UZBEKISTAN: SOVIET SYNDROME IN THE STATE, SOCIETY, AND IDEOLOGY
Abstract
Ibelieve that post-Sovietism is the aptest way to describe the wide-scale transformations unfolding in the post-Soviet era in the newly independent Central Asian states. It presupposes that certain new, modern institutional qualities of nation and state-building will appear because of the very natural need to adjust to the existing world order.
Part of society expected that independence would revive, partially or on a larger scale, what can be called pre-Sovietism: a set of features that describe domestic and foreign policy as well as the relations between the former “colonies” that existed even before Soviet power came to these parts of the world.
Meanwhile, everything that should, or could, appear in the form of post-Sovietism and pre-Sovietism was nothing other than neo-Sovietism. This is not a chance phenomenon—it was called to life by political, social, psychological, historical, economic, and geographic reality, factors that were permanently present across this vast territory.
Practically all the former Soviet republics, the CIS members, were affected by the Soviet syndrome which came to the fore as the most obvious phenomenon in Uzbekistan’s state administration-civil society-ideology system
Downloads
References
I prefer the term “democratic construction” to the more common “democracy-building” to refer not so much to the practical process of building democracy as a political system as to the theoretical process of formulating an adapted con-ception of democracy.
See: Uzbekistan: From House to House, Human Rights Watch Report, Vol. 15, No. 7, September 2003, available at [www.hrw.org].
See: A. Abdukhalilov, “Stages and Special Features of the Administrative Reforms in the Republic of Uzbekistan,”Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 6 (48), 2007.
E. Trushin, I. Trushin, “Institutsionalnye bartery v economicheskom razvitii Uzbekistana,” in: Tsentralnaia Azia i Yuzhny Kavkaz: nasushchnye problemy, ed. by B. Rumer, TOO East Point, Almaty, 2006, p. 227.
Fergana.Ru [www.fergana.ru], 7 April, 2008.
E.W. Merry, “The Politics of Central Asia: National in Form, Soviet in Content,” in: In the Tracks of Tamerlane.
entral Asia’s Path to the 21st Century, ed. by D. Burghart and T. Sabonis-Helf, National Defense University, Washing-ton, D.C., 2004, p. 30.
G. Gleason, “Reform Strategies in Central Asia: Early Starters, Late Starters, and Non-Starters,” in: In the Tracks of Tamerlane. Central Asia’s Path to the 21st Century, p. 43.
V. Naumkin, “Uzbekistan’s State-Building Fatigue,” The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2006, p. 138.
D. Apter, The Politics of Modernization, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1965, p. 56.
Ph. Schmitter, “Some Propositions about Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy,” Reihe Politikwissen-schaft, No. 10, September 1993, p. 4, available at [http://www.ihs.ac.at/publications/pol/pw_10.pdf].
Ibidem.
Ibid., p. 15.
N.P. Walsh, “Deposed Kyrgyz President Blames United States for Coup,” The Guardian, 31 March, 2005, avail-able at [http://www.rall.com/2005_03_01_archive.html].
M. Matsaberidze, “The Rose Revolution and the Southern Caucasus,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 2 (32),2005.
[http://www.perspektivy.info/oykumena/krug/paradoksy_demokratii_i_tendencii_demokratizacii_v_stranah_
entralnoiy_azii_i_iuzhnogo_kavkaza_2008-0-12-10-39.htm].
“Loyalty to the National Spirit,” Khalk suzi, 16 December, 2006 (in Uzbek).
See: D.A. Rustow, “Ttransitions to Democracy—Toward a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 2,No. 3, 1970.
See, for example: A.Yu. Melvil, “Opyt teoretiko-metodologicheskogo sinteza strukturnogo i protsedurnogo pod-khodov k demokraticheskim tranzitam,” Polis, No. 2, 1998.
Ibidem.
See: S. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991, p. 114.
For more detail, see: F. Tolipov, “Democracy, Nationalism and Regionalism in Central Asia,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4, 2000.
For more detail, see: F. Tolipov, “National Democratism or Democratic Nationalism?” in: Security through Democ-ratization? A Theoretically Based Analysis of Security-Related Democratization Efforts Made by the OSCE. Three Compar-ative Case Studies (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, 2003-2004), Center for OSCE Research, Hamburg, 2004.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2008 Author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation .
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
