De-authoritarization in Uzbekistan?: Analysis and Prospects

Robert M. Cutler

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1. Elite theory and political change in Central Asia

1.1. Post-communist transitions and elite transformations

Prior to the implosion of the Soviet Union that left its Central Asian republics as newly independent states in world politics, Western political and social science had sketched three different approaches to the study of “transitions”. This first arose from the attempt to explain the various transitions from authoritarian rule in Latin America. It sought to delineate “structural preconditions” for collapse or reform and concentrated principally on elaborating “structural models” of regime transition.[4] It drew directly on modern classics that focused on material limits and the timing of economic development, on how these affect political outcomes and on how institutional arrangements limit possibilities for collective action while promoting change in the absence of widespread social confrontation.[5] A second school in the transitions literature extended its focus to southern Europe and stressed an agent-centred account of the “transition process” over the definition of structural preconditions and models.[6] This literature highlighted the importance of “pacts” and the dynamics of the electoral process itself. It affirmed that institutions solved problems of collective action and resolved failures of co-ordination and co-operation. This approach based itself upon an explicitly economics-inspired epistemology, referring to how institutions reduce transaction costs and ensure Pareto-superior outcomes. However, inefficient institutions can exist and they can retard political stability.[7]

A third school, broadly identified as “historical institutionalism”, challenged the basis of the second from the standpoint of historical sociology.[8] It maintained that political actors do not choose institutions and that institutions limit political action. This approach highlighted the path-dependency of choices that condition political and economic change. Rather than seeing institutions as “chosen structures” facilitating particular outcomes, this school focused on institutions in a wider and more sociological sense. In its perspective, institutions operated so as to “structure choices”, thus limiting political action. This school stressed the path-dependent nature of political and economic choices.[9] The third school swung the pendulum back towards structural approaches but no longer ignored agents. Concentrating on the evolution of both agents and structures, it spawned three main currents. First there were, broadly speaking, rational-choice models of transition.[10] Second,

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a more hybrid school emphasized the institutional and social determinants of transitions.[11] Third, and particularly amongst sociologists, the whole notion of “transition” was called into question. Adherents to this current argued that whereas a “transition” implied movement from an antecedent state of affairs “A” to a projected or anticipated state of affairs “B”, the notion of “transformation” was more fertile because it expanded the theoretical domain and increased the explanatory power of a theory of change of political and economic systems.[12]

As studies of the changes in East Central Europe multiplied during the 1990s, the entire third school fell mostly by the wayside.[13] The desire to understand quickly how new constitutions were made and how compromises were achieved amongst elite actors contributed to an unexpected revival of elite theory and elite studies that later spread also to the study of Central Asia.[14] So the second-mentioned approach gained ascendance over the third. It adapted insights from the first although only after adulterating the latter’s emphasis upon economic history by superposing ahistorical frameworks derived notably from game theory. Insights into elite theory arising from the study of the East Central European transitions (or transformations) open a perspective through which Central Asia may be examined with a view towards evaluating prospects for de-authoritarization.[15] Empirical work on East Central Europe led to new findings that resolved some issues in elite theory itself, for example the question whether one should expect elites to circulate in post-communist transitions or instead to reproduce themselves.[16]

The classics of modern elite theory were divided on such an issue. Pareto[17] did not distinguish between the circulation of individuals and that of social classes. Neither did he explain changes in the sociological composition of elites. Elites in the United Kingdom, France and Germany exhibit three constant tendencies during this period: decline of the aristocracy followed by the rise of the middle class and later the entry of the industrial working class. However, processes of elite transformation varied idiosyncratically. In Great Britain the political decline of the aristocratic elite accelerated after the second electoral reform,[18] much as in Germany after Bismarck compelled the adoption of universal male suffrage.[19] In France, on the other hand, the aristocracy’s decline in electoral politics was

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due not to the extension of suffrage, but to the creation of bourgeois political parties.[20] Neither Mosca[21] nor Schumpeter[22] successfully explained the growth of mass political parties the members from non-aristocratic social strata used in order to propel themselves into and amongst the elite in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cent u ries.

Neither Mosca nor Schumpeter, nor Marx[23] nor Pareto could explain the persistence of elites drawn from the then-emergent political parties; and none of them could explain the appearance of these parties themselves. Michels[24] and Ostrogorski[25] did a bit better, but no one could adequately explain party systems. Schumpeter explained why the social position of a class depended on its function and its execution of this function.[26] Marx and Mosca provide specific examples of this general theory: Marx pointed to possession of the means of production as the social function defining the ruling class; Mosca allowed for influence of intellectual, political and religious elites, but is not as rigorous as Marx. The major finding concerning the East Central European pattern was that there was elite circulation in politics, but elite reproduction in the economy.[27] In other words, Pareto was right about politics, but Mosca was right about economics.[28]

To take the cue from elite theory: Mosca would perhaps conclude that professional politicians came to dominate European political elites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because the political world became professionalized. This conclusion is less tautological if we suggest, relying on Schumpeter, that modern society requires specialization. Then the rise of non-aristocratic political elites (or non-partocratic[29] elites by analogy to the post-communist context) results not simply from the growth of the political parties manifesting the strength of non-aristocratic (in the present day, non-partocratic) segments of the various electorates. Rather, it represents a response to the general tendency in society towards differentiation and professionalization.[30] This response is key to understanding the potential for civil society to emerge. Recognizing that, the following brief discussion of contrasting “elitist” and “pluralist” ideal-types of political sociologies of the ruling class and its renewal culminates in establishing an empirical criterion applicable to Central Asia yet derived from classical Western elite theory, that is a starting-point for evaluating de-authoritarization.

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1.2. De-authoritarization: between “power elite” and “polyarchy”

Two theories of political rule, both modern classics, represent ideal-typical descriptions upon which a third model may be based. This third model better accommodates the empirical world and its potentials. It presents clear and realistic criteria by which progress towards de-authoritarization, as distinct from democratization, may be assessed. Those two theories of political rule are Robert Dahl’s theory of polyarchy[31] and C. Wright Mills’s theory of the power elite.[32] Each of them has an analogue in economic science; through their contrast, the third model emerges. This contrast and emergence are set out in Table 1.

According to Mills, the power elite constitutes a cohesive body representing the interests of an institutional oligarchy within society. The economic analogue is oligopolistic competition: the policies of firms on price-formation are interdependent, a limited number of very powerful firms dominate the market and the barriers against new firms entering the market are high. In a political institutional oligarchy the policy issue-areas are analogously interdependent, a handful of very powerful institutional elites analogously dominate policy and the barriers to entry by sub-elites or counter-elites are analogously high. According to Dahl, on the other hand, polyarchy tends to maximize the degree of pluralism as well as participation. The economic analogy is perfect competition: like the policies of the firms on price-formation, issue-areas are mutually independent; many groups (firms) participate in polit i cal decisions (price-formation); and the barriers against the entry by new players into political decision making (the market) are not very high.

Adherents to the pluralist theory criticized the elitist theory by showing through empirical studies that the ruling elite, however identified by whatever methodology, are not so interrelated, whether by positional or attitudinal measures, as the elitist theoreticians

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would suggest.[33] However, even if professional ties amongst elite members create loyalties to institutions that compete with one another, it does not automatically follow that the different elements within the elite, taken together, do not represent a coherent “power elite” in spite of their disagreements over specific policy options. But if the existence of this kind of pluralism within the elite is admitted, then maintaining the elitist hypothesis requires the demonstration that the breadth of policies defended within the elite serves only the interests of the institutional oligarchy. It is further necessary then to argue that these institutions are served by both political decisions and political non-decisions, i.e., the explicit or tacit decisions to exclude one or another question from the political agenda.[34] Individuals favouring the inclusion of one or another question on the political agenda may be members either of the mass or of the elite; but if conflicts over non-decisions (agenda exclusions) occur only amongst the elite themselves, then the elitist hypothesis becomes invalid. Proponents of the elitist hypothesis are therefore obliged to reason that the questions excluded from the political agenda emerge from the mass population only to find themselves excluded by a unanimous if not monolithic elite.

