The U.S.-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce is pleased to host a virtual discussion with CACI Chairman Dr. S. Frederick Starr on "U.S. Policy Through Central Asian Eyes".

When: Tuesday, June 20, 2023, 8.00 AM EST – 9.30 AM EST

Who: Elena V. Son, Executive Director, AUCC, USKGZBC, USTJBC, USABI (moderator) and Dr. S. Frederick Starr, Distinguished Fellow for Eurasia and Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, American Foreign Policy Council

With Opening Remarks (in alphabetical order of Central Asian Countries) from:

  • H.E. Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States
  • H.E. Baktybek Amanbaev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kyrgyz Republic to the United States
  • H.E. Farrukh Hamralizoda, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Tajikistan to the United States of America
  • H.E. Meret Orazov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to the United States
  • H.E. Furqat Sidikov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the United States of America 

Click to Register. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

About the event: Join the U.S.-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce webinar which will focus on the unprecedented challenges that the U.S. and Central Asian countries are currently facing. It is an excellent opportunity to learn from Dr. S. Frederick Starr about how Central Asian governments perceive American policies. 

"Today both the countries of Central Asia and the U.S. itself face unprecedented challenges at the global and national levels... It is important for Washington to know how its positions and actions are perceived by the countries towards which they are directed. Official statements by Central Asian governments and on-the-record comments by their officials touch on this question but cannot answer it, for they often gloss over the officials’ real concerns or present them in such watered-down generalities as to render them unrecognizable. In an effort to gain a better understanding of how Central Asian governments perceive American policies we have therefore turned to the Central Asians themselves, including senior officials, diplomats, business people, local policy experts, journalists, and leaders of civil society organizations. In all, we have conducted some fifty interviews. All our subjects spoke on the condition of strict anonymity and “not for attribution".

We have been impressed not only with the candor of our interviewees but also the positive spirit in which they made their comments... Even those most critical of American positions saw the possibility of positive change and looked forward to improved and deepened relations with America in days to come. And all acknowledged that the need for change is on both sides, theirs as well as ours." Continue reading here

Published in Forums & Events

Join the spring 2023 Rumsfeld Foundation's Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan (CAMCA) fellows for a presentation on the regional economic and political implications of Russia's war in Ukraine. Speakers will examine various strategies to better protect their sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and improve conditions for further economic development. Register for this in-person event to discuss these issues and learn why the U.S. should support the CAMCA countries in this challenging international environment.

Moderator: S. Frederick Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at theAmerican Foreign Policy Council

When: Tuesday April 25, 2023 - 3:00-4:30 PM EST

Where: American Foreign Policy Council, 509 C Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.?subject=CAMCA%20Forum%20Registration">Register via email

 

Published in Forums & Events

Svante E. Cornell, ed. 

Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program 
Silk Road Paper
December 2022

Click to Download PDF

 

Introduction 

2212Uzbek-cover-bHow does political change happen? This question, which has occupied the minds of scholars and analysts for many decades, has been especially vexing for the broad lands that include the Middle East and Central Asia. Samuel P. Huntington identified a “third wave” of democratization between the mid-1970s and 1990, and the collapse of the Soviet Union appeared to confirm that democracy would now spread unhindered across the world. But in the Middle East and Central Asia, this did not happen. Quite to the contrary, in spite of some liberalizing efforts in the 1990s, what occurred in this region was more akin to what Huntington, who passed away in 2008, would have called a “reverse wave” – with authoritarian governments proving not only resilient but able to consolidate control over societies.

The political stagnation of the broader region led to considerable frustration among foreign well-wishers of these regions – and more importantly, among large strata of people in these regions that experienced heavy-handed government, mismanagement, and systematic corruption. Between 2003 and 2011, popular revolts overthrew a series of governments – first in the post-Soviet space, particularly Georgia and Ukraine, and subsequently in the Middle East and North Africa. These upheavals were met with great enthusiasm in western circles, who were convinced that democracy had finally come to the Middle East and North Africa.

Except it did not work out that way. The “Color Revolutions” in the former Soviet Union and the Arab upheavals largely failed, as no country that experienced these upheavals has progressed in a sustainable way toward democracy. Most are worse off than before these upheavals. Libya, Syria and Yemen have descended into civil war. Georgia and Ukraine were invaded by Russia, in part because of their political changes, and Kyrgyzstan descended into instability, with two additional upheavals as well as ethnic rioting. Egypt almost saw state capture by the Muslim Brotherhood, which was only undone through a military intervention that proved lasting. For some time, Georgia and Tunisia appeared to go against the grain, and make sustained progress – but in recent years, those two have backtracked significantly. While many of these societies underwent change that increased the level of pluralism in the political system, mostly they did not succeed in addressing underlying causes of public frustration, such as mismanagement and corruption. All in all, it seems clear that revolution did not prove a sustainable model to liberalize societies.

