VULNERABILITY
AND CENTRAL ASIAN DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER V: COMPARISONS, EVALUATIONS, AND CONCLUSIONS

This final chapter highlights the value of vulnerability theory in comparison with two other models of policy orientation that do not utilize power as their central element. This leads to a further comparison and discussion of the vulnerability positions of the Central Asian states. The scale and distribution factors receive additional explanation, especially as they provide the standard by which to describe the effectiveness of differing management strategies.

The "Compromise Model"

The following section compares two other models of state policy orientation. One model that accentuates the influence of geography suggests that small states establish their policy orientation to compromise between the policies of their more powerful neighbors. Uzbekistan's population size, relatively higher industrialization, lack of borders with Russia and lower vulnerability allow it to act within the system to influence the policies of each of the other states. Uzbekistan exploits asymmetrical vulnerabilities, such as its position as a transit country on infrastructure connections and its energy surpluses, to extract concessions from its neighbors.

Independence immediately changed the vulnerability of the states on the periphery of the region from a strict monopolization by Russia to a growing bipolarity. Kyrgyzstan faced vulnerability from China, Turkmenistan from Iran and Tajikistan from Afghanistan. During the next two or three years the operation of a pressure to compromise has meant that these states, and Kazakhstan, should theoretically locate their policies at an intersection between those of Russia, Uzbekistan and their contiguous external neighbor. This framework might be called the "compromise model."

This would set Kyrgyzstan's policies at the overlap of Russia, Uzbekistan, and China.

• Tajikistan at the conjunction of Russia, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
• Turkmenistan reacting to Russia, Uzbekistan and Iran. and
• Kazakhstan responding to Russia, Uzbekistan, and China.

This approach comes close to explaining policy orientation, but it does face weaknesses and its static nature limits its use to description. The idea of policies set in compromise means that states set policy on specific issues to balance the pressure of one neighbor against the others, with tradeoffs between issue areas to placate all parties. Both the compromise model and the vulnerability model are compatible with Stephen M. Walt's The Origins of Alliance in which he argues that alliances result from balancing against threats rather than against power.

The Emulation Model

Some popular explanations of political development resort to a model of state motivation which claims that states seek economic advancement and emulate similar states that provide examples of success. This idea is hereafter called the "emulation model."

Emulation Hypothesis: "States tend to seek greater socioeconomic development, and tend to form policies to
                                  emulate more successful states in proportion to their success in development and greater
                                   cultural similarity."
 

The "emulation" model posits that the goal directing a state's policy formation is socioeconomic development consistent with existing cultural identity. The summary table in Appendix B ranks the regional states. The simplicity of this model does not allow it to explain policies involving multiple dimensions of a state's interests. The emphasis on economics does not provide a mechanism of action between actors, nor any theory of interactions between states and the international system, or to their societies. Therefore, such a descriptive framework offers limited predictive use. The appendices include the statistics on which the table is based, comparing the use of World Bank data versus CIA data. (1)

The table attempts to operationalize Mozaffari's definition of development as ". . . a summary term [that] generally refers to a command over resources, education and health." (2) Moreover, a better "emulation model" would include other state goals, such as rates of economic growth and degree of social stability, in addition to socioeconomic development. On these measures Kulchik, Fadin and Sergeev claim that Central Asian leadership looks to China. (3) Because China's economy is more complementary and less competitive with that of the Central Asian states, and is growing much more rapidly, it may in some ways usurp the place of Russia. (4)

With this framework, one can define limitations on the appeal of neighboring states as sources of policy guidance based on relative levels of socioeconomic development. This issue involves all the contiguous peripheral states plus Turkey, Europe, and the United States. (5) First, only Russia can influence Kazakhstan. Second, Turkey could only influence Turkmenistan or Tajikistan. Third, Iran cannot influence anyone except India, Pakistan or Afghanistan and its greatest influence would be on Afghanistan.