Even if a pluralizing ruling elite remains undivided in such an instance, nevertheless some elements of this elite will see how that question resonates in popular opinion. They may then seek to mobilize at least part of the public so as to gain influence in intra-elite political conflicts. Therefore, proponents of the elitist hypothesis must address questions about elite-mass relations. In particular, they must show that that mobilization of the public on some policy issue, by one faction within the institutional oligarchy against another faction, does not threaten the hegemony of the institutional oligarchy itself. The “embourgeoisement hypothesis”[35] sought to address this question by maintaining that those who do not form part of the elite subscribe nevertheless to its value-system. Dahl countered that such an argument is a tautology of the hypothesis of a non-monolithic elite. He could make that assertion because the “embourgeoisement hypothesis” concerning socialization into the elite’s value-system is insufficiently precise. Let us sharpen it.

The embourgeoisement hypothesis requires that those members of the mass population, if their attitudes in fact threaten the institutional oligarchy, cease to be motivated by those attitudes. This effect may result either from those members of the mass population becoming conservative partisans of the institutional oligarchy or from their becoming its liberal reformers. If some of them make the latter choice, advocating the incremental evolution of policy, then as soon as the channels of political communication are opened to them for this purpose, they will have become members of the ruling elite according to empirical measures. The ruling elite will thereby be modified and widened, since mobilized non-members of the elite will be voicing alternative policies theretofore excluded. What ever the underlying mechanism of social change, such a mechanism of elite recruitment and such an expanded and pluralizing elite characterize neither a power elite nor a polyarchy. Table 1 distinguishes it from the paradigms of Mills and Dahl.

This intermediate model, neither Dahl nor Mills, is analogous to monopolistic competition in economics: (1) policy issue-areas are neither entirely mutually independent nor totally interdependent but rather, like price-formation under monopolistic competition, generally mutually independent except for certain restricted agreements; (2) the number of firms in the market–participants in political decision-making–is neither very large nor very

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small; and, crucially, (3) the barriers to entry against new elites or non-elites into decision-making are neither high as under oligopolistic competition in economics, nor low as under perfect competition, but instead not lower in the long run even though higher in the short run. The model analogous to monopolistic competition succinctly describes the direction of evolution of the Soviet system under Khrushchev (1953–1964), as subsequently institutionalized under Brezhnev before its decline in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[36] That model provides an adequate empirical criterion for judging whether and to what degree an authoritarian regime such as Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan undergoes de-authoritarian change, i.e., de-authoritarization. It is convenient to avoid the term “democratization” and speak rather of de-authoritarization for reasons both of realism and of definitional parsimony. As the Khrushchev example illustrates, de-authoritarization is certainly possible without democratization, but it was not yet stagnation and decline. To repeat, the point of departure for evaluating de-authoritarization is the capacity of the system to renew its elite in the long run through recruitment from outside the existing elite. In theory, de-authoritarization does not require free and fair elections to accomplish this. Elections are one means for this, but not the only one.[37] Elections have the shortcoming of providing rather little information about specific policy preferences. However, they are the only way for the mass public to choose amongst leaders having different ideas about the political agenda, which is in turn one criterion for democratization.

2. Limited de-authoritarization: example of a political cycle

The emergence of civil society manifests the same phenomenon of differentiation[38] that leads to the professionalization of politics unexplained by the classics of modern elite theory. Differentiation manifests in civil society insofar as civil actors exist wit h out State assistance, act without official authorization (or despite formal prohibition), find it possible to oppose governmental policies and/or the official authorities and thus function autonomously of the State. The recurrence of such autonomous activity over time establishes a civil society differentiated from the State. Civil society achieves such a relative autonomy from the State, not when any particular level of economic development is attained, but rather when the system as a whole reaches a certain degree of structural stability. Such stability manifests in agreed political values, consensual political models, the circulation and renewal of elites, organizational guarantees from the State to civil society and the possibility for members of political elites to be returned to functions within civil society.[39]

How are these elements of stability established? Two concepts in addition to that of civil society problematize the issue: the public sphere[40] and organized officialdom.[41] The public sphere is traditionally considered democratic if it is the forum where opposition amongst political actors (whether civil or official) plays itself out. However, the existence of a public sphere does not have democracy as a prerequisite. Any democratic quality emerges, rather, from repeated public exchanges amongst opposing points of view and by

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the absence of censorship of these. Society is today called “civil society” insofar as citizens appear able to dispute organized officialdom in the public sphere.[42]

By this traditional definition, a democratic public sphere has systemic prerequisites that inhere in the institutionalized rules governing relations between civil actors and organized officialdom, including their exchanges of views. One such systemic prerequisite is the ability of civil society to replace its representatives in organized officialdom when this is desired. That in turn has the prerequisite that any citizen is able to participate in public debates and election campaigns. These two prerequisites cannot in practice be present in the absence of a third prerequisite, viz., the existence of a legal and legitimate active opposition that espouses political ideas differing from those of the leaders in power and defending a different electoral program.

Traditional theorists limited themselves to normative and prescriptive models of democracy emphasizing formal constitutional desiderata such as free elections, the separation of powers and popular sovereignty as bases for legitimacy.[43] Models of democratization available today do not offer major explanations of the fall of dictatorships and reopening of public political spaces. That is because the “political transition” approaches did not fundamentally modify a taxonomic tendency towards a developmentalist dichotomy, typified by the distinction between totalitarianism and democracy,[44] which is, however, fallacious.[45] Once the distinction is made, it becomes irresistible to unify the “opposites” with a continuum. Moreover, the emphasis on formal attributes of democracy today holds the danger of slighting their practical content. The terms “authoritarization” and “de-authoritarization” draw attention to content more than to form. Therefore I discuss here de-authoritarization rather than democratization. De-authoritarization has none of the above-mentioned prerequisites for a democratic public sphere, but it can lead to their development.[46]

The evolution of the Soviet system under Khrushchev illustrates the fecundity of the concept of de-authoritarization in conditions where it is difficult meaningfully to apply the concept of democratization. Indeed, the Khrushchev experience is nearly an archetype for how a process of de-authoritarization may begin and then end by running up against and being finally defeated by its own consequences for the ruling elite seeking both self-preservation and preservation of the political system. Still, the Khrushchev era illustrates how even a totalitarian regime can undergo limited de-authoritarization even if its essential form does not change. It may do this according to a succession of phases wherein (1) mobilization from the bottom up is followed by (2) an attempt to enforce co n formance from the top down, after which (3) this tension is resolved by an overall systemic–and not necessarily “democratic”–consolidation.[47] The significance of these three terms–mobilization, conformance and consolidation–is captured by the three counterpart concepts of the public sphere, civil society and organized officialdom.

Consider the political system as a place where civil and State actors interact and recombine through complex alliances.[48] The first phase of a trend of potential de-

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authoritarization is then mobilization of civil society. Civil society is a more or less integrated collection of functionally differentiated institutional and individual civil actors who are autonomous of one another and of the State, and who are able to contest State policy. In its developed democratic form, civil society becomes like a fourth counterweight to the three branches of government existing under the “separation of powers” doctrine, but with the additional capacity of contesting the very rules of governance. The mobilization of civil society is then succeeded by a second phase that is characterized by a top-down response of the political authorities. This results in a restructuring or transformation of the public sphere. The public sphere is not a physical place; rather, it is constituted from out of what is politically “visible” (or becoming visible) on such “platforms” as the media, parliament and the courts. This is possible when what occurs on any of these platforms is ineluctably interrelated with what occurs on others. The manifestation of a public sphere enables public debate both over specific policy issues as well as over general political myths and values.

