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 »
The recent death of Uzbekistan’s seemingly perpetual president has drawn fresh attention to the uncertainties of one-man rule elsewhere in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, writes Freedom House… Read more »
Uzbekistan’s authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, leaves a legacy of political and religious repression, Human Rights Watch said today. His death provides a moment for concerned governments to press for concrete… Read more »
Whether Islam Karimov, who has ruled Uzbekistan with astounding brutality for the past 27 years, is dead or alive, his era is almost certainly drawing to a close. Two questions… Read more »
While economic downturns are threatening the stability of the former Soviet Union’s “entrenched dictatorships,” the migration crisis is fueling populism in Eastern Europe, and reforms in the Balkans are in… Read more »
China and Russia may forge a tactical alliance based on their compatible authoritarian systems and aimed at managing their frontier areas and standing up to the West, a leading analyst… Read more »
The Freedom Support Act of 1992 (Freedom for Russia and Emerging Eurasian Democracies and Open Markets Support Act) made the “promotion of democracy” a main strategic priority of the US… Read more »
Are the major international institutions covering the former Soviet Union meeting their human rights commitments? A new report shows how the independence and integrity of institutions defending human rights in… Read more »
Central Asia’s authoritarian governments have rarely found it easy to keep a lid on social discontent or to inoculate their countries against chronic instability in Afghanistan. Ethnic tensions and religious… Read more »