Authoritarian politics and economic reform in Uzbekistan: Past, present and prospects

Central Asian Survey

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 185-202

  Spechler, Martin C ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTHORITARIANISM; ECONOMIC REFORM; HUMAN RIGHTS; POLITICAL ECONOMY; POLITICAL POWER;

ASIA; EURASIA; UZBEKISTAN; WEST ASIA;

EID: 34548678218     PISSN: 02634937     EISSN: 14653354     Source Type: Trade Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02634930701517383     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. In 2002 the President's term was extended to 2007.
2. Pauline Jones Luong has called attention to the center-periphery struggle for power - a carry-over from Soviet times: Pauline Jones Luong, ed., The Transformation of Central Asia, States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).
3. A well-informed ex-employee of the Open Society Institute describes how Karimov has balanced the main clans' interests against each other. Alisher Ilkhamov, 'The limits of centralization. Regional challenges in Uzbekistan', in Pauline Jones Luong, ed., The Transformation of Central Asia, States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), p 179.
4. Jeannette Goehring and Amanda Schnetzer, eds, Nations in Transit 2005 (New York: Freedom House, 2006). Kazakhstan's summary 'democracy score' has deteriorated every year since 1997 and stands at 6.29 (1 is best; 7 is worst) for 2005. Uzbekistan stands at 6.43, having improved slightly from the previous year. Kyrgyzstan is at 5.64, having been as good as 4.65 in 1997. Tajikistan is at 5.79 and Turkmenistan 6.93.
5. 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 gives GDP per capita at purchasing power parity for 1998 was US$4809 for Kazakhstan, US$2042 for Kyrgyzstan, US$830 for Tajikistan, US$1723 for Turkmenistan and US$3296 for Uzbekistan. Angus Maddison, World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (Paris: OECD, 2001), pp 183-185. These differ considerably from the World Bank estimates.
6. The figures above are at purchasing power parity, which adjusts for the cost of living. 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.
7. For a more detailed, up-to-date comparison of the five Central Asian states' economies, energy resources, and external policies, the reader may wish to consult our 'Trade, energy, and security in the Central Asian arena', in Ashley Tellis and Michael Wills, eds, Strategic Asia 2006-07: Trade, Interdependence, and Security (Washington DC, National Bureau of Asian Research, 2006), pp 205-240 [with Dina R. Spechler].
8. For a short analysis of the other Central Eurasian economies, see my 'Central Asia on the edge of globalization', Challenge, July/ August 2004, pp 62-77.
9. The best longer treatment is Richard Pomfret, The Central Asian Economies Since Independence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
10. Marc A. Miles, Kim R. Holmes and Mary Anastasia O'Grady, 2006 Index of Economic Freedom (Washington DC: The Heritage Foundation and Dow Jones, 2006), p 242. The ratings in the 2007 Index are very similar.
11. Miles et al, 2006 Index, op cit, Ref 8, p 399 [emphasis added].
12. International Crisis Group, 'The failure of reform in Uzbekistan: Ways forward for the international community', Osh/Brussels, 11 March 2004. The ICG reports, strong and well illustrated on questions of freedom of expression, are much weaker on economic matters.
13. Anders Åslund, Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, 'Escaping the under-reform trap', IMF Staff Papers, Vol 48, 2001, pp 88ff, quoting the work of Martha DeMelo, Cevdet Denizer and Alan Gelb of 1997.
14. An extended analysis of the advances and retreats on the 'Uzbek Road' is presented in my θuot;Economic reform in authoritarian Uzbekistan', M. Gervers, U. Bulag and G. Long, eds, History and Society in Central and Inner Asia, Toronto Studies in Central and Inner Asia, Vol 8 (Toronto: Asian Institute, University of Toronto, 2007), pp 209-227.
15. School-children and some peasants are often coerced to work in the fields during cotton harvests. Kazakhstan also requires residency permits for Almaty and Astana, and those Kazakhs - an estimated 70,000 - 100,000 - too poor to bribe officials, live in shanty settlements just outside these cities, until police move in to clear them out for new construction. The Economist, 5 August 2006, p 39. Interviews by a research assistant (A.N.) in several outlying, rural oblasts of Uzbekistan during 2002-2003 indicate that few working-age males remain.
16. Martin C. Spechler, Farrukh Suvankulov and Alisher Akhmedjonov, 'Gradual economic reform in Uzbekistan', Unpublished manuscript, Global Development Network, 2003. Interview protocols, translated from the Russian reports, are available on request.