Finally, in a third phase, organized officialdom may be consolidated at the middle levels of the institutions of governance. This is the phase that holds the possibility for the evolutionary transformation of the political regime as a whole. However, organized officialdom is not synonymous with the “political system”; rather, it is a category of the latter, comprising those people elected or appointed to administer the government.[49] As such, it includes not just State and state-corporatist institutions concerned with resource allocation, legislation and the monopoly of coercive force, but also societal-corporatist institutions having a pragmatic role and participating in negotiation of consensus on constru c tion of the public sphere.[50]

The Khrushchev era, schematized in Table 2, illustrates this succession of phases of regime transformation.[51] Under Khrushchev the first phase of de-authoritarization was marked by the subordination of the KGB to the Communist Party and the “thaw” in liter a ture and artistic expression. In an a lytical terms, the spontaneous articulation of interests from the bottom up (from the community sector towards the regime and the elite) became possible with the diminution of coercion exercised dow n wards immediately after Stalin’s death. From 1956 to 1960, following Khrushchev’s “de-Stalinization” speech at the Communist Party’s Twentieth Congress, the authorities attempted to begin to rein in this mobilization of the public sphere through the imposition of new aspects of political co n formance from the top down. These included propaganda campaigns for the “New Soviet Man”, against religious belief and for “New Socialist Legality” reforms, as well as Russification policies especially in the sphere of education.

Under such conditions of increased coercion, institutions that the political elite had earlier made responsible for managing flows of coercion downwards became protective “homes” for the expression, upwards, of certain opinions from the public sphere. Institutions that the political elite had earlier made responsible for managing these flows of coercion downwards became receptacles for the expression of opinion from civil society. Those institutions propelled that opinion upwards towards the apex of the political system. As institutions of governance, they necessarily enjoyed a certain legitimacy in the eyes of the elite; however, the need to conserve access to elite-level political resources as well as other privileges made the dissent less radical. Political articulations that found an institutional “home” tended to lose whatever broadly-shared and general quality they may have had and ceased to challenge the system as a whole, limiting themselves instead to

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what could be justified by the political role of their institutional patron. (For example, the Lawyers’ Union continued to promote “socialist legality” but to them this did not mean the right to engage in unauthorized demonstrations or advocate political democracy.)[52]

The third phase of this political cycle, from 1960 to 1964, saw the reformation of the institutions of governance, namely, the consolidation of organized officialdom. Under circumstances of a new political coercion from the top down (1956–1960/61), the dissident issue-areas tended to consolidate themselves within those institutions. The elite, however, retained control over the dissident activity housed within these institutions, which in turn reflected the particular “functional” interests of the members of the given institution or at least its leadership. This process squeezed out those tendencies of dissident political articulation based on shared interests transcending those institutions (1959/60–1964). During this period, Khrushchev also instituted a number of administrative reorganizations of various elite-level and regime-level bodies, partly in the eventually unsuccessful attempt to keep off-guard and to circumvent institutional and individual opposition to his de-authoritarization policies.[54]

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3. Political change in Uzbekistan: the 1983–1989 cycle

It was not under Gorbachev but rather under Andropov that real changes began to take place in politics in Uzbekistan. So it is necessary to go back to 1983, the year after Brezhnev’s death, in order to achieve a perspective adequate for understanding the present political trajectory of Uzbekistan. Since then, using the template of the three-phase political cycle exemplified above, it is possible to discern two political cycles in Uzbekistan. During the first, which lasted from 1983 to 1989, Uzbekistan did not experience a “standard” mobilization-conformance-consolidation cycle as typified in the Soviet experience under Khrushchev. The first phase, rather than being one of mobilizing the public sphere, consisted in the attempt from Moscow to intensify the consolidation of organized officialdom in Uzbekistan. The second phase was characterized by the enforcement of conformity in the public sphere, in contrast to the Khrushchevian analytical template, there was no mobilized civil society seeking to push the envelope of the public sphere. In fact, that mobilization began at the end of the second phase and, exploding in breadth and depth, carried over into the third, until the Soviet regime was ready to be swept away in Uzbekistan. Table 3 sets out this dynamic in a schematic fashion.

3.1. Re-consolidating officialdom without public-sphere opposition, 1983–86

The first phase of the 1983–89 cycle lasted until 1986. However, it was not a phase of mobilization of the civil society as were the years 1953–56 under Khrushchev. Rather, Moscow attempted to tighten cadres policy throughout Central Asia and especially in Uzbekistan. Table 3 labels this phenomenon as increased direct coercion from the “supra-elite” (i.e., the all-Union elite in Moscow sitting above the Uzbekistani elite in Tashkent). Analytically, it is identical with the last Khrushchev phase in that the Moscow elite sought to restructure the institutions of governance (in the present case, in Uzbekistan) in order to consolidate organized officialdom vis-à-vis emergent civil society. The difference was that

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there was no civil society emerging at the time to challenge the authorities. Ironically, the central policies would, however, provoke such mobilization as a response.

Corruption was present throughout Central Asia, but the central authorities in Moscow seized upon the 1983 death of Sharaf Rashidov, who had ruled Uzbekistan since 1959, to ratchet up administrative purges in the republic on the pretext of the “cotton affair” campaign. This campaign emphasized that ethnic networks were the backbone of the “second economy” in Uzbekistan, although this was true elsewhere in Central Asia as well; and it threw strong allegations of corruption into the local relationship between ethnic and economic issues.[55] Rashidov was replaced by I.B. Usmankhojaev, who was present in June 1984 when Egor Ligachev, by then a member of the Politburo in Moscow and responsible for cadres policy at the all-Soviet level, attended a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz) to implement the new central policy of the “interrepublican transfer of cadres”. This was a codephrase for moving bureaucrats from one part of the USSR to another in order to shake up the local administration.[56] During this time, Uzbekistan came under increasing criticism in all-Union press organs, and the term “Uzbek affair” became synonymous with “cotton affair”, which was a shorthand for corruption requiring purge.[57]

Table 3 schematizes these developments using the framework set out above. From 1983 to 1986, Moscow began its move against the local bureaucracy by trying to turn the mass public in Uzbekistan against its own elite. In the end, this tactic only resulted in enhancing the status of the latter in the eyes of the former.[58] Moscow’s attempt to purge the bureaucracy in Uzbekistan led to community-sector protests in favour of “artistic freedoms” as a political claim rising from the bottom up. This claim refers to an upsurge, especially amongst the native intelligentsia writing in local newspapers, in arguments for native culture and especially the use of Uzbek-origin words against Russian-origin words even in Russian syntax. Although this phenomenon had been present under Brezhnev, its visibility increased in the immediate post-Brezhnev period. Beginning in 1985, both the Uzbek-language and the Russian-language press in Uzbekistan began to show subtle anti-Islamic signs.[59] Moscow’s policy of glasnost′ and greater toleration towards the Russian Orthodoxy was not matched in Tashkent by analogous attitudes towards Islam. This fact would have repercussions in subsequent phases of Uzbekistan’s political evolution.[60] Arguments in favour of “developmental rationality” also made an appearance, so as to refute the corruption charge. These arguments claimed that budgetary allocations on an all-Union level had been correctly made and implemented.

3.2. Hyper-conforming the public sphere with a demobilized civil society, 1986–88

During the 1986–88 phase of the cycle, claims for artistic freedoms and developmental rationality refocused against the political centre in Moscow and were transformed into

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increasingly loud calls for nationality rights of Uzbeks against Russians in Uzbekistan. Here they reversed the pattern under Khrushchev: constituency-specific dissent grew into shared-interest dissent. This occurred for two reasons: first, the centrally inspired purges against the personnel governing Uzbekistan’s institutions gave to those who resisted, a common cause with the public at large, against Moscow; and second, the new personnel whom Moscow succeeded in inserting into those institutions were isolated in the context of local networks and therefore lacked both the practical authority and the administrative means to stifle the spill-over of constituency-specific dissent into shared-interest dissent.[61] Later, by extension, calls for nationality rights of Uzbeks against Russians in Uzbekistan would turn into calls for the sovereignty of Uzbekistan against the Soviet Union.

New propaganda campaigns in January 1986 against Rashidov, the recently deceased leader of the republic, marked a further acceleration of Moscow’s attempts to purge the administrative apparatus in the republic. Gorbachev overtly supported the new campaign at the Communist Party’s Twenty-seventh Congress in February 1986.[62] As a result, Uzbekistan’s resistance to central authority began progressively to harden on all levels of polity and society. In the beginning, this resistance was quiet; later, it would grow into more open defiance. Nevertheless, purges in the administrative bureaucracy in Uzbekistan continued to rise from crescendo to higher crescendo throughout this phase.[63]

The anti-Islamic campaigns and propaganda continued through 1987–88, seconded by Usmankhojaev himself. In the increasingly open all-Union atmosphere of glasnost′ and favour towards Russian Orthodoxy, some members of the Uzbek intelligentsia even began to hint that Islam should receive the same tolerance. At this stage of development, public demonstrations are in favour of the autonomy of the republic’s state-controlled Muslim spiritual directorate.[64] This constituency-specific (regime-supporting) issue would later grow into a shared-interest (regime-rejecting) issue, insisting on the directorate’s outright abolition.