In this format, using World Bank data, Malaysia scores 100 compared to its closest competitor, Russia, at 62.7 . However, using CIA data, Malaysia earns a 58 compared with 61 for Kazakhstan and 89.8 for Russia. The implications of such a model explain why Kyrgyzstan sought Malaysian advisors in establishing institutions of economic control. Malaysia not only receives, but also sends foreign direct investment, but its influence is not yet significant in Central Asia. (6) Notice the relative closeness in ranking of Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. Kazakhstan's index score puts it in a position between them and Russia. Some evidence suggests the northern Russian-populated regions enjoy greater socioeconomic development than predominantly Kazakh areas. This would also explain why Russians from the Central Asian states are moving first to Kazakhstan, supplanting other Russians moving to Russia proper. (7)

The numbers presented here must be taken with caution, given the significant discrepancy between CIA and World Bank figures and insufficient data for some countries like Turkmenistan. The variation between World Bank and CIA data is indicative of the data problems generally. Accuracy problems in GNP/capita as purchasing power parity make comparative analysis difficult. (8) Environmental problems such as the Aral Sea desiccation, nuclear testing near Semi-Palatinsk and herbicide and fertilizer pollution from cotton cultivation have all lowered life expectancy and increased infant mortality. Kulchik, Fadin and Sergeev report that infant mortality figures produced by the governments are false, with the true figures treated as state secrets. (9) The economic collapse in the former Soviet Union also is leading to a process of severe degradation of health and education services, raising fears of increasing illiteracy in the next generation. In ten years, the relative socioeconomic standing of these countries will likely shift greatly. (10) Whereas the success of Soviet development policies supported the promulgation and export of "the Soviet model" for Third World development, the subsequent economic collapse and failure of health and education systems show that Soviet development programs rested on what was really a very fragile base. (11)

Evaluations

This thesis began by distinguishing the magnitude of vulnerability from concentration of vulnerability. Both scale and distribution respond to government policy within limitations imposed by geography, history and societal values. A schematic representation of government policies and mediating variables is given in Appendix E. Both magnitude and concentration are important in the three strategies of vulnerability management discussed earlier-- reduction, dispersion and encapsulation. (12) Examples of reduction strategies in the economic dimension include restrictions on foreign investment and currency non-convertibility. Greater size and resource endowments allowed both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to use such controls over interactions as a management-by-reduction strategy. This strategy reduced the severity of decline during the beginning of post-Soviet economic transition.

In contrast, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan pursued a strategy of dispersion which involved aggressive economic reform and active efforts to open up to the global economy in hopes of increasing the numbers of partners in economic transactions. (13) In particular, Kazakhstan's aggressive dispersion of its relations with investing countries helped protect the government from the threats experienced by Kyrgyzstan. Now these economic reform policies of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have reduced their scale and improved their distribution of vulnerability, while the scale of Uzbek and Turkmen vulnerability has grown. The graphs in Figure 7 (p. 51) and the charts on page 52 show these changes.

More recent figures, when they become available, will likely show the accentuated effects of the Russian economic blockade of Turkmenistan, continued economic recovery in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and the emigration of people to their titular republics, resulting in greater shifts toward a hypothetical vulnerability-reduction frontier. The changes in relative vulnerability between these five republics will alter the political dynamics of interaction. All of this discussion concerns levels of concentration and vulnerability largely relative to those of other members of the regional system. As Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan gain increasing freedom of action, and Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan lose it, a competition in vulnerability management will set in. It may lead Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to shift strategy toward seeking a greater number of interaction partners (dispersion) and perhaps to greater regional cooperation.

The measurements of vulnerability collected here allow several further comparisons. First, consider the scale or magnitude of economic vulnerability. The major categories of trade, aid and investment can be presented as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Gross domestic product is presented in purchasing power parity (PPP). Magnitude of economic vulnerability includes the amount of the fall in GDP. These four measures are aggregated first in a subtotal and added to the export concentration in units of the Herfindahl-Hirshman Index. That index uses a scale of zero to one, with 1.00 as the highest vulnerability. The abbreviation for aid is official direct assistance (ODA). Current account deficit as a percent of GDP measures trade vulnerability. Investment is FDI/Capita.

FIGURE 15: SCALE OF ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY, 1995 DATA

Abbreviations: Foreign direct investment (FDI), gross domestic product (GDP), Herfindahl-Hirshman index (HH), official direct assistance (ODA), purchasing power parity (PPP).
 

Observe from these measures using 1995 data that the scale of economic vulnerability for Tajikistan, in civil war, is 0.86. Kazakhstan has the lowest and best score with 0.22. Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are very close to each other, but these numbers measure conditions before the Kyrgyz economy recovered and Turkmenistan's declined.

Now in Figure 15 below, compare the distribution of vulnerability. These units are again Herfindahl-Hirshman Index numbers in which the larger number is a greater concentration of relations with fewer partners. These are separate dimensions which cannot be added, but should be considered as a matrix. It can be seen that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have a similar degree of distribution of relations. In general Uzbekistan has less concentration and Turkmenistan the least.