17. 'Malyi i srednii biznes: Prioritety razvitiia' ['Small and medium business: Priorities for development'], Bisnes-Vestnik Vostoka, No 50 (16-20 December 1999), p 2
18. quoted in Eshref Trushin and Eskender Trushin, 'Challenges to economic policy in Central Asia: Is a miracle possible?', in Boris Rumer, ed., Central Asia: A Gathering Storm? (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), Ref 51. President Karimov said in his speech to the EBRD in 2003 that small- and medium-sized enterprises account for 34 per cent of GDP.
19. A spontaneous demonstration in Kokand on 1 November 2004, occurred when tax officials tried to confiscate goods at the bazaar, but the crowd dispersed when the mayor promised to put off the offending regulation. Similar unrest was reported unrest in Jizzakh. RFE/RL, 2 November 2004.
20. Language policy in Kazakhstan has been moderated by the continued presence of Russian-medium schools, cost of replacing textbooks and teachers, and President Nazarbaev's realization that Russian remains the lingua franca of the Kazakhstani state. Fierman reports 'few sanctions for failure to comply with language legislation': William Fierman, 'Language and education in post-soviet Kazakhstan: Kazakh-medium instruction in urban schools', The Russian Review, Vol 65, January 2006, p 112.
21. William Fierman, 'Independence and the declining priority of language law implementation in Uzbekistan', in Yaacov Ro'i, ed, Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: Frank Cass, 1995), p 211. Quite a few residents of Tashkent and other major cities have satellite television reception to English, Russian, or Turkish channels, and Internet connections are only ineffectively blocked by the government.
22. Quite a few were built with Saudi money and may have been intended to promote 'Wahhabism', a puritanical version of Islam not favored by the Uzbek regime. At first, aid from Saudi Arabia was permitted, but more lately the 'Wahhabi' orientation of that assistance has been resisted. Foreign contacts with Islamic figures in Uzbekistan are under surveillance.
23. Martha Brill Olcott, Central Asia's Second Chance (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 2005), p 153.
24. Olcott writes that Shah-i-Zinda was 'built around the tenth century under Tamerlane' (note 91, p 321). Since Tamerlane was born around 1336, this must have been a miracle. Unfortunately, Olcott's hastily edited book is filled with numerous questionable, unsubstantiated, and extreme statements both of fact and of interpretation, particularly about Uzbekistan, which she apparently knows less well than Kazakhstan.
25. This view is supported in the Koran: 'We believe in God, and in what has been revealed to us, and in what had been sent down to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and their offspring, to Moses and to Jews and to all other prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between them, and we submit Him and obey' (sura 3: 34). Other, later suras, qualify this equality somewhat.
26. Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Islam and Politics in Central Asia (New York: St. Martin's, 1995), p 82.
27. Kanaa Aidarkul, 'State policy of Kyrgyzstan in its struggle against Islamist extremism', in Andrea Strasser, ed, Zentralasien und Islam/ Central Asia and Islam (Hamburg: Deutches Orient-Institut, 2002), pp 121-126. I have heard similar arguments from Uzbek informants and journalists in private conversations.
28. Eric McGlinchy, 'Islamic leaders in Uzbekistan', Asia Policy, No 1 (January 2006), pp 123-144.
29. People continue to be detained for suspected religious extremism, sometimes on flimsy evidence, such as praying five times a day. 'Hearings of the US House of Representatives International Affairs Committee, 2004', p 12.
30. Goehring and Schnetzer, op cit, Ref 3, p 746. Use of torture and capital punishment has been limited during the last few years in Uzbekistan, according to this report.
31. RFE/RL, 7 March 2006.
32. After relating the arrests and trials of former officials M. Ablyazov and G. Zhakqiyanov in 2003 on charges of abuse of office, Olcott writes, 'The fact that these people [Ak Zhol and some candidates of the Democratic Movement of Kazakhstan and Communists] continue to survive and play a role in Kazakh political life makes it clear that Kazakhstan is not an authoritarian country. Although Kazakhstan is certainly not a democracy, its people enjoy a large measure of personal freedom...'. She continues, 'Although he is a dictator... the Kazakh president also recognizes there are restraints on his power', p 143 [emphasis added]. To my mind, particularly in light of exiles and murders of prominent politicians, one would certainly be justified in calling Kazakhstan an authoritarian country, like Uzbekistan and several other countries in the region. None of them, however, is totalitarian in the sense of Friedrich and Brzezinski's classic definition.