3.3. Civil society expands the public sphere and mobilizes against officialdom, 1988–89

The third phase of this cycle is defined by the outbreak of generalized political mobilization amongst the mass public in Uzbekistan. In January 1988 Moscow replaced Usmankhojaev with Rafik Nishanov as head of the Uzbek party. The purges against the administrative apparatus in Uzbekistan continued and accelerated. In November 1998, a group of Uzbek intellectuals formed the first significant opposition movement, Birlik (“Unity”) against the CPUz. Separately, in February 1989, Uzbek resistance to Moscow became more defiant following the publication of a sensational interview with MVD General Didorenko. Reassigned to Ukraine later that year, Didorenko offered a candid analysis of the power structure of the republic. He enumerated different groups, notably including officials sent to Uzbekistan who encounter local resistance and cannot penetrate the existing interpersonal networks of power, Europeans born or long-time resident in Uzbekistan who have been co-opted by those networks and share their values, the “loyal” indigenous population, the national “extremist” fringe, “corrupt” officials and gangsters. It is possible that this interview was a Moscow-motivated ploy to shake things up, which backfired.[65] At any rate, outrage unified all levels of the polity and society in Uzbekistan against Moscow.

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In June 1989, Islam Karimov, an outsider to the traditional large clans, succeeded Nishanov as first secretary of the CPUz. Karimov has formed his own patron-client network since then, promoting people who have been personally supportive of him, particularly creative intellectuals whom he has appointed to responsible positions in government.[66] Legislation passed in Tashkent in October 1989 to make Uzbek rather than Russian the official language, represented a culmination of the original (1983–86) artistic-freedoms protest over linguistics and vocabulary, subsequently transformed into claims in favour of nationality rights (1986–88). The subsequent revelation of the so-called “recruit scandal”, which made public the abominable treatment of Uzbek inductees into the Soviet army, did nothing to dampen local indignation against the Didorenko interview and other blunders by Moscow. The population flooded the ranks of Birlik.[67] The year 1989 also saw a mass demonstration, in which official as well as unofficial mullahs participated, seeking to depose the mufti who headed the state-controlled Spiritual Directorate. Police were obliged to disperse the demonstrators, stoking further public discontent.[68]

The outstanding claim for nationality rights was thus ramified by the claim for religious autonomy, which moved from being a constituency-specific matter for a bureaucratic institution to a shared-interest demand taken up by the greater public. The recruit scandal, including deaths of Uzbek youths from hazing in the Soviet army, increased calls from the community for observance of socialist legality and human rights. Birlik succeeded in electing a few representatives to Uzbekistan’s Supreme Soviet who echoed the human-rights cry, and some of its members began to demand political democracy in Uzbekistan itself.[69] In this way, all the “dissident” issue areas began to catalyze one another through a dynamic resulting in a greater impact than any of the issues would have had by itself.

4. Political change in Uzbekistan: the cycle from 1989 to the present

As the end of the Soviet Union approached (1989–91), the mobilization of civil society did not decrease; on the contrary, it grew, and continued to grow after independence (1992–93). However, this was not what Uzbekistan’s new sovereigns—now in Tashkent rather than Moscow—sought. Before independence, a period of intra-elite conflict made it impossible for the new leadership to begin to address these new political claims in any important or substantive way. Soon after Karimov consummated his ascendance, an increasingly brutal crackdown was implemented (see 4.2 below). This may be analytically designated as top-down enforcement of conformance to rein in the public sphere so as to put certain questions out of bounds. But this was neither a gradual nor a measured crackdown. It became a thorough political repression, so much so that it spilled over into the subsequent and extended phase of consolidation of organized officialdom, overriding any popular or community expression of political claim through the application of physical coercion of physical persons. Thus the subordination of organized officialdom to Karimov becomes founded upon the achieved subordination of civil society to organized officialdom. The

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brief de-authoritarization of the late 1980s and early 1990s was not just reversed but moreover entirely uprooted. Table 4 schematically summarizes this dynamic.

4.1. Intensified mobilization of civil society, 1989–91

From the middle of 1989 through 1991 there begins a new three-phase cycle of political change in Uzbekistan. The first phase’s defining characteristics were the outbreak of violence in the Ferghana Valley and the struggle for power between Karimov and Shakarulla Mirsaidov. The riots in Ferghana Valley, which broke out in June 1989 and lasted sporadically for the better part of a year, surprised everyone. Apparently as a result, Moscow reversed course on its personnel policy. All cadres whom Ligachev had transferred into Uzbekistan during the long anticorruption campaign were now transferred back out. Nishanov was replaced as head of the Uzbek party with Islam Karimov, who repudiated the anticorruption campaign. Not only were new cadre policies instituted; moreover, the deceased party chief Rashidov, vilified during the long “cotton affair”, was rehabilitated and lionized.[70]

Once in power, Karimov accomplished his victory over Mirsaidov through a series of bureaucratic manoeuvres. In March 1990 Karimov, then CPUz first secretary, became president of Uzbekistan while Mirsaidov became prime minister. In November of the same year, the post of prime minister was abolished and the Council of Ministers became the president’s Cabinet; Mirsaidov was transferred to the post of vice-president. Mirsaidov significantly worsened his own position in August 1991, when he appeared to support the anti-Gorbachev putsch in Moscow. In January 1992 the post of vice-president was

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abolished, and that of prime minister restored. However, Mirsaidov was not given it; instead, he was named a state secretary; soon thereafter, he resigned.[71]

The Birlik movement split during this period, as the Erk Party broke off from it to concentrate on forming a parliamentary opposition.[72] Also during 1990, Uzbekistan’s press published a sensational interview with a former prosecutor in the “cotton affair” who gave details how cases were trumped up against officials, wrongful accusations made and dossiers mishandled.[73] This further inflamed public opinion against Moscow, reinforcing claims for socialist legality and human rights. Finally during 1990, Uzbekistan proclaimed sovereignty over its territory, although not yet independence of the Soviet Union.[74]

After the defeat of the August 1991 putsch in Moscow, upon which the republic immediately declared its independence, quasi-legal political opposition appeared in Uzbekistan, based however upon factional struggles within the ruling elite rather than on ideological differences.[75] Erk finally was able to register as an opposition party in September. In November, Birlik was granted registration as a social movement but denied registration as a political party. In December, Karimov was elected president of Uzbekistan, taking office in January 1992. The Erk candidate received 12%, while the Birlik candidate was not allowed to stand for election. Throughout 1991 and much of 1992, both Erk and Birlik sporadically published “opposition” newspapers; however, these were shut down in late 1992. The keynote event inaugurating Karimov’s presidency was the repression of student demonstrations in Tashkent in January 1992 with loss of life. This violence ignited an anti-Karimov movement that was, in turn rigorously repressed with an uncompromising police crackdown.[76]

4.2. Intensified enforcement of conformity in the public sphere, 1992–93

Whereas in 1991 there was mass mobilization in favour of nationality rights, socialist legality, human rights, political democracy and religious autonomy, by the end of 1993 the proponents of all these norms were under siege and on the defensive. Partly in order to reverse his disadvantage vis-à-vis the apparatus of the regime left over from Soviet times, Karimov created the office of khokim (regional governor) in January 1992 and superimposed this prefectural post upon the old oblast-level administration.[77] This was the first indication of his intent to create a strong political executive for independent Uzbekistan, marked that same year also by his creation of the Presidential Council, which effectively became the government, representing the core of the country’s political leadership. The intention to install a strong political executive came to fruition with a new constitution in December 1992. The new constitution also conferred official status upon about 10,000 mahallas. These traditional cultural neighbourhood-type associations, which have always existed only informally, were incorporated as administrative adjuncts

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to the state apparatus. Karimov intended to use them in order to mediate between the family and the state, facilitating the settlement of disputes and maintaining order and discipline.[78]

