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Begin New Search Political Geography Kyrgyzstan Publication Year within 25 Years

41. The multiple paradoxes of the agriculture issue in Central Asia

Author:
Sébastien Peyrouse
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Agriculture constitutes one of the main sectors in the economies of Central Asia: cotton production and export, mainly in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and to a lesser extent in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan; a booming grain sector in Kazakhstan; and a long tradition of vegetable cultivation throughout the region. The agrarian question is a sensitive one since the population is still predominantly rural in four of the five republics (all except Kazakhstan) and because food safety is not ensured in the two poorest states (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan). Land reform would be a priority for the growth of investment, increased productivity, and, consequently, the reduction of rural unemployment and poverty. However, pressed by the choice of cotton versus self-sufficiency in food production, the Central Asian states remain hesitant. They must also manage many structural problems, including high levels of corruption in the agrarian administrative organs, the opacity of decisionmaking structures for the export of production, quasi-slavery in some impoverished rural areas, child labour, and serious environmental problems related to the overuse of the soil.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

42. Kyrgyzstan: The Challenge of Judicial Reform

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Kyrgyzstan's judiciary is failing to act as a neutral arbiter of political disputes or as a fair channel for economic arbitration. It requires significant reform to gain the trust of the public and to assert its role as an independent branch of government. A failure to achieve reform would make it impossible to develop a pluralistic and stable political system over the long term and also undermine attempts to tackle widespread corruption and encourage development. Unless the government allows greater self-governance for lawyers and independence for judges, no amount of education or piecemeal reforms will create an effective system.
Topic:
Corruption, Government, and Reform
Political Geography:
Asia and Kyrgyzstan

43. "Color Revolutions": Uniformity in Diversity

Author:
Yu. Sharkov
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
A wave of so-called "color revolutions" has swept the world, including the post-Soviet space, over recent decades. They followed the same scenario although they had different names ("the Rose Revolution" in Georgia, "the Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, "the Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan or "the Potato Revolution" in Belarus).
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Belarus

44. Political Murder in Central Asia: No Time to End Uzbekistan's Isolation

Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
There are strong indications that Uzbek security forces murdered one of Kyrgyzstan's most prominent journalists, Alisher Saipov, in October 2007 during the build-up to Uzbekistan's end of year presidential elections, most likely because of his involvement in Erk (Freedom), a leading exile opposition party. If this is the case, it would appear that the security organs, which are the key to keeping President Islam Karimov in power, are increasingly willing to move against any perceived danger, even if it involves pre-emptive strikes in foreign territory. This may be a sign not only of the ruthlessness of the regime but also of its increasing fragility. At the least it underlines the need for the U.S. and the European Union (EU) to resist the temptation to respond to Karimov's dubious December 2007 re-election with efforts at re-engagement, in the apparent hope of regaining or retaining military bases for Afghanistan operations or of outflanking Russia.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnic Conflict, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, United States, Europe, Asia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan

45. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Author:
Pan Guang, Mikhail Troitskiy, Pál Dunay, and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
Established in 2001 with China, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has remained one of the world's least-known and least-analysed multilateral groups. It makes little effort itself for transparency and is only patchily institutionalized in any case. Such useful research materials as are available on it are often in Chinese or Russian. Outside its participant countries, the SCO has attracted mainly sceptical and negative comment: some questioning whether it has anything more than symbolic substance, others criticizing the lack of democratic credentials of its members and questioning the legitimacy of their various policies. These points have been made especially strongly by commentators in the United States following the inclusion of Iran—along with India, Pakistan and Mongolia—as an SCO observer state and hints that it may attain full membership.
Topic:
International Cooperation and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Shanghai, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan

46. Observing or participating in regime change? Kyrgyz perspectives on the role of international election observation missions in 2005

Author:
Indra Øverland and Stina Torjesen
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This report offers an in-dept analysis of the role of international election observation missions in during the political upheavals in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. It presents the work of three leading, young academics from Kyrgyzstan. The report forms part of the 'NUPI Network for Election Observation and Exchange'. This is project that is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The starting point for the assessments presented here is the realisation that international election observer missions played a central part in the events that eventually lead to the toppling of President Askar Akaev's administration in march 2005. Kyrgyzstan is also a case that highlights the immense challenges that face election observation missions in non consolidated democracies of the former Soviet Union. Many of these countries, Kyrgyzstan included, have developed traditions of deep-seated and sophisticated manipulation of election procedures. Given these preconditions, the three articles aim to assess from differing perspectives how election observation was conducted in the country in 2005.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, and Soviet Union

47. Kyrgyzstan on the Edge

Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Street battles between thousands of pro and antigovernment protestors broken up by police billy clubs and tear gas in the central square of the capital this week illustrate dramatically that Kyrgyzstan is on the verge of political breakdown and possible civil war. The government and opposition have begun talks to pull the country back from the brink, and the president signed a new constitution on 9 November that the parliament had passed the previous day. But tensions are still high. The talks will need to be widened if they are to resolve the underlying dispute, which is centred on the division of power between the president and the parliament, and related issues. The international community should become much more active in preventive diplomacy because if a solution is not found quickly, Kyrgyzstan's instability could easily affect other states in the fragile Central Asian region.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Government
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Asia, and Kyrgyzstan

48. Uzbekistan: Europe's Sanctions Matter

Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
After the indiscriminate killing of civilians by Uzbek security forces in the city of Andijon in 2005, the European Union imposed targeted sanctions on the government of President Islam Karimov. EU leaders called for Uzbekistan to allow an international investigation into the massacre, stop show trials and improve its human rights record. Now a number of EU member states, principally Germany, are pressing to lift or weaken the sanctions, as early as this month. The Karimov government has done nothing to justify such an approach. Normalisation of relations should come on EU terms, not those of Karimov. Moreover, his dictatorship is looking increasingly fragile, and serious thought should be given to facing the consequences of its ultimate collapse, including the impact on other fragile states in Central Asia such as Kyrgyzstan.
Topic:
Security and Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Germany

49. Kyrgyzstan's Prison System Nightmare

Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
While Kyrgyzstan still struggles to find political stability in the wake of its 2005 revolution, deteriorating conditions in its prison system, known by its Russian acronym GUIN, pose a threat to the fragile state's security and public health. Badly underfunded and forgotten, GUIN has all but lost control over the nearly 16,000 inmates for which it is responsible. Power has passed into the hands of criminal leaders for whom prison populations are armies in reserve. A lack of buffers between prisons and the government has meant that trouble in jails has already led to serious conflicts outside their crumbling walls. The risks of strife in prisons leading to wider political instability is likely to worsen unless the government and donors launch an urgent process of penal reform.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Civil Society, and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, Central Asia, and Kyrgyzstan

50. A Presentation of Preliminary Findings and a Roundtable Discussion with Government and Civil Society Actors in Georgia

Author:
Denika Blacklock
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues
Abstract:
The Meskhetian Turks are one of the last of the national groups of the Soviet Union deported by Stalin in 1943–44, who have not yet been able to return to their native region (in southwest Georgia). Currently numbering some 370–400,000 people, the Meskhetian Turks, following pogroms and multiple displacements, find themselves scattered across vast territories of Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and, most recently, the United States. In some of these countries, the Meskhetian Turks are exposed to ethnic persecution and discrimination, while Georgia, so far, has effectively blocked resettlement to their native region. International actors seeking to address these problems encounter severe difficulties in finding solutions, inter alia, due to a lack of consistent knowledge on the Meskhetian Turks' own perceptions of their displacement and their visions for future settlement.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Turkey, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Soviet Union, Azerbaijan, and Georgia