In the past several years, however, an alternative model of political change has been on display in the region – an evolutionary model of political development. Following the political and economic upheavals of the past decade, the leadership in some countries appear to have concluded that “business as usual” is no longer feasible; they must answer to popular demands for change, while seeking to manage the political process to maintain stability and avoid upheavals. As a result, they have implemented reforms from the top down, seeking to improve the efficiency of government and in a controlled and gradual manner expand political rights. This is happening in countries as diverse as Azerbaijan and Jordan, Kazakhstan and Morocco. But Uzbekistan plays a particular role because of the sheer rate of change in the country.

Nowhere is the contrast between the “before” and the “after” as dramatic as in Uzbekistan following the accession to power of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. While paying respects to his predecessor Islam Karimov, Mirziyoyev departed dramatically from Karimov’s approach to both foreign and domestic policy, unleashing a torrent of reform initiatives that have changed Uzbek society for the better.

Of course, it should be understood that the evolutionary process of reform will not turn Uzbekistan, or any other country engaging in it, into a model democracy in the short term. That is not the purpose of these reforms. That does not mean these reforms are “cosmetic,” as they are frequently called: they are highly ambitious in scope, because they aim to fundamentally change the relationship between state and society. It should be recalled that in the Soviet system, the individual was subordinated to the all-powerful state. This in turn bred impunity and corruption, as documented already in 1982 by Soviet exile Konstantin Simis in his book USSR: the Corrupt Society. This Soviet legacy is one that in some ways continues to this day – but is one that reformist leaders like President Mirziyoyev are now trying to reckon with. In the place of the old logic, they are seeking to turn the tables, and turn state institutions into bodies that exist to serve the citizens of the country rather than to control them or extract rents from them.

This is the background to the constitutional reform process in Uzbekistan, launched in the summer of 2022. As such, it is not an isolated event, but very much a step in the process of reforms that have been introduced since President Mirziyoyev acceded to the presidency in 2016.

This process is one that the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program documented in several entries in the Silk Road Papers series, and in the 2018 book, Uzbekistan’s New Face. This time, the Joint Center was pleased to have the opportunity to cooperate with the Center for Development Strategy in Tashkent to organize a Symposium on the constitutional reform process. This event, held in July 2022, provided an opportunity for Western and Uzbek researchers to exchange views on the reforms process. This publication is a collection of their presentations.

We are grateful to the authors of these papers and to the Center for Development Strategy, and particular its Director Eldor Tulyakov, for the opportunity to bring these papers to print.

Tuesday, 01 November 2022 18:58

Can Central Asia Seize the Initiative?

By S. Frederick Starr

October 30, 2022

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-central-asia-seize-initiative-205553

TNI

The meetings by heads of state in Issyk-Kul and Tashkent earlier this summer showed clearly that America’s abrupt departure from Afghanistan last year and its long-term neglect of Central Asia did not mark the end of history. Quite the contrary.

SINCE THEIR independence from the USSR, the five Central Asian states that emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991 have been the object of great power dreams. Russia, with steady persistence, has tried to lure them back into its sphere of influence, if not of direct control, through economic and security alliances. The United States and Europe have worked to develop them as market economies, and to implant civil society and democratic institutions there. Meanwhile, China assigned them key roles in its Belt and Road Initiative and loaned them billions to develop economic strengths that complement Beijing’s own. Applying Julius Caesar’s classic divide et impera maxim, all these major powers have offered rewards for cooperation and withheld them from the recalcitrant. As a result, the Central Asians risked becoming mere objects of great power maneuvers and not subjects in their own right.

This summer, the Central Asians themselves took two steps to overcome this fate. First, on July 21 the presidents of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, meeting at Issyk-Kul in the Kyrgyz Republic, signed a far-ranging agreement to coordinate their efforts by forging a web of institutional links. These cover areas as diverse as trade, economics, social policy, ecology, medical research, and security. Such a regional consultative structure is urgently needed. Until now, Central Asia has been the only major world region that does not have its own web of institutional ties, i.e., a structure for formulating common policies and organizations capable of implementing them. This left the region at the mercy of major powers and of neighboring states, all of which have proven adept at playing Central Asians off against each other.

