Kyrgyzstan: Anatomy of a state

Problems of Post-Communism

Volumn 54, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 33-45

  Engvall, Johan ^a,b  

^a Central Asia Caucasus Institute   (South Africa)

^b JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 35248856970     PISSN: 10758216     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2753/PPC1075-8216540403     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, ed. Talcott Parsons (New York: Free Press, 1964), p. 156.
2. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 17.
3. Anna Grzymala-Busse and Pauline Jones-Luong, "Reconceptualizing the State: Lessons from Post-Communism," Politics and Society 30, no. 4 (December 2002): 530 (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~abusse/Politics-Society. pdf).
4. Sarah Whitmore, "State and Institution Building Under Kuchma," Problems of Post-Communism 52, no. 5 (September-October 2005): 3-4.
5. Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981).
6. See Mancur Olson, Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 3-9.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., p. 11.
9. Guillermo O' Donnell, "On the State, Democratization and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with Glances at Some Postcommunist Countries," World Development 21, no. 8 (1993): 1358.
10. Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 3.
11. Vadim Volkov, "Violent Entrepreneurship in Post-Communist Russia," Europe-Asia Studies 51, no. 5 (July/August 1999): 741-54.
12. Margaret Levi, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 1.
13. Olson, Power and Prosperity, p. 11.
14. Stefan Hedlund, Russian Path Dependence (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 25-26.
15. Joel S. Hellman, Geraint Jones, and Daniel Kaufmann, "Seize the State, Seize the Day: State Capture, Corruption, and Influence in Transition," Policy Research Working Paper no. 2444 (World Bank, Washington, DC, September 2000) (http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ INTWBIGOVANTCOR/Resources/seize.pdf).
16. Rasma Karklins, The System Made Me Do It: Corruption in Post-Communist Societies (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2005), p. 30.
17. Steven L. Solnick, "The Breakdown of Hierarchies in the Soviet Union and China: A Neoinstitutional Perspective," World Politics 48, no. 2 (January 1996): 218.
18. Joel S. Hellman, "Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions," World Politics 50, no. 2 (January 1998): 203-34 (http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/ Hellman_Winners_Take_All.pdf).
19. Erica Marat, "Impact of Drug Trade and Organized Crime on State Functioning in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 4, no. 1 (February 2006): 98-99 (www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/ CEF/Quarterly/February_2006/Erica_Marat.pdf).
20. Author interview with Shairbek Juraev of Institute for Public Policy, Bishkek, February 2006.
21. Gold and electricity comprise about half of Kyrgyzstan's exports (Anders Åslund, "Economic Reform After the Revolution in the Kyrgyz Republic," Demokratizatsiya 13, no. 4 [fall 2005]: 471).
22. Ibid., p. 477.
23. Eugene Huskey, "An Economy of Authoritarianism? Askar Akaev and Presidential Leadership in Kyrgyzstan," in Power and Change in Central Asia, ed. Sally N. Cummings (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 74-96.
24. See Anastasiya Levchenko, "Akaev's Family Under FBI Investigation," Times of Central Asia 8, no. 45 (November 9, 2006): 8.
25. Daniel Kimmage, "Kyrgyzstan: Follow the Money - The Akaev Investigation," RFE/RL, May 5, 2005 (www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/ 2005/05/44deaece-777c-4828-81ee-5a6e54d29562.html).
26. Gulnoza Saidazimova, "Kyrgyzstan: Economic Reforms Seem Stalled," RFE/RL, May 25, 2006 (www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/ 05/51817FC1-5A3C-4566-8B3C-B63D6027CD54.html).
27. RFE/RL, "Kyrgyz Authorities Detain Defiant Local Leader," May 23, 2006 (www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/5/C56527FC-5321- 44AF-9326-3C03E20046CC.html).
28. For details, see International Crisis Group, "Kyrgyzstan: A Faltering State," ICG Asia Report no. 109 (December 16, 2005), 7-9 (www.isn.ethz.ch/pubs/ph/details.cfm?lng=en&id=14756/).
