Uzbekistan’s Neopatrimonial State and Authoritarian Regime: From Karimov to Mirziyoyev (original) (raw)
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Eastern Review, 2019
The article aims to present the positive and negative effects of the change in the position of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The article focuses on economic issues, comparing the policy of President Islam Karimov and the policy of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The work also compares the foreign policy of both leaders towards Uzbekistan’s largest political partners: Russia and China. The above article tries to answer the question: are the changes in Uzbekistan significant after 2016 or only superficial?
De-authoritarization in Uzbekistan?: Analysis and Prospects
This chapter assesses the potentials for and constraints upon progressive political change in Uzbekistan. Its first part establishes a point of reference by discussing the recent reinvigoration of elite theory as a result of studies of post-communist transformations in East Central Europe in the 1990s. It begins by distinguishing different approaches to the study of those transformations and how the “transformation” approach differs from the “transition” approach. It discusses the implications of the empirical findings in East Central Europe for the classics of elite theory from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then systematizes the differences between the “power elite” and “polyarchy” ideal-types, whereupon it establishes a middle ground between them that offers an empirical criterion representing a starting-point for assessing the degree of “de-authoritarization” (as distinct from “democratization”) of an authoritarian regime such as Uzbekistan’s. In order to flesh out certain auxiliary concepts necessary for applying the criterion, it gives an example of the applic a tion of that criterion to the Khrushchev era in the Soviet Union (1953–64). The Khrushchev example allows an explan a tion of how the criterion is implemented with the aid of three auxiliary concepts: (bottom-up) “mobilization of the public sphere”, (top-down) “conformance of civil society” and (middle-level) “consolidation of organized officialdom”. With this framework, the rest of the chapter looks at political change in Uzbekistan since 1983, the necessary starting-point for understanding the present situation. Two cycles of political change are evident. The first stretches from 1983 until 1989 and comprises three phases: consolidation, conformance and mobilization. The second cycle stretches from 1989 to the present and comprises phases of mobilization, conformance and consolidation in that order. What these phases represent is specified in terms of what they imply for the structural transformation of the political system (as an ensemble of elite, regime and community sectors) and for political articulation and its issue areas. The conclusion to the chapter summarizes the insights that arise and consequent prospects for political reform and de-authoritarization in Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan´s Transformation: Strategies and Perspectives
SWP Research Paper 12, 2020, 2020
∎ The presidential transition in Uzbekistan represents a novel development in the post-Soviet space. Regime insider Shavkat Mirziyoyev has succeeded in initiating change without provoking destabilisation. His reform programme aims to liberalise the economy and society while leaving the political system largely untouched. ∎ Implementation is centrally controlled and managed, in line with the country's long history of state planning. Uzbeks accept painful adjustments in the expectation of a rising standard of living. And the economic reforms are rapidly creating incontrovertible facts on the ground. ∎ Uzbekistan has also made significant moves towards political liberalisation, but remains an authoritarian state whose institutional framework and presidential system are not up for discussion. Rather than democratisation, the outcome of the transformation is more likely to be "enlightened authoritarianism" backed by an alliance of old and new elites. ∎ Nevertheless, there are good reasons for Germany and Europe to support the reforms. Priority should be placed on the areas most relevant for fostering an open society: promoting political competition, encouraging open debate, fostering independent public engagement and enabling genuine participation.
This article attempts to measure and quantify the dramatic ideological, economic and value system changes in post-Soviet Uzbekistan, using data from the Asia Barometer survey. It offers a snapshot of the situation in Uzbekistan by describing the basic changes in people's everyday lives, the way they think and act, what they aspire to and how they relate with each other. Two traceable trends in respondents' answers are a certain distrust of each other and a desire to protect themselves through close kinship or residential ties. This results in a situation where people build ‘barriers’ along family or community lines while preserving close relations within these units. Maintaining a balance between traditionalism, conservatism and modernization, and establishing societal trust not only within limited social networks but also between them are of crucial importance for Uzbekistan as it strives to rebuild its economy and society.
This article analyzes state building process of Uzbekistan in five distinct aspects; nation state building, secular state building, democratic state building, state with market economy and independent state building. One by one, the article focuses on each type of building process in detail and analyzes internal developments of these building processes in the post-independence period of Uzbekistan. While analyzing the state building, the effects of internal and external developments on Uzbek state, international relations and constructing alliance with big powers, secularism, national identity, construction of history, regime type and oppositional movements, religiosity and Islam, and civil society which are significant and influential upon the state building of post-Soviet Uzbekistan Republic are analyzed in detail. In addition, regional policies, economic structures of the regional states and Uzbekistan, the influence of developments in the neighboring regions are reviewed in term...
It has been almost two years since the death of the long-serving leader of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, and since Shavkat Mirziyoyev took up power (September 2016). The change has had spectacular results, including signs of liberalisation of the previous, extremely authoritarian system of rule, and economic reform, for instance with regard to stimulating growth of small-scale business, and in fact activation of Uzbekistan on the international stage and normalisation of relations with neighbours. Meanwhile, certainly the most important process under way in Uzbekistan is that of consolidation of power by the new president, and a key element of this is dismantling the might enjoyed to date by the National Security Service. The curbing of the position of the National Security Service, which has been successful so far, entails internal restructuring of the state apparatus. The limited liberalisation and opening up to the world are mainly a result of this process. Mirziyoyev has created a new dynamic both internally and in the region. The effects will only become clear in the long term. The outcome of this new situation is uncertain; consolidation of the new president's power and the ensuing reforms are accompanied by constantly recurring crises which were frozen during Karimov's rule. There are also external threats – a possibility of return to custodianship of Russia, a country which is fortifying its position, China's increasing economic dominance, and growing strength of radicals among the Uzbek minority in northern Afghanistan. The emerging processes are therefore proceeding fast, and thus it is hard to determine whether the new Uzbekistan under President Mirziyoyev will prove to be a stable country in which the liberal reforms will continue.