rights include: 1.

67

Employment without proper legal registration. Individual entrepreneurs have the right to operate legally only after they are officially registered with governmental bodies (local authorities, tax committees, etc.). Each of the migrant workers (some of them acquire an entrepreneur status upon arrival to the destination country) receives different types of registration forms: short- or long-term patent or license for different time period (from one day to one and more years); hired labour migrants (rabotaiushchie po naimu) sign a contract. The lack of patent, license or contract is widely spread among labour migrants. According to the survey, conducted by the author in 2000, in Kazakhstan, only 29% of them have licenses; 85% of constructors do not have licenses or contracts and work under oral agreements. Many commer-

Forced labour in contemporary Russia… 2004; Sadovskaya Trudovaya migratsiya i prava migrantov… 2003; Trudovaya migratsiya iz Tajikistana… 2003; Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming) 68 Materials of experts’ interviews conducted by the author in 2004-2005. (Almaty, July 2004).

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cial migrants have short-term, but are reluctant to purchase long-term patents.69 In Tajikistan in 2003-2004, around 60% of migrant workers worked under oral agreement with their employers.70 2. Abuse of migrant workers. A migrant’s working day can last 10-12 hours or more, with no days off or vacations. Occupational safety and health standards are not in place either. 3. Extremely low wages, underpayment or refusal to remunerate labour, deceit and fraud during payments and firing without prior notice. 4. Lack of social security. Unpaid temporary disability and maternity leave. 5. Cases of slavery or work under conditions close to slavery. Seizure of documents, restricted freedom of movement and unbearable lodging conditions. 6. Murdering of labour migrants by neo-Nazi or nationalist groupings. Russia in 2004 saw several court cases of murders of foreign nationals, including migrant workers from Tajikistan, in Moscow, St Petersburg and Voronezh. 7. Violation of migrant workers’ rights resulting from their poor legal awareness. Social research data showed 68% of labour migrants from Tashkent oblast (Uzbekistan) working in Russia had their rights violated. Only 6.2% of them applied to lawenforcement bodies for protection.71 Facts about abuse of the rights of 1,500 Kyrgyz workers were published in 2000. Kyrgyz workers found themselves practically enslaved at tobacco plantations in the Chilik district, Almaty oblast, in Kazakhstan. A Working Group of the deputies of the Zhogorku Kenesh (Kyrgyz Parliament) and representatives of the Labour, Interior and Foreign Ministries of Kyrgyzstan has been established to investigate the case. As a result of intergovernmental negotiations, a Kazakh-Kyrgyz agreement on frontier labour migration between two countries was signed in 2002. A study of the situation in 2003 demonstrated that there are still problems with observance of the rights of Kyrgyz labour migrants in Kazakhstan. Seasonal migrants from Kyrgyzstan don’t sign any written contracts when they are hired. They usually have a verbal agreement with their employers. An employer either sets a fixed monthly rate or promises to pay a part of profit after selling tobacco at the end of the season. The wage may be about 3,000 tenge ($20) per month, of which 1,000 tenge ($6.5) are deducted for meals, cigarettes, etc. All family members come for seasonal work: children and teenagers work alongside their parents. As a rule, tobacco is picked, sorted and packed manually. A working day lasts from sunrise until sunset, even when the temperature is up to 40 degrees centigrade. “During the day we have only one break to eat our lunch, it lasts half an hour. We have no days off, no weekends. We can rest only when it rains cats and dogs, so we pray for heavy showers”, says a Kyrgyz worker.72 The situation of workers not getting paid at all is not rare. “I have been working for three months, but have not seen any contract or money. When I ask the employer about money he says he will pay me if I work better”, a migrant says. As a result, the workers are happy to receive any money, but even this small amount can be taken away by police on their way home. The ignorance of laws as well as migrants’ general distrust of the judiciary system leads to mass violation of laws by migrants, which results in their deportation from receiving countries. For instance, around 200 Tajik migrant workers were deported from Russia in 2002, and around 1,000 persons in 2003.73 69

Sadovskaya Trudovaya migratsiya i eio rol’ v adaptatsii… 2001 p. 137. Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming) 71 Ibid. 72 http://www.iwpr.org/centralasia/archive/investigation/2003 73 Trudovaya migratsiya v stranah Tsentral’noi Azii…(forthcoming) 70


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The problem of implementation of the rights of migrant workers is poorly studied. The facts of violations have just begun to be compiled and analyzed since the majority of migrants are irregular and avoid appealing to court authorities. Institutions and mechanisms for protection of migrants’ workers have not developed. Civil society institutions in Central Asian countries are too week to defend migrants workers rights. Conclusion External labour migration in Central Asia has controversial social and political consequences; nonetheless, it plays on the whole a positive role of a “social stabilizer” in the Central Asia region. Research shows that in some countries 6-7% (Uzbekistan) up to 25-35% (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) of the economically active population is involved in labour migration. The main destination country is Russia; Kazakhstan is a regional receiving country. The poorest groups migrate to the neighboring countries/regions, while wealthier migrants travel to Russia and the so-called far abroad countries. Labour migration in Central Asia has mainly irregular, temporary and recurrent character. Seasonal labour migration prevails. Migration develops spontaneously and depends more on migrants’ networks than on state migration policies and legislation. Foreign currency remittances, improvement of living standards and quality of life of migrants’ households are the most obvious positive effects of labour migration. Labour emigration partially solves the problem of an excessive labour force and unemployment in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. As far as a considerable number of labour migrants in sending countries in the 2000s don’t have qualifications or appropriate labour experience, they acquire knowledge and skills necessary for working under market conditions. The positive impact of labour migration includes accumulation of initial capital for starting up new business and improvement of migrants’ qualifications which consequently improve the quality of the labour force in the countries of origin. Research clearly defined that labour migrations in Central Asia are subject to general global tendencies, and depend on economic and demographic “pushing” and “pulling” factors in the countries of origin and destination, primarily, on balance of supply and demand of the labour market, level of salaries and standard of living. Influence of other factors such as urbanization, availability of infrastructure, including transportation and communication, housing market, migrant network in countries/regions of destination–these are the factors that should be studied. Illegal employment of migrants has a negative impact on the receiving country’s national budget and causes distortions of economic and social relations, such as bribery and corruption. A sharp change in the number of population may cause social and ethnocultural tensions in the migrants’ groups and receiving communities in Central Asia. Intolerance and lack of legal culture may raise social tension at the local level, which in turn, in multiethnic societies, may trigger ethnic tensions and conflicts. Local tensions (competition in the labour market, violation of labour migrants’ rights, intolerance in receiving communities and inflammatory publications in mass media, etc.) may transform into tensions at the interstate level, as happened between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 2000. Further research on the dynamics of labour migrations, observance of migrants’ rights and gender aspects; tolerance vs. intolerance towards migrants and their integration in the communities, and so on, is highly needed. Contemporary labour migration as a new social phenomenon, its multifaceted nature (social and economic, demographic, legal, etc.) requires an interdisciplinary approach. It is not only a subject for research, but also a problem for the practical solution for politicians and civil society institutions. More interaction and co-operation is necessary at all levels: societal, group, individual and among all re-

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gional actors to make external labour migration a legal process with predictable consequences. Labour migration is a global trend. Countries of Central Asia must develop their policies and legislation so that migration could serve the purpose of sustainable development in both receiving and sending countries.

Part IV Political Development and Prospects for Democratisation



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Political and Economic Development: Correlation in Southern Caucasus Nazim IMANOV Abstract. This paper analyses the political and socio-economic situation in the Southern Caucasus. It reflects on the origins of the conflicts in the region, their current status, and their similarities and differences. This paper contends that there is a single universal principle applicable to the solution of these conflicts: the unacceptability of the use of force to effect changes in internationally recognised and documented borders. The linkages between economics and politics are discussed from both regional and national perspectives. The correlation exists at both levels, although it is not robust because of distortions caused by natural resources. The author questions beliefs that economic cooperation can succeed in relieving the conflicts and expresses his conviction that conflict resolution is a necessary precondition of effective economic cooperation in the region. The distinguishing feature of the Caucasus states is that their economic objectives are set to achieve political rather than social targets. The states consider their economic development not as a means of improving the well-being of their people, but rather as a key for the solution of their political problems.

Man cannot usually fully perceive the extent of the historical events in which he is involved: it is necessary to observe great events from a distance in order to see them clearly. The birth of new nations and changes in the map of the world are just such events. Such has been the case in the Southern Caucasus. Difficult and tragic outcomes followed the modern nation-building processes in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The bloody wars in the mountainous part of Daqliq Qarabakh (or Naqorny Karabakh (mountainous Qarabakh)), and Abkhazia have not ended yet, and many other disputes still smoulder. The Current Political Situation Armenia and Azerbaijan are in stalemate. The outcome of the ferocious war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1988-1994, which ended the lives of tens of thousands of people, is considered by Azerbaijanis as illegal occupation and by Armenians as a legitimate act of self-determination. The most common argument made by Armenians today is that there is no alternative but to accept the current situation. The Azerbaijanis, on the contrary, cannot fully tolerate that twenty per cent of their land is under Armenian occupation and one in eight of the population of Azerbaijan consists of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). This author’s opinion is that Azerbaijan is unlikely to tolerate the situation in future.1 1

Azerbaijani society expressed its opinion on this issue by accepting the “National Charter on Settlement Principles of the Armenia – Azerbaijan Dispute”. The Charter approved three principles: 1) liberation of occupied territories; 2) restitution of refugees to their own, permanent living places and provision for their security and; 3) provision of self-government rights to Daqliq Qarabakh, while state sovereignty would be

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The territorial integrity of Georgia is under strain. After the last change of leadership in Georgia, the so-called “rose revolution”, the problems of its political and economic territorial integrity became even more urgent. One of these problems – Ajaria – seems to be partly settled. On the other hand, South Ossetia and Abkhazia retain a desire for independence (indeed they behave as semi-independent states). Javakheti is another potentially explosive hotspot. The territorial problems of Georgia could be viewed as having a different character than the Daqliq Qarabakh dispute: the ethnic groups (Abkhaz and Ossetians) that had been living in these hotspots did not establish their own sovereign states when they formed their ambitions, but the Azerbaijani territory of Daqliq Qarabakh was forcibly occupied by another former Soviet Republic. The decision of the Armenian parliament on the consolidation of Daqliq Qarabakh within Armenia is still pending. All the Caucasian states talk enthusiastically about the uniqueness of the territorial problems in their regions. Nevertheless, each state follows its own interests and tries to justify the settlement of problems in its own favour. These problems can be solved only by implementing international law that includes as a key provision the inadmissibility of forced change of internationally recognised borders. According to the data on ethnic composition, Armenia has become a mono-ethnic state. Due to the recent emigration patterns from Armenia, the country is considered to be the ethnically “cleanest” of the Caucasian states. It is also evident that Armenia’s level of foreign dependence (primarily on Russia and the Armenian Diaspora) exceeds that of Azerbaijan and Georgia. The issue involves not only economic and energy dependency, but also, and largely, military-political ties. Georgia is trying to become the political centre of the Southern Caucasus by profiting from the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Georgia is the only state “able to negotiate” with all the others in the Southern Caucasus. There is, indeed, no serious problem between Azerbaijan and Georgia. Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis live in Georgia and tens of thousands of Georgians are in Azerbaijan. At the beginning of the 1990s, repression of Georgian Azerbaijanis was rare. Nowadays almost all major political groups in Georgia and all of them in Azerbaijan support the active development of positive relations between the two states: this mutual interest has amplified their relationship and the above-mentioned diasporas constitute just a part of this. Both states participate in large economic projects, including pipeline construction (BTC – Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and BTA – Baku-Tbilisi-Arzurum) for oil and gas transmission, and TRACECA (the Great Silk Road). Both states adhere to integration into the Euro-Atlantic area and take active steps towards it. Both states are founders and active members of GUAM (the inter-state organization that includes Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova). So far, Georgia has no serious territorial disputes with Armenia. However, some political appeals for independence occur in the regions of Georgia mainly populated by Armenians and they have some public support from the political groups in Armenia (the Dashnaktsutun Party in particular). The trilateral relationships among the three Caucasian states have a certain negative impact on the bilateral relationships. Thus, from the Azerbaijani perspective, in order to preserve and develop good relations with Georgia, the two states have to find a common

maintained by the Azerbaijan Republic. This document known as “The Charter of Fourths” was supported by representatives of the ruling party, the opposition, NGOs, religious associations, national minorities, mass media and intelligentsia. It generated more than 600 signatures and, in October 2001 it was submitted to the President of the Azerbaijan Republic, member states of the Minsk group and international organizations. The author of this article was one of four initiators of the Charter.


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way to deal with their territorial problems. In other words, Azerbaijan would like Georgia to share its position in Qarabakh conflict. The Current Economic Situation All three Southern Caucasian states are poor and, under the World Bank’s economic classification, they are included in the list of the poorest states of the CIS. 2 Although significant economic growth has taken place over the last few years, the economy has not recovered over a longer timeframe (e.g. within the last 15 years). Comparing 1990 to 2001, GDP in Azerbaijan was 64.5% of what it was in 1990. In Armenia the figure was 64%, and in Georgia, 39%.3 Based on macroeconomic indicators, Azerbaijan is the fastest developing and most prosperous state in the region (Table 1). According to indicators characterising the scale of the economy (GDP, budget, foreign investments, foreign trade), welfare indicators (GDP per capita, wages, pensions and benefits), and growth indicators (growth rates of GDP, budget, foreign trade), Azerbaijan is unquestionably the leader in the Southern Caucasus. Nevertheless, compared to the indicators of developed European countries, all these indicators (except for the growth rate) appear to be very weak. The prosperity indicators in all three countries are too low and the proportion of the population living below the poverty line is excessive. Compared with other countries with a similar GDP per capita, the three Caucasian states are poorer. The informal economy plays a significant role in this (although it is not the only reason); both GDP and income figures are distorted by the informal economy. In reality, both figures could be higher than in the official statistics. An essential source of income for Caucasian states is revenues obtained from labour and capital migration. There are no official statistics for these transfers, though the cash flow is undoubtedly significant. I estimate that 1.5 billion USD flows annually from the Russian Federation (where the majority of Caucasian migrants live) to Azerbaijan. The cash flows entail a serious difference between formal and real welfare. The unemployment rate in all three countries remains high. Unfortunately, the information provided by official statistics is unreliable, because it reflects people registered with the state and receiving benefits (1.2% for Azerbaijan). The unemployment figures provided by international organizations (16% for Azerbaijan) are unreliable as well, because they do not identify some groups of the population as unemployed. For instance, a person who leases his house, moves into cheaper rented accommodation and lives on the difference between the rents may actually be unemployed (at least from the viewpoint of wasted socio-economic potential), but international institutions evaluate him as a businessman who leases private property. Therefore, the only way to evaluate unemployment is by expert assessment. My calculations estimate a 30% unemployment rate in each of the Caucasian states. Despite relatively high development rates, the main reason for the high level of unemployment in Azerbaijan is that oil and gas production and exports are not labour intensive. Nowadays, just over 1% of the population able to work is employed in the oil sector. This discrepancy worries the Azerbaijani government, who in February 2004 approved the “Regional 2 The CIS -7 programme was initiated by the IMF and World Bank in April 2002. It focuses on the seven lowincome CIS states: Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Economic transition has been difficult and the bulk of the reform process has yet to be undertaken. Compared to 1990s levels, welfare indicators (except for Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan) have fallen significantly. Poverty reduction for each of the seven states is extremely urgent. 3 Source: Statistical Indicators of Azerbaijan. Baku. 2003. p.713


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Development Programme – 2004-2008” to stimulate the opening of new jobs in the non-oil sector. The ambitious programme proposes to create 600,000 new jobs within five years, mainly in agriculture, food processing and services. Social polarisation is deep. Forecasts of international institutions on polarisation are not always reliable because they also rely upon dubious official data. For instance, based on the CIA’s information,4 the poorest 10% of households in Azerbaijan account for 2.8% of income, the richest 10% of households account for 27.8% of income, and the Gini index is estimated at 36% (1995). 5 This index in Georgia is 37.1%, and in Armenia, 44.4%. In principle, indicators for Azerbaijan and Georgia can be considered normal (for instance, in Great Britain this ratio is 36.8%, in France, 32.7%, and in the Netherlands, 32.6%). But in Azerbaijan (and other Caucasian countries) the wealth of the richest is derived mainly from illegal activities, including corruption, and this is obviously not reflected in official figures. A portion of the income of the poorest level of the population is obtained from the informal sector and hence is not legal; but the illegal difference between the poorest and richest mostly favours the latter. Therefore, the real differentiation is higher. It is no exception that the differentiation rate in Armenia is not higher than in other Caucasian states. Simply put, maybe the illegal portion of the economy is smaller there. Thus, welfare in the Southern Caucasian states is low, unemployment is high, and social polarisation is deep. However, the political results that can be derived from this appear to be anomalous. Theoretically, states with such economic parameters would be expected to lean strongly to left-wing ideas. In Caucasian states, the right is the dominant political philosophy. Even left-wing politicians in Azerbaijan (e.g. communists) have similar economic slogans to right-wing parties: privatisation, tax reduction, smaller government, redistribution of a smaller portion of national income through the state budget (reduction of the budget to GDP ratio), etc. Probably, the paralogism of the correlation between the economic situation and the political agenda is linked to the history of these states: these states emerged from the most extreme left regime in the world (USSR) and the main political parties believe the economy has to go the right. Nevertheless, the Caucasian states have advanced a lot in conducting liberal reforms. Currently, based on the indicators in Table 2, they are even further to the right than some European countries.6 The tax burden in each of the three South Caucasian states is lower than, for instance, in the Netherlands.7 Nevertheless, based on some adverse indicators (the excessively large informal economy, rampant corruption and inadequate enforcement of property rights), a number of corrective actions should be undertaken. Thus, it is not easy to appraise the current situation in the Southern Caucasus. On the one hand, from a nation-building perspective, gaining and protecting independence and obtaining certain economic-political advances in all three states are undoubtedly great achievements. On the other hand, the Southern Caucasus could certainly perform more effectively considering the circumstances. The most serious obstacles preventing this are

4

Source: CIA – The World Factbook

5

The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality, usually used to measure income inequality, but it can be used to measure any form of uneven distribution. The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income, and everyone else has zero income). The Gini index is the Gini coefficient expressed in percentage form.

6

The lower the index, more liberal the country In some cases bribes and corruption constitute an additional “tax burden” imposed on companies. Therefore, statements on softening the tax burden must be accepted with care.

7

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the above-mentioned territorial disputes. Regional confrontations have a negative impact on the internal political and economic development of all three states. Table 2. Openness of Economy Foreign Trade Tax burden

Azerbaijan 3.0 3.4

Georgia 4.0 2.4

Armenia 2.0 2.3

The Netherlands 2.0 4.4

Government interference in economy

3.0

1.5

3.0

3.0

Monetary policy

1.0

3.0

2.0

2.0

Foreign investments

4.0

3.0.

2.0

1.0

Banks and finance

4.0

3.0

1.0

1.0

Revenues and prices

3.0

3.0

3.0

2.0

Property rights

4.0

4.0

3.0

1.0

Regulation

4.0

4.0

4.0

3.0

Informal economy

4.5

4.0

4.0

1.0

Total Score

3.39

3.19

2.63

2.04

Ranking among 156 states

106

91

44

19

Source: The Heritage Foundation – 2004 Index of Economic Freedom Economic Progress and Political Stability In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the economy of each of the Southern Caucasian states was exposed to the destructive impact of political disorders. Only since the second half of the 1990s have economic advances begun. Within one or two years of the ceasefire agreement (12 May 1994) between Azerbaijan and Armenia, a relatively stable political environment in both states was achieved. In Georgia, internal political instability was relatively high, which could be one of the main reasons for low real GDP growth in Georgia compared to the CIS-7 countries. There are a number of reasons, why political instability prevents economic development: x The government cannot make normal economic decisions, in particular if they prove to be unpopular from a political viewpoint; x Foreign investments fail to flow into the country (even investments into Azerbaijan’s oil industry did not start to flow until the second half of the 1990s, although compared to other sectors, oil investors are usually not so averse to risk); x “Capital flight” of rich residents to other countries; x Short-term gains are concentrated on and, in some cases, this results in exports at any price (sometimes this became a bad joke – for example, railways and electric power lines were dismantled and sold to foreign states as scrap); x People’s propensity to save (it is recognised that confidence in the future is the primary driver of productive savings; during political upheaval this confidence weakens, and any savings serve the purpose of insuring against possible bad times. These tend to be hoarded and are not productive in character);


x x x

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Monetary policy fails, and inflation spirals out of control (the inflation rate in Azerbaijan was 1800% in 1994; in this case, the political instability dominating the country in 1993 played a decisive role); Domestic interregional economic relations disintegrate and instability reinforces instability: different regions start to blame their conditions not on the overall economic situation, but on ethnic, religious and regional issues; Permanent public stress affects the behavioural patterns of society.

