Expanding state authority, cutting back local services: Decentralization and its contradictions in Uzbekistan

Central Asian Survey

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 533-549

  Noori, Neema ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DECENTRALIZATION; POLICY REFORM; SERVICE PROVISION; STATE ROLE;

ASIA; EURASIA; UZBEKISTAN; WEST ASIA;

EID: 34547538508     PISSN: 02634937     EISSN: 14653354     Source Type: Trade Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02634930701210526     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. Research for this paper, undertaken in the summer of 2003 for my dissertation, was partially funded by the Columbia University Public Policy Consortium and ACTR/ACCELS. This article is based on Chapter Three of my dissertation, 'Delegating coercion: Linking decentralization to state formation in Uzbekistan'. Laura Adams, Vince Boudreau, Cynthia Buckley, Gil Eyal, Marianne Kamp, John Krinsky, Alaina Lemon, Eric Sievers, Peter Sinnott, Scott Radnitz and King-to Yeung all provided useful feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.
2. I use the word 'mahalla' to denote both the singular and plural.
3. In 2003, Human Rights Watch (HRW) produced a report that was highly critical of both the state's mahallabased policies and the INGOs that had partnered with the mahalla. See Matilda Bogner, From House to House: Abuses by Mahalla Committees (Europe and Central Asia Division: Human Rights Watch Report, September 20H3), online at: http:// www.hrw.org/reports/2003/uzbekistan0903/.
4. For more on the interaction between INGOs and the mahalla committee see Daniel Stevens, 'Conceptual travels along the Silk Road: On civil society aid in Uzbekistan' (PhD dissertation, University of London, 2004).
5. For more on the use of mahalla committees to promote social control see Eric W. Sievers, 'Uzbekistan's mahalla: From soviet to absolutist residential community associations', The Journal of International and Comparative Law - Kent, Vol 2, 2002, pp 91-158.
6. Marianne Kamp, 'Between women and the state: Mahalla committees and social welfare in Uzbekistan', in Pauline Luong Jones, ed, The Transformation of Central Asia: States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp 29-58.
7. The existing literature on the mahalla, both policy oriented and scholarly, overlooks the important point that, in much of Uzbekistan, mahalla committees had to be built from scratch.
8. I have changed the names of all informants to preserve their anonymity.
9. Many Uzbeks remain unaware of the existence of mahalla committees or of their status as mahalla residents.
10. This interview took place in May 2003.
11. Stephen Collier has coined this form of privatization 'privatization by default'. In 2003, I participated in an ASN round-table discussion on the topic of privatization in Eurasia. Stephen Collier, Scott Horton and Eric Sievers were all instrumental in helping me think through the unconventional ways in which privatization is experienced in Eurasia.
12. Mahalla, 12 January 2000.
13. Chapter Two of my dissertation investigates in great depth the similarities between the operation of the Mahalla Initiative and the Communist Party.
14. E. Makarova, 'Paradoxes of development in Soviet and post-Soviet Central Asia: With special reference to the role of the mahalla in Uzbek cities' (PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 1999).
15. The position of the mahalla instructor (pedagogue) has now been changed to that of spiritual advisor (mahalla ruhi maslahatchi).
16. My arguments on this point are not original. Marianne Kamp and Pauline Luong Jones have made observations about the organizational similarities between mahalla committees and Communist Party soviets or street committees. What is novel is my claim that through the Mahalla Initiative, state authorities resurrected technologies of government first pioneered by the Communist Party. In other words, the Mahalla Initiative reproduced methods of rule that were based wholly on governance strategies used by the Communist Party.
17. State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 1932, 'Polojenie o mahallinskikh (kvartal'nykh) komitetakh v gorodakh Uzbekskoy SS' [Soviet era government decree on mahalla committees in the cities of the Uzbek SSR, in Russian], State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Otd 1-y NN 617-623.
18. I base this assertion on numerous interviews with mahalla committee chairmen who held the position before and after Uzbekistan's independence.
19. The most recent figures reflect a significant decline in mahalla numbers; the state has ordered local hokimiyats to consolidate the total number of mahalla within their jurisdiction. This number was provided by the central office of the Mahalla Foundation in Tashkent and was valid as of 6 January 2003.
20. I have heard unconfirmed reports that the Uzbek government rescinded this function of mahalla committees.
21. The contents of these documents included reports about the unemployed, divorce cases, fights within the community and observations about those suspected of involvement in religious extremism. The mahalla committee also maintained lists of people who were known as alcoholics, people who had served time in prison, a list of individuals who had left their homes for lengthy periods of time, a list of households who received state assistance, a list of individuals with disabilities and a list of women of 'fertile age'. assistance, a list of individuals with disabilities and a list of women of 'fertile age'.
22. I have changed the individual's name to protect his anonymity.
23. Op cit Ref 6, p 37.
24. Op cit Ref 6.
25. A. Coudouel and S. Marnie, The Mahalla System of Allocating Social Assistance in Uzbekistan, in Central Asia 2010: Prospects for Human Development (New York: UNDP, 1999), pp 182-191.
26. Ibid.
27. The municipal hokimiyat in Gijduvan (a town near Bukhara) provided a local mahalla committee with 36,728 som in financial assistance to low-income families for a period of four months (January-April 2003). This mahalla had a population of 3135. According to the mahalla chairman, the 36,728 som were then divided between two families, which meant that each family received 4591 som per month (approximately US$4.50) during this four-month period. In the Gijduvan mahalla, families with children under the age of two received 6802.50 som per month and families with children under the age of 16 received 1390 som per month. For the purposes of comparison, a mahalla committee near Kokand in the Ferghana Valley reported that it distributed 10,880 to each family with children under the age of two and 8602 to each family with children under the age of 16. The difference between the payment amounts made by these two mahalla committees would appear to confirm the UNDP report's concerns about regional variation in the implementation of this component of the MI.
28. The numerous mahalla committee chairmen I interviewed asserted that a precondition for need-based aid was having a large family (i.e. over three children).
29. Mahalla committees provide these families with vouchers redeemable at government banks. They do not provide the money directly.
30. Representatives from the Ministry of Labour are not present for decisions on eligibility, as is claimed in the UNDP report. In rare cases, the social affairs representative from the district hokimiyat may periodically inspect the committee's payment documents, but this is a rare occurrence.
31. A town located near Bukhara in Southern Uzbekistan.
32. Op cit Ref 6.
33. In a village near Kokand, when I asked a local mahalla chairman for examples of hashar, he pointed to the construction of an enormous ceremonial archway at the entrance of a community graveyard whose construction was funded by a wealthy local farmer.
34. The minimum number of residents required to form a mahalla committee is 500. Mahalla committees with populations within this range tend to pre-date independence and are 'traditional' in appearance.
35. One of these group discussions was organized by an IREX-funded NGO in the Southern Uzbek city of Qarshi.
36. Uzbekistan has retained the Soviet policy requiring citizens to apply for local residency before moving from one city to another. Ovir is the office that issues residency permits. This is a powerful tool for limiting internal migration.
37. A local NGO devoted to mahalla-related affairs in Samarqand ordered its members to standardize the costs of these services and post them publicly.