The middle of 1992 saw a serious crisis in Tajikistan: after an upheaval in May in Dushanbe, the country’s president was forced to resign in September. The ensuing civil war in Tajikistan provided a pretext for Karimov to close Uzbekistan’s borders with the country, reinforce the authoritarian spirit of his policies and also to crack down further upon the domestic opposition.[79] In the summer of 1992 Rashidov was further rehabilitated, and the recent Soviet past explicitly became a normative point of reference for the Karimov government. The limited economic reform that had begun to get underway in 1992 was reversed, and other lukewarm liberalizing initiatives were stopped in their tracks. In January 1993, a new law required all publications to register and obtain government approval to publish.[80] Domestic crackdowns intensified further in 1993. Also in 1993, political parties were required to re-register and the new registration was denied to the Islamic Renaissance Party and the similarly religiously inspired party Adolat (“Justice”), as well as to Birlik; Erk had refused to submit papers for re-registration.[81] This made little difference. In October 1993 both Birlik and Erk were permanently banned.[82]

4.3. Intensified consolidation through (and of) organized officialdom, 1994–present

The period from 1994 to the present represents a consolidation of organized officialdom. Dissidence and autonomous political articulation still extant at the end of 1993 have been eliminated. At the same time, Karimov has enhanced his grip on the administrative apparatus. A March 1995 referendum overwhelming approved extension of his term as president until 2000. Further tightening of political controls followed through the rest of the decade. A Democratic Opposition Co-ordinating Council with Mirsaidov at the head formed in October 1995 but dissolved less than two and a half years later.[83] In December 1996, a law was adopted giving political parties the right to organize but requiring them to register with the Ministry of Justice, thus allowing legal status to be denied to critics.[84] In May 1998, a law was adopted that limited the activities of religious organizations.

On 16 February 1999 came the infamous bomb attacks in Tashkent widely believed to have been engineered by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Three months later, laws were introduced to increase punishment for those convicted of affiliation to

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“religious, extremist, separatist and fundamentalist organizations”. The mid-February 1999 bomb attacks in Tashkent accelerated the country’s slide towards deeper authoritarianism. After Karimov was re-elected president in January 2001, with 92% of the vote, libraries in Samarkand and Bukhara were purged of Tajik-language books, and citizens of Tajikistan who had taken refuge in Uzbekistan from the civil war were evicted. Also that year, two IMU leaders were sentenced to death in absentia. Press censorship was formally abolished, but self-censorship by journalists and publishers continued to permeate the entire media system.[85] A February 2002 refe r endum approved the extension of Karimov’s term in office from five to seven years. “Multiparty” parliamentary elections are scheduled for December 2004, but the parties being allowed to put forward candidates are not presenting electoral platforms that criticize the authorities in any manner.[86] Parliament has not become a locus of independent political activity.[87]

Limits on the length of this chapter have necessitated omission of discussion of the economic situation in Uzbekistan.[88] For present purposes, it suffices to note that in 1996 the government suspended the convertibility of the national currency, a move only recently reversed.[89] The banking system remains mainly unreformed and price controls have been maintained through the whole period discussed, as has been state intervention in microeconomic decision making.[90]

5. Conclusion

5.1. Analytical summary of political development in Uzbekistan since 1983

Uzbekistan has undergone two cycles of political development (or maldevelopment) since Brezhnev’s death in late 1982. The first one was not a “regular” mobilization–conformance–consolidation cycle as typified by the Khrushchev era in the Soviet Union. The end of the Soviet period for Uzbekistan began on the Union-republic level with the consolidation of organized officialdom top-down from Moscow (1983–86) rather than with mobilization of civil society bottom-up. This policy created resistance at the grass roots that broke out into open nationality claims (1986–88) after Moscow’s pursuit of the administrative purge began as well to threaten the community-sector public sphere, which had important informal as well as formal components.[91] When top-down coercion was finally restrained (1988–89), it was too late. The resistance to Moscow now permeated all

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levels of the Uzbek polity and it now manifested in the mobilization of civil society, which demanded not only nationality rights but also human rights, religious autonomy and very soon political democracy. The last of these demands directly informed claims for sovereignty and political independence that were soon satisfied on the ground.

So the first cycle itself began not with mobilization but with consolidation, even though it was not preceded by a phase of enforced conformance as in the Khrushchevian prototype. Then that consolidation phase was followed by one of conformance even though this in turn was not preceded by one of mobilization as under Khrushchev. Consequently, just after Gorbachev’s arrival on the scene, the situation in Uzbekistan represented an attempt to install an artificial public sphere upon the community, in turn upon the back of an ongoing attempt to consolidate Uzbekistan’s organized officialdom along Moscow’s preferred lines via the “cotton affair” purges. When civil society finally mobilized not long thereafter, in the late 1980s, public sentiment exploded into mass dissent and unrest. Because of the purges, the mid-level regime-sector institutions of governance were unable to administer any effective brakes on the movement. The republic’s elite rode that mass discontent to sovereignty and independence, in which direction they were anyway headed.

After the disappearance of breathing space for civil society provided by intra-elite conflict between Karimov and Mirsaidov, the mass mobilization that had occurred from 1989 to 1991 was quickly extinguished. The late Soviet-era purges had nearly eviscerated the regime sector of governance, and Karimov himself had no political machine. Consequently, under conditions of independence, he found the state apparatus to be mainly unmanageable. The unavailability of administrative means for governance of civil society made the recourse to coercion by intensive and extensive physical force a very appealing alternative. Karimov did not resist. A period of enforced conformance of the public sphere followed the earlier mobilization of civil society, now along the lines of the Khrushchev-era template, but with much greater intensity. However, when that civil-society mobilization continued after independence, it became very threatening to the republic’s newly independent elite. As a result, in 1992–93 there was a massive crackdown that we could call a phase of conformance in the public sphere, except for the fact that the inefficiency of bureaucratic-administrative controls led very quickly to the reliance upon physical coercion as the principal means for restraining civil society’s political claims. The period since 1994 has been an extended phase of the consolidation of organized officialdom, of the elite’s dominance of the community through it and of Karimov’s dominance of the elite.[92]

5.2. Prospects for De-authoritarization

Table 1 offered, as one criterion of de-authoritarization, the degree to which new members may be co-opted into the authoritarian elite in the long run. As suggested above, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The comparative study of de-authoritarization permits additional facilitating circumstances to be enumerated according to a three-stage process. First, the domestic anti-authoritarian mobilization, however modest it may be at the start, requires support from at least some segments of the international community and international public opinion. This international support is necessary in order to overcome the danger of regression into the “spiral of silence”,[93] denoting the hypothesis that political quiescence arises out of the psychological fear of rejection, which leads to the avoidance of

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unorthodox views, which at the same time the media in turn exclude more and more from circulation. If, on the other hand, support from the international community and international public opinion are forthcoming, then it is nece s sary, second, for political gatekeepers in the authoritarian state to enter into dialogue with representatives of nascent civil society inside the country insofar as these are present. On that basis, third and finally, differentiation becomes possible between bottom-up social and political behaviour on the one hand and, on the other hand, such behaviour as is normatively mandated from the top down. That differentiation marks the birth of civil society. (The degree to which such civil society exists in Uzbekistan or elsewhere in Central Asia is a matter for empirical study.)

An authoritarian leadership has ways to short-circuit such a development. In particular, it may offer the weaker amongst its possible civil-society interlocutors inside the country, the privilege of sharing a little power, in exchange for their co-operation in repressing the stronger civil-society interlocutors, whom it invites the weaker to identify as a common adversary. Such a dynamic in fact characterizes much of the history of the North African countries, and the Maghreb in particular. It has been called the strategy of “dangerous alliances”:[94] it is “dangerous” for the politically weaker elements of nascent civil society to make such an “alliance” with authoritarian power, because they thereby provide the latter a credibility it would not otherwise enjoy. Such credibility in turn greatly facilitates an authoritarian program of transforming the state organization into a monolithic apparatus, eradicating any extant pluralist public sphere including independent media, destroying any restraining checks and balances and monopolizing discourse in the public sphere. The stabilization and easier maintenance of such a system, which already characterizes Uzbekistan, is precisely the danger posed by the controlled parliamentary elections of December 2004.

