Introduction: Transition to Where? Developing Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

With the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, international donors rushed to proffer advice. Their development teleology was one of “transition” from a centralized command economy to a liberal, democratic, market-driven economy. Popular ideologies of the period—neoliberalism, governance, and civil society— converged as policymakers designed development programs in line with the principles of what came to be known as the Washington Consensus. The dissolution of the USSR provided ideal laboratory conditions to test these ideologically driven policies. Today, two decades on, this model for transitioning to liberal democracy has crashed on the shoals of crony capitalism, authoritarianism, runaway corruption, population decline, and social dislocation. This introduction to the following cluster of articles offers a number of the guiding tenets of development aid in the former Soviet Union over the past two decades and attempts to show the connections between the categories of aid (for example, civil society, market reform) and the larger policy issues and ideologies that nurtured them. The articles in this cluster examine the political and scholarly tensions suggested when relations of power and difference are inextricably linked to international aid efforts. International aid fl owing to this region has been especially sensitive and marked in that it is directed at a former superpower—itself a long-term donor of aid and technical assistance to the Third World. The aid efforts Thanks to Mark D. Steinberg, whose enthusiasm for this thematic cluster has not wavered, despite what often felt like a gruelling and lengthy review process. The incomparable staff at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., offered years of support for the project from which these articles stemmed. Two international workshops, generously funded by the Department of State’s Title VIII Program, took place under the auspices of the Kennan Institute. I would like to mention particularly Renata Kosc-Harmatiy, Will Pomeranz, Blair Ruble, and Maggie Paxson, who helped insure the success of these workshops. I would also like to acknowledge the numerous interlocutors, from the Department of State, USAID, and nongovernmental organizations, who generously shared their ideas and perspectives with the workshop participants, providing useful feedback. Though the papers of some of the workshop participants are not included here, their contributions to the synergy that emerged from our discussions has surely percolated through the cluster. The critical insights of Michael Borowitz, Alexander Danilenko, Bhavna Dave, and Scott Newton have incalculably enhanced my understanding of the multifaceted world of Central Asia and postsocialist development. I thank them for many years of enlightening conversations.