Electoral Systems and Elite Bargaining in Central Asia

Abstract

Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions and Pacts. By Pauline Jones Luong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 344 pp., $60.00 (ISBN: 0-5218-0109-5). Over the past decade, a new generation of political scientists in the West have discovered Central Asia—a region composed of five states: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Central Asia caught the imagination of these political scientists for three reasons. First, in a world in which regions have tended to be durable constructs, Central Asia stands out as the exception. It is a new region, having been invented by the dissolution of the Soviet state in December 1991. Second, interest grew because of the remarkable social experiment going on in Central Asia. This is a region marked not only by the simultaneous construction of new states, new regimes, and new economic systems, but also, amidst all this turbulence, by the forging of new relationships between these emerging political economies and the international system. Finally, the events of September 11, 2001, introduced a security component. Three of these states—Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—share a border as well as national communities with Afghanistan. The importance of Central Asia, therefore, is undeniable. What is also beyond debate is that our knowledge of this region, at least in the United States, is cursory. This reflects several factors. It was hard to gain access to this region during the Soviet period. After 1991, other difficulties emerged. It was hard to accumulate the required training—or to have the patience and creativity—to carry out fieldwork in …