It follows that a key catalyst for a progressive de-authoritarian dynamic to take hold, concerns the perceptions and predispositions of the leadership of the authoritarian regime regarding their political strategies and relations with the dissidents. Segments of the present-day Uzbekistani elite know that the current situation in the country is sub-optimal and that the present command-administrative system needs to be changed; however, they are at a loss to figure out how to dismantle the old system and replace it with something else.[95] The potential self-interest of middle-level officials creates an important motive in favour of satisfying popular demands. Nevertheless, after over a decade of administrative “reform” in Uzbekistan, the local officials in general lack the clan connections necessary for good performance.[96] To the degree that they enjoy such local clan connections, they are whipsawed between the local demands and their patron-client ties to Karimov.[97] Few if any non-state organizations participate in policy on the mass-public (i.e., “community sector”) level. It may be argued that the institution of the mahalla offers a potential to accustom citizens to local-level (if not fully democratic) political participation. However, the mahalla is an institution of traditional culture, and relations within it are regulated by normative hierarchical order and even a few elements of customary law. This makes it nevertheless a

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political institution even if it does not have direct administrative relations with the state as such.[98] New banking regulation restrictions on cash-flow accounting have caused many domestic NGOs dependent on external funding to fold up shop. Almost the only quasi-NGOs left are government-organized (hence the acronym “GONGO”). Recent research suggests that these do not operate on democratic bases and are not the best incubators of democratic culture.[99]

The happy ending typifying such countries as Hungary, Poland or Germany is not preordained. Parts of the former Soviet and Yugoslav territories illustrate the unhappy alternative, where rising nationalism promotes conflicts and even ethnic cleansing. (In North Africa,[100] other “logics” of cleansing—such as by religion, sex or political opinion—have characterized Algeria and Tunisia.)[101] For a tipping point to be decisive, two factors must come together in a manner that is hard to plan. These are the organization of anti-authoritarian dissent inside the country and the organization of a lobbying movement outside the country. On the basis of the Maghreb and East Central European experiences, it seems clear that the long-term activity of networks of dissidents on the ground both inside and outside the country is another necessary condition of de-authoritarization. (The failure of democratic reforms in Algeria after the fall of the single-party regime, for example, may be explained by the absence of pressure from an international support network: the latter did not exist.) The temporary construction of an “alternative” public sphere outside the country can represent an effective long-term solution to the problem of closure of the public sphere inside the country. The fact that the networking of international support is part and parcel of this process does not necessarily mean that a Georgian/Ukrainian scenario is the most likely future for Uzbekistan.[102]

Cross-border and transnational influences appear to account for the halt and even reversal of de-authoritarization by demobilizing civil society. One of the most important influences is the isolation of dissident exiles within the international public sphere and international public opinion. Such isolation allows the propaganda of the authoritarian state to neutralize every critical expression. When the authoritarian state’s propaganda floods the international public sphere, it can succeed in transforming domestic dissidents into threats to law and public order. Authoritarian leaders take advantage not only of the submission of domestic civil society to their coercion but also, on the international level, of docile partners. By relaying the authoritarian state’s propaganda into the domestic public spheres of such countries, the international community can end up providing the authoritarian elite with a significant margin of manoeuvre, through which the latter consolidates its legitimacy both domestically and internationally. Such a development renders subsequent de-authoritarization, let alone “democratic transition”, more problematic.

In respect of Uzbekistan, one political myth may be of use if a means can be found to propagate and implement it: the Jadidist tradition, a reformist branch of Islam that

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existed especially amongst the Bukharan intellectuals and found sympathy amongst the progressive social strata in Central Asia about a century ago.[103] A revival of this could provide an ideological basis for a liberal-participant type of citizenship. The problem is that the political and cultural regionalization of the country[104] leaves it unclear how far such a myth would travel even if it could be revivified.[105] Also, the growing popularity of Jadidism amongst intellectuals and academia is to a degree supported by the regime for its own legitimation through the favourable rewriting of Uzbek national history. In addition, independent Uzbekistan has not done well in creating the socio-economic strata that would be susceptible to subscribe to any particular Jadidist revival, state-sponsored or not.[106]

A nascent public sphere emerging from a network of civil organizations is capable of modifying relations between the elite and community sectors of the political system (i.e., leaders and led). An authoritarian leadership may in fact share some power under such circumstances so as to preserve a minimum of consensus around its governance, but it will do so only when the alternative of repression is perceived to carry an unacceptable political cost.[107] The spiral of silence ensuing from repression becomes reversible only by international protests and publicity. As the Soviet experience from 1953 to 1991 shows, even nuances such as strong diplomatic pressure not to eliminate the dissidents physically or imprison them, can have significant results in the long run. Yet in both the Maghreb and East Central Europe, public freedoms have been attained only under pressure from civil society. In the Arab world, democratic transitions decreed from the top down have in the past lasted little longer than the time it takes to pronounce the slogan “democratic transition”. Success over longer periods—beginning, for example, in the 1930s in the case of Morocco—comes only when civil liberties have been acquired slowly and consolidated through the process of differentiation, as described above. Morocco as well as communist Poland shows how political pluralism can survive and develop even without democratic reforms. Yet it can do so only if civil society succeeds in mobilizing an organizational infrastructure inside the country while also creating a support network abroad. The influence that such a development may have in Uzbekistan will depend in part upon the degree to which the state has been “patrimonialized” under Karimov versus the degree to which it retains from the Soviet period any inherited bureaucratic-authoritarian structures that might still assist in regulating political competition and a marketizing economy during some future de-authoritarizing period of Uzbekistan’s political system.

[ page 120 ]

[Notes]

[Note 1]. Jean Piaget, Le structuralisme (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1968).

[Note 2]. David Easton, The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science (New York: Knopf, 1953); Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965); Easton, The Analysis of Political Structure (New York: Routledge, 1990).

[Note 3]. Robert M. Cutler, “Soviet Dissent under Khrushchev: An Analytical Study”, Comparative Politics 13, no.1 (October 1980): 15–35.

[ page 121 ]

[Note 4]. Herbert Kitschelt, “The Formation of Party Systems in East Central Europe”, Politics and Society 20, no. 1 (March 1992): 7–50; Seymour M. Lipset, “The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited”, American Sociological Review 59, no. 1 (February 1994): 1–22.

[Note 5]. Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: A Book of Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962); Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (Cambridge: Harvard Unive r sity Press, 1968); Guillermo A. O’Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973).

[Note 6]. Guillermo A. O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (eds.), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 4 vols. (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).

[Note 7]. Robert H. Bates, Toward a Political Economy of Development: A Rational Choice Perspective (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califo r nia Press; 1988).

[Note 8]. Sven Steinmo et al. (eds.), Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

[Note 9]. David Stark, “Privatization in Hungary: from plan to market or from plan to clan?” East European Politics and Societies 4, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 351–92; Stark “Path Dependence and Privatization Strategies in East Central Europe”, East European Politics and Societies (Winter 1992): 17–51.

[Note 10]. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

[ page 122 ]

[Note 11]. Nancy Bermeo, “Rethinking Regime Change”, Comparative Politics 22, no. 3 (April 1990): 359–77; Terry Lynn Karl, “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America”, Comparative Politics 21, no. 1 (October 1990): 1–21.

[Note 12]. Claus Offe, “Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe”, Social Research 58, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 866–92; David Stark, “The Great Transformation? Social Change in Eastern Europe”, Contemporary Sociology 21, no. 3 (May 1992): 299–304; Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm”, Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (January 2002): 5–21.

[Note 13]. András Bozóki, “Theoretical Interpretations of Elite Change in East Central Europe”, Comparative Sociology 2, no. 1 (March 2003): 215–247.

[Note 14]. Pauline Jones Luong, Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions, and Pacts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

[Note 15]. Jane Leftwich Curry and Luba Faifer (eds.), Poland’s Permanent Revolution: People vs. Elites, 1956 to the Present (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1996).

[Note 16]. Ivan Szelényi and Szonja Szelényi, “Circulation or Reproduction of Elites during the Post-Communist Transformation of Eastern Europe”, Theory and Society 24, no. 5 (October 1995): 615–38.