Obviously political stability does not by itself ensure economic progress and the difference in the pace and quality of economic development in countries that can be considered politically stable are clear evidence for this. Political stability can promote stable long-term economic progress subject to two conditions. Firstly, economic stability should derive from the social-political system: i.e. reliance not on individuals, but on the legal and functional political system. Only in this case can stability be itself sustainable; stability established by repressive forces under the control of powerful people (government) may or may not be the starting point of system stability. This depends on the political processes underway, the government (person) and primarily on the quality of reforms carried out. The fundamental pre-condition for long-term economic progress is not political stability itself, but democratic development, which is a keystone for political stability. From this point of view, the situation in the Southern Caucasus is anomalous. Despite the fact that within the last decade these states have achieved some real democratic change (especially in areas of freedom of speech and free press), problematic issues remain regarding peaceful, free and fair elections. Even the latest government change in Georgia, considered in the West to be the most democratic of the Caucasian states, did not in fact occur through elections: it was simply legitimised by elections. Secondly, the country must form an effective economic system simultaneously with political development, and macroeconomic stability is the basic requirement for this. Macroeconomic stability is believed to have been achieved in all Southern Caucasian states. But this is not sufficiently precise. For that, the following three conditions must be satisfied: 1) The currency must be stable, a condition which has been fulfilled: over the last nine years the Azerbaijani manat, Georgian lari and Armenian dram have remained stable. Since the mid 1990s, as a result of severe monetary policies introduced on the persistent advice of the IMF, the exchange rates of these currencies change very cautiously. Price inflation is at an acceptable level. Azerbaijan has a specific problem: as opposed to money depreciation, it needs to avoid monetary appreciation, which could lead to import domination over exports and consequently, stagnation of internal production. 2) The economy must grow steadily. Taking future potential into account (mainly oil and gas production and transportation), economic growth rates in the Southern Caucasus can be considered satisfactory. 3) The economy must have an adequate money supply, a condition which has not yet been fulfilled. But without it, macroeconomic stability cannot be considered complete. As of 2002, local currency equivalent to 6.8% of annual GDP was in circulation in Azerbaijan. Although tight money creates conditions for monetary stability, it also creates conditions for a number of negative processes that are outside the scope of this discussion. Macroeconomic stability is an essential condition for building an effective economic system, but it is not a sufficient one. An optimal balance must be achieved between the private and public sectors; between taxation and service provision; between foreign trade and market protection; between encouraging foreign investment and stimulating local investment; and the list goes on. In this context, there are serious problems

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in the Southern Caucasus (or at least in Azerbaijan). There are major shortcomings in the Azerbaijani government’s effective regulation of the market economy. All the above refer to the impact of political stability (political development) on economic progress, but the opposite impact exists as well. The better the economy operates (other things being equal), the stronger the government becomes. Political stability defined as stability of the government is based on the people’s attitude. Primarily, people are interested only in the final result: i.e. in welfare changes. Here, Azerbaijan differs fundamentally from other Caucasian states – and the reason is oil exports. Oil enables the government to make impressive (and largely true) statements about improvements in social welfare without making fundamental progress in the area of economic reforms. However, under normal circumstances, economic growth requires appropriate government behaviour (in the form of development and implementation of economic policy decisions). In order to strengthen political stability, it is fundamental that economic development be accompanied by fair distribution of social welfare. If economic development results in unfair distribution of welfare and social disparities continue to deepen, then far from strengthening political stability, it even endangers it. From this perspective, how people perceive welfare distribution is crucial. In other words, society must believe that wealth and welfare distribution are fair. Does the Southern Caucasus have serious problems in this area? Wealth distribution is indeed not fair enough. Further, employment in the government remains a major source of wealth. Although the concept of transparent public service exists on paper, it is not recognised by the public. A state official is not, in fact, a “public servant”, and it is natural that he is not conceived as such. The huge amounts of money that can be derived from this “public service” are not, and will never be, accepted as fair income by society. The Soviet concept of public fairness still partially works. Most people, particularly the older generation, cannot accept a division of rich and poor per se. The possibility of getting rich fairly – that is to say, legally – is not accepted by most groups of the society. For these reasons, among the actions necessary to make economic development policy work for political stability, there should be a settlement of the problems of redistribution. Reform of the public service is the main issue here. Starting from 2004, Georgia and Armenia will benefit substantially from specific loans granted by the World Bank. Assistance for public service reform provided by the European Union to all three Caucasian states would also be beneficial.

Figure 1. Average bribes from company revenues Source: EBRD-WB BEEPS, 2002


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It is also important to provide people, especially in the countryside, with an adequate understanding of the market economy, institutions and especially of relevant concepts of social order. Finally, an effective struggle against corruption is vital. According to research carried out by the EBRD (The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and the World Bank in recent years, the level of corruption in all CIS-7 countries, except for Kyrgyzstan, has declined. South Caucasian states have achieved important progress in this area (Figure 1). The achievements in Armenia are particularly noteworthy. The new government of Georgia is paying great attention to anticorruption activity and continues to acquire international assistance in this area. Some steps are being taken in Azerbaijan as well. But in all the states of the Southern Caucasus, much work still needs to be done. Globally, there are examples of dramatic limitations of individual political freedom accompanied by increased economic freedom (China is the best example). But in the absence of individual economic independence it is impossible to speak of individual political freedom, because economic independence is perhaps the most important of individual rights. Applying this concept to the Southern Caucasian states is reassuring: the degree of economic independence is ahead of political development almost everywhere. But there is still a significant distance between formal and real economic independence, and the many existing obstacles to private enterprise (including unfair competition, judicial bias, lack of information, etc.) are located in this gap. Regional Stability and Economic Cooperation Regional economic cooperation is limited: there is no official relationship between Azerbaijan and Armenia and no economic relations either. Georgia has some trade with both states, but cannot ensure its domestic economic integrity. Thus, the prospect of the Southern Caucasus as a single economic arena remains a dream. In 2002, Azerbaijan exported goods to Georgia valued at 80.8 million USD (3.73% of all exports from Azerbaijan) and imported goods at 12.7 million USD (0.77% of imports); 8 exports by Armenia to Georgia amounted to 16.6 million USD, and imports 31.5 million USD.9 A widely shared opinion is that the key to regional stability is interstate economic cooperation: if the Southern Caucasus became a single economic area, it would contribute to the solution of regional conflicts. Before addressing this, let us first consider the original question: can the Southern Caucasus, in principle, become a single economic area? The governmental structures of Armenia, and Armenian communities abroad, regularly publicly address the need for economic cooperation in the region. However, the Azerbaijanis see in these speeches the intentions of the Armenians to solve their energy shortage problems without suggesting any decision on the Qarabakh question. Economic cooperation with Armenia is considered impossible by the Azerbaijani public. Informal economic relations or economic relations built with the help of third parties are treated as treason. Until occupation has ceased, Azerbaijani public opinion repudiates any relations (except for peace negotiations between top officials) with Armenia. This was clearly demonstrated in June 2004 by the mass protests against the arrival of Armenian officers in Baku for a pre-training meeting within the framework of NATO’s “Cooperation towards Peace” Programme. NGOs conducting meetings with their Armenian counter-parts, whether in the Caucasus or in other states under various humanitarian and semi-political programmes, face serious censure inside the country. 8 9

Source: Statistical indicators of Azerbaijan – 2003, Baku, 2004, p. 638 Source: Statistical Yearbook of Armenia – 2003, Erevan, 2004, p. 491

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Georgia’s situation is fundamentally different, because the direct intervention of a third party is not the issue. The Georgian government is interested in strengthening economic relations with both Abkhazia and Ossetia in every way possible, because economic integrity is a fundamental condition for the restoration of political sovereignty over the whole territory. But that is exactly the reason why Ossetia and Abkhazia persistently decline to develop such relations. So, there is a direct correlation between regional security and economic cooperation, but causality is mainly in the opposite direction: the solution of political conflicts is the key to regional economic cooperation in the Southern Caucasus. While saying “economic development”, most Caucasians do not necessarily propose economic cooperation. The dominant spirit in Azerbaijan, for example, is to strengthen the economy in order to settle the main political problem of the country: to ensure its territorial integrity. Although the purpose of economic development has a social character, the priority is mostly political. “Strong economy – strong army!” has been one of the most strident slogans of the last seven years. Similar slogans can also be heard in Georgia and Armenia. The motives of Armenia resemble those of Azerbaijan, though with opposite emphasis: it is necessary to be economically strong to “protect” Qarabakh. In recent years this idea in Georgia has become especially charged with emotion. The new government considers strengthening the army one of the most important components of internal policy. The idea is the same – in order to settle territorial problems, a strong army is needed, which in turn requires a strong economy. To build a strong economy, Azerbaijan undoubtedly has a head start owing to its oil reserves. While not as enormous as was thought ten years ago, they are sufficient to give an impetus to economic development. At present, the country produces 16 million tons of oil per year. Of this, nine million tons of oil is extracted by Azerbaijan and the remainder by the Azerbaijan International Operation Company (AIOC), established with the participation of foreign oil companies. Oil production will dramatically increase over the next five years, and will peak by 2010. After this, oil production will decline and by 2025, it is expected to return to the current level. The country also has export-oriented gas resources. Construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline continues to accelerate rapidly.10 Since 1994, Azerbaijan has signed 24 Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) on oil production and distribution. In 2004, USD 838.5 million was deposited in the country’s State Oil Fund (SOF), and it was forecast that by the end of 2004 this figure would exceed one billion USD. By 2010, even if the budget doubles, the SOF will reach a level approaching three times the annual budget. Perhaps, for a medium-sized European economy these figures are not impressive; but on a Caucasian scale, they are enormous. It is important that Azerbaijan considers its oil and gas development as the stimulant for other sectors of the economy. 10 Both the construction of these pipelines and the legal status of the Caspian Sea have caused serious regional political disputes. Despite the fact that the pipelines initially faced severe disapproval from several countries (Russia first of all), currently they are not the subject of international concern. The status of the Caspian Sea is still a topic of interstate discussion. The imposition of a blockade on Azerbaijan by Russia while approving exploitation of Caspian Sea oil wells at the beginning of 1990s, the invasion of Iranian military ships in July 2001, the conflicts with Turkmenistan regarding some oil reserves in the second half of 1990s – all these relate to regional political discrepancies connected with the legal status of the Caspian Sea. Over the last few years, significant bilateral agreements have been signed between Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan: the seabed of the Caspian Sea (and hence, mineral resources) has been divided based on the median line principle, while the surface and the water resources remain for common use. The situation with Iran and Turkmenistan remains unresolved.


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Intensive development of the non-oil sector is currently the country’s main economic priority; it will involve huge investments. For instance, the “investment cost” of the Regional Development Programme amounts to 15 billion USD which will be used to implement over 400 investment projects. The government proposes to implement infrastructural improvement projects (5.5 – 6.5 billion USD). It is expected that the private sector will implement the remainder of the programme with commercial projects costing approximately 10 billion USD. The idea that must be underlined here is that the purpose of all economic development projects is not just better living standards, but also (and mainly) territorial integrity. Of course, none of the South Caucasian states explains their military build up.11 The official explanation is that no progress will be made in negotiations towards peace until the counter-parties realize each others’ strength. In other words, military force is evaluated as an additional, and perhaps the most influential, element of political dialogue.12 The Domestic Correlation between Political and Economic Development At first sight, these seem to be two faces of one coin, and this holds true for most countries. According to information provided by Freedom House, in 2003, 46% of all countries worldwide were free, 29% were partly free, and 25% were repressed. 44% of the world’s population live in free countries, 21% of the world’s population live in partly free countries and 35% of the world’s population live in repressed countries. Economic indicators fundamentally differ between them: 89% of world GDP is produced by free countries.13 A global view establishes the existence of a high correlation between the domestic political and economic development of countries. The Southern Caucasian perspective highlights more specific peculiarities of this correlation. First, the political and economic integrity of the countries are interrelated. At present, both Azerbaijan and Georgia lack both. These countries will agree to become a single economic area only if political sovereignty is exercised throughout their territories. The opposite is also true: unless they become a single economic area, political territorial integrity is nothing but a formal statement. So, until a certain level of economic development has been reached, internal political development is unattainable. Usually, the main concern of people living in absolute poverty is not freedom but bread; freedom is the higher need and does not become urgent until primary requirements are more or less satisfied. Therefore, society’s desire for democracy (coming from the bottom) and its willingness to engage in active participation in the process will only happen when a certain level of economic development has been reached. On the other hand, in order to stick to stable and harmonious economic development, the political system and hence political progress for countries in transition is particularly significant. Quite naturally, there are exceptions. The largest ones arise in countries with specific economic development conditions that are explained below. In such countries the link between domestic political and economic development not only breaks, but sometimes even operates in the reverse direction. Such specificities exist in all three Caucasian states, but in Azerbaijan they are striking. 11

It is natural that enlargement of the military forces of the Southern Caucasian states is not an unlimited process, at least being subject to the “Flank Agreement” on limitation of Europe’s common weapons. The concept of “Peace relying on the military-political power balance” is well known in Europe. From the time of Cardinal Richelieu, the entire history of European nation-states is based on the application and development of this concept. 13 Source: Freedom in the World – 2003, http://www.freedomhouse.org/research 12

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There is a dissonance between resource abundance and democratic development. Surveys show that there are serious problems in the area of democracy and human rights in most developing countries rich in natural resources.14 The evidence is clear that economic development built upon natural resources is not harmonious. Both the sectoral and geographic structures of the economy are exposed to serious distortion. For instance, oil has recently become the major driver of Azerbaijan’s economy (Figure 2). Since oil is mainly produced in and around Baku, geographic development has also been distorted: 93% of budget revenues are generated in Baku and only 7% from other regions of Azerbaijan.15 But economic development built upon the export of natural resources does not pave the way (at least, in the short-term perspective) for democratic change and even impedes it. At a certain point, improvements in living standards among distinct social groups almost automatically weaken the need (and desire) for political and even economic changes (system reform). People see that welfare can improve even without any changes in the political system.

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%

GDP

Budget Industry

FDI

Exports

Figure 2. Azerbaijan: share of oil factor in economy

The possibility that this is one of the reasons for the weakness of the political opposition cannot be excluded. After the last presidential elections (October 2003), political opposition remains ineffective. The leading political opposition organisations cannot determine the political agenda and are even unable to exert a serious influence on it. Channelling a significant part of the huge income received from oil exports to social welfare mitigates discontent in the country and drastically limits the electoral base of the political opposition. It is obvious that the economic freedoms in Azerbaijan are greater than the political ones. The main problem is to carry out elections that are accepted as “free and fair” by everyone. However, the level of preparedness of the nation for democracy is highly rated by local and foreign experts. As was mentioned above, economic conditions that can be considered “special” exist in other Southern Caucasian states as well. The problem is that democratic development can be prevented not only by resource money but by any windfalls. In all three Caucasian states this includes continuous financial aid from the diaspora. In Armenia, 14

For instance, see: Karl, Terry. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. 15 One of the reasons for this is the revolutionary land reforms carried out in Azerbaijan. Currently 99% of agricultural products are produced by private sector. In order to create opportunities for the rehabilitation of newly formed farms and in new legislation, for the last few years, farmers have been exempt from tax payments to the state budget.


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a significant part of that aid is directed at social programs and the main portion of it is spent by the government on, for example, the programmes in Qarabakh and maintaining the army; it possesses a political effect close to that of oil revenues in Azerbaijan. Financial aid recently provided to Georgia by developed countries and international institutions is of the same character. The only difference (but it is a significant one, and a great advantage to Georgia) is that the grants received by Georgia bear conditions. Sometimes they are highly specific in character and are directed at institutional strengthening, anticorruption activity and the development of democracy.16 Prospects Are there any grounds for optimism about the future of the Caucasus and, in particular, of the Southern Caucasus? Or does the current situation yield nothing but pessimism? It could go either way. Change for the good is not irreversible, and in fact, within the regional context it, unfortunately, has not started. Deterioration, fortunately, is avoidable. Of course, everything is linked, first of all, to the will and the behaviour of Caucasian states and peoples. The attention paid by the world to the region, constructive international intervention in economic and particularly political processes and the will towards solution of frozen regional conflicts are all significant. Assuming that the solutions of the South Caucasian problems are intractable without the intervention of the world community and influential and respected international organisations, such as the UN, OSCE, and NATO I do not wish it to be believed that, as soon as one of them do intervene, any problem, for example the Daqliq Qarabakh problem, will immediately be solved. Of course, it will not. Up to now, there is no evidence that such possible involvement will succeed. However, the opposite can be considered certain: Caucasian countries have not been able to achieve any success so far in solving their regional and territorial disputes without external intervention. Thus, there is no other way but to look to the outside world.

16

In June 2004, a group of countries approved financial assistance to Georgia for a two year period amounting to 2 billion USD. Undoubtedly, other funds, including loans, will also enter the country. It is necessary to understand the amount: the funds exceed two annual budgets of Georgia.

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Georgia-Challenges to Internal Security through the Prism of External Political Priorities Nina DYULGEROVA Bulgaria, Varna Free University Abstract. The tasks before Georgia concerning internal security and stability are out of its reach. Internal security of Georgia goes through the prism of Russian-Georgian relations. The foreign policy priorities of Tbilisi are actually limited in the framework of South Ossetia and Abkhazia–the region between Georgia and the Russian Federation. The Euro-Atlantic rhetoric being touted by Georgian rulers in their public appearances does not change the existing reality. The main problem of Georgia at this moment is a concrete one–restraining from internal conflicts, which can really cause a direct confrontation between Tbilisi and Moscow. The dynamics of the events outline the variables as a whole, but not the solutions. The problems which Georgia has to solve in the sphere of internal security and stability are out of its reach. Despite president Saakashvili’s statements that Georgia has the possibility to be an international political player, the main problem of Tbilisi at this moment is a specific one–suppressing internal strife, which has the real potential to oppose Tbilisi and Moscow in an open duel. There are a lot of questions remaining which Georgia’s leaders should solve not only in the country, but also in the complex geopolitical situation of the CaspianBlack Sea region. The global realities precondition not as many new priorities as many new methods and approaches, which should lead to positive economic and political dividends for the Caucasian societies within the framework of sub-regional, regional and global organizational structures.

Introduction The collapse of the Soviet system at the beginning of the 1990s led to radical changes in the post-Soviet territories. Disintegration processes in the former Soviet Union predetermined the arising of new and the updating of some old arguments and conflicts. The dynamic statepolitical and socio-economic changes formed new geopolitical spaces in the European, Caucasian and Central Asian regions of the Soviet empire. Turning the former republics into self-sufficient subjects of international relations also gave a new essence to the relations between them and the heir of the metropolis–The Russian Federation. One of the active participants in these processes is Georgia, whose geo-strategic position in the Caucasus again, after more than two hundred years, makes it a basic component of the various full-of-drama, victims-and-betrayals ad hoc situations in the Caspian-Black Sea area. After coming out of the unified political space of the USSR, the Caucasus region has not only lost its wholeness, but has also become a fighting zone for political and economic predominance of the great powers. It has become a significant part of the process of assumption of natural resources, trade markets, control over the most important transport routes, oil pipelines, and so on. The quickening interest of various countries such as Russia,

N. Dyulgerova / Georgia-Challenges to Internal Security

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Turkey, Iraq, the USA and European and Asian countries is justified considering the huge amounts of strategic resources in the region, its role as a transportation corridor for hydrocarbon, oil and gas to the world market and the possibility for intervening in the complex process of forming new states in the Caucasus. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the geopolitical configurations in the former Soviet region identify North Caucasus as a part of the Russian Federation and South Caucasus (Transcaucasia) with three politically-independent states, two of which (Azerbaijan and Georgia) are of pro-Western orientation, and the third one, Armenia, as a Russian satellite. The period after the breakup of the Soviet Union in this region is marked with three war conflicts–one for Nagorny Karabagh between Armenia and Azerbaijan and two for keeping Georgia’s integrity concerning South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This illustrates the continuous ethno-national tension in the Caucasus, which deepens social insecurity and turns it into an arena for political and economical influences. In the last months of 2003 and at the beginning of 2004, the accent in world news was put on Georgia, where stormy protests accompanying the parliamentary elections in the autumn led to the election of a new president in January 2004. This change updated many problems and raised new questions about the role of Georgia in the new world. Furthermore, the problem which emerged as the main one was if and to what extent Georgia could decide independently on issues related to its integrity and internal security. Will Tbilisi manage to find a solution which will liberate it from geo-political and geo-economic dependence on Moscow and turn the state into one of the main balancing players in the Caucasus region?

Georgia’s economy during the transition period Excluding Turkmenistan, the events of 9/11 created favorable conditions for the expansion of American influence in the Central Asian republics of neighboring Caucasus. This process is part of a worldwide tendency, oriented towards complete reorganization of the Black SeaCaspian region on the road to separating Georgia and Azerbaijan from Russia, as well as isolating Erevan from Moscow. Military-strategic reorientation of these geopolitical areas is guaranteed by projects aimed at gradual political, economic and military dependency of the Caucasian countries on the EU, NATO and the USA. Different industry branches, especially the energy industry, are being subsidized and the activity of Tbilisi and Baku as participants in the anti-terror coalition in the USA’s and NATO’s operations on the Balkans, in Afghanistan and Iraq are being encouraged. Georgia and Azerbaijan are actually acting as allies of the USA and NATO, unlike Armenia, where change is still to come. This outlining alternative is accompanied by escalation of national ethnic and social conflicts. A typical example of a similar process is Georgia, which is entering the twenty-first century as an unstable country with high unemployment and broad criminality. This is the result of the processes which have taken place in the country in the last decade of the twentieth century. Serious damage has been done to the country’s economy, inflicted by the three separate armed conflicts in the region, as well as by years of political instability. The decrease in GDP of the republic between 1990 and 1995 is the largest, compared to those in other former Soviet republics. Georgia has become extremely dependent on foreign financial and humanitarian aid. But the establishment of relative political stability in the middle of the 1990s has allowed Georgia to make some progress in the renewal of its economic growth.

