Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 05/2009

Islamic Movements and Democracy in Central Asia: Integration or Isolation?

Anthony Bowyer

May 2008

Academy of Political Science

Abstract

This paper will address the present state of Islamic political movements in the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union, with focus on state and non-state actors. The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and the movements Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are each trying to achieve power in their respective contexts but in very different ways. This was not always the case, as in the early 1990s all three grew out of discontent with Communist and post-communist authoritarian repression against religion and the rebirth of Islamic consciousness and identity. While two of the groups are native to Central Asia, all three had their “formative years” influenced by groups and events outside of the region, with the international Islamic Revival Party movement formed in south Asia, the IMU’s leadership influenced by the Wahabbi movement from Saudi Arabia and HuT which was founded in Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the 1950s and became an international movement.