CIAO DATE: 12/2012
January 2012
Since emerging as independent states from the ruins of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, the five Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have struggled with the fundamental question of statehood: how to govern their societies fairly and effectively. A new Asia Society report, Central Asia's Crisis of Governance, addresses critical governance and stability challenges in a region marred by staggering amounts of corruption, human rights abuses, conflict, and civil unrest. Written by Bernard Schwartz Fellow Philip Shishkin, with advisement from current and former senior government officials, experts/scholars, and journalists from the United States and Central Asia, the report assesses the pan-regional trends and political risks in Central Asia. Though distinctly different, what all five countries have in common is the authoritarian model of government embraced by the region immediately upon independence. In the early 1990s, well-placed Communist party bosses grabbed the reins of power across Central Asia. And now, two decades later, three out of five of those bosses remain in power with no clear succession plans in sight. The other two, in Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, departed the scene — due to death for the former and a revolution for the latter — but both were replaced by new dictators. As evidenced by recent events in the Middle East and Northern Africa — and by Central Asia's own roller coaster of revolutions in Kyrgyzstan — seemingly unassailable dictatorships can crumble quickly, with unpredictable consequences.
Resource link: Central Asia's Crisis of Governance [PDF] - 852K