Pub Date : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10050
Asel Doolotkeldieva
This article introduces readers to the Special Issue on the politics of popular revolts in Kyrgyzstan and outlines the rationale for a renewed empirical and theoretical debate that would focus on more equitable production of knowledge. The existing literature, namely the scholarship on patronage and “color revolutions,” downplays citizens’ agency and neglects the democratic beginnings of Kyrgyzstan’s popular uprisings. These ontological misrepresentations foment epistemic injustice against the tens of thousands of citizens who have participated—and sacrificed their lives—in struggles against dispossession and inequalities. Based on ethnographic material and documented stories, the present article uncovers popular voices with the aim of drawing attention to local idioms of change. It proposes to read popular revolts as disruptions of the constituted order and hence the return of the political. Popular uprisings thus constitute deeply democratic moments, as they seek to destabilize the oligarchic status quo, even if fleetingly.
{"title":"Uncovering the Revolutionaries from Epistemic Injustice: The Politics of Popular Revolts in Kyrgyzstan","authors":"Asel Doolotkeldieva","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10050","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article introduces readers to the Special Issue on the politics of popular revolts in Kyrgyzstan and outlines the rationale for a renewed empirical and theoretical debate that would focus on more equitable production of knowledge. The existing literature, namely the scholarship on patronage and “color revolutions,” downplays citizens’ agency and neglects the democratic beginnings of Kyrgyzstan’s popular uprisings. These ontological misrepresentations foment epistemic injustice against the tens of thousands of citizens who have participated—and sacrificed their lives—in struggles against dispossession and inequalities. Based on ethnographic material and documented stories, the present article uncovers popular voices with the aim of drawing attention to local idioms of change. It proposes to read popular revolts as disruptions of the constituted order and hence the return of the political. Popular uprisings thus constitute deeply democratic moments, as they seek to destabilize the oligarchic status quo, even if fleetingly.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"176 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131807691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10045
Bekchoro Aliiaskarov
The 2005, 2010 and 2020 regime changes in Kyrgyzstan began as public revolts followed by mass violence and brutal confrontations between law enforcement and protestors. The goal of this paper is to explore the police repression in the handling of mass mobilizations and the trauma and moral injury. The research is based on interviews with fifteen active duty and retired police officers, ranging from rank-and-file officers to police chiefs. My research shows that the Kyrgyz police are deeply traumatized by political upheavals which bring the public and police into violent conflict, with skirmishes which result in the loss of lives of civilians and police officers. Police officers now fear public disorder and are often reluctant to participate in crowd control operations. They often feel as though they are used as a tool by incumbent leaders to suppress political opposition, and are subsequently betrayed by whoever succeeds ousted political elites.
{"title":"Police Repression and Trauma in Light of the Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan","authors":"Bekchoro Aliiaskarov","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10045","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The 2005, 2010 and 2020 regime changes in Kyrgyzstan began as public revolts followed by mass violence and brutal confrontations between law enforcement and protestors. The goal of this paper is to explore the police repression in the handling of mass mobilizations and the trauma and moral injury. The research is based on interviews with fifteen active duty and retired police officers, ranging from rank-and-file officers to police chiefs. My research shows that the Kyrgyz police are deeply traumatized by political upheavals which bring the public and police into violent conflict, with skirmishes which result in the loss of lives of civilians and police officers. Police officers now fear public disorder and are often reluctant to participate in crowd control operations. They often feel as though they are used as a tool by incumbent leaders to suppress political opposition, and are subsequently betrayed by whoever succeeds ousted political elites.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"1 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114115759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10044
Ajar Chekirova
Populist mobilization may take different forms. It can be either revolutionary, through social movements, or electoral, through political parties, but is often a mixture of both under the leadership of a populist persona. The October Revolution in Kyrgyzstan provides an opportunity to look beyond classical cases of populist mobilization in Europe and the Americas to uncover key factors that cause existing populist attitudes to become activated and mobilized. Political science literature points to the root causes of populist uprisings as coming from either the supply-side perspective, meaning populist rhetoric and institutional conditions that induce the appearance of populist parties, or the demand-side perspective, meaning individual attitudes that predict support for populists. These theories of populism may do well at explaining American or European varieties of populist mobilization, but they fail to capture Kyrgyzstan’s experience. Thus, drawing on ideational theory that emphasizes the interplay between populist attitudes, elite rhetoric, and contextual factors, this study employs World Values Survey (WVS) data from 2003, 2011, and 2020—three pivotal pre-revolutionary or post-revolutionary periods. This allows for the investigation of not only the changes in attitudes but also crucial contextual factors that determined the outcome of the October Revolution. The findings show that, on the demand-side, populist ideas have always been widespread, but required specific material conditions, including explosive corruption scandals and the COVID-19 crisis, and populist cues from the supply-side to become activated.