33. RFE/RL, 24 February 2006.
34. The Economist, 18 February 2006, p 44. Another opposition leader, Zamanbek Nurkadilov, a former mayor of Almaty, was found dead last November. He was also a member of Alban.
35. Scott Radnitz, 'Networks, localism and mobilization in Aksy, Kyrgyzstan', Central Asian Survey, Vol 24, No 4 (2005), p 422. Radnitz's report is based on fieldwork in Osh, Jalabad and Bishkek in April-May 2005.
36. Shortened from the Russified 'Rahmonov'.
37. RFE/RL, 20 February 2007.
38. Goehring and Schnetzer, op cit, Ref 3.
39. Freedom in the World-2006 (New York: Freedom House, 2007), pp 780-781.
40. Margarita Assenova, 'Uzbekistan is running out of time', Internationale Politik, No 3 (2005), pp 56-60.
41. On the role of well-prepared Islamists in the uprising, another expert agrees. Vitaly Naumkin, 'Uzbekistan's state building fatigue', The Washington Quarterly, Vol 29, No 3 (2006), p 134. Naumkin adds that when the longtime governor of Andijon was replaced, the new man began a purge of the 23 businessmen said to belong to the Akramiya group who refused to sell their enterprises to his allies. Jailed, they may have helped finance the armed resistance.
42. Shirin Akiner, 'Violence in Andijan', mimeo, London, 7 June 2005. Her visit to Andijon was accompanied by the hokim of the town throughout the day, but she talked to people alone, too, and visited several cemeteries and the morgue.
43. Johnson's Russian List (JRL) No 30, 23 February 2006. Questioner was an Associated Press (AP) journalist, speaking Russian.
44. Report of Interfax in RFE/RL, 4 April 2006.
45. Golnaz Esfandiari, 'South/Central Asia: Think tank says U.S. aid helped Afghanistan, not Uzbekistan', rferl. org, 5 January 2007. Interviewee was Olga Oliker, a senior international policy analyst at RAND.
46. Donald S. Carlisle, 'Geopolitics and ethnic problems of Uzbekistan and its neighbours', in Yaacov Ro'i, ed, Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: Frank Cass, 1995), p 92. Carlisle reported that the victorious Leninabad/Khujand politicians asked Uzbekistan to annex that northern border area, but Karimov refused.
47. 'Hearings of the US House of Representatives', op cit, Ref 23, p 36.
48. Western governments have to be aware of the very different positions of the Central Asian states - their potential for independent action, for example. Gregory Gleason, an expert on Kazakhstan with considerable experience throughout the region, has argued that the US has been 'insensitive' to such differences in agendas for war on terrorism among these CA countries. Gregory Gleason, 'State building in face of insurgent Islam', in Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds, Confronting Terrorism in the Pursuit of Power (Seattle, WA: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2004), p 213.
49. 'Hearings of the US House of Representatives', op cit, Ref 23, p 7.
50. Ibid, p 19.
51. 'Hearings of the US House of Representatives', op cit, Ref 23, p 33.
52. 'Hearings of the US House of Representatives', op cit, Ref 23, p 14.
53. 'Hearings of the Committee on International Relations, US House of Representatives', May 4 2005, p 12.
54. Craner, in ibid, pp 24-25.
55. Kozak, in ibid, p 11.
56. Akiner, op cit, Ref 35, p 19.
57. ICG and many other human rights organizations talk loosely of a declining or 'crisis' economy in Uzbekistan with no reference to any source and in contradiction to World Bank, CIS and European statistics.
58. Uzbekistan Country Report on Human Rights Practices, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the US State Department, 8 March 2006.
59. Esfandiari, op cit, Ref 38, p 3 (quote from interview of Olga Oliker).
60. Freedom House gave Uzbekistan its best rating during 1997, the first year of publication of Nations in Transit, the rating then rose, only to fall in 2005, as a result of modest improvement in 'judicial framework and independence', Goehring and Schnetzer, op cit, Ref 3, p 701. The Uzbekistan chapter was authored by Margarita Assenova.
61. IMF Mission Report, 9 March 2005.
62. South Korea's regime up through 1980 is perhaps the best example. Singapore is another successful one.
63. Laura Adams, 'Cultural elites in Uzbekistan, ideological production and the state', in Jones Luong, op cit, Ref 2, pp 93-119. Adams argues that much of the cultural elite is still dependent on the state.