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N. Dyulgerova / Georgia-Challenges to Internal Security Table 1. Basic macroeconomic parameters (in % compared to the previous year)

GDP

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

102.6

111.2

110.5

103.1

102.9

101.8

104.8

105.5

108.6

Production from industry

86

107

108

98

107

111

95

107

111

Agriculture

113

106

107

90

108

85

106

99

111

Investments in base capital

151

106

152

180

49

97

111

118

168

Transporting goods

103

94

139

122

107

116

111

113

109

Retail trade

255

121

128

112

105

111

106

104

109

Indexes of prices of industrial production

...

...

...

102

116

106

104

106

102

Index of the consumer countries

263

139

107

104

119

104

105

106

105

Export to countries in CIS

81

136

107

78

100.1

123

109

110

127

Export to other countries

147

123

145

83

154

151

89

95

128

Import from countries in CIS

58

170

126

79

84

101

110

111

124

Import from other countries

363

175

145

102

61

112

101

103

159

Source: CIA World Factbook, December 2003

Almost half (47%) of the income in the country’s state budget comes from transporting goods. Georgia provides Azerbaijan with a passage to the West as part of the transit transport from the Caspian region and Central Asia to European countries. This is a positive result from the Great Silk Road project; that is, the trans-Caucasian transport highway. The private sector in the country is active. It existed during the Soviet era through the well-developed black market, on which everything, from bread to cars was exchanged illegally. The government voted a privatization law right after the announcement of the country’s independence, but delayed its implementation until regaining political stability in the mid 1990s. With the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government lowered inflation from 62% monthly in 1994 to less than 1% monthly in 1997. In September 1995 the Georgian government introduced the national currency, the lari, aiming to stabilize the economy and the standard of living. In 2001 GDP of the country reached 3.14 billion USD; 21% came from agriculture, including forestry and fish-breeding; 23% of goods were produced from industry, including mining and building; 57% from services, including trade and financial services–all this despite the fact that the larger part of the country’s economy is in the so-called informal sector and outside official economic statistics. A big problem for the country’s economy is the black economy, which has led to a lot of negative consequences. Amongst these are: x Cutting the tax basis. As a result, the tax load over the legal economy sector has increased.


x x x

x x x x

x

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A decrease in the competitiveness of the legal economy. This, in its part, has led other areas of the economy to go to the black sector. The resource basis for corruption has risen, which in itself increases corruption. The huge amount of uncontrolled financial resources allows interference and pressure on state policy and election campaigns at different levels, which also predisposes the growth of corruption. The national income has been redistributed to an elite group, conditioned by corruption and control of criminal economy over the black economy. This has led to material status differentiation and to a rise in confrontation in society. There is an outflow of capital abroad. Uncontrolled trade of low-quality goods and dangerous consumer goods is increasing. There is a huge amount of money and other transfers (approximately 500 million dollars annually) outside state control from migrants, who work mainly in Russia, which equals the annual budget of Georgia for 2003. An almost double increase of these receipts is expected in the next years. Methodical difficulties in estimating the unregistered economy lead to systematical errors in defining the important economic and social parameters for societal development. This hampers good management decisions at different management levels.

Indicative of the serious presence of the black economy in the post-Soviet regions is the research by Frederic Schneider and Robert Klinglmair: Table 2. The size of the shadow and official economy (in % of GDP) in the Former Soviet Union–Average 2000/2001

Georgia Azerbaijan Ukraine Belarus

67.3 60.6 52.2 48.1

Former Soviet countries Kazakhstan Latvia Kyrgyzstan Estonia

43.2 39.9 39.8 39.1

Armenia Russia Moldova

46.3 46.1 45.1

Uzbekistan Lithuania Average

34.1 30.3 44.8

Source: Schneider, Fridrich and Klinglmair, Robert: Shadow Economies around the World. Working Paper. No 1167 (2004)

First in the table are two of the three countries in the Caucasian region as percentage of GDP puts them far in front of the other post-Soviet republics. Amongst the former Soviet republics, the highest percentage of the black economy is in Georgia (67.3%), followed by another Caucasian state–Azerbaijan (60.6%). After the political changes in Georgia at the beginning of 2004, the process of privatization of state property has temporarily ceased until an appropriate privatization mechanism is found, which should be transparent and economically beneficial for the state.

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The export of Georgian products is the priority for the economic team. With regard to this, measures to help Georgian products are expected to be taken. Another plan is the creation of a favorable investment climate for foreign business, by which Georgia should prove its competitiveness. It is expected that the balance between the different regions in the country will be reestablished. A special state commission has been founded which develops a project for one-time financial amnesty for companies with liabilities to the state budget, but which also have potential for further development. What the government calls financial amnesty is actually restructuring of debts and their gradual payment. At the moment, a reform of the tax and trade policies is being carried out, expecting to result in contractors having more freedom and possibilities for increasing their financial income, complying with tax discipline. It is not accidental that in 2004, on his visit to Israel, Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili proudly noted that within the reforms carried out, very soon “the most liberal tax law in the Black Sea region and the former Soviet Union” would be established. Georgia, along with Armenia, is a highly dependent energy-wise Caucasian country. Both are net energy importers, surrounded by some of the biggest world energy and energy resources suppliers. The main energy priorities of the Caucasian countries are to diversify their energy and energy carriers’ suppliers, as well as to profit from the possibilities for transit transport through their territories. Energy shortage has a negative effect on the Georgian economy.

Figure 1 Source: Caucasus Region. 2003. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/caucasus.html

Hydro-energy is 80.26% of the whole amount produced in electrical energy in 2001, and its share continues to rise because thermal power stations are closed due to shortage of raw materials (the country cannot pay the import of oil and gas). It is not accidental that Georgia’s prime minister, Zurab Zhvania, at the end of 2004 announced that the main priority of the


249

cabinet was the energy industry.1 After his death at the beginning of 2005, his successor, Zurab Nogaideli, confirmed that in the next 18 months significant projects in the energy system of Georgia are planned to be implemented. According to him, 200 million lari (11 million dollars) in 2005 and another 65 million lari (36.5 million dollars) in 2006 will be used for this purpose. The projects are oriented towards rehabilitation of the existing energy powers as well as towards constructing a new hydro-generated power plant in Gardabani (near Tbilisi).2 Proven oil reserves in Georgia were about 0.3 billion barrels, from which the country yielded 2,000 barrels daily (2002). Oil consumption in the country, however, was 36,000 barrels daily.

Figure 2. Source: Central Asia & Caucasus Business Report, 2003

Oil needs are met through supplies from Azerbaijan and Russia. In this triangle, a power constant is Moscow, while Georgia and Azerbaijan are looking for variants and allies to end its geo-economic dependence on the Federation. The economic parameters highlight Georgia’s achievements, which for 2004 are impressive. According to the data from the statistics department of Georgia, GDP for 2004 increased to 8.4%, and the receipts in the state budget increased 1.5 times. As a percentage, the black economy in GDP decreased from 33% to 27%, and in the entrepreneurial sector from 56% to 47%. In 2004, for the first time, Georgia moved above the billion dollars limit in the income part of the budget. In 2003, the state budget was about 450 million dollars and in 2005 it is expected (as the government proudly announced), “Georgia to have a budget which is 1

Neojidannye gruzinskie radosti [Unexpected Georgian Joys]. http://11-04.olo.ru/news/politic/49893.html Mikhail Saakashvili prizval pravitel’stvo Gruzii stremit’sya k tomu, chtoby k 2006 godu strana perestala ispytyvat’ defitsit elektroenergii [Mikhail Saakashvili appealed to the Georgian government to work on elimination of deficit of electric power]. http://www.day.az/news/georgia/21190.html

2

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three times higher than the real budget of Shevardnadze’s government”.3 The problems, however, remain. They are not very different from the processes accompanying the post-Soviet countries in transition. The differences should be found mainly in the regional specifics and in the geo-strategic plans of the leading countries, whose hostage is Georgia.

Challenges to Georgia’s integrity A divided Georgia at the beginning of the 1990s into the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as the separatist (until March 2004) Ajaria, has increased the dependence of the country on external factors and influences. In Tbilisi, these three regions reluctantly admit that they do not actually answer to the Center. In historically oriented-towards-Russia South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the main currency is now the ruble, and local residents do not need visas for Russia. In Georgian Javaheti, where the main population is Armenian, naturally, pro-Armenian feelings are stronger. In addition, the Russian military base is still located in Akhalkalaki, served by a large percentage of the local population. Most active and with most negativism are the relations between Georgia and Abkhazia. Laws governing international relations in a “big-middle-small” triangle are such that the small nation is always afraid of the hegemonic ambitions of the middle nation and is drawn towards the big nation. The buffer role of Russia, which recognizes the territorial integrity of Georgia, but does not actively reject calls for Abkhazian independence, adds fuel to the antiRussian reaction of Tbilisi. The “pro-Abkhazian” role of the Russian military people (who do not believe in the loyalty of Tbilisi to the presence of Russian bases in the Black Sea) and which Russia cannot lose without finally destroying the balance achieved in the region through the years, becomes a constant source for diplomatic “war”. Tbilisi has been accused numerous times of actively supporting Chechen terrorists and fighters, who in the last years have been using the Pankin defile as their base. The mutual reproaches and actions, however, do not change the fact that Russia, as well as Georgia, do need a beneficial-for-both-sides solution to the Chechen and Abkhazian problems. The success of Chechen terrorists would fundamentally change the geoplitical map of the Caucasus towards Turkey and would make Georgia as vulnerable as Cyprus and Armenia. Considering the geographical position of Georgia, Russia needs guarantees for its military-strategic positions in the Black Sea. For Moscow, Tbilisi is more important than Sokhumi. Georgia, however, leads quite a risky game against Russia, boosting “pro-Russian Abkhazia”, turning the whole set of relations into a vicious circle. It is not accidental that in the autumn of 1999, Georgian president Shevardnadze announced that Tbilisi had the right to decide whose military bases–those of Russia, Turkey or the USA–would be located on its territory. He was also categorical about the military presence of Russia, which should be dramatically cut as a result of the realization of the Contract for disarming of Europe. His actions are in unison with the commitment made by Russia in 1999 in Istanbul to withdraw their military units from Georgia and Moldova. Five years later, in January 2004, in his first speeches, Saakashvili, the new president also insisted that Russia should give up its “‘eternal military presence’ in Georgia”. Moreover, he appealed to Russia not to interfere in the internal affairs of the country. Saakashvili also noted, that until this happens, Georgia will continue to strengthen its defense abilities and will accentuate its cooperation with NATO. 3

Ibid.


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There is a solid basis for these statements. In the Northern alliance they pay great attention to Georgia, accounting for its stable pro-Western orientation and consider Shevardnadze himself as the most faithful of all leaders of the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS)–instrument of the Atlantic strategy in the Black Sea. It is highly unlikely that Saakashvili, his successor, will change this orientation. His policy follows the idea of Georgian integrity which is contradictory to Russian strategic interests in the Caucasus. Such behavior is welcomed by the USA and the West. Georgia and Azerbaijan play a key role in regard to access of the EU and NATO to the energy resources and the operative theater of the war actions of Transcaucasia. Due to their geography and own political choice, these two countries voluntarily cooperate with the Euro-Atlantic world. It is not accidental that American analyst Vladimir Sokor sees the two advantages of the Caucasus–a unique channel for transporting power supplies from the Caspian Sea to the West–to the countries of the European Union, and giving the antiterrorist coalition access to the Middle East. In unison with contemporary realities is the opinion of America’s secretary of state, Colin Powell, in December 2004, according to whom “the traditionally ‘aggressive’ policy of the USA is oriented towards meeting the challenging problems.”4 Powell’s successor, Condoleezza Rice, optimistically said that “now is a time for diplomacy”.5 Zbignev Bzhezhinski insists that if “no foreign affairs difficulties arise, there will be no changes in our [USA’s] foreign policy course.6 It is important that the problems of the Caucasian region are controlled in a beneficial-toWashington way.

American scenario The realization of this plan is in several different directions: x A new oil pipeline Baku-Supsa is launched, and through it the “black gold” will be transferred to the West, eliminating Russia. It is expected that the oil yielding will reach its full capacity during the first decade of the twenty-first century. x At the same time in the USA a decision is made to build a way parallel to the trans-Siberian–Euro-Asian transportation corridor. The railway will connect the East, Central Asia, Central Caucasus, Black Sea and Western Europe and the oil pipeline will connect the Caspian Sea, Central Caucasus, Black Sea, Balkans and Western Europe. x In direct proportion to these plans is the increasing role and activity of NATO in the region. Washington gives massive military help to Georgia through arm supplies and financial help for buying special arms. During the last years Georgian defence has been formed by American councelors, and there is a gradual transition of the Georgian military machine to NATO rails and through training of Georgian military experts in NATO schools. Washington’s policy in the Caucasus is in accordance with the “strategy for national security of the USA in the new century”, where there is a special place for this region. “The stability and prosperity of Caucasus and in Central Asia will help to guarantee the stability and 4 Interview of C. Powell to Financial Times. 8.11.2004 http://mediapool.bg/site/ world/2004/11/09/04_091104w.shtm 5 Rice, C. President Thanks Secretary of State Rice at Swearing-In Ceremony. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050128-2.html 6 Bzezinski, Z. Mainichy, Japan, 7.02.2005

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security from the Mediterranean to China and to ease the quick intelligence and supplies to the international markets of big reserves of Caspian oil and gas with significant commercial participation of the USA”. One of the main problems which contradicts the Washington scenarios about world order in the twenty-first century is the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian conflicts, which threaten the realization of American plans for organizing the Silk Road project and the functioning of the oil pipeline. Neighboring Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the strong pro-Russian feelings in the two regions hamper the integrity of the republic. Moreover, the Abkhazians and South Ossetians are categorical in their refusal to stay within Georgia. Problems are also deepened by the fact that co-operation between the Russian Federation and NATO in the form of Union Russia-NATO does not mean that Russia can enjoy the same status, and consequently rights, as the regular members of the Atlantic alliance. This means that, if necessary, the USA and NATO can ignore Moscow’s national interests in Central Caucasus and the events in the region can follow a scenario beneficial for Washington and Tbilisi. The US variant for Abkhazia and South Russia can look like this: the Russian army is forced to leave the security zone and is replaced by NATO military units or by countries of CIS with pro-Western orientation, and then the contingence of the alliance to be introduced. Conquering at least part of the Gal region will allow the creation of an Abkhazian “Government in exile”, which can ask the West for help. Neutralizing Russian actions and defending this part of Abkhazian territory until the NATO forces come would allow the assimilation of Abkhazia, and NATO bases could be located on its territory. As a result of this action Russia loses its control over Central Caucasus, and later over the whole North Caucasus. Evidence in this direction is the presence of a large number of NATO ships in the Black Sea, numerous marina and land force training of NATO and the military forces of Georgia and Turkey and American military-technical help to the Georgian army. The specific results of such a scenario are fatal for the countries in the region as a military conflict would lead to a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe. Force methods for resolving the conflict would lead to significant economic, financial and human loss and would increase uncontrolled migration. Any hesitation on the narrow coast of Abkhazia would have fatal consequences. An error in directing missiles could lead to unhermetization of the nuclear graveyard on the territory of the Suhumi Physical and Technical Institute, where the first Soviet nuclear bomb was created. The radioactive dust would spread very quickly over the whole Black Sea coast, helped by the movement of air. Of significant importance also is the Ingur hydro-electrical power station, whose dam is in very poor condition, and its destruction would lead to great damage. The dynamics of the events in the region and the unexpected military-political turns cast a doubt on the feasibility of this scenario. The surprising results of the presidential elections in Abkhazia, which confirmed the autonomy of the region and the unsuccessful military actions of Tbilisi towards South Ossetia in the summer of 2004, have left the question of Georgia’s integrity open. Complex relations between the USA and their European partners concerning Washington’s policy in Asia also influence the processes in the Caucasus.

Russian plans The decrease of Russian influence in the Caucasian region and the increase of Western influence (mainly American and Turkish) and political, economic and military presence in the


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region define the tactical priorities of Moscow which are oriented towards solving these problems: guaranteeing military security south and keeping potential alliances. Georgia has a significant place amongst them. From its territory through sea, air and road communications, Russia could successfully connect with countries from southern Europe, Malaysia, and the Middle and Far East. Considering the loss of Krum, where at the Black Sea Moscow keeps only one harbor–Novorossiysk, the geopolitical, strategic and economic importance of Abkhazia to Russia is growing. Keeping Sokhumi in the Russian area is of significant importance because it also has a choice in Turkey’s direction, which creates Black Sea assembly and begins its actions in the Black Sea. Moscow’s relations with Tehran as its main southern military strategic partner also have significant importance for Russian positions in the region. Not only is Iran the most important transportation junction with passage to India, but also one of the main oil suppliers to Europe, defining world oil prices. Russia has hopes that Iran would be able to calm down the situation around the energy carriers from Central Asia and the Caspian region, through blocking the exit of the transit oil pipelines across Caucasus. In this way, Tehran would ruin the USA and European Union’s plans for elimination of Russia from oil transportation in Europe. Russian priorities in Caucasus are in direct connection to the battle for transportation corridors and mainly with their construction or its updating. In the 1980s the Trans-Caucasian tunnel on the road was built, but the Trans Caucasian railway track remains unrealized, which makes connection with North and South Ossetia difficult. Its construction would cut tenfold the transfer of goods and military units from North into Central Caucasus to the Turkey-Iran border. During the 1990s, however, the political campaign of the Georgian “green”, whose arguments are based on the danger for the condition of historical monuments in Ossetia, upset the Russian plan. In the autumn of 1999 a member of the political committee of the “green” in Georgia, Iraklii Tchubinashvili, openly announced “the main reason for terminating the construction is a political one, because this road creates strategic possibility for transferring Russian military units from north”. In the transportation-energy expansion of Turkey the importance of the TransCaucasian road is multiplied. This is the successful variant which could destroy the horizontal model of “Euro-Asian highway” (Europe-Caucasus-Asia) through the Russian vertical model of “Moscow-Darial-Tehran”. This is also a realistic chance for Russia to get out of the emerging geopolitical trap in the region. Russia is playing a complex diplomatic game with Georgia. It is connected less with political resentment and more with the economic dependency of Tbilisi, which has become a stable tendency for bilateral relations in the last decade. More dangerous for Moscow is the fact that in 2004 an alarming tendency in regard to Abkhazia and South Ossetia was outlined. The two rivals for the president’s position in Suhumi becoming one team and the disappearance of the danger of escalation in the South Ossetian conflict in the summer of 2004 were both due to circumstances not related with Moscow. The new president of Abkhazia, Sergei Bagapsh, branded as a pro-Georgian candidate, invited his “pro-Russian” opponent Raul Hadjimba to be his vice president.7 Many analysts relate stagnation in Georgian-South Ossetian relations to prime minister Zhvania’s opposition to the policy of “the sword attack” regarding the troubled region, led by new president Saakashvili.8 The Rose Revolution, which dethroned 7 Ardzinba, A. V Abkhazii idet “polzuchii perevorot” [“Greeping coup d’etat” is going on in Abkhazia”]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/newsid_3736000/3736652.stm 8 Ibid.

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president Eduard Shevardnadze and started democratic change in Georgia, is inevitably connected with Saakashvili and Zhvania. People’s dissatisfaction, which during the repeated presidential election on 4 January 2004 was expressed in the form of 96% of votes for Saakashvili, created an opportunity for radical change in political power structures. Moreover, together with the third participant, Ms Nino Burjanadze, in the leading three of the revolution, they created favorable conditions for real change in all spheres of social life in Georgia.

