Ten Years After the Soviet Breakup: Disillusionment in the Caucasus and Central Asia

Abstract

When the Soviet Union fell into shards, it was as if Western liberal democracy—at least on the level of words—suddenly vaulted far to the east, into the traditional heartland of “Oriental despotism.” Ten years later, all the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia now have parliaments, elected presidents, and (Turkmenistan excepted) multiple parties. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) extends across the steppes two-thirds of the way to the Yellow Sea, and the North Atlantic Cooperation Council includes the homeland of Genghis Khan. When Western forms sprang eastwards, so did the hopes of Western democrats and the interest of Western businesses in the Caspian basin. Today, however, in response to the region’s authoritarianism, corruption, and limited oil, disillusionment has set in. It is an appropriate moment to take stock. A serious taxonomy of Caucasian and Central Asian regimes must separate out three political patterns. In the first, which predominates in most of the region, the ruler is a powerful president who typically was the Communist first secretary during Soviet days. There is no effective power sharing, whether with parliaments, local governments, or independent judiciaries. (Tajikistan is a special case. The Russian government forced its local allies into a fragile power-sharing agreement with Islamist guerrilla fighters.) Yet despite these elements of continuity, there are striking differences from Soviet times. First, the major role that the “center” in Moscow played in the government of the republics has disappeared. Because the center had directed most of the economy, the selection of officials, Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., is director of the Central Asia–Caucasus Institute and research professor of international relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. His most recent contribution to the Journal of Democracy was “Russia Under Putin: The Feudal Analogy” (July 2000).