{"title":"How Are Populist Attitudes Activated? Understanding Revolutionary Mobilization in Kyrgyzstan","authors":"Ajar Chekirova","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10044","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Populist mobilization may take different forms. It can be either revolutionary, through social movements, or electoral, through political parties, but is often a mixture of both under the leadership of a populist persona. The October Revolution in Kyrgyzstan provides an opportunity to look beyond classical cases of populist mobilization in Europe and the Americas to uncover key factors that cause existing populist attitudes to become activated and mobilized. Political science literature points to the root causes of populist uprisings as coming from either the supply-side perspective, meaning populist rhetoric and institutional conditions that induce the appearance of populist parties, or the demand-side perspective, meaning individual attitudes that predict support for populists. These theories of populism may do well at explaining American or European varieties of populist mobilization, but they fail to capture Kyrgyzstan’s experience. Thus, drawing on ideational theory that emphasizes the interplay between populist attitudes, elite rhetoric, and contextual factors, this study employs World Values Survey (WVS) data from 2003, 2011, and 2020—three pivotal pre-revolutionary or post-revolutionary periods. This allows for the investigation of not only the changes in attitudes but also crucial contextual factors that determined the outcome of the October Revolution. The findings show that, on the demand-side, populist ideas have always been widespread, but required specific material conditions, including explosive corruption scandals and the COVID-19 crisis, and populist cues from the supply-side to become activated.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126064935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10046
Arzuu Sheranova, Marat Uraimov
In October 2020 the world witnessed the third sudden change of power in Kyrgyzstan since its independence. In 2005, 2010 and 2020 repeated mass protests led to the violent fall of the political regimes of Akaev, Bakiev and Zheenbekov. Although these events were more or less similar in terms of the conditions contributing to the protests, they were different in the way the political elites were viewed by the protesters. The aim of this contribution is to critically analyse the role of political elites during these three revolutions. This piece underlines the declining role of these elites on the one hand, namely in terms of the decline of the political capital of the leaders, and points out the rise in public grievances and worsening of socio-economic life on the other hand. These latter processes have led to an increase in distrust toward the political establishment and the emergence of populist leadership after October 2020. In contrast with the previous Kyrgyz revolutions, the October 2020 revolution failed to establish clear leadership from among the established elites and was chaotic. In the paper we challenge the existing scholarship on protests in Central Asia as elitist and reductionist, as they completely ignore the roles of society and social grievances. Instead, we suggest that the role of the political elites in protests and their political capital are diminishing, and they are not the rigid and powerful actors that they seem. The study is based on 20 in-depth interviews with Kyrgyz political elites and leaders of three revolutions, 10 interviews with representatives of society, online ethnography (online observation of three Kyrgyz revolutions, including available live-streams) and news sources.