Georgia’s program or “the Saakashvili era” After the stormy events at the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004, Georgia was forced to manoeuver between the USA, Russia, Turkey and Iran. The new president, who was well received by the world, inherited an enormous external debt of 1.7 billion dollars. He was more concerned with the future of the project for a pipeline at the cost of 2.7 billion dollars.9 Colin Powell’s appeal of “hands off Georgia!” to Russia in December 2003 was not accidental.10 For the USA and the West, Georgia is key transit territory for Caspian oil to the Mediterranean, and attention and fears are due to memory of the chaos in the Caucasian republic during the civil war in 1990. The elections were rightly defined as “the small cold war” in Caucasus, in which Washington and Moscow competed in the courting of Tbilisi. Russia announced that it would reschedule Georgia’s debts for energy supplies, and the USA would provide Tbilisi with 21 million dollars for paying pensions and salaries to those involved in the social sector. Great Britain, whose interests in Georgia are represented by British Petroleum, donated 750,000 dollars for organization of the elections, and the IMF promised to renew a suspended dollar credit. The outcome of this competition, however, was known beforehand–Saakashvili had won. The political comments were that he was a friend of the USA, but the political and economic situation in Caucasus would hardly allow him to be consistent in his pro-American feelings and positions. The fact that one of his first visits was to Moscow gives ground for the forecast of an imposed-by-the-situation complex maneuvering between the main players in the Caucasian game. There are several indicative facts. In December 2003 at the meeting of ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Burjanadze, deputy for the president of Georgia, expressed her fear for the sovereignty of her country with regard to Russia’s refusal to sign the preliminary decision for withdrawing its military units from Georgia and the Transdniestria. In January 2004 during her visit to Moscow, however, she declared a significant and positive change in Russian-Georgian relations. In February 2004, Saakashvili during his first visit to Moscow as president, defined the bilateral relation as mutually beneficial. Formal phrases, however, cannot hide the serious contradictions between Russia and Georgia, which are concentrated in several important differences: x Abkhazia and South Ossetia find themselves between Georgia’s plans for integrity and Russian variants for peaceful regulation of the problem of keeping the existing regimes with pro-Russian orientation 9 Oss, A. Saakashvili to foes: Georgia won’t be intimidated. http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/recaps/articles/eav080604.shtml.8/06/04l 10 Power warns Moscow of intervention in Georgia and Moldova. http://www.mediapool. bg/site/world/2003/12/02/06_021203w.shtml


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x

regarding duration of the Russian military bases in Georgia; Moscow wants to keep them for at least nine years, Tbilisi insists on their closing in no more than three years’ time x the Chechen problem directly connected with refugee camps in the Pankin defile, which are a convenient base for the Chechen terrorists x in the military sphere: Georgia is striving for cooperation with the USA and NATO x in economic, military and military-technical cooperation with Russia; Moscow has some interest in the latter two forms of relations, whereas Tbilisi is mainly seeking investments. Each of these problems is in direct connection with Georgia’s internal security which is oriented towards consolidation of power and territory. Strengthening of Saakashvili’s position through appointing a government and electing a parliament, led by his adherents Zhvania and Burjanadze, set the personnel basis for the dynamic changes in Georgia. On 17 February 2004 the Georgian parliament during a special session confirmed a government of four state ministers and 15 ministers led by prime minister Zhvania. This decision was in unison with the accepted same-day changes in the Georgian constitution, through which the Council of Ministers, which had ceased to exist in the middle of the 1990s and respectively the position of prime minister, were reestablished. According to the minister of law, Zurab Adeishvili, with these changes in Georgia there will be “a strong president, and unified government control under the management of the premier and a parliament, controlling the executive power”.11 After numerous consultations with the president Saakashvili’s candidate, state minister Zhvania and representatives of the different factions in the acting parliament, a date for the parliamentary elections was set–28 March 2004. They were carried out only by the proportional system, as the results of the parliamentary elections from 2 November 2003 had been declared valid.12 The Georgian president announced as his absolute priority the regaining of Georgia’s state integrity. The challenges on this route are numerous. Parliamentary elections in Georgia were not unproblematic. There are conflicts in the governing triumvirate as well as with the opposition. The political union between Saakashvili, Zhvania and Burjanadze is not secure. There are no close personal nor political relations between them. Besides, the members of the democratic party of Zhvania and Burjanadze, who united with the national movement of Saakashvili for the parliamentary elections, were not happy with the decision of the president’s party to include most of its members in the party election lists. This fact, however, is a natural element of pre-election atmosphere in almost every coalition. More complex is the issue of political opposition, which participated in the parliamentary elections with 11 parties, a large part of them with only a few members and poorly organized. The high threshold (7%) for entering parliament predetermined a negative outcome for many of them. Only the president’s party “National Movement–Democrats” and the opposition block “Industrials–New Rights” 11

Parlament Gruzii utverdil novoe pravitel’stvo vo glave s premierom Zhvania [Parliament of Georgia confirmed the new government with the premier Zhvania]. http://www2.interfax.ru/rus/news/cis/040218/41778/story.html 18.02.2004; “Revoliuzionnaya troika” ukreplyaet svoiu vlast’ [“Revolutionary Three” becomes stabilized]. http://www.materik.ru/print.php?section=opinions&id=8748&PHPSESSID=c393195e5628cf37626b16b6e48e96e ɦ 12 Vibory v gruzinskom parlamente budut 28 marta 2004 goda [Election in national assembly of Georgia will be held on 28 March 2004]. - comments of Ms Nino Burjanadze http://www.newsgeorgia.ru/news.html?nws_id=220781; Chikhladze, G. Ob’edinit li uspeh viborov v gruzinskom parlamente obshtestvo? [Will Georgia’s Parliamentary Vote Succeed in Consolidating Society?] http:www.eurasianet.org/department/gand/articles/eav03/26/04shtml;

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managed to enter the parliament.13 Three parties, including the Civil Union and ex-president Shevardnadze’s party boycotted the elections. The countless protests of the opposition after the elections, claiming tampering with election results were unsuccessful.14 The new power successfully used the parliamentary elections in March 2004 to establish itself in the self-governing region of Ajar. The parliamentary elections, surrounded with enthusiasm and tension, led to a convincing victory of the opposition and to the dethronement of separatist Aslan Abashidze. The pre-election period was marked with the president’s ultimatum to the governing body of the autonomous republic for cooperation with the election and the threat of economic blockade. The reaction was the refusal of the loyal-toMoscow leader to comply with the conditions and the mining of the road on the border point near the Choloki river. The revolutionary enthusiasm of the population, good organization of the supported-by-Tbilisi opposing-to-Abashidze parties in the region and the refusal of Moscow to intervene in this process changed the situation on Ajar.15 The victory was confirmed with election of the representative of the “Unified National Movement”, Mikhail Maharadze for the position of Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Ajar autonomy on 20 July 2004.16 The “returning to home bosom” of the separatist Black Sea republic, Ajar, is the first step towards Georgia’s integrity. Stimulated by this success, the Georgian president begins to implement his ambitious program aimed at resolving the issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The summer of 2004 was marked with Georgian activity towards South Ossetia. The range of actions was wide–from sending special-mission units by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and tanks, through military conflict and injured Georgian soldiers, to a few unsuccessful attempts of the president’s wife to visit the region.17 There are quick reactions. The commander of the Russian peace force in South Ossetia, general major Sviatoslav Nabzdorov immediately defined the actions of the Georgian security force as “provocative”.18 Also prompt was the reaction of South-Ossetian president Eduard Kokoita, “Well planned aggression”.19 The answer of the Georgian president was impulsive. At a press conference he said, “Georgia is a country with solid borders, and not an undefined territory, which everyone can cavalierly command as a general”. (He had in mind general major Nabzdorov.) The president was categorical that if foreign soldiers continued to come to South Ossetia, he promised to force them out of the confines of the Roksk tunnel20. The aggressive tone of Saakashvili, who warned that if there was a conflict in South Ossetia, it would not be an internal one of Georgia, 13

CIK obnarodovala okonchatel’nie resultaty martovskih parlamentskih vyborov. [Central Election Commission (CEC) of Georgia published the last results of parliamentary elections in March]. http://www.kavkazuzel.ru/newstext/news/id/653712.html; http://news.flexcom.ru/world/2004/04/18/42731/ 14 Parlament Gruzii utverdil novoe pravitel’stvo vo glave s premierom Zhvania [Parliament of Georgia confirmed the new government with the premier Zhvania in its head]. http://www2.interfax.ru/rus/news/cis/040218/41778/story.html, 18.02.2004; “Revoliuzionnaya troika”… 15 Vibory v gruzinskom parlamente…; Chikhladze Obedinit li uspeh viborov… 16 Resolution of the Parliament of Georgia on the Situation in the Autonomous Republic of Adjara. http://www.parliament.ge/statements/2004/parl_23_04_04_en.htm 17 Bressler, D. Power’s Test on Caucasus in Sueddeutsche Zeitung: 04.08.2004 18 Nabzdorov Svetoslav. V zone konflrkta – zatishie pered burei [In the zone of the conflict – silence before the storm]. http://izvestia.ru/politic/article221787 19 Bressler 2004 20 The Roksk tunnel is 3.6 km long and connects North and South Ossetia, this way Georgia and Russia. It is convenient for smuggling goods from Russia to Georgia, passing customs control.


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but a conflict between Georgia and Russia, did not go unnoticed. At the same time he was ready for dialogue and reaching of consensus. “We are ready to talk about any status. We want peace, not war.” The reaction of the interested countries was predictable. Washington, through its ambassador Richard Miles, insisted on a political and peaceful solution of the Georgia-Ossetia conflict. Great Britain is also for keeping the integrity of Georgia, but strongly doubts the quick and easy achievement of this aim. London expressed its support through sending a representative in Tbilisi–the English diplomat Bill Rammel–at the beginning of July 2004. He openly announced that Great Britain welcomed the efforts of Saakashvili, but not blindly and naively. In his opinion, local elections in 2005 will be a serious test for the speed of progress of Georgia, whose expediter is Georgia’s president. Until now Russia has managed to keep a good tone in Russian-Georgian relations. However, things change. After the Georgia-Ossetia conflict the government of South Ossetia officially turned to Russia with an appeal for protection. Analogue intentions were shown by Abkhazia, where the forthcoming presidential elections are increasing tension and instability in the region. During the last months of 2004 Abkhazia was in world news again. The presidential elections turned out to be yet another occasion for escalation of tension between Tbilisi and Moscow. Each side was trying to implement its plans through the main candidates for president–Raul Hadjimba and Sergei Bagapsh. Countless were the precedents which accompanied the presidential elections in Abkhazia–partial repudiation of the election’s results by CEC in the neighboring Georgia Gal region, repeated elections won by Sergei Bagapsh and signing an Agreement between the two rivals, which “reestablishes the national unity and overcomes the schism in the society”.21 The political crisis in the non-recognized republic ends on 12 February 2005 when the inauguration of Sergei Bagapsh as president of Abkhazia takes place.22 His vice president is his political opponent Raul Hadjimba, which is a precedent in the world’s practice in presidential elections. The political compromise reached stabilizes national unity, but not the security of Abkhazia. At this stage Tbilisi for yet another time loses the battle for integrating the enclave into Georgia. Moscow is happy as both opponents, and then the president’s team are closely connected with Russian economic and political interests and no change in the policy of Suhumi is expected.23 The situation in Russia became more complicated after the tragic events in Beslan (North Ossetia) and other terrorist actions on the territory of the Federation. Conditions for Russian president Vladimir Putin to form the main foreign policy priority–war on terrorism outside Russian territory–as well, were created. This scared Tbilisi, but incited Tshivali (the capital of South Ossetia). According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Ossetia, Murat

21 Imya novovo prezidenta Abhazii budet opredeleno gruzinzami [The name of the new president of Abkhazia will be called by Georgians]. http://www.mpa.ru:8081/smi/issue.php?id=685; Ardzinba Vladislav. 12 yanvarya konchaetsya politicheskii krizis v Abhazii [The political crisis in Abkhazia is ending on 12 January]. http://www.regnum.ru/news/389321.html 22 http://www.kavkazweb.net/news/news.cgi?action=view&nid=01&yy=2005&mm=2&dd=12&message_id= 11082213185135eZrOe8Zvw0Wx 23 Haindrava G. Gruzinskaya storona postavila vopros o dopolnitel’nyh postah mirotvorcheskih sil v zone konflrkta [Gerogia side put a question for additional sentries of peace powers in the zone of the conflict]. http://10-04.olo.ru/news/politic/46654.html

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Djooev, his government agreed Russian military bases, which are in Georgia, to be located on the territory of South Ossetia.24 Meanwhile, the beginning of 2005 was Georgian president Saakashvili’s first-year anniversary. It coincided with several events which represent tendencies in the Tbilisi-TshivaliSuhumi triangle. x The unexpected death of Georgian prime minister Zhvania at the beginning of February 2005 disturbs the established political balance between playing the role of politicalshock-absorber Zhvania and the inclined-towards-radical-actions Saakashvili. His successor Zurab Noghaideli and his government, in which the president’s people prevail, announced that it would continue the policy of Zhvania.25 But would it be possible for Noghaideli to carry out his own policy and be a real opponent and balancer of the president as his predecessor was? x The visit of the Russian foreign minister in Tbilisi in the middle of February 2005 activated dialogue between Russia and Georgia.26 As a whole it didn’t have much success.27 The main issues–the fate of the Russian military bases (Batumi and Alhalaki) in Georgia, (despite the reached agreement for their reconstruction as a cooperate Russian-Georgian antiterrorist center) and the disputed-by-Tbilisi role of Moscow in the Georgia-Ossetia and Georgia-Abkhazia conflicts still remain unsolved. x The aftermath made by Saakashvili concerning national security of Georgia is really sad. For one year he did not manage to achieve the two main aims–Georgia’s integrity and “the hand of friendship to Russia”.28 Moreover, Georgian authorities admit that the forced intervention in South Ossetia in the summer of 2004 was a mistake. But at the same time they report that the “huge flow of smuggling” through the Roksk tunnel no longer exists.29 x In his speech before PACE the Georgian president presents his new plan for resolving the issue of South Ossetia.30 He assures that “the new steps towards regaining territorial integrity will be more considered and adequate in the created situation. The essence of the plan is establishing autonomy for South Ossetia and giving it financial aid, but not independence.31 The problem with the unwillingness of South Ossetians to become part of Georgia and repeat the fate of Ajar, called by a western diplomat “Potemkin autonomy”, still remains unsolved. The series of kidnappings from both South Ossetian and Georgian sides casts a doubt on the peaceful resolution of this problem. There is a great danger of defrosting this “frozen conflict”. x The meeting between the American and Russian presidents in Bratislava in February 2005 outlines the increasing role of Russia for the USA as an important partner in the fight against terrorism and in resolving the problems in Asia. This moves to the 24

Startovala tret’ya reabilitatsionnaya programma zony gruzinsko-osetinskogo konflikta [The third rehabilitate programme of the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict started]. http://www.regnum.ru/news/410870.html 25 http://www.rian.ru/politics/cis/20050210/248884958.html 26 Interviu Sergeya Lavrova gazete “Svobodnaya Gruzia” [Sergei Lavrov’s Interview to the newspaper “Svobodnaya Gruziya”]. http://www.georgia.mid.ru/Inf_Lenta/001.html#toc 27 Burjanadze: Razgovory o ramochnom dogovore s Rossiej umestny posle vyvoda voennyh baz [Conversations for package treaty with Russia is proper after take out of the military bases]. http://www.regnum.ru/news/409876.html 18.02.2005 28 Neojidanie gruzinskie radosti. 29 Ibid. 30 Plan Souza “Iber-Iron” o regulirovanii gruzinsko-osetinskih otnoshenii [A Union “Iber-Iron” conception for regulation of Georgian-Ossetian Relations]. http://www.regnum.ru/news/408405.html 18.02.2005 31 “Trouble across the border, and for Georgia's boisterous president” in The Economist: 11 February 2005.


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background of the American priorities Georgian integrity and its generous financing. According to the management of resources of the State Department of the USA, Georgia is after Ukraine concerning financial aid from the USA for the 2006 fiscal year. Georgia will receive 80.2 million dollars in economic aid for training military staff and financing defense supplies and services from the USA. According to the same program, Ukraine initially should have received 105.2 million dollars, which later became 150 million dollars.32 In the complex Caucasian imperial ambitions, impulsive decisions, geo-economic interests and the fight for strategic prevalence are interwoven, and part of this solitaire is the Georgian republic torn by ethno-national conflicts. The problems of internal security and stability in Georgia in their Abkhazian–South Ossetian context are once again restricted in the framework of Moscow-Tbilisi. What are Russia’s alternatives? x Forceful solution of the Georgia-Ossetia conflict, which would be on an ethnic basis. This could be war or a low-intensity conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia, which could last for a long period of time. Neutralization of this possibility maybe is the efficient realization of the mandate, which Russian peace forces in Ossetia possess, according to the Agreement from 1992, signed in Sochi. Another question is who will win this conflict and when? x Diplomacy means Russia repeatedly appeals to the two countries to start negotiations for peaceful solution of this process. According to Moscow, the decision of the Mixed Committee from 2 June and 15 July 2004 should be implemented. Alternatives before Georgia: x Stepping back (or maybe postponing): the impossibility of Georgia to selfdependently decide the joining of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, predetermines the retreat of Saakashvili on the issue of state integrity of the country. Moreover, the USA and the West do not want Tbilisi to initiate new military-political and economic chaos in the region in striving to achieve Georgian integrity. In the last months Washington has clearly shown that Georgia should solve its problems in a peaceful way, without a confrontation with Russia. x The radical way: Regardless of the price, Tbilisi goes the way of war, which will send the country back several decades.

Conclusion The transfer of power in Tbilisi at the end of 2003 transformed Georgia–not only in the new political elite, but in the active solving of problems directly related to internal security and state stability. The question of Georgia’s integrity is once again on the agenda and is directly connected to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which do not recognize the authorities in Tbilisi. This problem was not resolved after the border incidents between Tbilisi and Tzhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, in the summer of 2004, nor after the presidential elections in Abkhazia in the autumn of the same year.

32

USA increases funds for Ukraine and Georgia. http://mediapool.bg/site/world/2005/02/08/01_080205

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Transformation in post-Soviet space after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan has increased the chance for real democratization of these territories. It has increased the chance for Georgia to solve the important issue of withdrawing the Russian military bases, which is of importance to its sovereignty and stability. And the hope remains that these processes will help regulate the relations between Georgia and Russia, the issues of military bases and the ambiguous status of the border regions between the two state-regions (South Ossetia and Abkhazia). The changes in regional and sub-regional aspect create possibilities for new methods and variants in solving issues filled with historical negativism of the Caucasus region, whose geo-strategic location increases its need for stability and security.


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The Gap between de-jure and de-facto Democratization in Uzbekistan Nine Problems of Proto-Democracy Farkhod TOLIPOV University of World Economy and Diplomacy Tashkent, Uzbekistan Abstract. Political solution of the question of democracy in Uzbekistan until recently had been based on the postulate that security had priority over democratization. The current political situation actualizes this question–still now as a precondition of security. In other words, if previously the problem had been put as “security at the expense of democracy”, now it is posed as “security through democracy”. Uzbekistan, in general, does not deny the absence of democracy in the country and proclaims a domestic political strategy directed toward step-by-step development of democratic culture and institutions. We can call the political system proto-democracy. By evaluating the situation in this sphere in Uzbekistan one can assert that proto-democracy exists more de-jure than de-facto. For the time being, although almost all necessary democratic laws have been adopted, the implementation of these laws remains a serious problem. Besides, a number of interrelated conceptual questions about the essence and character of the political system itself still need to be solved. These questions can be classified into the following set of dichotomies: Secular versus Islamic, Islamic versus democratic, Democratic versus autocratic, Security versus democracy, National versus universal, Gradual versus rapid democratization, Liberalism versus paternalism, and Modernization versus traditionalism. Unless these questions of principle are resolved, the gap between de-jure and defacto democracy will only persist, and democracy will be, in fact, a showcase democracy.

Introduction Nowadays, Uzbekistan is faced with serious challenges to its proclaimed democratic future–challenges posed not only by new external threats to national security and stability, but also by the fact that the very socio-political system called democracy has not yet taken any clear form. Actualization of the problem of democratization is stipulated by the fact that in the conditions of relatively successful neutralization or localization of the biggest external threats to national security, that is, the threat from Afghanistan 1 , the internal challenges become the priority issues of state policy in the field of security. Democracy becomes not just value in itself, but also a major factor of national and regional security. This is the case for all Central Asian countries. Although the political systems in them differ somewhat in terms of degree of democratization, they all lack real democratic 1

The major threat to national security of Uzbekistan was believed to be that of spill-over of the Afghan war into Central Asian area. After the overthrow of Taliban rule in that country after 9/11, the level of threat from Afghanistan obviously decreased.

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F. Tolipov / The Gap Between de-jure and de-facto Democratization in Uzbekistan

success. We can portray the “quality” of Central Asian democracies by using such prefixes as semi-, pseudo-, anti-, and proto-. Until recently, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were praised for their alleged good starts toward democracy in the early years of independence; Kyrgyzstan was even portrayed as the isle of democracy in Central Asia. However, this euphoria has been replaced with public frustration after evident suppression of opposition by the current governments, corruption scandals and suppression of mass-media (as in Kazakhstan) and decrease of legitimacy arrests of opposition leaders (as in Kyrgyzstan). In these countries we see a kind of semi-democracy. Regarding Kazakhstan, E. Wayne Merry of the American Foreign Policy Council has made some accurate postulations. By calling the ruling elite in Kazakhstan the “Big Man”, he points out that “these examples of oil-rich but probity-poor states demonstrates that money flow can prolong a “Big Man” in power for years, but the regime will ultimately fail due to the corrosion of social peace and the inability of the ruling clique to keep a firm grip on political realities”.2 In turn, Pohl Gobble made an interesting remark about the reversal of the democratic process in Kyrgyzstan–that the arrest of Felix Kulov, the leader of opposition, can become a signal for the justification of other authoritarian regimes in Central Asia. The arrest of Kulov undermined the reputation of Kyrgyzstan as the only country in Central Asia which had achieved certain results in democratization. 3 The overthrow of Askar Akayev–the former President of Kyrgyzstan–in March 2005 revealed the myth of the “isle of democracy”. Tajikistan suffered five years of civil war, which was caused to a great extent by inter-clan and inter-regional clashes. On the surface of the political process, this was evidence of a multiparty character of political process and free expression of will of people. However, the protracted civil war led to thousands of victims and “freedom of terrorism”; that is, to pseudo-democracy. In Turkmenistan, with its sultanistic (Max Weber’s definition) regime, we see antidemocracy. Opposition parties are forbidden in Turkmenistan. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that two main Turkmen opposition leaders–Avdi Kuliev and Boris Shihmuradov–have had to live in exile, and as a result, the dynamism and scale of the political struggle have diminished. The president’s cult personality can perhaps be compared only to Brezhnev’s, if not Stalin’s. On 28 December 1999 he was proclaimed by parliament, “a permanent president for the whole of his lifetime”. As P.G. Geiss rightly argues in this book, we can observe an extreme form of “neo-patrimonial state organization” due to the personal and arbitrary rule of its ruling president Saparmurat Niyazov. What do we see in Uzbekistan? For the time being, although almost all necessary democratic laws have been adopted, the implementation of these laws remains a serious problem.4 The matter is, that by evaluating the situation in this sphere in Uzbekistan, one can assert that democracy exists more de-jure than de-facto. The current political process in Uzbekistan is not a “one moment” process: different constants and variables correlate in it with different degrees of intensity. Moreover, as S. 2

Merry, E.W. The Politics of Central Asia: National in Form, Soviet in Content. In: Burghart, D. and Sabonis-Helf, T. eds. In the Tracks of Tamerlane. Central Asia’s Path to the 21st Century, Washington, D.C.: National Defense University. 2004. p. 39. 3 4

RFE/RL, 24 March 2000.

