STATE POWER IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES: QUO VADIS?

Abstract

Despite the honorable slogans set forth in the constitutions of most of the region’s former Union republics, not one of the newly independent Central Asian countries has been able to build a true democracy or law-based state. It is obvious that this situation did not come about by accident. It is the very legitimate and entirely explain- able result of these countries’ development through- out the entire period of their existence, beginning in 1991.
Almost none of the public politicians, including the leaders of the post-socialist states, has spoken out directly against democracy. On the contrary, they like to talk about their adherence to democratic development. But this is often just a front, propaganda, and not a genuine desire to establish democratic rule in a particular state. For at one time, outright dictators and the supporters of communist totalitarianism called themselves democrats. Today the Turkmenistan mass media, for example, also claim that their country has created true democracy.
In a literal translation from the ancient Greek, the word “democracy” means power of the people. The words of Abraham Lincoln, one of America’s outstanding presidents, are also very well known: democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. Of course, these brief formulas do not divulge the academic meaning of democracy. But here I would like to emphasis an obvious point: European thinkers, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, always juxtaposed the concept