{"title":"The Declining Role of Political Elites in Revolutions in Post-communist Eurasia: The October Revolution in Kyrgyzstan","authors":"Arzuu Sheranova, Marat Uraimov","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10046","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In October 2020 the world witnessed the third sudden change of power in Kyrgyzstan since its independence. In 2005, 2010 and 2020 repeated mass protests led to the violent fall of the political regimes of Akaev, Bakiev and Zheenbekov. Although these events were more or less similar in terms of the conditions contributing to the protests, they were different in the way the political elites were viewed by the protesters. The aim of this contribution is to critically analyse the role of political elites during these three revolutions. This piece underlines the declining role of these elites on the one hand, namely in terms of the decline of the political capital of the leaders, and points out the rise in public grievances and worsening of socio-economic life on the other hand. These latter processes have led to an increase in distrust toward the political establishment and the emergence of populist leadership after October 2020. In contrast with the previous Kyrgyz revolutions, the October 2020 revolution failed to establish clear leadership from among the established elites and was chaotic. In the paper we challenge the existing scholarship on protests in Central Asia as elitist and reductionist, as they completely ignore the roles of society and social grievances. Instead, we suggest that the role of the political elites in protests and their political capital are diminishing, and they are not the rigid and powerful actors that they seem. The study is based on 20 in-depth interviews with Kyrgyz political elites and leaders of three revolutions, 10 interviews with representatives of society, online ethnography (online observation of three Kyrgyz revolutions, including available live-streams) and news sources.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127124242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-14DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10042
Timur Dadabaev, Kenji Shinohara, Nigora Djalilova
This paper reviews the history of Japanese corporate penetration in the CA region. It identifies two waves of Japanese corporate entry into the CA region over the last 30 years. The first wave started with Japanese companies entering energy-related projects and infrastructure development based on ODA (Official Development Assistance). In the second wave, in the 2010s, Japanese corporate interests were more diverse, and the Japanese business community members in CA entered new areas, such as financing by megabanks, international transportation, and digital technologies. This paper divides the problems faced by Japanese companies into those related to the logistics of the region and those related to a lack of economic infrastructure. Among the logistic problems are the size of the market and the difficulty of transportation due to the location of the region, with no access to major seaports.
{"title":"A Review of the Japanese Corporate Presence in Central Asia: Two Waves of Japanese Business Entry into the Central Asian Region","authors":"Timur Dadabaev, Kenji Shinohara, Nigora Djalilova","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10042","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper reviews the history of Japanese corporate penetration in the CA region. It identifies two waves of Japanese corporate entry into the CA region over the last 30 years. The first wave started with Japanese companies entering energy-related projects and infrastructure development based on ODA (Official Development Assistance). In the second wave, in the 2010s, Japanese corporate interests were more diverse, and the Japanese business community members in CA entered new areas, such as financing by megabanks, international transportation, and digital technologies.\u0000This paper divides the problems faced by Japanese companies into those related to the logistics of the region and those related to a lack of economic infrastructure. Among the logistic problems are the size of the market and the difficulty of transportation due to the location of the region, with no access to major seaports.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"75 17-18","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114014064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10029
Sara O’Connor
Urban development in contemporary Kazakhstan diverges from official policy and procedure. Through the exploration of a case study in Astana (until recently Nur-Sultan), the capital, this research reveals how activists are organizing to preserve natural space and thwart development. An activist-expert coalition is currently engaged in a drawn-out effort to preserve Small Taldykol, a natural space for recreation and leisure which is part of a lake system within Astana. The proposed plan includes draining this lake, the development of housing complexes, a tourism complex, and an eco-park. Using Miraftab’s invented spaces of participation and Ong’s exceptions to neoliberalism, this research explores how urban activists use the space created by deviations from development policy processes, orchestrated by developers and officials within the city and national government, in Small Taldykol’s development. These exceptions provide an opportunity for activists to organize, engage with other stakeholders, and to impact Small Taldykol’s fate.
{"title":"Urban Development and Civic Activism in Kazakhstan: Green Space Preservation in the Shadow of Spectacle","authors":"Sara O’Connor","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10029","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Urban development in contemporary Kazakhstan diverges from official policy and procedure. Through the exploration of a case study in Astana (until recently Nur-Sultan), the capital, this research reveals how activists are organizing to preserve natural space and thwart development. An activist-expert coalition is currently engaged in a drawn-out effort to preserve Small Taldykol, a natural space for recreation and leisure which is part of a lake system within Astana. The proposed plan includes draining this lake, the development of housing complexes, a tourism complex, and an eco-park. Using Miraftab’s invented spaces of participation and Ong’s exceptions to neoliberalism, this research explores how urban activists use the space created by deviations from development policy processes, orchestrated by developers and officials within the city and national government, in Small Taldykol’s development. These exceptions provide an opportunity for activists to organize, engage with other stakeholders, and to impact Small Taldykol’s fate.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127819619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10037
M. Kamp, Elyor Karimov
This article combines oral histories with documents from family and public archives to re-assemble fragments of a Tashkent family history, and it uses Bourdieu’s theses on social reproduction and cultural capital to analyze the ways that this family repurposed its status-seeking decisions in changed political circumstances. Beginning with the author’s effort to document an ancestor who served as a shine-keeper, the article explores what became of that religious role as successive generations turned to new sources of cultural capital. Evidence shows the author’s grandmother’s elision of her lineage, simultaneous reinforcement of her traditional social status, and embrace of the role of Soviet teacher and intellectual. Soviet period repression led some families to destroy lineage documents, and to recount the past in selective ways. The author’s research partially reconstructs the strategies of a Tashkent family who transferred, hid, and reconfigured its cultural capital.