In February 2004 the U.S. State Department released the annual Report on the state of human rights in the world, in which all five Central Asian countries were portrayed as non-democratic. The Report includes the list of spheres where human rights and democratic norms are violated.


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Huntington pointed out, the factors which lead to the end of a non-democratic regime can differ from those that stipulate the creation of a democratic regime. In general, the overall process of democratization includes: (a) the completion of an authoritarian regime; (b) establishing a democratic regime; (c) consolidation of the democratic regime.5 D. Rustow advanced an interesting theoretical model, which was similar to Huntington’s. According to him, a transition to democracy passes through four stages: national unity, preparation, decision-making and consolidation of democracy. In the first stage, a steady community of citizens [demos/nation–F.T.] should emerge. In the second stage a real struggle between supporters of democracy and conservative forces should arise. Thirdly, political leaders should recognize plurality in society and decide on the institutionalization of democratic mechanisms. And finally, it is important to, so to say, collect good democratic practice in the initial period of democracy, in order to strengthen public confidence and trust in democracy. In this latter stage the increased scope of people believing in democracy and supporting it will enhance it.6 I believe such an approach is very relevant for Uzbekistan and Central Asia as a whole, and further analysis comprises, in particular, this triplicate issue. The same process of transition also encompasses the “learning process”–the stage of knowledge of acquiring democracy and extension of awareness and “habits” of democratic behavior–that is, a democratic political culture. Typically, political culture is defined as the unity of political consciousness and political behavior of people, the degree of their participation in state and public affairs. Gabriel Almond and S. Verba classified three types of political culture: patriarchal, civil and activist. A certain type of political culture is a result of the process of political socialization. The latter, as we know, is the complex process through which individuals become aware of political life, learn political facts, and form political values. So, it is like a process of nurturing a democratic way of life. And, as we will see below, democracy will be weak as long as weak is the very demos–people that constitute any democracy. Basic problems of proto-democracy in Uzbekistan One of the principles of social and economic reforms in Uzbekistan says: “the state is a main reformer”. 7 On its fourteenth session in 1999 parliament proclaimed a course of liberalization of state and public building and strengthening of civil society. Which problems need to be solved this way? First is a party system. Nowadays it is in a crisis. There are five parties in Uzbekistan: the People Democratic Party, Adolat (Justice) Party, Milliy Tiklanish (National Rebirth) Party, Fidokor (Patriots) Party, and Liberal Democratic Party. These parties almost do not differ from each other on both their programs and the character of their political activity. They all support the policies of the current government; moreover, they were all initiated on the top-down principle. For instance, all of them declare their intention to promote market reforms, privatization of state property and services, etc. They haven’t demonstrated any fractional activity in parliament so far. After the election for the first time of the bi-cameral parliament in December 2004 it was expected that the parliamentarians 5

Huntington, S. The Third Wave. Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. p 35.

6

Rustow D.A. “Transition to democracy. Toward a Dynamic Model” in Comparative Politics, Vol. 2. No. 2: April 1970. p. 337-363.

7

Karimov, I. On Basic Principles of Socio-Political and Economic Development of Uzbekistan. Speech on the First Session of the Oliy Majlis (Parliament). 23 February 1995. Tashkent: “Uzbekistan”- Press. 1995.

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would create fractions and compete. However, they haven’t demonstrated any serious competition and struggle for power so far, and there is doubt that this will really take place. Their ideological bases are vague, their prestige and influence in society invisible. According to official sociological surveys, 45.5% of respondents do not see any difference between the programs and goals of the parties. However, according to some independent sociological surveys, the number is 67%.8 Some efforts on the bottom-up principle have been demonstrated by opposition parties Birlik (Unity), Erk (Freedom) and Ozod Dehkon (Free Peasant). These efforts to activate in Uzbekistan did not lead them to any visible achievement because they were not registered and continue their activity on an illegal basis. Moreover, they so far have not been able to become a real political force in the country. There are both objective and subjective reasons for such a situation to take place. On the one hand, during the Soviet time almost total partisation of public consciousness existed, yet had been substituted by almost total departisation after independence. In these circumstances of ideological “disorder” the tokens of repartisation are very weak. On the other hand, the formation of a real party system in the country, is undoubtedly, artificially suspended by non-democratic political measures. The second problem is related to the activity of citizens’ local self-governing bodies, the mahalla (neighborhood). The mahalla is a traditional social structure, supposed to construct the system of communal life and to articulate communal interests. In the past, the mahalla represented a strong mechanism for maintaining the commonalty and cohesiveness of micro-society. However, urban life, modernization and Soviet traditions (etatization and the principle of democratic centralism) brought about the decline of the mahalla system which so far remains unable to meet the needs and interests of the local people. The mahalla is now engaged only in providing some scanty materials and financial resources to the most needy families. In Tashkent, for example, especially in districts where there are blocks of modern apartments, a situation of double-power has emerged: the same problems of everyday living can be addressed simultaneously by both mahalla committees and administrations of special bodies (tovarischestva) established by hokimiyats (the name of local executive bodies). Often, neither body finds itself able to tackle the problems mentioned above. As a result of this, the local population will inevitably lose its trust in and reliance on these selfgoverning bodies. In such conditions the mahalla can hardly become a real self-governing structure and thereby play the role of an important element of civil society. In the meantime, these structures are reminiscent of governmental ones; while they should differ from them fundamentally, they should avoid any form of “overetatization” (etat-state). 9 That is, the character of the overall mahalla activities should differ significantly and in principle from governmental ones. Traditional Uzbek mahalla are known for their strong system of moral regulations and norms of living together. For instance, in many cases some family problems (hardships, difficulties and quarrels) are supposed to be solved with the authoritative voice of the mahalla activists and seniors. But at the same time, the mahalla needs modernizing in order to be consistent with standards of systems of local communities existing in democratic countries. Meanwhile, mahalla should develop not merely because it is an unalienable part of Uzbek culture and traditional way of life, but rather because this is a necessary element of

8 Saidmuradov, A. “Uzbekistan: Political Parties on the Eve of Parliamentary Elections” in Central Asia and Caucasus, No. 5, 2004. 9

The seniors/chairmen of the mahalla committees are subordinated to the local hokimiyats (mayors) and are dependent on them financially and organizationally.


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any democratic society in which the institutions of the citizens’ local self-governing (for instance the systems of municipalities in European countries) are strong. The third problem is one of localism and clan relationships. This problem is very acute and evaluated by many (including the president, Islam Karimov) as a threat to national security. No civil society can be strong and well developed if remnants of tribal clan relationships and localism persist, because they break the unity and cohesiveness of civil society. On the basis of kinship, territorial or ethnic principle-specific groups appear and spread in governmental and other structures. These groups primarily try to pursue their own narrow group interests at the expense of common, national goals and to this end they endeavor to promote their members to advance in the state hierarchy. In other words, when a region self-isolates, it weakens and economic ties disintegrate, adding to overall economic degradation; consequently, the rise of centrifugal tendencies and forces within the region, as well as struggle for power between clans and different regions, results in the persistence of localism, tribalism and nepotism. Such a seeming self-isolation of certain segments of society plays a negative role as long as they stay outside the whole system of links and relations cementing civil society. Both the clan system and localism manifest themselves in such social stereotypes as: recognition of the Tashkent clan, Samarkand clan, Fergana clan, and so on as a principle element of political stratification, or the recognition of local/regional identities among ordinary people as an important element of social differentiation. The fourth problem is the status of mass media. As a “fourth power”, the mass media is expected to be an influential actor of civil society and an important element of the direct-and-reverse links between the state and society. However, the state pursues a strong authoritarian policy with respect to mass media. Despite the existence of such organizations as the Foundation of Democratization of Mass Media and the Association of Journalists, as well as the development of legal basis in this sphere and the study of many young journalists abroad–positive factors to accelerate democratic development of this sphere–the situation in this field is changing very slowly. The state didn’t provide all necessary conditions for fair competition in the information space of all its actors regardless of the form of property, size and thematic area of particular mass media. Meanwhile, one has to recognize that the “information industry” in the country remains powerless, dependent and non-democratic. There is no independent mass media–all newspapers publish mostly loyal materials and there is strong interference from the state into the function of all mass media, which is reminiscent of censorship.10 Although censorship was officially abolished in May 2002, according to the OSCE Report on political openness of the system and freedom of media in Uzbekistan, journalists still fear being harassed and persecuted if they publish critical information. In one recent case, on 17 July 2003, the entire staff of the Uzbek newspaper Mokhiyat resigned to protest an order from the publication's new director to stop publishing articles critical of the government. Previously Mokhiyat was the only newspaper in Uzbekistan trying to report on sensitive topics. Journalists’ access to information is still limited. Government officials on a regular basis refuse to provide journalists with requested information. Websites such as Ozod Ovoz (Free Voice) (http://www.ozodovoz.org), frequently criticizing Uzbek president Karimov's policies, were in September 2003 timely blocked.11 10

For deeper analysis of the issue of censorship and taboo media topics see: Morfius, D. “O chiom zapreschaetsya pisat v Uzbekistane?” [“About what is it prohibited to write in Uzbekistan?”] Detal’nyi obzor “zapretnyh tem” uzbekskih SMI publikuet sait Freeuz.org Komitet svobody slova i vyrazheniya [Detailed overview of “prohibited topics” is published by the site Freeuz.org the Committee of the free of speech and expression]. 29.06.2004 www.fergana.ru/

11

See: www.osce.org pages on Uzbekistan.

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The fifth problem is related to the study of public opinion, which is supposed to be the barometer of the state of civil society. It is a twofold question: How is public opinion shaped and how is it taken into account during the decision-making process? However, one has to fix that neither shaping nor the study of public opinion has become the everyday attribute of political life in Uzbekistan. Some sporadic, single and narrow-scale public opinion polls remain weak and ineffective, at least, because they are not published. Very often people themselves manifest neither understanding of the aims of polls and meaning of questions nor the readiness to openly express their opinions. And very often, too, the local authorities express no interest in knowing public opinion; instead they often try to hinder the conducting of interviews among the local population. On the other hand, scanty results of some rare surveys of small independent sociological centers still remain invisible–not published and not demanded. The institutional and functional effectiveness and quality of the overall relationship between the state and civil society depends on the extent to which interests of various groups of population, and in general, public opinion are taken into account during the political decision-making process. It should be noted that in the process of market and democratic transformation, as is the case in all countries going through socio-economic and political transition, the “stratification” of society will become more and more explicit. Therefore, the necessity will obviously be felt to detect and elicit as well as harmonize the interests of different social groups. For this sake, it is extremely important to develop an independent system of study of public opinion nationwide. The sixth problem concerns the worsening of quality and effectiveness of relations between the state and society. These relations are one of the most precise parameters that characterize the state of civil society in the country. The main source of conflict between citizens and state functionaries in almost all post-Soviet countries lies in the very nature of governance, which very often turns into a monopoly by a certain group of people. Such a monopoly is unable to objectively meet reality as long as it is related to an informally and inadequately risen status of bureaucracy which associates itself with the states as such and with order in state management. Such a situation cannot but lead, as we see in the case of Uzbekistan, to criminalization of state apparatus and antagonism between citizens and state functionaries. The distrust of citizens towards and alienation from power structures stem from the following: (a) inability of governmental agencies to accurately explain goals, forms and essence of their activity; (b) low level of competence and non-professionalism in the organization of realization of any decisions; (c) state bodies’ non-democratic methods of working, their isolation and closed character as well as nepotism; (d) corruption; and (e) the dominance of personal selfish interests over national and public ones.12 Thus, the above-mentioned problems yield to a decline in public confidence and alienation from governmental structures. It’s worthy to emphasize that such a problem just exacerbates the overall undemocratic relationships in society; in other words, society and officials become, so to speak, mutually undemocratic. The seventh problem is directly related to the previous one and concerns the situation in the legal and court systems. The number of complaints of ill-treatment of 12

International Crisis Group comes to a similar conclusion: “The reasons why the government failed to take advantage of an improved external environment and widespread international support to move on reform are complex but mostly relate to a political system dominated by vested interests at all levels that have a considerable investment in retaining the status quo. A bureaucratic machine that fears change and lacks the capacity to implement reforms has also slowed any program. A nation with a long history of authoritarian rulers has also been slow to take independent action and struggle for new freedoms”. Uzbekistan's Reform Program: Illusion or Reality? (www.crisisweb.org 18.02.03).


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people by law enforcement agencies and their cruelty, as well as baseless court sentences is increasing. Evidence of this is the extensive statistics of citizens’ appeals to the Ombudsman’s office and to the courts. Numerous abuses by police officers raise concerns and public anxiety. They not only very often treat citizens badly, but also use psychological and physical violence, treat detained people heartlessly, use extortion, and are irresponsible towards their duties in preserving public order and preventing crime. The eighth problem of proto-democracy in Uzbekistan lies in the economy. The development of private entrepreneurship is associated with the increasing number of diverse economic actors as well as further complication of legal and other conditions of their functioning. At the same time, such negative tendencies as corruption, abuse of law and limitless inspections by different governmental agencies cannot but damage private business, as well as the morality and image of a businessman. From time to time, the government issues resolutions which regulate the functioning of private business. For example, the Cabinet of Ministers’ Resolution was released, which requires certificates of quality for all goods brought from the markets of neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and China to be sold in the markets of Uzbekistan. This has created a lot of difficulties for ordinary shuttle-traders. It is not accidental that the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) while holding its annual meeting in Tashkent in May 2003 put seven (three in the political and four in the economic sphere) benchmarks before Uzbekistan’s government. The progress in these seven spheres was supposed to stipulate EBRD’s deeper engagement with Uzbekistan. Among the benchmarks the following pertain to the economic sphere: x Further progress in eliminating remaining foreign exchange distortions and the achievement of current account convertibility, as well as the implementation of recently adopted measures to liberalize state procurement in agriculture. x Opening of the economy to effective competition, including through elimination of discriminatory barriers against foreign trade, improving conditions for entry of domestic businesses and protecting their property rights, acceleration of privatization through the sale of at least a few large enterprises and determined efforts to attract more foreign direct investments (FDI). x Adoption and first steps in implementation of a banking sector reform programme, moving towards fully market-based allocation of credit and providing the basis for privatization of the main state banks. x Evident progress in adjusting tariffs in public utilities towards cost recovery levels, most importantly in the energy sector. The ninth problem is a result of the gap which has appeared between ideological slogans, declared political principles and even existing laws, on the one side, and a real situation in public life and education, on the other. The overall ideological work is limited to praising the historical past of the people and to arrangements, “just for show”. Soviet traditions persist because of the over-ideologization of public life. In the 1990s, the national ideology of Uzbekistan was initiated by the president, and the array of neo-ideologists was mobilized to create it. Subsequently, this ideology was reduced to that of national independence. Meanwhile, education of the young is also ideologically burdened. On the one hand, the subject “The Idea of National Independence” has been introduced into the schools and universities, but on the other hand, taboo has been put on any mentioning and study of the Soviet, socialist period of Uzbekistan’s history and the very names of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

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The president’s cult personality has become matter of fact. His speeches are heard everywhere and his name is mentioned in relation to any particular social achievement and success. The president’s books are obligatory studying on which exams have been established for those who want to submit their scholarly dissertations. This all very much resembles Soviet ideological traditions.13 Conceptual questions The democracy-building process in Uzbekistan is also faced with some contradictory conceptual questions, which can be formulated as the following dichotomies: x Secular versus Islamic x Islamic versus democratic x Democratic versus autocratic x Security versus democracy x National versus universal x Gradual versus rapid democratization x Liberalism versus paternalism x Modernization versus traditionalism They need special consideration, as they demonstrate not only the gap between de-jure and de-facto democracy, but also the complexity of the very democracy-building process. Secular versus Islamic In the history of Central Asia and identity of the peoples inhabiting the region, Islam has always occupied a central place. President Karimov himself acknowledged that “we cannot imagine our nation separately from this great religion. Religious values, Islamic notions so deeply feed our life that without them we would lose our selfness”.14 Indeed, we might portray our country as an Islamic country and our people as an Islamic people. However, one shouldn’t read this concept as an Islamic state. In the Constitution of Uzbekistan the principle of separation of religion from the state was sealed. How should we understand this principle and the term of a secular state? Is there a contradiction between Islamic precepts and secularism? If we approach this issue broadly we can be convinced that there is no contradiction. The matter is, secular state doesn’t mean the state denies religion. It is even erroneous to compare secularism to being Muslim because if the latter means life philosophy, ideology, faith, morality, values and outlook, then the former means a way of life, a form and a tool of ruling, a mode of social relationships. One can rightfully admit that the overall relationships in the scheme “state-society-person” can be Islamic by essence and secular by form. In other words, one can talk about Islamic ethics in the overall relationships between these three sides, just like Protestant ethics which is, according to Max Weber, characteristic to many Western countries. There is another aspect of the issue. In Uzbekistan, not only Uzbeks, but also more than 100 other nationalities reside there, and not only Islam but also other religions are 13

See, for example, one of the latest publications on this: Kasimov, A. Kul’t Lichnosti Islama Karimova [Cult Personality of Islam Karimov] in www.centrasia.ru 23.02.2005.

14

Karimov I. “Allah is in our soul and heart”. Interview of the President of Uzbekistan to the “TurkistanPress” Information Agency. Tashkent. 1999.


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spread throughout the country. At the same time, Islam itself comprises many branches and divisions. Under such conditions, the very concept of Islamic state would be vague.15 From this point of view, the only right model to keep interethnic, inter-religious and interfractional tolerance and peace is a secular state. The lack of understanding of this can become a reason for different misperceptions and mutual mistrust between the state and religion. In this regard, if representatives of clergy and ordinary believers do not understand true Islamic ethics, they can desire to substitute them with Islamic fundamentalism, incorporate it into society and public opinion and convert the state into a theocratic one. In turn, if representatives of the state and officials do not understand Islamic ethics, they can desire to hold the religion away from the state, to constrain it by all means and even control it. The revival of Islam in Uzbekistan, just like in other Central Asian post-Soviet countries, takes place when the religious consciousness and outlook of people and their knowledge of the religion are weak and fragile. In these conditions religious extremist and fundamentalist ideas can also take root in a society. Therefore, it is extremely important to make a difference between religious extremism and tolerant religious way of life, and the struggle against the former should not be transformed into struggle against the latter. However, very often, cruel abuses by law enforcement agencies happen in their treatment of ordinary believers.16 Such “strictness” in domestic policy towards the realm of religion cannot but aggravate due to the reluctance of the state, non-readiness of the clergy and confusion of the populace to discuss widely and openly the dichotomy “secularIslamic”. As discussed earlier, the state is reluctant because very often officials do not conceive Islamic ethics; the clergy is unready because it is restricted and controlled; and the populace is confused because it remains to some extent unenlightened in Islam. Islamic versus democratic Related to the question of secular society versus Islamic, is one pertaining to relations between Islam and democracy. Islam is a complicated religion and it doesn’t contain a clear-cut negative or positive attitude towards democracy. One can even reveal a paradoxical interpretation of this question among clergy and other religious people. If someone wants to assert that Islam and democracy do not oppose each other, then he starts from both philosophical systems and notes that each recognizes as core values human life, dignity, and knowledge. One can find alike institutions to democracy such as shura (council/advisory board) and mazhab which is reminiscent of a party.17

15

Proponents of the Islamic state usually claim that the state should be ruled by the Islamic clergy. The most radical approach to this concept is the idea of Caliphate advanced by the party Hizb Ut-Tahrir and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Some authors forecast the Iranian-like Islamic revolution in Uzbekistan, which can be brought about, as they believe, by the revolt of Muslims. At the same time, there are people who believe in the very Islamic nature of the statehood even without the radical version of it.

16

In his statement, the Special Rapporteur on torture of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Theo van Boven, deeply regrets that he continues to receive information on the execution of persons whose death sentences were allegedly based on confessions extracted under torture in Uzbekistan. See: “UN expert deplores Uzbekistan's lack of cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms” 13.09.2004 / OHCHR (http://unagencies.undp.uz/unic/eng/news/index.php?id1=114)

17

Rabbimov K. “Hizb Ut-Tahrir–Leader of the Islamist Antidemocratic Campaign” in Central Asia and Caucasus, No. 3. 2004.

