Kyrgyzstan's Revolutionary Youth: Between State and Opposition

Abstract

Youth groups with ties to influential political and business elites played a decisive role in bringing down the regime of President Askar Akaev during Kyrgyzstan's Tulip revolution in March 2005. Youth representatives formed the masses at the opposition rallies. They also stormed government buildings. That the youth were instrumental during protests is clear. What is less clear, however, is why formal youth organizations played a rather minimal role compared to informal youth groups. This article seeks to answer this question by taking a closer look at what really happened in March 2005 in Kyrgyzstan. The author argues that Kyrgyzstan's Tulip revolution resulted more from poorly coordinated events by an improvised alliance of powerful and informal local elites than from well-planned and well-executed protests by a cohesive opposition alliance. Because of disunity among the opposition groups and the weaknesses of formal institutions, influential political leaders and business elites chose to work with and channel resources for protests through their informal patronage and local networks rather than through formal youth organizations. These local networks included informal youth groups that turned out to be far more effective at mobilizing youth activists than formal groups.