{"title":"A Fragmented Family Story: Transferring Cultural Capital in Soviet Tashkent","authors":"M. Kamp, Elyor Karimov","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10037","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article combines oral histories with documents from family and public archives to re-assemble fragments of a Tashkent family history, and it uses Bourdieu’s theses on social reproduction and cultural capital to analyze the ways that this family repurposed its status-seeking decisions in changed political circumstances. Beginning with the author’s effort to document an ancestor who served as a shine-keeper, the article explores what became of that religious role as successive generations turned to new sources of cultural capital. Evidence shows the author’s grandmother’s elision of her lineage, simultaneous reinforcement of her traditional social status, and embrace of the role of Soviet teacher and intellectual. Soviet period repression led some families to destroy lineage documents, and to recount the past in selective ways. The author’s research partially reconstructs the strategies of a Tashkent family who transferred, hid, and reconfigured its cultural capital.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121546858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10041
Daulet Turganov
Most studies on transitions to democracy focus on macro-level factors, while Przeworski considers people as the most important factor and emphasizes looking at the ruling class and civil society. Softliners within the ruling class may aim to choose to open up the system to increase political stability and ensure the survival of the existing regime. The paper aims to test whether liberalization indeed increases political stability in the Central Asian context. By performing the empirical analyses, one can find out that liberalization results in political stability in Central Asia.
{"title":"Liberalization and Political Stability in Central Asia","authors":"Daulet Turganov","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10041","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Most studies on transitions to democracy focus on macro-level factors, while Przeworski considers people as the most important factor and emphasizes looking at the ruling class and civil society. Softliners within the ruling class may aim to choose to open up the system to increase political stability and ensure the survival of the existing regime. The paper aims to test whether liberalization indeed increases political stability in the Central Asian context. By performing the empirical analyses, one can find out that liberalization results in political stability in Central Asia.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"2 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125872664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-23DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10036
V. Kravtsova
The specificity and variety of the experiences of feminist organizing in the former “second world” is rarely explored in the studies of transnational feminist praxis. This paper explores the (queer) feminist discourses of the region, described as the most “distant Other” of the former USSR – Central Asia. I look at the ways artists, activists, and academics from two cities in the region, Bishkek and Almaty, articulate their understandings of feminism from an intersectional and decolonial perspectives. I argue that local (queer) feminist activists are producers of unique knowledge(s), bound neither to a “return to tradition” nor to accept ready-made solutions from the “West,” which positions itself as an “origin” of contemporary debates on gender. By engaging with the inner coloniality of the feminist movements in the former USSR, the article contributes to the transnational debates on the inclusivity of feminism(s).
{"title":"Between the Posts, Into the Void: Making Sense of Feminism and Decolonization in Bishkek and Almaty","authors":"V. Kravtsova","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10036","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The specificity and variety of the experiences of feminist organizing in the former “second world” is rarely explored in the studies of transnational feminist praxis. This paper explores the (queer) feminist discourses of the region, described as the most “distant Other” of the former USSR – Central Asia. I look at the ways artists, activists, and academics from two cities in the region, Bishkek and Almaty, articulate their understandings of feminism from an intersectional and decolonial perspectives. I argue that local (queer) feminist activists are producers of unique knowledge(s), bound neither to a “return to tradition” nor to accept ready-made solutions from the “West,” which positions itself as an “origin” of contemporary debates on gender. By engaging with the inner coloniality of the feminist movements in the former USSR, the article contributes to the transnational debates on the inclusivity of feminism(s).","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116699247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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