Does Democracy in Central Asia Have a Chance?

Last month, when U.S. President Joe Biden gathered representatives from more than 110 countries virtually for his promised Summit for Democracy, it was little surprise that the states of Central Asia were excluded. While in the estimation of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Fellow Steven Feldstein, the Biden administration “opted for a big tent approach” in crafting its invite list, the tent was nevertheless not big enough for the states of Central Asia.

“The Central Asian region has been a disappointing one from the point of view of democracy-building,” said Dr. Martha Brill Olcott, at the time a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, in testimony before a House of Representatives committee back in April 2000. “The main reason why democracies have not developed in Central Asia is that the region's leaders don't want them to.”

More than 20 years later, much of her testimony is understandably dated: Tajikistan is no longer the “bright spot” in the region, Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov is now dead, and Kyrgyzstan has overthrown three presidents. But other parts touch on themes that remain as relevant, if not more so, today when contemplating the fate of democracy in Central Asia.

Among the topics Olcott discussed on in her testimony was the matter of leadership. In concluding her remarks, she was sharp: “The first big transformation or upheaval is likely to come [when] the current group of officials leave power. Until then it is too soon to speak of the long-term prospects of democracy in the region.”

Olcott was channeling a widespread assumption among analysts two decades ago that Central Asia’s lack of democratic progress was a matter of individuals and time. Given time, and the passing of certain individuals from the stage, democracy might have a chance.

Every Central Asian state except Tajikistan has undergone some kind of power transition since 2000. Each has been accompanied with worry about instability, but those worries rarely bore significant fruit and none of the transitions opened a significant and stable path to democracy.

When Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s first president, died of a heart attack in 2006, he was replaced swiftly. Although Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov promised reforms and rescinded his predecessor’s zanier decrees, the Turkmenistan of today is no more democratic. Kazakhstan’s slow-motion power transition from Nursultan Nazarbayev to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev kicked off in 2019 and has steadily rolled forward since, with little effect on the country’s democratic potential. The death of Karimov in Uzbekistan in 2016 triggered a flurry of reforms and changes, but the country is hardly on a democratic upswing as a result of a change in leadership.

With regard to Kyrgyzstan, Olcott was right but had it backwards. Instead of big transformations or upheavals coming when then then-current officials left power, the officials were forced out of power by big upheavals: mass protests. Nevertheless, Kyrgyzstan’s democratic journey has stalled out, with the country trapped in a cycle of revolution, reformation of the state, and revolution again when the new system fails to deliver just as spectacularly as the old.

Back in 2000, Olcott said that regional leaders “portray their populations as unready for democracy, politically-immature and capable of being swayed by extreme ideologies.” She went on: “The region's leaders all argue that security concerns are paramount, and that the first challenge before the state is to maintain stability and social order. Decisions about economic reform and political institution building are regularly subjected to the litmus test of whether policy initiatives are likely to help the government keep the peace.”

This line of argument, of course, became even more entrenched following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. ousting of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and the rise of the Global War on Terror. It pushed along a deterioration Olcott also noticed in 2000: “Unfortunately many of the support structures necessary for democracy-building are disappearing in these countries with each passing year, this includes a committed elite and the institutions necessary to sustain pluralistic or democratic societies.”

Is it now too late to speak of the long-term prospects of democracy in the region?

Looking into the future is impossible, but the past provides us some grounding. Olcott, in her 2000 testimony, hardly mentioned corruption. In the one instance she did, it was in reference to growing corruption in the Kyrgyz government of Askar Akayev:

[T]he standard of living of most Kyrgyz is still continuing to deteriorate, which is contributing to President [Akayev']s growing unpopularity in the country… One reason for this is the growing corruption in official circles. At the same time that many Kyrgyz have grown poorer, members of the official family have grown richer, and have begun to dominate certain key sectors of the economy and to be monopolists in trade as well.

These were the roots of Akayev’s 2005 ousting in what came to be called the Tulip Revolution.

Corruption is now frequently discussed as a key problem for democracies the world over, with efforts to tackle it tied tightly to increasing freedom of the press and maintaining the rule of law. Corruption is also a problem for authoritarian states, but since it forms a part of their foundation they struggle to address the consequences adequately. And here, perhaps, there’s hope eventually for democracy in Central Asia. Corruption is consistently a complaint of the region’s peoples, and Central Asia’s governments put their much-beloved stability further at risk the longer they delay tackling it.