29. Author interview with member of Kyrgyz parliament, Bishkek, June 2006.
30. For a discussion of the consequences, see Rasma Karklins, "Typology of Post-Communist Corruption," Problems of Post-Communism 49, no. 4 (July/August 2002): 22-32 (www.colbud.hu/honesty-trust/karklins/pub02.pdf).
31. Author interview with government official, Bishkek, May 2006.
32. Author interview with member of Kyrgyz parliament, Bishkek, June 2006.
33. The state ceased to function for twenty-four hours after Akaev's fall, and law enforcement was replaced by mobs maintaining order in the streets with wooden sticks.
34. Åslund, "Economic Reform After the Revolution," p. 477.
35. For an outstanding analysis of regime changes in patron-client governed states, see Richard Snyder, "Paths Out of Sultanistic Regimes: Combining Structural and Voluntarist Perspectives," in Sultanistic Regimes, ed. H.E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 49-83.
36. Rafis Abazov, "The Collapse of Public Service and Kyrgyzstan's Endemic Instability," Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst (November 15, 2006): 3-5 (www.cacianalyst.org/newsite/files/20061115Analyst.pdf).
37. Author interview with government official, Bishkek, May 2006.
38. Huskey, "Economy of Authoritarianism?" p. 84.
39. Author interviews with representatives of several Kyrgyz NGOs, Bishkek, February 2006.
40. Institute for Public Policy, Kyrgyzstan Brief, no. 3 (February/March 2006): 17 (http://ipp.kg/files/publications/issue_3_eng.pdf).
41. Author interview with Ramazan Dryldaev, Kyrgyz Committee on Human Rights, Bishkek, February 2006; EurasiaNet, "Kyrgyz President Appoints Brother Deputy Head of Security Service," Kyrgyzstan Daily Digest, March 3, 2006 (www.eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan/hypermail/200603/0002.shtml).
42. Interview with officials at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Bishkek, January 2007.
43. Erica Marat, "Leading Kyrgyz Activist Attacked," Eurasia Daily Monitor, April 14, 2006 (www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id= 2370987/).
44. RFE/RL, "Alleged Crime Boss Killed as Political Tensions Soar," May 10, 2006(www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/5/F037892B-2C3D- 4F55-A62E-95FCBEADB227.html).
45. According to a representative from civil society, the members of Rysbek's private militia were paid $300-500 a month. This figure can be compared to the average salary of a regular police officer of $80 per month.
46. The judicial system's inability to withstand pressure from organized crime was apparent when a court action instituted against Ryspek Akmatbaev before the revolution came to an end in January 2006 with all charges against him dropped. The verdict led many local observers to conclude that he had allies at the very highest level of the state. Another instance was when the government decided to lift the electoral committee's ban against Ryspek participating in the parliamentary by-elections for the seat vacated when his brother, Tynychbek Akmatbaev, was killed during a prison inspection in October 2005. He won the election, receiving no less than 79 percent of the votes, although the seat was never taken into effect before he was killed. His aim was to take over as head of the parliamentary committee on security, rule of law and information policy, a position previously held by his brother. This gives a rather revealing illustration of how a committee responsible for the rule of law is a legitimate target for individuals with a strong background in the very activities that arc anathema to legality. The case shows the lack of credible mechanisms backing up the official judicial system.
47. Bayaman Erkinbaev claims to have played a key role in the Tulip Revolution. He expended substantial funds to make sure that young people from Alysh, an association of traditional wrestling clubs under his control, were fed and kept together before the showdown in Osh in March 2005, and then transported to the capital. According to Erkinbaev, his men were the first to enter the presidential building when it was stormed. See "The Unsung Role of Kung Fu in the Kyrgyz Revolution," Agence France-Presse, March 28, 2005.