[Note 17]. Vilfredo Pareto, Sociological Writings, ed. and introd. by S.E. Finer, trans. by Derick Mirfin (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield; 1966).

[Note 18]. W.L. Guttsman, The British Political Elite (New York: Basic Books, 1963); Walter L. Arnstein, “The Survival of the Victorian Aristocracy”, in Frederic C. Jaher (ed.) The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History (Urbana, Ill.: Unive r sity of Illinois Press, 1973), pp. 203–57.

[Note 19]. James J. Sheehan, “Political Leadership in the German Reichstag, 1871–1918”, American Historical Review 74, no. 2 (December 1968): 511–528; Marvin Rintala, “Two Compromises: Victorian and Bismarckian”, Government and Opposition 3, no. 2 (Spring 1968): 207–21.

[ page 123 ]

[Note 20]. Mattei Dogan, “Political Ascent in a Class Society: French Deputies 1870–1958”, in Dwaine Marvick (ed.), Political Decisionmakers: Recruitment and Performance (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961), pp. 57–90; Maurice Duverger, Les partis politiques (Paris: A. Colin, 1951).

[Note 21]. Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class, ed. and rev. with an Introd. by Arthur Livingston, trans. [of Elementi di scienza politica] by Hannah D. Kahn (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939).

[Note 22]. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).

[Note 23]. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, 2 vols. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962).

[Note 24]. Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, introd. by Seymour M. Lipset, transl. by Eden Paul and Cedar Paul (New York: Free Press, 1962).

[Note 25]. M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, ed. by Seymour M. Lipset, 2 vols. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1982).

[Note 26]. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes, ed. by Paul M. Sweezy, trans. by H. Norden (New York: A.M. Kelley, 1951).

[Note 27]. András Bozóki, “Research on Political Elites in East Central Europe”, European Political Science 1, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 54–59.

[Note 28]. Olga Krishtanovskaia, “From Nomenklatura to New Elite”, in Vladimir Shlapentokh, Chirstopher K. Vanderpool, and Boris Z. Doktorov (eds.), The New Elite in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), pp. 27–52.

[Note 29]. Alexander Shtromas, Political Change and Social Development: The Case of the Soviet Union (Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1981); Herbert Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, with Anthony J. McGann (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1995).

[Note 30]. Émile Durkheim, De la division du travail social, 2nd ed., enlarged (Paris: F. Alcan, 1902).

[ page 124 ]

[Note 31]. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971).

[Note 32]. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956).

[ page 125 ]

[Note 33]. James H. Meisel, The Myth of the Ruling Class: Gaetano Mosca and the “Elite” (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1958); Robert A. Dahl, “A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model”, American Political Science Review 52, no.2 (June 1958): 463–9.

[Note 34]. Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, “The Two Faces of Power”, American Political Science Review 56, no. 4 (December 1962): 947–52; Bachrach and Baratz, “Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework”, American Political Science Review 57, no. 3 (September 1963): 641–51.

[Note 35]. Ralph Miliband, State in Capitalist Society (New York: Basic Books, 1969).

[ page 126 ]

[Note 36]. Cutler, “Soviet Dissent under Khrushchev”.

[Note 37]. John A. Armstrong, The European Administrative Elite (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1973).

[Note 38]. Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship: Studies of Our Changing Social Order (New York: Wiley, 1964).

[Note 39]. Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992).

[Note 40]. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. by Thomas Burger (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).

[Note 41]. Thomas S. Pearson, Russian Officialdom in Crisis: Autocracy and Local Self-Government, 1861–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

[ page 127 ]

[Note 42]. Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde, “Rethinking Civil Society”, Democratization 10, no. 3 (August 2003): 1–14.

[Note 43]. Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois [1748], 2 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 1973).

[Note 44]. Raymond Aron, Démocratie et totalitarisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1965).

[Note 45]. Jacob L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London: Secker & Warburg, 1955).

[Note 46]. Curry and Faifer (eds.), Poland’s Permanent Revolution.

[Note 47]. Wolfgang Merkel, “The Consolidation of Post-Autocratic Democracies: A Multi-Level Model”, Democratization 5, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): 33–67; Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: South Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Andreas Schedler, “Measuring Democratic Consolidation”, Studies in Comparative International Development 36, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 66–92.

[Note 48]. Raymond Boudon and François Bourricaud, Dictionnaire critique de la sociologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1982).

[ page 128 ]

[Note 49]. Wolfgang Merkel and Aurel Croissant, “Formale Institutionen und informale Regeln in illiberalen Demokratien”, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 40, no.1 (March 2000): 3–30.

[Note 50]. Philippe C. Schmitter, “Still the Century of Corporatism?” Review of Politics 36, no.1 (January 1974): 85–131.

[Note 51]. Cutler, “Soviet Dissent under Khrushchev”.

[ page 129 ]

[Note 52]. Ibid.

[Note 53]. Ibid.

[Note 54]. Ibid.

[ page 131 ]

[Note 55]. Donald S. Carlisle, “Power and Politics in Soviet Uzbekistan: From Stalin to Gorbachev”, in William Fierman (ed.), Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), pp. 93–120.

[Note 56]. Donald S. Carlisle, “Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks”, Problems of Communism 40, no. 5 (September–October 1991): 23–44.

[Note 57]. James Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan: a Soviet Republic’s Road to Sovereignty (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), pp. 39–53.

[Note 58]. Donald S. Carlisle, “Islam Karimov and Uzbekistan: Back to the Future?” in Timothy J. Colton and Robert C. Tucker (eds.), Patterns in Post-Soviet Leadership (Boulder: Westview, 1995), pp. 191–216.

[Note 59]. Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 17–38.

[Note 60]. Reuel Hanks, “Repression as Reform: Islam in Uzbekistan during the Early Glasnost′ Period”, Religion, State and Society 29, no. 3 (September 2001): 227–39.

[ page 132 ]

[Note 61]. Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 137–55.

[Note 62]. James Critchlow, “Prelude to ‘Independence’: How the Uzbek Party Apparatus Broke Moscow’s Grip on Elite Recruitment”, in William Fierman (ed.), Soviet Central Asia, pp. 131–55.

[Note 63]. Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 39–53.

[Note 64]. Hanks, “Repression as Reform”.

[Note 65]. Critchlow, “Prelude to ‘Independence’”.

[ page 133 ]

[Note 66]. N.I. Petrov, “Political Stability in the Conditions of the Command-Administrative Regime,” in Alexei Vassiliev (ed.), Central Asia: political and economic challenges in the post-Soviet era (London: Saqi Books, 2001), pp. 79–99.

[Note 67]. Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 137–55.

[Note 68]. Shirin Akiner, “Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks”, in Graham Smith (ed.), The Nationalities Question in the Post-Soviet States, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1996), pp. 334–47.

[Note 69]. “Charter of the Birlik People’s Movement to Protect the Natural, Material, and Spiritual Wealth of Uzbekistan”, in Andrea Chandler and Charles F. Furtado, Jr. (eds.), Perestroika in the Soviet Republics: Documents on the National Question (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992), pp. 517–20.

[ page 134 ]

[Note 70]. Carlisle, “Islam Karimov and Uzbekistan”.

[ page 135 ]

[Note 71]. Donald S. Carlisle, “Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and Its Neighbours”, in Yaacov Ro′i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (London: F. Cass, 1995), pp. 73–103.

[Note 72]. Annette Bohr, Uzbekistan: Politics and Foreign Policy (London: Royal Institute of Inte r national Affairs, 1998).

[Note 73]. Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan, pp. 137–55.

[Note 74]. “Declaration of Sovereignty Adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR”, in Chandler and Furtado (eds.), Perestroika in the Soviet Republics, pp. 523–24.

[Note 75]. Petrov, “Political Stability in the Conditions of the Command-Administrative Regime”.

[Note 76]. Carlisle, “Islam Karimov and Uzbekistan”.

[Note 77]. Karl-Heinz Moder, “Kein Ende der demokratischen Eiszeit in Zentralasien”, Osteuropa 51, no. 1 (January 2002): 14–37.