Furthermore, on July 26 the same regional states, supported by senior officials from several dozen other countries worldwide, including the United States, Russia, India, the European Union, and China, convened in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, for the purpose of expanding contacts with the new government in Kabul. Their immediate goals were to eliminate threats from extremist bands operating from Afghan territory and to identify changes in Taliban policies that would open the door to broader interaction between Afghanistan, its Central Asian neighbors, and the world. These meetings covered areas as diverse as information, finance, and women’s and minority rights. Their longer-term objective was to improve relations to the point that the Central Asians could open direct transport corridors through Afghanistan to Pakistan, India, Southeast Asia, and Iran.

Whether these two ambitious initiatives will succeed is an open question. Their very existence, however, reflects the Central Asians’ determination to shape their own destiny and to emerge as a world region with linking institutions comparable to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Baltic Council, or other regional bodies worldwide.

WHY, THREE decades after gaining independence, have the Central Asian states suddenly focused on linking arms and collaborating? Three very different developments gave rise to this important movement. First, the unplanned and abrupt American withdrawal from Afghanistan left the Central Asian countries facing a chaotic and potentially dangerous neighbor to the south. Besides threatening a rise of instability across the region, the tumult in Afghanistan extinguished the hope of opening southward trade routes that would give the Central Asians direct access to the Indian subcontinent and the booming economies of Southeast Asia. The importance of that potential “door to the south” cannot be overestimated. Without it, all Central Asia would be left under Russia’s economic and political thumb and unable to constrain China’s economic incursions. Only with such a corridor to South Asia would these countries be able to affirm their own sovereignty and independence while at the same time establishing balanced and constructive relations with all the major political and economic powers.

Second, Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine sent a shock wave across all Central Asia, not least because, like Ukraine, all the states in that region had only recently freed themselves from Russian rule and now feared that Moscow was trying to impose it anew.  This was no mere paranoia on the part of the new sovereignties. Had Vladimir Putin not compared himself to Peter the Great, who expanded Russia’s territory by conquering neighbors? Had Dmitry Medvedev, head of Russia’s Security Council and former Russian president, not announced that the attack on Ukraine was but the first step towards reassembling all the lands that had formerly been part of the Soviet Union? Central Asians had already established contacts with the West, but those links did not suffice to enable them to counterbalance pressures from the north and east. The obvious next step was to create new economic and political links with South and Southeast Asia. But this requires reopening links of communication and trade that have lain dormant since the rise of the Soviet Union.

The third factor that gave rise to the new spirit of regional vitality on display at Issyk-Kul and Tashkent was the rise of Shavkat Mirziyoyev as president of Uzbekistan. His predecessor, Islam Karimov, had solidified Uzbekistan’s independence by walling the country off from its neighbors, including the other four Central Asian states and Afghanistan. Uzbekistan advanced, but at the price of the resentment of its regional neighbors and the hostility of the West, which condemned its heavy-handed treatment of its own population. Mirziyoyev, Karimov’s former prime minister, brought a sharp change of course after his election in 2016. In a series of dramatic moves, he instituted legal reforms, set about developing a market economy, and loosened many long-standing controls on the Uzbek populace. Most important, he declared peace with all Uzbekistan’s neighbors, opened cross-border contacts and trade, and began systematically reaching out to the other Central Asian states. By so doing, he launched the movement that bore fruit in Issyk-Kul and Tashkent.

What was actually accomplished in the region-wide protocol—formally known as the Agreement on Friendship, Neighborliness, and Cooperation for Development of Central Asia in the 21st Century—that the five presidents agreed upon in July? The document includes thirty-two sections that are designed to “consolidate their efforts” for mutual benefit. Of course, it commits signatories to respect existing borders, to not interfere in the internal affairs of other partner countries, and to resolve differences peacefully (sect. 2). But it goes far beyond this. Thus, section 5 calls for mutual support in the face of threats to the “independence, sovereignty, and territorial wholeness” of any member state. Backing up this call, the protocol (sect. 6) commits the signatories to abstain from joining any military bloc that might threaten any of the five states, and to forbid their territories to be used by any foreign state for activities directed against any of the other member states.