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On the other hand, those who want to show contradictions between democracy and Islam stress clashes between Christianity and Islam, on some differences in social systems, and on some differences in interpretation of proper behavior.18 The most active in Central Asian extremist organizations is the Hizb ut-Tahrir party (HTP). Many of its basic ideological positions stem from the rejection of democracy and principles of human rights and freedoms. Therefore, according to the HTP’s ideology, the embodiment of democratic norms in society is a hard sin for Muslims.19 Thus, finding a formula for compatibility of Islam and democracy has currently become one of the most important common dilemmas for religious scholars, scientists and experts in the fields of extremism and terrorism, as well as for politicians. Democratic versus autocratic One of the most palpable disputes is that over the essence, character and type of political system and political regime. Such a dispute very often takes the dichotomous form of democracy versus autocracy. Indeed, there are people in Uzbekistan who believe that the rapid and full democratization and adoption of Western democratic standards is the best choice for the country and for the people. Others argue that the “enlightened” authoritarian government has all the capacity and can take whole responsibility for overall social and political reforms in the country. There are even those who assert that the strong-handed authoritarian ruling should not be only for the transition period, and they are adherent to the prolongation of this regime for as long a period as possible. In December 2003 the leading official newspaper Khalq Su’zi (Voice of the People) published an article under the title “Allegiance to a National Spirit”. As Uzbekistan’s democratic intelligentsia responded to that article, it was an attempt of non-democratic forces to manifest themselves and express openly their intentions. 20 There are all indications in the article of the tendency that in the field of ideology, the situation can resemble the stagnation time of the CPSU’s ruling because the quintessence of this article was the idea that Uzbeks do not need teachers of democracy. Certain phrases of the article caused perplexity due to their tendentious meaning. For example: “… we cannot call someone Uzbek and a perfect person if this person, having learnt democracy and chosen it as his business, remained far away from national values”.21 Thereby, the author put national values in opposition to universal human rights by saying: “to understand these values one should, perhaps, be born only Uzbek”. In fact it turned out that the article “Allegiance to a National Spirit” was a political assault on certain international organizations functioning in Uzbekistan. In the aftermath, in March 2004, the Open Society Institute (OSI) Soros Foundation ceased its activity in Uzbekistan because it was not re-registered on the government’s regulation. A dramatic struggle between forces of democracy and those of autocracy has just begun. Nevertheless, the Constitution proclaims that Uzbekistan is a democratic state. The president from the very beginning of independence has always declared his adherence to democracy which is the ultimate goal, and that sooner or later democratic institutions and democratic political culture in Uzbekistani society will take root. However, such proclamations and declarations remain just elements of de-jure democracy. On a practical 18

Ibid.

19

Ibid.

20

www.tribune-uz.info/ 31.01.2004.

21

“Khalq Su’zi” (16.12.2003).


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level, as one can discern from the analysis above and below, remnants of Soviet authoritarian ruling are deeply rooted in all levels of the political system. As Francis Fukuyama pointed out, no one authoritarian regime was able to completely legitimate itself in order to prolong its holding of power. All of them have had to accept the principles of democracy and people’s sovereignty and to assert that their countries–for different reasons–are not ready for democracy. They referred to the communist threat, terrorism or economic hardships, but always described their regimes as transitional and engaged in preparation of the passage to democracy. 22 Similar contemplations can be used with respect to the political system and regime in Uzbekistan which remains democratic in form, but authoritarian in essence. Security versus democracy Actualization of the problem of democratization is stipulated by the fact that in conditions of relatively successful neutralization or localization of the biggest external threats to national security, the internal challenges become the priority issues of state policy in the field of security. In this regard, democracy becomes not just value in itself, but also a major factor of national security. The nine political problems are reminiscent of Soviet traditions. Soviet-shaped “democratic centralism”, instead of being a temporary measure necessary to the state–a main reformer–turned into a permanent principle of domestic policy. “Democratic centralism” implied the leading role of the state in all stages of socialist development and the central place of the Communist Party in the country. Newly independent Uzbekistan faces problems of reduction of state bodies’ functions, liberalization of all spheres of social life, and, crucially, political pluralism. The latter values are more widely recognized nowadays as unalienable elements of prosperous development and security provisions of modern democratic countries. However, the principle of Soviet-made democratic centralism remains a strategy of the Uzbek state in “democratization politics”. Deliberately or not, in Uzbekistan, conformism–the absence of democratic reflection–is being cultivated and democracy is being somehow alienated and denied in society. A couple of years ago the Afghan factor might have been referred to in any securityrelated policy process to justify strong-hand domestic policy on the one hand, and an isolationist approach and mistrust in relations with neighboring countries on the other. At their summit in Dushanbe in June 2000 the heads of the Central Asian states adopted an address to the UN, OSCE and OIC. The document said in part: “A possibility of political and economic reforms and the efficiency of regional integration are directly limited by the situation in Afghanistan”.23 At the moment, such reasoning would hardly be convincing and the latter statement might be paraphrased as follows: “A possibility of political and economic reforms and efficiency of regional integration are directly limited by the domestic (non-democratic) situation in the countries of the region”. Political security is challenged not simply because of lack of democracy. Democracy itself is challenged by localism and clan relationships, which are maintained on micro-levels of society. These two realities pose a challenge to the cohesiveness of the nation–the demos; therefore, they are challenges to national security. From the viewpoint of strengthening political security, to my mind, it is important to accept several principle positions: 22

Fukuyama, F. The End of History and the Last Man. ICM, International Creative Management, Inc. 1992.

23

Khabar Agency, “Jeti Kun” Program, 7 January, 2001.

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1. It is necessary to achieve harmony between macro-democracy on the national level and micro-democracy of local sites. 2. Democratization is the best means to tackle localism, clan relationships and corruption. 3. The development of democracy as a system, which meets Islamic values, and as a demonstration of the completion of the vague and uncertain so-called transition period is an urgent demand. 4. The real democratization in Uzbekistan will serve as an important impetus for the democratization in the countries of the region and vice-versa. It will serve, as well, strengthening of regional security due to the mutual dependence of evolution processes in the countries concerned. The principle of indivisibility of security stipulates the indivisibility of democracy. And this, in turn, requires innovative approaches to the issues of regional cooperation and integration of Central Asian countries. 5. The slowing down in carrying-out of democratic reforms can lead to rise of public resentment and extension of the social base of the radical opposition given the fact that loyal opposition doesn’t exist. This, in turn, can lead to a situation where repressive rule for the sake of democratic changes would be justified in public opinion. So democracy becomes a matter of security in three terms: (a) preventing the falling of the region into radical theocracy; (b) precluding the exacerbation of social unrest and conflicts as consequences of mistakes of the state’s domestic policy; and (c) making peace in the region sustainable. As some observers argue, “… what is significant is its [democracy] explicit incorporation into security thinking–reflecting the adoption of academic arguments that democracies are less threatening to other democracies”.24 National versus universal From the very beginning of independence, both politicians and scholars have spoken about the “national model of democracy”. However, so far, no one has been able to characterize basic and unique traits of this national model. Natural questions arise about which features of the national model are unique and which features are taken from foreign experience. In attempts to justify the possibility and necessity of creation of a national model of democracy, many local politicians and scholars reiterate the thesis that Uzbek sociopolitical reality and historical-cultural legacy produce a specific context in overall democratic evolution. The most frequently-used arguments go as follows: x Asian/Eastern states are paternalistic by nature; that is, the role and authority of the state in society have always been significant in contrast to Western states where the latter mainly functions as a watch-dog. x Liberal approaches to democratization and market reforms, which are usually associated with “shock therapy” cannot be applied to the conditions of Uzbekistan. Therefore, the state chooses the model of step-by-step reforms. x In Uzbek society, traditions of collectivism are strong and due to this factor individualism, with which democracy is associated, will hardly take root in this country. x Rapid introduction of democracy can lead to destabilization of the sociopolitical situation in the country because of the possibility that democratic 24 Florini, A.M., Simmons, P.J. “The New Security Thinking: A Review of the North American Literature”. Project on World Security of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. 1998. p. 39.


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political process will take the form of hot clashes, radical manifestation, intolerant competition of various, including extremist, political forces among liberated but unprepared people. Such arguments are vulnerable to criticism. They directly or indirectly serve the idea of preservation of the existing status quo, and their bearers consciously or unconsciously act as defenders of authoritarianism. Indeed, to all the above-mentioned arguments, at least one common counter-argument can be advanced, namely: they all are usually promoted only by bearers of the theory of the national model of democracy, but not by their “consumers” and therefore are not verifiable. Thus, a serious misrepresentation of democracy takes place in political process in Uzbekistan. This “mistake” reveals itself in that a demos does not create democracy for itself but the state creates it for the demos, and both sides overlook that democracy is a value in itself. On the other hand, either conception of building democracy from top-down or from bottom-up in contemporary international conditions becomes more and more limited and less adequate due to the limits of sovereignty and internationalization of the problem of democracy.25 The latter means, among other things, that democracy and human rights turn from a solely internal, national affair into a matter of international concern. Uzbekistan is not an exception to this new tendency. Interestingly, in the early years of independence, Uzbek neo-ideologists were preoccupied with the search for an appropriate foreign socio-political model or pattern to incorporate in Uzbekistan. 26 Some talked about the Turkish model, others about the Chinese pattern of reforms, while others even prescribed the Taiwanese path. All these attempts, however, failed and instead subsequently they invented the “Uzbek model” of reforms which was in a concentrated way reflected in “five Presidential principles of reforms”.27 These principles imply: x depolitization and deideologization of economy x supremacy of law x leading role of the state in socio-economic reforms x step-by-step reforms x strong social policy. Nevertheless, Uzbekistan, like other newly independent post-Soviet states, took international obligations on implementation of democratic standards and basic human rights and freedoms when it became a member of the OSCE in 1992, very soon after gaining independence. For the first time in the OSCE’s history, the organization encompasses not only authoritarian states, but also countries with populations of predominantly Muslim religious and cultural traditions. This in turn again sharpens the dilemmas and conceptual dichotomies. In this regard, Dr. Resul Yalcin from the London School of Economics is right when he writes that “the forms of democratic systems that developed in the course of the development of European civilization have yet to prove their universality and effectiveness: can they be applied to countries that do not belong to the cultural tradition of Western Europe? The experience of building democracy in various countries shows that while in 25 See, for example: Rotfeld A. “Principles of the organization of global security” in SIPRI 2001. p. 3; “The Warsaw Declaration “Towards a Community of Democracies” in Polish Quarterly of International Affairs: 27 June 2000. 26

By neo-ideologists we mean those who are engaged with overall ideological activities: public activists, writers, artists, scientists, media-workers and others who were mobilized to the process of developing what is called the national ideology, which is supposed to substitute the former communist ideology.

27 Karimov 1995; Karimov, I. Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the XXI Century: Threats to Security, Guaranties and Conditions of the Progress. Tashkent: “Uzbekistan”- Press. 1997.

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theory there are universal democratic values that are applicable everywhere, in practice, a ready-made Western model of democracy has not produced the concepts of equality and freedom in the post-Soviet states to the extent that the theory claims”.28 Gradual versus rapid democratization The more the state–a main reformer–slows down liberalization and democratization, the more difficult it is for it to carry out the mission of main reformer in promoting democracy. The state takes it for granted that the only right way is step-by-step democratization, since it is believed that people are not ready for radical democratic changes. However, the latter thesis cannot be verifiable without the practice. That’s why no proof of the correctness of this step-by-step choice is provided. As a result, we witness the phenomenon that people will be unready for democracy to the extent that its primary democratic nature will be neglected and atrophied. At the same time, the step-by-step principle can obviously serve the interests of certain groups who deliberately impede any political change. S. Huntington exactly pointed out: “The difficulty, of course, is that those who benefit from the status quo, or hope to do so, will usually resist reform, and they are also usually powerful”.29 The dominant stereotype pertaining to this issue is that the so-called shock therapy will yield social conflicts and uncontrolled social situations. However, by taking such a principle of gradualism for granted, the government risks lagging behind the current fast international social and political changes caused by globalization. The neo-ideologists and governmental officials frequently reiterate the idea that developed democratic countries have built their democracies for over two centuries and such a development was in fact truly gradual, that is, step-by-step. However, as Steven David, professor at The Johns Hopkins University noted, “the difference in the Third World is that while it took Western Europe three to four centuries to develop a state, Third World leaders have had only three to four decades to accomplish the same task”.30 Although it seems usage of the “Third World” notion with respect to Central Asia can be questioned at least due to several traits of countries concerned (for example, a high level of literacy and education). (See below.) Nevertheless, it is true that they cannot pass through the same century-long stages. Especially applicable is S. David’s deliberation: “Third World state makers, on the other hand, need to build a state with a relatively welleducated citizenry who seek involvement in the affairs of the state”.31 This means that the people in Uzbekistan are already better prepared for democracy, and overall democratic reforms can be speeded up. Liberalism versus paternalism The task of realization of the strategic course on the all-embracing political liberalization proclaimed on the first session of the current Oliy Majlis (Parliament) demands 28

Yalcin, R. The Rebirth of Uzbekistan. Politics, Economy and Society in the Post-Soviet Era. London: Ithaca Press. 2002. p. 137. 29

Huntington, S., Nelson, J. No Easy Choice. Political Participation in Developing Countries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1976. p. 2.

30 David, S. “Why the Third World Still Matters” in International Security, Vol. 17, No.3 (Winter 1992/1993). p. 132. 31

Ibid, p. 134.


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innovational measures that would secure existing democratic assets as well as create new political, socio-economic, legal and moral-psychological conditions for the next stage of democratization in the country. But such a proclamation is again an element of de-jure democracy. Recently, a new presidential slogan pertaining to the liberalization strategy was advanced, namely: “From a strong state to a strong civil society”. Nowadays, the ideological activity and democratic rhetoric in Uzbekistan are to a great extent concentrated on the very concept of civil society. Indeed, typically, civil society in democratic countries represents in itself an all-embracing network of various voluntary associations of citizens, lobby groups, municipal communities, foundations and clubs, interest groups, consumers’ associations, sport, religious and other organizations which reflect various social interests in industrial, political, spiritual and private and family spheres. These independent-fromthe-state socio-political institutions often competing with each other for gaining citizens’ support and confidence, sometimes can express critical views on certain social, economic and political problems. Civil society in Uzbekistan is still very weak. To classify non-governmental organizations (NGOs) functioning in Uzbekistan, one should select, above all, international organizations and foundations as well as radio broadcasting companies. These are, for instance, F. Ebert Foundation, K. Adenauer Foundation, Eurasia Foundation, American Legal Consortium, Radio BBC, Liberty, Associated Press, Freedom House, and such intergovernmental organizations as the UN and its agencies, OSCE and NATO, which also conduct programs directed to the support of NGOs. Due to their international authority and status as well as extensive experience and financial and organizational base, they can exert a strong influence on the process of forming civil society institutions and attribute a strong impetus on the activities of NGOs. Besides, due to the activity of these international organizations, the “third sector” adapts more and more standards, principles and norms of a democratic society. The second group of actors of civil society in Uzbekistan consists of republican and local NGOs. Their numbers have been increasing gradually–now more than 3,000 organizations. However, by and large, the relative weakness of this group emanates from the following four basic problems: (1) the technical and financial bases of NGOs are mostly weak; (2) their conceptual base is still not sufficiently developed; (3) citizens’ public and political activity and their political-legal education level is low; and (4) the clear-cut mechanism of direct and reverse links between a state and the third sector doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, such NGOs as the Association of Businesswomen, “ATLAS”–Youth Initiatives Support Center, “Expert” Sociological Center, Ezgulik and some other human rights organizations are already activated countrywide and gain large public support. Finally, the third group consists of organizations which occupy the intermediate position between a state and civil society. They are non-governmental organizations by their status, but established with the active support of the state, and even initiated by the president himself. Their appearance reflects the so-called major social demand which emerged in a particular social area (environment, mahalla system, healthcare, family, education) where state interest is explicit and its participation is perceived as desired. Therefore, these specific NGOs function, in fact, as pro-governmental ones. Mahalla Foundation, Al-Buhoriy Foundation, ECOSAN (Ecology and Sanitary) Foundation, The Sociological Center Ijtimoiy Fikr (Public Opinion), Center of Spirituality and Enlightenment, and others by their titles express the realization of that social demand. Regardless of their activity mode and effectiveness, there is no doubt they serve, among other things, as a showcase of the NGO system in Uzbekistan. In any case, they also contribute to the nurturing of NGO-culture in the country.

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One of the key instruments to realize the slogan “From a strong state to a strong civil society” is, undoubtedly, administrative reform. The state apparatus has grown enormously. The state extremely needs to reduce the quantity and increase the quality of cadres. On the first session of the newly elected parliament on 28 January 2005, the president, pointing out the process of administrative reform, underlined that executive power structures have recently been reduced by 22% or 40,000 people. And in the wake of this process, he argued, the system of distribution of material resources is being replaced by market mechanisms and the command functions of many executive bodies are being reconsidered. Whether the state will play the role of watchdog or take care of the many spheres of social life is the real meaning of the liberalism-paternalism dichotomy. The latter is not only a question of whether the state impedes further liberalization, it is also to a high degree the question of whether a population will give up its paternalistic political culture (see next paragraph). In other words, the liberalism-paternalism dichotomy is a twofold question: on the one hand, it demands liberalization of the state apparatus, on the other, depaternalization of population. One of the test tools for examining liberalism versus paternalism would be elections of local executive branches of state power. For the time being, they are not elected, but appointed by the president. They are simultaneously chiefs of the local executive and local legislative powers and thereby such a state of affairs doesn’t comply with the principle of division of powers. So, once again, de-jure democracy does not coincide with de-facto democracy. Finally, on the conceptual scheme of liberalism-paternalism we, at the same time, encounter another similar phenomenon, namely the correlation between democracy and liberalism. Post-Soviet Uzbekistan (and we can assume other Central Asian countries as well) is a good example of what Fareed Zakaria described in the following thesis: “Democracy is flourishing; constitutional liberalism is not… Far from being a temporary or transitional stage, it appears that many countries are settling into a form of government that mixes a substantial degree of democracy with a substantial degree of illiberalism… Constitutional liberalism is about the limitation of power, democracy about its accumulation and use. For this reason, many eighteen- and nineteen-century liberals saw in democracy a force that could undermine liberty”.32 Liberalism is not only about democracy, although they are interrelated. Liberalism has its own value. Democracy in Uzbekistan should pass from the state that is reminiscent of the Soviet-type “democratic centralism” to the state of de-etatization and assurance of individual rights. But for this to happen, society, in turn, must overcome its paternalism. Modernization versus traditionalism “We will use the words ‘modernization’ or ‘development’ to refer to the overall processes of social, economic, intellectual, political, and cultural change that are associated with the movement of societies from relatively poor, rural, agrarian conditions to relatively affluent, urban, industrialized conditions”.33 Such a very complicated and all-embracing, albeit slow, process is really underway in Uzbekistan. It is also quite a painful phenomenon since it implies the necessity to adapt to new conditions and requires that only by adapting to them is it possible to gain social benefits and achieve better positions in the new modernizing country. At the same time, one has to take into account that modernization takes place in the newly independent state and side by side with the process of nation-building. As 32

Zakaria, F. “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy” in Foreign Affairs: November/December, 1997.

33

Huntington 1993 p. 17.


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American political scientist Valerie Bunce rightly noticed, democratization should not be simplistically understood as if one set of institutions is replaced by another overnight. On the contrary, national and state-building, modernization, creation of capitalism, setting up of new security systems, as well as integration into international systems go together.34 Meanwhile, on the surface of political process we are witnessing some typical elements of any democratic evolution, such as parliamentarism, multipartism, and others. These I call ersatz-elements of Uzbek democratization. Very often they yield false stereotypes, incorrect perceptions and too high expectations about democracy in Uzbekistan. Researching the phenomenon of eastern societies, Russian scientist N. Somonia made a very interesting remark that very often the observers, who characterize the political regimes in these countries as parliamentarian regimes, take into account only formal constitutional aspects and such surface events as elections and parliamentarian discussions, whereas many aspects of the real political process and real functioning of state mechanism are left behind consideration.35 In the real political process in Uzbekistan elements of both the traditional and the modern are present and intermingle, so that the phenomenon of interference of relict and ersatz, exogenous and endogenous factors require a policy of synthesis. Indeed, we have to find harmony between archaic clan relations and cohesiveness of the modern nation, between traditional political passiveness of citizens and alive, modern civil society, between traditional rural psychology of the majority of population and political domination of the modern urban minority, between century-old Uzbek moral values and western ersatz pop-culture, etc. All these phenomena can be called “eclectic sophistication of cultural and social life”, which brings about a confusion of public consciousness. The year 1991 was not only when Uzbekistan gained independence, but was a revival of traditional self-identification as well. It was not only the proclamation of a democratic future, but also an appeal to pre-Soviet history and glorification of the great past. In this sense, a certain tension between traditional autocracy and modern democracy can be resolved not in favor of the latter for some period of time. On this matter David Apter of Yale University said: “We need to confront the possibility that representative institutions may fail to work in most modernizing societies and therefore be discredited. The preoccupation of political structures with the strengthening of democratic practices has obscured the need for an examination of the role of pre-democratic forms of government, which, as a result, has received little attention. The politics of modernization requires us to examine the usage of pre-democratic and nondemocratic institutions so that we can make a realistic appraisal of those structural principles likely to lead to representative government”.36 It is true that the Soviet political and social system incorporated a modern education system, developed industry, created infrastructure and even inculcated nationalism of the modern type. But it is also true that after independence we are witnessing modernization versus traditionalism in the decline of the education system, a contrast between artificially modern elites and naturally traditional population, and what we called “eclectic sophistication of cultural and social life”. I should emphasize that by traditionalism I mean not only some social, psychological, cultural traits and aspects peculiar to the way of life of the population. It is also “political traditionalism” which means rejection of or, at least, non-readiness to acknowledge a democratic way of life and democratic social expectations. In other words, 34

Bunce, V. “Leaving Socialism: a ‘Transition to Democracy?” in Contention, Vol. 3, No.1, Fall 1993.