48. See Svante Cornell, "The Narcotics Threat in Greater Central Asia: From Crime-Terror Nexus to State Infiltration?" China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, 4, no. 1 (February 2006): 37-67 (www.silkroadstudies.org/new/ docs/CEF/Quarterly/February_2006/Svante_Cornell.pdf);
49. Anara Tabyshalieva, "Political Violence on the Rise in Kyrgyzstan," Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst (January 25, 2006): 3-5 (www.cacianalyst.org/newsite/files/20060126Analyst.pdf).
50. International Crisis Group, "Political Transition in Kyrgyzstan: Problems and Prospects," ICG Asia Report no. 81 (August 11, 2004): 10 (www.isn.ethz.ch/pubs/ph/details.cfm?lng=en&id=28396/).
51. Author interview with representative of Institute for Public Policy, Bishkek, February 2006.
52. Ferghana.ru, "Kurmanbek Bakiev and Felix Kulov in Kyrgyzstan would not give in," May 31, 2005, from Vremya novostei (http://enews.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=1455/).
53. Talaibek Koichumanov, Djoomart Otorbaev, and S. Frederick Starr, ''Kyrgyzstan: The Path Forward," Silk Road Paper (Uppsala and Washington, DC.: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, November 2005): 17 (www.silkroadstudies.org/new/inside/publications/ 0511Kyrgyz_E.pdf).
54. See Scott Radnitz, "What Really Happened in Kyrgyzstan," Journal of Democracy 17, no. 2 (summer/fall 2006): 132-146 (http://web.mit.edu/polisci/students/sradnitz/101_Radnitzpp132-146.pdf).
55. See also Alisher Khamidov, "Kyrgyzstan: Kinship and Patronage Networks Emerge as a Potent Political Force," EurasiaNet, November 21, 2006 (www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav112106a.shtml).
56. Johan Engvall, "The State Under Siege: The Drug Trade and Organised Crime in Tajikistan," Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 6 (September 2006): 827-54 (www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/publications/2006/ 0609Engvall_EAS.pdf).
57. These characteristics were also displayed in Georgia until the Rose Revolution, and in Tajikistan until President Emomali Rakhmonov managed to establish himself as undisputed number one. Some evidence also suggests that politics in Ukraine may be approaching this scenario.
58. See Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981), pp. 28-32.
59. Tabyshalieva, "Political Violence on the Rise in Kyrgyzstan."
60. Author interview with government official, Bishkek, May 2006.
61. Author interview with high-level official of tax police, Bishkek, June 2006.
62. According to official figures, the shadow economy made up nearly 25 percent of Kyrgyzstan's GDP in the late 1990s. Other sources, in contrast, estimate that the shadow economy since the early 2000s has reached a level equal to the official GDP (personal communication with Talaibek Koichumanov, Investment Roundtable, Bishkek May 2006).
63. Cornelius Graubner, "Kyrgyzstan: Mapping the Shadow State: The Informal Political Economy of Kyrgyzstan before the 'Tulip Revolution'," Field Research Report (Berlin, December 2005): 18 (www.oei.fu-berlin.de/ en/projekte/cscca/downloads/cg_pub_report_kyrgyzstan.pdf).
64. Interview with high-level official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Bishkek, January 2007.
65. For this concept, see Timothy Frye and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, "Rackets, Regulation, and the Rule of Law," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 16, no. 2 (October 2000): 482 (www.cefir.org/download.php?id=44/).
66. One illustrative example is that the National Security Service (NSS) is wire-tapping and spying on lawmakers (author interview with Kyrgyz MP, Bishkek, June 2, 2006).
67. Quoted from Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press 1968), p. 1.
68. Personal communications with various sources, Bishkek, 2006. Akaev's presidency coming about as the result of a pact between clans has been analyzed by Kathleen Collins, "The Logic of Clan Politics: Evidence from the Central Asian Trajectories," World Politics 56. no. 1 (January 2004): 224-61 (www-econ.stanford.edu/academics/Greif_228_2006/ Collins%202004%20Clan%20Politics.pdf).
69. Also see S. Frederick Starr, "Clans, Authoritarian Rulers, and Parliaments in Central Asia," Silk Road Paper (Uppsala and Washington, DC.: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, June 2006), www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/Silkroadpapers/0605Starr_Clans.pdf.