Nor were these mere words. Section 7 calls on the parties “to realize mutual action to develop collaboration in military and military-technical sphere on issues of mutual interest.” This parallels Article V of the Washington Treaty that governs the actions of NATO members, which states that an attack on any NATO member is to be considered an attack on them all. Section 7 also commits the signatories to coordinate their actions with respect to all other international and regional organizations to which they may belong. Among threats requiring such coordinated action are specified: terrorism, extremism, separatism, international criminal groups involved with narcotics and arms, and human trafficking. However, the same logic would extend to all other threats to the sovereignty of any member state. The goal, states the protocol, is to establish all of Central Asia as a “zone of peace.”

The many other chapters of the protocol commit members to develop structures for cooperation in legislative and judicial matters, transport, logistics (sect. 14), and all activities affecting trade and investment. The document then goes on to commit members to joint action with respect to the reconstitution of the depleted Aral Sea (sect. 19). Topping off this ambitious agenda is the call for closer links among the academic institutions of member states (sect. 20, 21), structured exchanges of teachers and specialists, the sharing of fundamental and applied research (sect. 24) in diverse fields, including medicine and technology, and the development of common information systems (sect. 23). Tourism also claims a place in the document (sect. 27), which calls for region-wide tours supported by common visas.

One may object that the five presidents papered over important differences between the languages, histories, and cultures of the signatory states. Anticipating such criticism, they went out of their way to affirm that Central Asia constitutes “a single historical and cultural space” (sect. 25), in which diverse peoples have fruitfully interacted and collaborated for millennia. Their agenda called for studying and making known these neglected commonalities. Moreover, the presidents acknowledged that within the borders of each country are linguistic, cultural, and religious minorities. On this delicate issue, they all agreed to support such minorities within their borders and enable them to thrive without compulsion from the national governments (sect. 26).

Three of the presidents signed the protocol at the Issyk-Kul meeting, while the other two—Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan and Serdar Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan—gave assurances that they would sign at the next meeting of the group. The former evidently wanted first to resolve the conflict on the Tajik border with Kyrgyzstan, while the latter, in office for only three months, wanted first to consult with his colleagues in Ashgabat. Both assured their colleagues of their support for the project.

 

 

S. Frederick Starr is founding chairman of the Kennan Institute and chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

Published in Staff Publications

Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in cooperation with the Development Strategy Center

Forum on Uzbekistan's Constitutional Reforms

At his inauguration after being re-elected President in November 2021, President Mirziyoyev announced the imperative of constitutional reform. This month, he presented the basic outlines of these reforms, which will be put to a nationwide referendum. The reforms intend to modernize the country’s basic law, with the aim of bolstering rights and develop the social nature of the state. A panel of Uzbek and Western experts will provide an initial analysis of these amendments and their implications.

When: Thursday July 7, 2022, 9:00-11:00 AM  EST

The event will also be live-streamed on the CACI Facebook page and on Zoom.

 Click to register

 Speakers:

  • Moderators:

    Svante E. Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
    Eldor Tulyakov, Executive Director, Development Strategy Center

    Speakers:

    Uzbekistan’s Reforms in Regional Perspective

    Dr. Johan Engvall, Deputy Research Director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency and Senior Fellow, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

     

    Constitutional Reform in the New Uzbekistan

    Prof. Mirafzal Mirakulov, Doctor of Law

     

    Judicial Reforms in the Constitutional Amendments

    Mjuša Sever, Co-founder and Director of Regional Dialogue, a Slovenia-based NGO with a branch office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

     

    The Rule of Law: Constitutional Guarantees for the Rule of Law, Protection of Personal Rights and Freedoms

    Senator Shukhrat Chulliev, member of the Constitutional Commission and deputy chairman of the Judicial Committee of the Senate of Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan

     

    Political Reforms in the Constitutional Amendments

    Anthony Bowyer, Advisor for Europe and Eurasia, International Foundation for Electoral Systems

     

    Improving the Constitutional Foundations of Parliamentary Control, Ensuring Freedom of Speech and Access to Information

    Ilkhom Abdullaev, member of the Constitutional Commission, chairman of the Committee on Innovative Development, Information Policy and Information Technologies of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis

     

    Social Reforms in the Constitutional Amendments

    Dr. Farrukh Irnazarov, Co-Founder at RANSIF Group and Central Asian Development Institute, and Rumsfeld Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

     

    Topical Issues of Building a Welfare State in the Context of Constitutional Reforms

    Dr. Gulnoza Sattarova, Head of the Department of the Institute for Problems of Legislation and Parliamentary Studies under Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan

     

    The Meaning and Implications of Uzbekistan’s Constitutional Reforms

    Dr. S. Frederick Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute

 

Published in Forums & Events

isdp

AFPC-Full-Logo

 

Silk Road Papers and Monographs