35

Somonia, N. and Reisner, L. eds. Evolutsia vostochnykh obshestv: syntez traditsionnogo i sovremennogo [Evolution of Oriental Societies: synthesis of tradition and modernity]. Moscow: “Nauka”. 1984. p. 296.

36

Apter, D. The Politics of Modernization. The University of Chicago Press. 1965. p. 3.

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democracy and democratic expectations can be “rejected” due to traditionalism in domestic policy, that is, due to adherence of both society and the state to non-democratic relationships. These kinds of relationships, in turn, can be frozen because of wrong resolution of the “modern-traditional” dilemma. A slow pace of democratization, different inadequate limitations on the mass media, overuse of national-democratic rhetoric and paternalism are just some examples of political traditionalism. Democratic perspective All these debatable conceptual dichotomies side by side with the nine problems of protodemocracy require an innovative approach to democracy-building in Uzbekistan. Such an assumption stems from the following evaluation: proto-democracy in Uzbekistan has found itself in a state of democratic stagnation. Moreover, such a state of affairs endures throughout the whole region. It should be underlined that the absence or weakness of democracy in all Central Asian countries becomes a serious factor which causes challenges to regional security and stability. Indeed, the very nature and character of political regimes in Central Asia cannot but negatively affect their international image, on the one hand, and their relations, on the other. Let’s look at some examples. It is peculiar to non-democratic governments to put taboo on any open and free public discussion on the regional integration of Central Asian countries and to establish a visa regime between each other. It was also nothing but undemocratic manifestation that nine CIS countries, including Central Asian Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, signed in early July 2004 a joint declaration blaming the OSCE for its alleged interference in internal affairs of these states. 37 The non-democratic countries within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization–Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan–say almost nothing about their democratic perspective and goal in their basic, such as the Charter, Joint Declarations, and other adopting documents. 38 National interests, if democratically defined, of state-members of any international organizations always demand the inclusion of democratic programmatic declarations in basic documents. In the background of such a very complicated political situation, both the political system and society nowadays are passing through a serious examination. The latter is reflected, for instance, in recent events such as: the “Georgian/Ukrainian/Kyrgyz syndrome”; March-April and July 2004 terrorist attacks in Tashkent; the above-mentioned 2003 EBRD seven benchmarks on democratization and market reforms; US Congress and State Department’s criticism on the state of democracy and human rights in Uzbekistan and some other negative developments. Another new phenomenon peculiar to a non-democratic regime is the typical painful reaction in almost all post-Soviet states, including Uzbekistan, to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2005), the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003-2004) or the Tulip Revolution 37

See for details: Lukyanov, F. “Zakluchitelniy act. Strani SNG prigovorili OBSE” [“The Final Act: The CIS Countries Sentenced the OSCE”] in www.centrasia.ru/ 10.07.2004.

38

American scholar Mathew Oresman, for instance, noticed that “the United States and China have potentially divergent long-term interests over the political development of Central Asia and the extraction of oil and gas from the Caspian Basin. China does not have a promising track record when it comes to promoting democratic evolution unless it is in its national interest. Beijing is more likely to encourage stability over change, especially if any change or steps towards pluralism might threaten the security of the region, its influence in the local governments, or the role of radical elements in governing these nations”. See: Oresman, M. “Central Asia as the New Arena in U.S.-Sino Relations” in China-Eurasia Forum, www.chinaeurasia.org/


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(March 2005) in Kyrgyzstan. We can call this phenomenon the Georgian/Ukrainian/Kyrgyz syndrome. This syndrome was revealed in the decision by the Uzbek government to reject registration of the Tashkent office of the Soros Foundation Open Society Institute. This action against the Soros Foundation in Uzbekistan took place because the Rose Revolution, according to the former Georgian leader, had been allegedly backed by the Soros Foundation. And Uzbekistan was the only country which took “preventive measures” against a similar scenario. No evidence by the Ministry of Justice of the OSI’s destructive activity in Uzbekistan had been provided, so the disappearance of this organization from the international NGO list in Uzbekistan caused serious apprehension among other Tashkent-based international organizations as well as local NGOs and scholars. Kyrgyz syndrome manifested itself on 13-14 May 2005 when in Andijan, one of the key towns of the Fergana valley of Uzbekistan, the big unrest happened and led to hundreds of victims. As was officially announced, the Islamic sect called “Akromiya” (one of the branch of the Hizbut-Tahrir) tried to seize the main governmental buildings and organize the coup d’etat. President I. Karimov drew direct link between those who organized (or stood behind) Kyrgyz events of March 2005 and Andijan events. In his press-conference on 14 May he correctly said that democracy cannot be exported or imported. But he was hardly right saying that any revolution in Uzbekistan will take the form of radical Islam. In May 2003 EBRD held its meeting in Tashkent. The bank’s country strategy for Uzbekistan found that the country’s progress toward democracy and human rights remained slow and characterized by setbacks, and set seven benchmarks for the government to fulfill. The three benchmarks in the political sphere were: x Ensure greater political openness of the system and freedom of media. x Open up political processes to a variety of interests. Registration and free functioning of independent local NGOs, including those involved in the area of rule of law and protection of human rights, would be an essential element of this process. x Improve the country’s human rights record. This involves co-operation by the authorities in implementation of the recommendations to be made in March 2003 by the UN Commission on Human rights based on the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. The bank gave the government a one-year deadline for compliance with these benchmarks. However, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) 2004 Report, the situation in this field almost hasn’t changed.39 American law requires the US State Department to review the democratization performance of aid recipients. In Uzbekistan’s case, Secretary of State Colin Powell decided that Tashkent was not fulfilling the terms of a 2002 Strategic Partnership Framework agreement that mandated “substantial and continuing progress” on democratization, a July 13 State Department statement said. As a result of Powell’s decision to deny certification (decertification), Uzbekistan lost up to $18 million in aid. As Acacia Shields, a senior researcher on Central Asian issues for Human Rights Watch commented, “The United States couldn’t do anything but decertify given the Uzbek government’s intransigence on implementing reforms.” Shields expressed hope that US and Uzbek officials would now start a process of “engagement” so that Uzbekistan could meet democratization standards and thus qualify for certification in the near future. “This [the State Department’s decision] should be seen not as the end, but as the beginning,” Shields said. “It’s a challenge for the government of Uzbekistan.”40 39

“The Failure of Reform in Uzbekistan: Ways Forward for the International Community.” Asia Report N°76 11 March 2004. (http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?id=2537&l=1)

40

Eurasia Insight, July 22, 2004.

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With regard to this issue, a question (again dilemma?) arises as to what the strong correlation between two such variables–financial-economic support policy of an outside power and democratization policy of the recipient state–should be. Experience of USUzbekistan relations shows that, despite strict criticism from the US Congress, State Department and non-governmental human rights organizations, political process in Uzbekistan goes on its own. Does this mean that the United States should disengage in terms of the strategic partnership established with Uzbekistan in March 2002? I think the answer should be “not at all”. Otherwise, democracy will turn into a matter of trade-off instead of being value in itself. This means that the United States should engage even more, not less, with Uzbekistan in matters related to democratization and find new ways of effective cooperation. Finally, on democratic perspective in Uzbekistan and in Central Asia as a whole, the overall political process fluctuates between democratic stagnation and democratic motion. Will democracy ever be embodied in Uzbekistan? What will the alternative be if democratization fails–Islamic theocracy, secular autocracy or socio-political chaos? Despite that (according to many observers and analysts), current Central Asian autocratic regimes endeavor to prolong their holding of power, it is also true that they endeavor to prevent other alternatives to democracy. But this is not to say the current authoritarian systems should be protracted or even perpetuated. It is only to say that, to my mind, until the critical mass of bearers of democratic values and culture is attained in all strata of society and state, the authoritarian regime will always find appropriate means of its legitimization and democracy will be discredited. Democracy is no longer solely an internal state affair. Internationalization of democracy in Central Asia might be realized as follows: all Central Asian demos should be mutually regionally activated; that is, democratic stagnation can be overcome by means of their mutual stipulation. Conceptually, Central Asian countries need to strive for the novel democratic model of nation instead of looking for an old and obsolete national model of democracy. Indeed, after independence, Central Asian countries are faced with “nationalregional dualism”. In this sense, such processes as nation- and state-building, as well as economic reforms and political transformations in these countries are inter-related and inter-dependent to a great degree.41 On the other hand, “the more democracy, the more Western assistance” approach, which is widespread among human rights organizations, Western political analysts and even governments, has been misunderstood and even misinterpreted by them. Uzbeki-US relations in this field are a good example of this. I don’t think economic and other kinds of assistance should be regarded as a reward for democratic success, and decertification a punishment for democratic failure. Therefore, decertification, as was the case with Uzbekistan, doesn’t spur democratization, but instead just contributes to reversal of the democratization process. In a recent interview to the Fergana.ru news agency, professor Frederick Starr, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Central Asia and Caucasus Institute of Johns Hopkins University, pointed out that the best approach for the U.S. is to work consistently with Uzbekistan, not against it. 42 While commenting on the lack of democratisation in Uzbekistan, he underlined that the process of transformation of the country is a project designed for the long term and requires various discussions and relevant education, longterm contacts and engagement. 41 See for details of this concept: Tolipov, F. “National Democratism or Democratic Nationalism?” in Security through Democratization? A Theoretically Based Analysis of Security-Related Democratization Efforts Made by the OSCE. Hamburg: Center for OSCE Research. 2004; Tolipov, F. “The Theory and Practice of the Regional Integration in Central Asia” in Central Asia and Caucasus 2: 2002. 42

Frederick Starr’s interview to the Fergana.ru Agency. 14 October 2004.


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Conclusion The author of this article is convinced that Uzbekistan should become a motor and pillar of democratic evolution of Central Asia. This idea stems from the perception that Uzbekistan bears special responsibility for the region because of the overall socio-political situation in this country; stability or instability, democracy or autocracy, prosperity or backwardness, will have a crucial impact on regional development. Indeed, Uzbekistan is geographically central in the region. Twenty-five million people–50% of the Central Asian population–live in Uzbekistan. All major transport networks are stretched through the territory of Uzbekistan; it is more homogeneous than any other neighboring country (about 80% of its population are Uzbeks) and Islamic religion is deeply rooted in this country. Uzbekistan bears special responsibility for stability and security in the region.43 Very recently Uzbekistan once again faced the threat of terrorism. The March-April 2004 bombings in Tashkent and Bukhara and the July 2004 bombings in Tashkent not just challenged the current authoritarian present, but also the democratic future because religious extremists and terrorists who perpetrated those attacks reject democratic perspective as contrary to Islam.44 Assessing existing social security challenges in Uzbekistan and analyzing, in view of the region’s democratization, the effectiveness of government policy in addressing them, we can now deduce several key assumptions: 1. The nine problems of proto-democracy cause public tension, confusion and resentment and the eight principle dichotomies advanced in this article pose challenges to democratic perspective. 2. One of the main reasons of “democratic stagnation” is the endurance of the gap between de-jure and de-facto democracy. 3. One of the serious obstacles to democratization in Uzbekistan and Central Asia as a whole, to my mind, is overstressed nationalism, which overlooks a regional dimension of democracy. 45 It is obvious that there is mutual dependence of integration and democracy in Central Asia. Taking this truth into account, the principle view can be: democracy via regional integration and vice versa– regional integration via democracy. This approach, hopefully, can lay the ground for innovative and more adequate construction of nation- and region-building. 4. Different strata of the population, I think, should be activated from both inside and outside. The latter implies not simply Western criticism towards Uzbekistan’s lack of democratic political will, but what is especially important, active involvement of international organizations in education process and support and activation of democratization process. 5. Meanwhile, some new scholarly works on the independence period of Central Asia again reveal the problem of a stronger theoretical consideration: we often 43

Resul Yalcin in his comprehensive study of Uzbekistan after independence also indicates that what emerges from the next stage of transition in this country will affect the entire area of Central Asia. “Future stability and a democratic community in Uzbekistan will play a decisive role in the politics of neighboring states”. See: Yalcin, R. The Rebirth of Uzbekistan. Politics, Economy and Society in the Post-Soviet Era. London: Ithaca Press, 2002. p. 4. 44

According to the results of the investigation and the court sentences, the perpetrators of suicide actions in Tashkent belonged to the so-called jamoats – units – which had links with Hizb ut-Tahrir extremist organization.

45

Tolipov 2004.

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observe the passage from old stereotypes and prejudices to new ones. 46 For instance, there is serious skepticism about the possibility of regional integration of all Central Asian countries; most scholars consider the regional geopolitical processes through the prism of a “Realpolitik” or the geopolitical “balance of power”; there is a widespread perception of Central Asian countries as part of the Third World–on the periphery of the international system (as discussed in this chapter) and so on. Summing up such old, but to my mind, inadequate perceptions, one might recall the phenomenon that Edward Said called “Orientalism”. In our case we might talk about “Central Asianism” (paraphrasing E. Said, in the worst case “Central Asianism” will be successfully accommodated to the new imperialism, where its ruling paradigm does not contest, and even confirm, the continuing imperial design to dominate Central Asia)47. Therefore, I fully agree with Dr. R. Yalcin’s reflection that “the primary task of Uzbekistan’s modern political science is to study and understand the problems of democratic development. It needs new approaches that will…provide its political system with a sound structure”.48

46

See, for instance, just a few of them: Hunter, Sh.T. Central Asia since Independence. The Center for Strategic and International Studies. 1996; Rumer B. and Zhukov S. eds. Central Asia: The Challenges of Independence. N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. 1998; Rumer B, Economic Crisis and Growing Intraregional Tensions. In: Rumer, B. ed. Central Asia and the New Global Economy, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. 2000.

47

E. Said pointed out the methodological failures of Orientalism, its inadequate jargon, by which the Orient is described and explained. He noticed the Orientalist old stereotypes and said that the Orientalist “tries to see the Orient as an imitation West which can only improve itself when its nationalism is prepared to come to terms with the West. See: Said, E. Orientalism. N.Y.: Vintage Books. 1979. pp. 320, 322.

48

Yalcin 2002. p. 138.


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Notes on Contributors A.I. Fursov is director of the Institute of Russian History (at the Russian state University for Humanities, Moscow, Russia); Co-director of the Centre for global and comparative studies in history (at the Russian State University for Humanities); Professor at the Institute of Asian and African studies (at the Moscow State University); Head of Department of Asia and Africa (at the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow); Chief editor of “The Russian Historical Journal”; deputy chief-editor of the journal “Asian and African studies abroad”; member of Expertise Council of “The political magazine”. A.I. Fursov is the author of several monographs including Cratocracy: the nature of the Soviettype societies, The rise and the fall of Perestroika, Capitalism in the antinomy "East-West"; The bells of History: capitalism and communism in the XX century, The Russian System (in coauthorship), Big Charlie, or on Marx and Marxism, Breakdown of communism and other Russian adventures and more than 100 articles. He is also on the list of "100 leading Russian intellectuals of 2000-2004" and combines academic research and high school teaching with political consulting and expertise in different governmental structures. [email protected] Jacques Legrand is Professor of Mongolian language and culture at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris). He was appointed President of INALCO in March 2005. He was a staff member of the French Embassies in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) and Peking in 1967-1968. He is an expert to UNESCO, and a member of the “Integral Study of the Silk Roads: Roads of Dialogue” Project and “Nomads’ Route” expedition (1992). He collaborated with UNESCO in establishing the IISNC (International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations, Ulaanbaatar) and, has been chairman of the IISNC Academic Council since the Institute’s creation in 1998. His teaching and research focused on the Mongolian language and linguistics and on Mongolian History and the anthropology of nomadic pastoralism. [email protected] Catherine Poujol is Professor of History and Civilisation of Central Asia at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and civilizations (INALCO) in Paris, director of the CRAC, (research group on Central Asia, a member of the Observatory of Post-Soviet States at the INALCO). She is the current vice-president of ESCAS (European Society on Central Asian Studies) and has published more than a hundred articles on Islam in Central Asia from the Colonial period to Independant States, the Bukharan Jews and other diasporas, and the Sociology of Transition. Her 25 years of experience in the region and almost the same amount of time teaching Central Asian History gave her the opportunity to publish the Dictionnaire de l’Asie centrale (Paris, Ellipses, 2001).She is also interested in the history of mentality and social psychology applied to Central Asia. [email protected]

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Irina Morozova received her PhD in history from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute of Asian and African Studies in 2002. Currently she is a research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, stationed at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam. Her academic interests include the history of Mongolia, modern social history of Central and Inner Asia, comparative analysis of the twentieth century’s socio-political transformations in the region and security studies. She is actively publishing on these topics. [email protected] Alisher Ilkhamov graduated from Tashkent State University in 1981 and defended his PhD (candidate of social sciences) dissertation in 1986. In 1991 he established in Tashkent the private research company ‘Expert’ and was its President until December 2001 when he started to work at the Open Society Institute – Assistance Foundation Uzbekistan as its Executive Director. In March 2004 he moved to London where he is currently Research Fellow at the Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus, SOAS, University of London. He has 38 publications on a variety of issues including the farming sector, Islamic movements, nationalism, civil society and contemporary political development in Uzbekistan. [email protected] Dr. Paul Georg Geiss is Research Associate at the German Institute for Middle East Studies in Hamburg and holds degrees in history and political science from the University of Vienna (MPhil, PhD) and the London School of Economics (MSc). He is author of Pre-Tsarist and Tsarist Central Asia. Communal Commitment and Political Order in Change (London/New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2003) and Nationenwerdung in Mittelasien (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1995) and has published articles on the political anthropology, social history and comparative politics of Central Asia. [email protected] Robert M. Cutler is Senior Research Fellow, Institute of European and Russian Studies, Carleton University, Canada; and Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence in Boston. Originally trained in Modern Eurasian History, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The University of Michigan (where he earned a Ph.D. in Political Science), Dr. Cutler has held research and teaching appointments and fellowships at major universities in the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, and Russia. His research has been supported by, among others, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX); the World Society Foundation; the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; and the Social Science Research Council, New York. Specializing in the interdisciplinary international affairs and domestic politics of Central Asia, Europe and Eurasia, he has published over 50 book chapters and scholarly journal articles plus many dozens of analytical commentaries and situation reports on transnational political economy and development, and international relations and regimes. As an expert in Eurasian energy development, institutional design, organizational learning and human information processing, he has advised and consulted to numerous organizations including the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels; the EastWest Institute, New York; and the Policy Research Secretariat, Ottawa. He serves on a number of editorial boards including Central Eurasian Studies Review and Cahiers d'études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien, and has just completed a term on the Executive Board of the Central Eurasian Studies Society. [email protected] http://www.robertcutler.org


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Professor Michael Kaser holds an Emeritus Fellowship of St Antony's College, Oxford University, having been Professorial Fellow of the College and University Reader in Economics from 1963 until 1993; an Associate Fellowship of Templeton College, Oxford; and an Honorary Chair in the School of Social Sciences, University of Birmingham. He was born in London in 1926 and read Economics at Cambridge University; he has received a DLitt from Oxford University and an Honorary DSocSc from the University of Birmingham. In the British Foreign Service (including as Second Secretary, Commercial Secretariat, in the Moscow Embassy) in 1947-51, as a staff member of the UNECE in 1951-63 (including to Central Asia in 1957), and subsequently as consultant, he has been on missions to all Soviet republics and to all East European states. His academic research and various advisory roles to government and international organizations have brought missions for UNESCO to Azerbaijan and for UNICEF/WHO to Central Asia. He has been General Editor of the International Economic Association since 1986 and Chairman of the Central Asia and Caucasus Advisory Board of the Royal Institute of International Affairs since 1993. He is author and/or editor of 25 books and 370 articles, including publications of NATO, ECOSOC, UNECE, IMF and OECD, on the East European, Russian and Central Asian economies both under the Soviet-type system and in transition to the market. [email protected] Prof. Leonid A. Friedman holds a chair of Social-Economic Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute of Asian and African studies. He is also the head of the Laboratory of complex studies on Central Asia and the Caucasus in the same Institute. He is a lecturer on economics and the political economy of the Middle-Eastern countries, Russia, Central Asia and the Caucuses, developing countries of Asia and Africa, as well as on the typology of developing countries, globalization and its impact upon developing countries. He was the supervisor of 26 successful Ph.D. dissertations on economics, social structures, economic history, domestic and foreign politics of Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Turkey, Nigeria, Congo and other countries of Central, Western and Eastern Africa, Thailand, and on economic growth and social progress of Asian and African developing countries. Friedman has authored a number of monographs published in Russian: Kapitalisticheskoe razvitie Egipta (1882-1939) [Capitalist development of Egypt (1882-1939)]. Moscow. 1963; Egipet v 1882-1952; Social’no-ekonomicheskaya struktura derevni [Egypt in 1882-1952. Socio-economic Structure of the Countryside]. Moscow. 1973; Tipologiya nesotsialisticheskih stran [Typology of Non-socialist Countries]. Moscow. 1976; Ekonomicheskie structuri arabskih stran [The Economic Structures of Arab Countries]. Moscow. 1985; Ocherki ekonomicheskogo i Social’nogo razvitiya stran Tsentral’noyi Azii posle raspada SSSR [Studies on the Economic and Social Development of post-Soviet Central Asia]. Moscow. 2001. [email protected] Martin C. Spechler is Professor of Economics, IUPUI, and faculty affiliate of the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, Indiana University, USA. A Ph.D. graduate of Harvard University, he has worked for several years in Central Asia on projects for the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, USAID, and the Global Development Network. Martin Spechler has written more than a hundred articles, reviews, and book chapters, including about a dozen on the economies of Central Asia. [email protected]

