‘Zero Corruption’: feasible or fantasy?
A court in Bishkek has ruled to freeze the bank accounts of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, locally known as Azattyk, its correspondent, and the Kyrgyz news site Kloop following their joint… Read more »
Category: Kyrgyzstan
Global protest wave rattles governments, but can it advance democracy?
Whether the unprecedented wave of protests leads to sustainable democratic transitions depends in large part on the strategic sophistication of illiberal regimes and democratic actors, including the latter’s ability to… Read more »
Budding social activism, legitimacy crises feed Central Asia’s dramatic transformation
Central Asia is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Its governments face legitimacy crises at a time when long-standing leaders are being replaced by little-known, untested ones. Social contracts, by which citizens… Read more »
Impatient dictators: ‘How to Rig an Election’
Authoritarian states are using all-too familiar constitutional mechanisms to consolidate power, according to activist-journalists Tamara Grigoryeva and Ismail Djalilov. Across Eurasia, snap elections happen rather frequently, they write for Open… Read more »
Kyrgyzstan: optimism tempered by corruption concerns
Kyrgyzstan’s citizens demonstrate sustained optimism over the country’s trajectory and economic performance, tempered by an overwhelmingly high number who think corruption is a problem, according to a nationwide poll by the International… Read more »
Populism’s false promise could ‘reinvigorate liberal democracy’
The resurgence of populism has disrupted the post-Cold War political order and raised the prospect of instability in Europe and Eurasia, according to Nations in Transit 2017, the 22nd edition… Read more »
Kazakhstan’s ‘authoritarian lite’ regime hints at cosmetic change
Kazakhstan’s leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is the country’s only president since independence — elected five times with 97.5 percent of the vote. Nazarbayev has created a kind of “authoritarian lite” system… Read more »
Kyrgyzstan: democratic disillusion fuels radicalization
Kyrgyzstan models itself as Central Asia’s only parliamentary democracy, but multiple challenges threaten its stability, says a new report from the International Crisis Group: Divided ethnically between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks… Read more »
Creativity needed in defending, funding civil society
In the wake of the widespread authoritarian crackdown, we are witnessing a confluence of factors affecting the sustainability of different aspects of civil society (its organizations, actors and actions) in… Read more »
Post-Soviet Eurasia: What’s Gone Wrong?
After a quarter-century, the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union looks like a de-democratizing event. Leading up to that fateful year, Mikhail Gorbachev had been one of the world’s great… Read more »