Political Regimes And Neopatrimonialism In Central Asia

Download or read book Political Regimes and Neopatrimonialism in Central Asia written by Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is aimed both at researchers and advanced students of Central Asia, the space of the former USSR, and the foreign policy of Russia and China. The authors adopt a sociological approach in understanding how power structures emerged in the wake of the Soviet collapse. The independencies in Central Asia did not happen as a consequence of a nationalist struggle, but because the USSR imploded. Thus, instead of the elites being replaced, the same Soviet elites who had competed for power in the previous system continued to do so in the new one, which they had to build, adapting themselves and the system to their needs. Additionally, unlike in the immense majority of the independent states that emerged from decolonization, the social movements and capacity to mobilize the people were very weak in the new Central Asian states. For this reason, the configuration of the new systems was the product of a competition for power between a very small number of elites who did not have to answer to the people and their demands. Thus, the new power regimes acquired a strong neopatrimonial component. Analyzing the structure of societies, economies and polities of post-socialist states, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Central Asia, to sociologists, and to scholars of China's rise.

Download or read book Party System Formation in Kazakhstan written by Rico Isaacs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-03-21 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian states have developed liberal-constitutional formal institutions. However, at the same time, political phenomena in Central Asia are shaped by informal political behaviour and relations. This relationship is now a critical issue affecting democratization and regime consolidation processes in former Soviet Central Asia, and this book provides an account of the interactive and dynamic relationship between informal and formal politics through the case of party-system formation in Kazakhstan. Based on extensive interviews with political actors and a wide range of historical and contemporary documentary sources, the book utilises and develops neopatrimonialism as an analytical concept for studying post-Soviet authoritarian consolidation and failed democratisation. It illustrates how personalism of political office, patronage and patron-client networks and factional elite conflict have influenced and shaped the institutional constraints affecting party development, the type of emerging parties and parties’ relationship with society. The case of Kazakhstan, however, also demonstrates how in the former Soviet space political parties emerge as central to the legitimization of informal political behavior, the structuring of factional competition and the consolidation of authoritarianism. The book represents an important contribution to the study of Central Asian Politics.

Download or read book Stubborn Structures written by Bálint Magyar and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-10 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The editor of this book has brought together contributions designed to capture the essence of post-communist politics in East-Central Europe and Eurasia. Rather than on the surface structures of nominal democracies, the nineteen essays focus on the informal, often intentionally hidden, disguised and illicit understandings and arrangements that penetrate formal institutions. These phenomena often escape even the best-trained outside observers, familiar with the concepts of established democracies. Contributors to this book share the view that understanding post-communist politics is best served by a framework that builds from the ground up, proceeding from a fundamental social context. The book aims at facilitating a lexical convergence; in the absence of a robust vocabulary for describing and discussing these often highly complex informal phenomena, the authors wish to advance a new terminology of post-communist regimes. Instead of a finite dictionary, a kind of conceptual cornucopia is offered. The resulting variety reflects a larger harmony of purpose that can significantly expand the understanding the “real politics” of post-communist regimes. Countries analyzed from a variety of aspects, comparatively or as single case studies, include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.

Download or read book Political Regimes and Neopatrimonialism in Central Asia written by Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book provides a thorough and well needed analysis of the dynamics of power in Central Asian republics. By focusing on the role played by neopatrimonialism, these contributions are able to shed light on the fundamental features of governance in the "Stans": clientelism, corruption, crony capitalism, concentration of power in the hands of a closed circle of ruling elites and the absence of democracy. A must read for any scholars studying this part of the world." - Jean-François Caron, Associate professor in Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University This book adopts a sociological approach in understanding how power structures emerged in Central Asia since the Soviet collapse. The independencies in Central Asia did not happen as a consequence of a nationalist struggle, but because the USSR imploded. Thus, instead of the elites being replaced, the same Soviet elites who had competed for power in the previous system continued to do so in the new one, which they had to build, adapting themselves and the system to their needs. Additionally, the social movements and capacity to mobilize the people were very weak in the new Central Asian states. For this reason, the configuration of the new systems was the product of a competition for power between a very small number of elites who did not have to answer to the people and their demands. Thus, the new power regimes acquired a strong neopatrimonial component. Analyzing the structure of societies, economies and polities of post-socialist states, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Central Asia, to sociologists, and to scholars of China's rise. Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs is Professor on International Relations at Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research is focused on the Sociology of power and the Arab and Muslim world. Francesc Serra-Massansalvador is lecturer on International Relations at Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research focuses on Russia's foreign policy and its relations with the EU, national minorities, ethnic conflicts and human rights in the post-Soviet space.

Download or read book Patronal Politics written by Henry E. Hale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes a new way of understanding events throughout the world that are usually interpreted as democratization, rising authoritarianism, or revolution. Where the rule of law is weak and corruption pervasive, what may appear to be democratic or authoritarian breakthroughs are often just regular, predictable phases in longer-term cyclic dynamics - patronal politics. This is shown through in-depth narratives of the post-1991 political history of all post-Soviet polities that are not in the European Union. This book also includes chapters on czarist and Soviet history and on global patterns.

Download or read book Dictators Without Borders written by Alexander A. Cooley and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A penetrating look into the unrecognized and unregulated links between autocratic regimes in Central Asia and centers of power and wealth throughout the West Weak, corrupt, and politically unstable, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are dismissed as isolated and irrelevant to the outside world. But are they? This hard-hitting book argues that Central Asia is in reality a globalization leader with extensive involvement in economics, politics and security dynamics beyond its borders. Yet Central Asia’s international activities are mostly hidden from view, with disturbing implications for world security. Based on years of research and involvement in the region, Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw reveal how business networks, elite bank accounts, overseas courts, third-party brokers, and Western lawyers connect Central Asia’s supposedly isolated leaders with global power centers. The authors also uncover widespread Western participation in money laundering, bribery, foreign lobbying by autocratic governments, and the exploiting of legal loopholes within Central Asia. Riveting and important, this book exposes the global connections of a troubled region that must no longer be ignored.

Download or read book Kazakhstan: Snow Leopard at the Crossroads written by Christopher A. Hartwell and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the experience of Kazakhstan’s transition over the past 30 years, explaining the political and economic performance of the country since the collapse of the USSR, through the country’s institutions, policy choices, and external environment. In an exploration of more than 1,000 years of institutional development, the chapters analyse and assess the development of political arrangements and governance, and economic institutions, from pre-Russian colonization through to the Soviet experiment, and then take a magnifying glass to developments in a post-Soviet, independent Kazakhstan. Using a broad range of sources and data across disciplines, this book is the first to explicitly survey Kazakhstan’s transition as a function of its history, its people, and its institutions. Breaking new ground in institutional economics, it provides readers with a comprehensive examination of the history and development of Kazakhstan, and points to where it may be heading in the 21st century. The subject matter is accessible to a broad academic audience: to scholars in political science, economics, and the history of Central Asia and Russia, as well as to those with an interest in general transition economics.