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Dr. Elena Sadovskaya works with the Research Council on CIS and Baltic States Migration Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow); the International Organization for Migration in Kazakhstan; she is author of the IOM country reports on migration in Kazakhstan. She is also President of the Center for Conflict Management, (Almaty, Kazakhstan). Elena was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Maryland at College Park (USA, 1994), RSEP scholar at Indiana University (ACTR/ACCELS, USA, 2001), MacArthur fellow (MacArthur Foundation, USA, 2004-2005). She is a member of the International and European Sociological Associations, Russian Association of Sociologists and was winner of the EU-USA 1998 “Democracy and Civil Society” Award. Elena Sadovskaya has authored two monographs: Migration in Kazakhstan at the threshold of a new century–new trends and perspectives (2001), and Labour migration and its role in adapting to the economic crisis in Kazakhstan (2001) and more than 80 articles and reports; she is co-author of the analytical overview, “Labour Migration in Central Asia, the Russian Federation, Afghanistan and Pakistan” (2005) and coeditor of the International Directory “Conflict resolution and prevention in the CIS” (2002) and four research collections of articles (1997, 2002-2003). [email protected] Nazim Imanov is Professor of Economics, and currently works as an expert for the British company “IMC Consulting”, which is implementing an EU funded Project in Azerbaijan. Prof. Imanov, a member of the International Eco-Energy Academy and a former leading opposition MP (1995-2000), authored a series of draft laws approved by Parliament. For the last 15 years, his area of specialization has been the theory and practice of economic reforms aimed at the development of the market mechanisms as the system of regulating the economy. Author of four books and more than 200 articles on macro-economic issues, he published his latest book, “Economic Sketches”, in 1999. Nazim Imanov has worked as a research officer, teacher, associate professor, and deputy rector on scientific affairs at the University of Social Management and Political Science. [email protected] Nina Dyulgerova graduated from Sofia State University in 1978 and defended her PhD (candidate in history) dissertation at Moscow State University in 1985. From 1985 to 2000 she worked as senior researcher at the Institute for History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In 2000 she became a professor at Varna Free University and head of the Political Sciences and International Relations department. She is head of the Union of Bulgarian Scientists (history section), a member of the board of the Union of Bulgarian Scientists, a member of council of Macedonian Institute, Sofia and a member of the Bulgarian Association for Military History. Nina Dyulgerova has over 70 publications in the areas of: history of international relations; Russia, the Balkans and the Eastern Question ɏIɏ and ɏɏ centuries; the Russian ȿmpirɟ, the Russian Federation and Caucasus. [email protected] Dr. Farkhod Tolipov was born in 1961 in Tashkent. He graduated from the Tashkent State University. Since 1994 he has taught at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent, from which he received a PhD in Political Science. Dr. Tolipov teaches the courses “International Relations”; “International Security”; and “System Analysis”. Dr. Tolipov is specialized in geopolitics, regional security and regional integration in Central Asia, nationalism and democratization in Central Asia. He had a number of NATO Fellowships in Italy and the USA and he is a member of the international editorial board of the journal


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“Central Asia and Caucasus”. Dr. Tolipov has published articles on Central Asian topics in several international scientific journals. He has authored the monograph Grand Strategy of Uzbekistan in the Context of Geopolitical and Ideological Transformation of Central Asia. Tashkent: Fan 2005. (in Russian) [email protected]

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301

Subject Index Abashidze Abkhazia

256 231,232,240,244,245,250, 252–254,256–260 Abu Ali Ibn Sino 88 active population 163 Adat 70 administrative structure 69 administrative-command system 162 Adolat 136 Afghanistan 23,30,53,55,61,62,207,209, 210,245,261,271 agrarization 177 agsakal 73,76 Ahal 112–114 Ahmed Yasavi 86 Ajaria (Ajar) 232,250,256,258 Akayev (Akaev) 62,78,262 Akgoýunlys 92 Akhalkalaki 250 Aktobe 219,221 Al-Farabi 86,88 Al-Khoresmi 88 Alexander the Great 89 Aliyev 79 Almaty 213,219–221,223,226 Amir Temur 93 Andijan (Andizhan) 55,61,63,211,219, 221,278,279 Andropov 130 Angren 221 anticapitalism 36 arms trade 30 army 68,240,243 artistic freedoms 129–131 Ashgabad 84,111,116,214,221 assimilation 96 Astana 213,219–221 Atyrau 219 authoritarian regime 103,108 authoritarianism 137,161,178 authoritarization 124,126–130,134 autocracy 24,25,28,29,31,33–35,37 Avicena 88

avlod 211 Bagapsh 253,257 Baikal 31 Baktria 88 Baku 239,242,245,251 Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan 232,240 Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum 232,240 Balkans 26,245,251 Baltic States 63 Barnaul 219 Basmachi 72 Batumi 258 bilateral relation 253,254 Birlik (“Unity”) 132,133,135,136,264 Bishkek 83,221,223 Bismarck 122 Black Sea 244,245,248,250–253,256 Bolsheviks 70–72 Bolshevism 70 Brezhnev 53,73,126,130,131,137,262 Buddhism 69,80 Bukhara 60,68,70,86,137,218,281 bureaucracy 131,132 Burjanadze 254,255 cadre policy 112,114,116 capital formation 152,160 capital per worker 148 capital productivity 160 Caspian sea 31,214,251 Central Asian clan 67,75,76 Central Eurasian power model 23,24 central-planning system 145 centralization 68 centre-periphery relations 116,118 CEPM (Central Eurasian Power Model) 23–25,27,28,30–33,35–39 Chagatay 88 Chardzhew 96 chelnok 212–215,218–221 Chelyabinsk 219 China 24,27–34,36,38,39,51,60,61,209, 219,220,239,252,267,278 Chingizids 69

302

CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) 162,189,194,199,208–213,219, 246,251,252 citizenship 74,86 civil conflict 155 civil society 120,123,126–134,137–141, 162,263–266,274,275,277 civil war 70,80,112,119,206,210,254 clan 264,265,271,277 clan identity 70,73,75,80 clan relationships 72 clan-patronage system 76 clientelism 107,109,114,115 CoCom 157 cold war 29,38,39,50,63,254 collectivization 72 Comecon 157 communism 23–25,31,35–37,39,50,52, 54 Communist ideology 84 Communist Party control 150 community 120,128–131,133,134, 137–141 conformance 120,127–130,133,134, 137,138 constitutional state 103,106,107 consumption per capita 165,167,170 corruption 131,150,154,155,262,266, 267,271 Cossacks 72 cost-relativities 148 cotton 149 cotton affair 131,134,135,138 court 68,70,266 criminalization 266 crude death rates 181 currency 146 Cyprus 250 Daqliq Qarabakh 231,232,243 Dashoguz 96 de-authoritarization 120,122–124,134, 138,140 de-industrialization 177,179 de-modernization 177 de-scientization 177 de-Stalinization 128 de-urbanization 177 defence industry 149 democratization 30,58,104,118,120,124, 126,127,150,261,262,265,268,270–274, 276–281

demonstrations 129,132,135 depropertisation 34,35 developmental rationality 130,131 diaspora 119,211,232,242 Didorenko 132,133 differentiation 123,126,129,139,141 dispersion 40,42–46,48 dissidence 136 diversification 160 Djalal-Abad 83 Djambyl 219 dollar equivalent of wages 164 domestic nationalism 84 domestic tourism 183 Dordoi 221 Dostyk 218 dram 237 Dushanbe 55,136,271 EBRD (The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) 239, 267,278,279 economic development 231,236–238, 240–242 economic freedom 236,239,242 economic growth 145,162,170,178,188, 245 economic security 174 economic stability 237 education 145 efficiency gains 153 Egypt 26,39,55 elections 245,252,254–257,259 elite 105,107–109,111,112,115,116, 118,119 elite theory 120–123,126 embourgeoisement 125 embourgeoisement hypothesis 125 emigration 154 employment 152,153 energy 245,248,249,251,253,254 Enkhbayar 80 entrepreneurial 156 entrepreneurship 145 environmental damage 147 epos 87 Era of Asian Resurgence 70 Erevan 245 Erk Party 135,136,264 Ersary 104,111 etat 264 ethnic conflict 67,71,72,75,81

303

ethnic minority 211 ethnicity 74 ethos 87 etrap 116 etrap hakims 117 EU (European Union) 245,251,253 Eurasian empire 28 European nation-states 85 exogenous shocks 145 external sovereign power 68 extralegality 33,34,36 factor productivity 146,149 far abroad 184 Farob 88 FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) 156, 159,160,267 Fergana (Ferghana) 68,134,211,221, 265,278 Fergana Valley 54 financial intermediation 154 food consumption 170,173 food consumption per capita 171 foreign investments 233,234,236,237 France 27,34,38,39,60,214 free press 178 freedom of consumer choice 186 fundamentalism 57 Garagoýunlys 92 gas 30,232,234,237,240,245,248,252 GDP 211,223,233–237,241,245–247, 249 GDP deflator 163 GEC (Great Eurasian Cycles) 26,27 genealogy 69,70 Genghis-khan 28,36,78,91 genocide 96 Georgia 58,59,63 Germany 27,38,39,60,88 Gini coefficient 169 Gini index 235 glasnost 131,132 Global Development Network 153 global financial market 29,30 globalisation 24,25,29–31,54,60,274 Golden Horde 28,32,33,35,37,69 Gorbachev 73,114,115,130,132,134,138 Governor-general 70 Great Britain 60,69 Great Game-1 30 Great Game-2 24,25,30 Great Mongol Empire 27,28,31,32

Great Silk Road 50,68,246,252 Greece 27 GUAM 232 Hadjimba 253,257 halal 99 Halk Maslahaty 116 haram 99 hawala 222 health care 145 Heartland 23–28,30,32,35,37,38 higher education 149 Hissar 92 historical institutionalism 121 Hizb ut-Tahrir 62,268,269,278,281 hokimiyat 264 household 166 household consumption 165–167 household durables 167,175 Hsiung-nu 26,31,77 human capital 149,156 human rights 129,130,133–135,138,269, 270,273,275,278–280 iashuly maslahats 116 ideology 50,52,55,57,99,267–270 IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) 84,136,137 incentives 145 India 30,33,34 indicators of value 170 individual sovereignty 86 industrially-developed countries 153 inequality of distribution of income 169 inflation 146 informal clientele networks 115 informal economy 234–236 infrastructure 154 innovation 145 intellectual elites 87 inter-ethnic conflicts 82,102 internal security 244,245,255,259 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 210, 246,254 international public opinion 138–140 international public sphere 140 investments 148,153,155,159 Iran 30–32,55,214,221,253,254 Iraq 55,59,61,245 Isfara 82 Islamic Califate 58 Islamic extremism 58,60 Israel 60,222

304

Israeli-Palestinian conflict 102 Istanbul 250 Italy 60 Jadidism (Djadidism) 51,141 Jadids 90 Jambyl 220 Japan 34,38,39 Javakheti (Javaheti) 232,250 jihad 54,58 justice 136 Karaganda 223 Karahanid 89 Karakalpakstan 221 Karakum 111 Karimov, Islam 56–59,61,76,78,79,85, 94,133–139,141,189,193,197,198,202, 204,205,264,265,268,278 Kashka-Daria 221 Kazakhs 86 KGB 94 Khanate 69,70,77 khashar 56 Khiva 70 Khodjand 92 khokim (hakim) 116,117,135 Khoresm 88 Khrushchev 73 Khudoiberdiev, Makhmud 84 kinship 265 kinship redistribution principle 74 kinship tribe 70 kinship-tribal identity 68 kishlak 218 Kokand 70,218 Kokoita, Eduard 256 korenizatsia 97 Krasnoyarsk 220 Krum 253 kulaki 72 Kuliev 262 Kulov 262 Kurgan-Tyube 92 Kypchaks 91 labour force 206,209,212,214,224,225, 227 labour market 209,210,214,215,224,225, 227 labour migration 166,176,206–215, 219–228 labour productivity 153 labour resources 210,211,215

lari 237,246,249 law 261,262,266,267,269,273,279 Lebap 96 legal system 69 Lenin 51 liberal democracy 104 liberal reform 235 liberalization 263,271,273–275 Ligachev 131,134 living conditions 178 living minimum 169 living standards 177,181,188 local cadres 72,109,112 local identities 67,72,74–76 Machiavelli 85 macroeconomic stability 237 Maghreb 139–141 mahalla (mahallah) 76,135,139,189,264, 275 Majlis (mejlis) 79,116,263,274 Malaysia 253 Manas 78 manat 237 Manchu 28 Mangistau 219 Margush 89 market economy 161,162,170,181,182, 188 marketization 151 maslahats 116 mazhab 269 Mecca 52 Mediterranean 26,30,252,254 Meshkhed 221 Meskhetin Turks 82 middle class 177 migrants’ remittances 156 migration 68,69,72,83,208,209,212 military base 250,255,258,260 modern sector of the people’s economy 168 modernity 85 modernization 261,264,268,276,277 Mokhiyat 265 Moldova 209,225,232,247,250 money supply (M2) 233 Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), The 80 Moscow 67,73,74,79,94,108,111–114, 207,219–221,226,244,245,249,250, 252–259

305

Murgab River 89 Muslim community 50,52,53,55 mythologies 85 mythologization 85,101 mythomoteur 86 Nagorny Karabagh (Nagorno-Karabakh) 152,245 Namangan 83 narcotraffic 30 nation-building concept 76 nation-state 29,30,33,86 nation-state identity 67,76 national history 88 national security 58,161,162,251,258 nationalism 86 nationalist conflict 71 nationalistic elites 89 nationality rights 129,130,132–135,138 nationhood 85 NATO 239,243,245,250–252,255,275 natural indicators 170 natural production 167,174 natural resources 68 Nazarbayev, Nursultan 118 Nazi 88 Nazism 88 near abroad 184 near abroad countries 184 negative factor productivity 153 neopatrimonial state 103,107,118 neosultanism 118 nepotism 265,266 Netherlands, The 233,235,236 New Soviet Man 128,129 NGO 275,278,279 Niyazov, Saparmurat 76–78,87,103,105, 113–119,211,262 Nizhnekamsk 220 Nizhnevartovsk 220 Nogaideli (Noghaideli) 249,258 nomadic society 40,43–47 nomadism 40–42,46 nomads 86 nomenklatura 73 non-organized markets 175 Novosibirsk 219 oblast 71,73,74,112 official exchange rates 164 Oghuz tribes 91 Oghuz Turks 91 Oguz-khan 91

ohristianivanie 69 oil 30,39,232,234–238,240–245,248, 249,251–254 Old World 23,24,26,27 Omsk 219 open economy 157 Orange Revolution 260 Orenburg 219 organized officialdom 120,126–130,133, 134,136–138 OSCE (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) 243,254,265, 271,273,275,278 Osh 82,210,220 Ossetia 240 Otrar 86 Ottoman empire 51,69 overpopulation 211,212,218 OWP (Old World Pendulum) 26,27 Ozod Dehkon 264 Pakistan 55,61,207,209,215 Palestine 55 pan-Turkism 84 Pankin defile 250,255 passenger-kilometers 183 passenger-turnover 183 pastoralism 23,33,35,40–44,46–48 path dependency 145 Perestroïka 53,57,58,82,114 permanent resident 214 Persia 51 pipeline 232,240 Poland 60,151 police structures 109 political change 120,121,130,133,134 political control 150 political freedom 239 political stability 236–238 political system 103–108,117,119,120, 127,128,141,237,241,242,261,270,271, 278,282 polyarchy 120,124,125 population growth 165 Powell, Colin 251,254 power 124,125 power elite 120,124,125 pre-school organizations 179 price control 146 price decontrol 146 price lists 148 primordialist 100

306

private property 234 privatization 151,246,247 productivity 148,154,159 professionalization of politics 126 protectorate 68 public sphere 126–135,137–140 publishing statistics 147 purchasing power of pensions 186 purchasing power of salaries 164 purchasing power parity 164 Putin, Vladimir 58,63,101,257 radical Islam 50,53,55,57,58 Rahmonov (Rakhmonov), Emomali 77, 78,88 rates of the currencies 164 re-patrimonialisation 103 real exchange rate 164 real incomes 163,165,184,188 real wages 161,163,164,168,169,177, 179,185,188 recession 146,151,152 reciprocal social exchange relations 109 refugee 61,210,231 regime 262 regional economic cooperation 239,240 regional history 88 regional security 240 regional stability 239 regionalism 103–108,111,112,115 religious identity 67,75 remittances 206,207,222,223,227 rentier state 106 retail turnover 165,167,168,175,185, 186,188 Rice, Condoleeza 251 Romanov, Nikolay 98 Rose Revolution 253 Ruhname (Ruhnama) 78,87 Russian Empire 69 russofikatsiya (russification) 69,82 Saakashvili, Mikhail 244,248,250,251, 253–259 sacralization 85 SADUM (Spiritual Board of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan) 52,57 Samanids 86,89 Samara 219 Samarkand 86,137,218,221,265 samoderzhavie 69 satellite 245 sedentarization 96

Semireche 68,72 separatism 150 shamanism 69 Shanghai Organization of Cooperation 61 Shariah 70 Shaykh al-Islam 70 Shevardnadze, Eduard 250,251,254,256 Shihmuradov, Boris 262 shura 269 Shymkent 220,221 Sochi 259 social disease 180 social frustration 174 social insecurity 162 social instability 58 social justice 50–52,54,57,60,62 social order 68,70 social polarisation 177,235 socialist economy 211 socially-orientated market economies 187 socio-economic stability 178 socio-political stability 178 Sogdiana 89 Sokhumi (Suhumi) 250,252,253,257,258 som 223 Sourkhan-Daria 221 South Ossetia 232,244,245,250, 252–254,256–260 Soviet identity 74,84 Soviet legacy 84 Soviet national policy 85 Soviet power 70,73,74 Soviet Union (USSR) 82,84 sovietology 103 Spain 27,60 Speranski, M.M. 69 Sri Lanka 209 St. Petersburg 69,70,220 Stalin 51,52,73,88,108,109,115,262 Stalinist regime 93 statehood 103,104,108,118 statistics for growth accounting 146 Stolypin, Peter 69 strategic interests 251 sultanistic 262 supreme power 68,70 Surgut 220 Sverdlovsk 219 symbolic capital 85 Syria 55 Tamerlane (Tamerlan) 29,78,85,90

307

Tashkent 52,55,60,130,131,133, 135–137,190,194,198,200–203,218,221, 226,264,265,267,278,279,281 Tavildarya district 84 Tbilisi 58,244,245,249,250,252–259 Tehran 253 Teke 104,105,111–114,116 tenge 209,226 Termez 221 territorial problems 232,234,240 terrorism 58,60–62 Timurids 89 titular nation 67,72,74 TNC 29,30 Toktogul water reservoir 83 total factor productivity 145,148,153 totalitarianism 127,161 TRACECA 232 trade 156–159 Transdniestria 254 transition 101,103,104,120–122,127, 140,141,241,263,266,270,271 transition indicators 146,147 transition period 165,170,173,179 transitology 103,118 transportation corridor 245,251,253 tribal affiliation 103,104 tribal identity 75 tribalism 103,104,109,111,265 tribe 85 Tulip Revolution 260

Turkcomissia 92 Turkestan 51,70–72,79,84,88 Turkey 214,219,221,245,250,252–254 Turkic khanate 27,31 Turkic peoples 101 Tyumen 219–221 Ukraine 58,59,209,214,219,225,232, 247,259,260,278 UN 243 under162 unemployment 151,162 unemployment rate 233,234 Unmeasured Economic Activity 155 US (United States) 90,93 velayat 116 velayat hakims 117 Vietnam 38,39 volkische 88 volost 70,109 volume of retail trade 161,167,188 Voronezh 226 Washington 251,252,254,257,259 wealth distribution 238 World War Second 88 Xinjiang (Xingjian) 23,61 Yekaterinburg 219,220 Yomuts 104,111 Zeravshan (Zarafshan) 68,89 Zhvania, Zurab 248,253–255,258 Zoroastr 88



309

Author Index Cutler, R.M. Dyulgerova, N. Friedman, L. Fursov, A. Geiss, P.G. Ilkhamov, A. Imanov, N.

120 244 161 23 103 82 231

Kaser, M. Legrand, J. Morozova, I. Poujol, C. Sadovskaya, E.Y. Spechler, M.C. Tolipov, F.

145 40 v, 1, 67 50 206 189 261


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