[ page 136 ]

[Note 78]. Eric W. Sievers, “Uzbekistan’s Mahalla: From Soviet to Absolutist Residential Community Associations”, Chicago-Kent Journal of International and Comparative Law [serial online] 2002, no. 2 (Spring), available at <http://www.kentlaw.edu/jicl/articles/spring2002/Spring2002.htm> via the INTERNET, accessed 2004 November 24; Neema Noori, “Delegating Coercion: The Institutional Roots of Authoritarianism in Uzbekistan” (Paper presented to Fifth Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Bloomington, Ind., 14–17 October 2004).

[Note 79]. Stuart Horsman, “Uzbekistan’s Involvement in the Tajik Civil War, 1992–97: Domestic Considerations”, Central Asia Survey 18, no. 1 (March 1999): 37–48.

[Note 80]. Roger D. Kangas, “Uzbek Media Remain Devoid of Criticism”, Transition, 1, no. 18 (6 October 1995): 76–77.

[Note 81]. Roger D. Kangas, “The Three Faces of Islam in Uzbekistan”, Transition 1, no. 24 (29 December 1995): 17–21.

[Note 82]. Petrov, “Political Stability in the Conditions of the Command-Administrative Regime”; Abdumannab Polat, “Islamic Revival in Uzbekistan: A Threat to Stability?”, in Roald Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower (eds.), Islam and Central Asia: An Enduring Legacy or an Evolving Threat? (Washington, D.C.: Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2000), pp. 39–67; William Fierman, “Political Development in Uzbekistan: Democratization?”, in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (eds.), Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) pp. 360–408; Roger D. Kangas, “Uzbekistan: Evolving Authoritarianism”, Current History 93, no. 4 (April 1994): 178_82.

[Note 83]. Graham Smith et al., Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 67–90.

[Note 84]. Bohr, Uzbekistan: Politics and Foreign Policy.

[ page 137 ]

[Note 85]. Richard Shafer and Eric Freedman, “Obstacles to the Professionalization of Mass Media in Post-Soviet Central Asia: A Case Study of Uzbekistan”, Journalism Studies 4, no. 12 (February 2003): 91–103.

[Note 86]. International Crisis Group, Uzbekistan’s Reform Program: Illusion or Reality?, Asia Report 46 (Bru s sels: ICG, 18 February 2003).

[Note 87]. Resul Yalcin, The Rebirth Of Uzbekistan: Politics, Economy and Society in the Post-Soviet Era (Reading, Surrey: Ithaca, 2002), pp. 137–77.

[Note 88]. Martin C. Spechler, “Uzbekistan: the Silk Road to Nowhere?” Contemporary Economic Policy 18, no. 3 (July 2000): 295–303; Richard Pomfret, “The Uzbek Model of Economic Development, 1991–1999”, Economics of Transition 8, no. 3 (November 2000): 733–48; Richard Auty, “Natural Resources and ‘Gradual’ Reform in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan”, Natural Resources Forum 27, no. 4 (November 2003): 255–66; Arup Banerji and Asad Alam, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan: A Tale of Two Transition Paths? (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2000); Michael Kaser, The Economies of Kazakstan and Uzbekistan (London: Royal Institute of International A f fairs, 1997).

[Note 89]. Martin C. Spechler, “Returning to Convertibility in Uzbekistan?” Journal of Policy Reform 6, no. 1 (March 2003): 51–6.

[Note 90]. David L. Bartlett, “Economic Recentralization in Uzbekistan”, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 42, no. 2 (March 2000): 105–21; Resul Yalcin, The Rebirth of Uzbekistan, pp. 179–233.

[Note 91]. Kenneth Jowitt, “An Organizational Approach to the Study of Political Culture in Marxist-Leninist Systems”, American Political Science Review 68, no. 3 (September 1974): 1171–91.

[ page 138 ]

[Note 92]. Andrew F. March, “From Leninism to Karimovism: Hegemony, Ideology, and Authorita r ian Legitimation”, Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 4 (October 2003): 307–36.

[Note 93]. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion, Our Social Skin, 2nd ed. (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

[ page 139 ]

[Note 94]. Lise Garon, Le silence tunisien: les alliances dangereuses au Maghreb (Paris: Harmattan, 1998).

[Note 95]. William Kandinov, “The New Elite in Post-Communist Uzbekistan”, in Shlapentokh, Vanderpool, and Doktorov (eds.), The New Elite in Post-Communist Eastern Europe, pp. 162–78.

[Note 96]. Kathleen Collins, “The Political Role of Clans in Central Asia”, Comparative Politics 35, no. 2 (January 2003): 171– 90; Demian Vaisman, “Regionalism and Clan Loyalty in the Political Life of Uzbekistan”, in Ro′i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia, pp. 105–21.

[Note 97]. Neil J. Melvin, “Patterns of Centre-Regional Relations in Central Asia: The Cases of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan”, Regional and Federal Studies 11, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 165–93; Daria Fane, “Ethnicity and Regionalism in Uzbekistan: Maintaining Stability through Authoritarian Control”, in Leokadia Drobizheva et al. (eds.), Ethnic Conflict in the Post-Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 271–302.

[ page 140 ]

[Note 98]. Douglas L. Tookey, “The Mahalla Associations of Uzbekistan: Catalysts for Environmental Protection?” Helsinki Monitor 15, no. 3 (2004): 160–70.

[Note 99]. Alisher Abidjanov and Laura Adams, “GONGOs in Uzbekistan and the Development of Civil Society” (Paper presented to Fifth Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Bloomington, Ind., 14–17 October 2004); A.M. Farmer and A.A. Farmer, “Developing Sustainability: Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations in Former Soviet Central Asia”, Sustainable Development 9, no. 3 (July 2001): 136–48.

[Note 100]. Pauline Jones Luong, “The Middle Easternization of Central Asia”, Current History 103, no. 10 (October 2003): 333–40.

[Note 101]. Lise Garon, Le silence tunisien: les alliances dangereuses au Maghreb ; L. Sadiki, “Political Liberalization in Bin Ali’s Tunisia: Façade Democracy”, Democratization 9, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 122–41.

[Note 102]. Lise Garon and Robert M. Cutler, “Expliquer les faillites des mouvements démocratisateurs: la trahison des clercs-candidats” (Paper presented to the XVIIIth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Quebec City, Que., 1–6 August 2000).

[ page 141 ]

[Note 103]. Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998); Anita Sengupta, “Imperatives of National Territorial Delimitation and the Fate of Bukhara, 1917–1924”, Central Asian Survey 19, nos. 3–4 (September 2000): 394–415; Bakhtyar Babadjanov, “Official Islam versus Political Islam in Uzbekistan Today: The Muslim Directorate and Non-Hanafi Groups”, Revue d’Études Comparatives Est-Ouest 31, no. 3 (September 2000): 151–64.

[Note 104]. Carlisle, “Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks”; Carlisle, “Geopolitics and Ethnic Problems of Uzbekistan and Its Neighbours”.

[Note 105]. Adeeb Khalid, “A Secular Islam: Nation, State, and Religion in Uzbekistan”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 35, no. 4 (November 2003): 573–98.

[Note 106]. Richard H. Rowland, “Urban Growth in Uzbekistan during the 1990s”, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 42, no. 2 (June 2001): 266–304; A. Akimov, “Population Dynamics in Central Asia and Adjacent Countries from 1960 to 2020”, in Yongjin Zhang and Rouben Azizian (eds.), Ethnic Challenges Beyond Borders: Chinese and Russian Perspectives of the Central Asian Conundrum (London: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 123–44; Reuel R. Hanks, “Emerging Spatial Patterns of the Demographics, Labour Force and FDI in Uzbekistan”, Central Asian Survey, 19, nos. 3–4 (September–December 2000): 351–66.

[Note 107]. David E. Apter, Ghana in Transition, rev. ed. (New York: Atheneum, 1963), pp. 273–90; Apter, Choice and the Politics of Allocation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971).

Dr. Robert M. Cutler [ website — email ] was educated at MIT and The University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in Political Science, and has specialized and consulted in the international affairs of Europe, Russia, and Eurasia since the late 1970s. He has held research and teaching positions at major universities in the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, and Russia, and contributed to leading policy reviews and academic journals as well as the print and electronic mass media in three languages.

 
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