FIGURE 16: DISTRIBUTION OF VULNERABILITY

CONCLUSIONS

Further Research

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NOTES:

1. CIA data elevate Iran relative to China and India. However, Iran is suffering a process of disinvestment, and is internationally restricted in its relations, hardly a model of emulation on economic or political grounds. By contrast, China enjoys high rates of foreign direct investment and can offer itself as a model of development.

2. Mozaffari, 90.

3. "[Uzbek President] Islam Karimov is looking openly to China and its model of market reforms: 'Maximum freedom in the economy, minimal freedom in politics.' (There is actually little freedom in the economy, either.)" Kulchik, Fadin, Sergeev, 40.

4. "If the current growth rates of the Chinese economy are sustained, the stream of goods, money, information and migrants will gradually force Russia out of the economy, then out of the politics, culture and demography of the region. The region will be drawn into the orbit of a new world economic development pole -- the East Asian one." Kulchik, Fadin, and Sergeev, 56, 57.

5. Pakistan and India play insignificant roles both because they lack economic involvement, or significant cultural connection and their mutual security problems tie them down. South Korea and Japan play a role through financial investment and the numbers of resident Koreans from Stalin's deportations. Malaysia had the potential to play a role by virtue of shared Islamic identity and independent orientation. Because of the economic troubles of East Asia in 1998 this is now indefinitely foreclosed. For an example of the International Monetary Fund perspective on the Asian economic crisis see the full issue of Finance and Development, June 1998.

6. UNCTAD World Investment Report 1996 press release TAD/INF/2680 [http://www.unicc.org/unctad/en/pressref/ps3wir 96.htm]. Inflows to Malaysia in billions of dollars 1995 and 1994 were 5.8 and 4.3; outflows were 2.6 and 1.8.

7. Olcott, "Demographic Upheavals" 544. Emigration statistics conceal another supporting piece of evidence. Migrating Russians are only asked their most recent previous place of residence rather than where they originated. "This practice conceals the origins of many migrating Russians, who move from elsewhere in Central Asia to Kazakhstan and there attempt to arrange jobs and housing in Russia."

8. For example Behrman and Rosenzweig's "investigation finds: (1) there are serious intertemporal and inter-country comparability problems with these data that may affect inferences about labor force size, trends and productivity and schooling investments and impact." Jere R. Behrman and Mark R. Rosensweig, "Labour Force Caveat Emptor: Cross-Country Data on Education and the Labor Force," Journal of Development Economics. 44 (1994). 147-171

9. Kulchik, Fadin and Sergeev, 11.

10. For example, the Red Cross conducted a vulnerability study among households in seven representative regions of Kazakhstan: "Over one half of the respondents said that they were malnourished, while 11 percent of children in the republic were not attending school because they lacked adequate shoes and winter clothes. The study expressed a 'serious concern that a whole generation group of illiterate people is being created during the economic transformation.'" "Red Cross Survey Depicts Poverty in Kazakhstan," Jamestown Monitor, [http://www.jamestown.org], November 19, 1997, vol. III, no. 217. Referring to International Federation of the Red Cross, Kazakhstan Vulnerability Survey: Executive Outline, 1997, p. 2. See also "Nazarbaev Emphasizes Education," Jamestown Monitor, [http://www.jamestown.org],January 15, 1998 Vol. IV, no. 9 referencing the United Nations Development Report of 1997 and Delovaya Nedelya, January 9, 1998. "Sharp regional differences in educational levels are also causing concern. . . "

11. Charles K. Wilber, The Soviet Model and Underdeveloped Countries. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969). The Soviet development model was the subject of rather unabashed propaganda by Devendra Kaushik, Socialism in Central Asia: A Study in the Transformation of Socio-Ethnic Relations in Soviet Central Asia (Bombay/Calcutta: Allied Publishers, 1976), but Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone reports that Kaushik " notes explicitly that the model is not applicable to developing countries." Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone, "Soviet Central Asia: A Model of NonCapitalist Development for the Third World" in The USSR and the Muslim World

12. Beverly Crawford offers two common strategies of vulnerability management. The first is reduction by force of policy, presumably along the lines of Helge Hveem's four strategic options, (see page 11). The second is the transcending (encapsulating) of vulnerability through the organization of regional economic and security cooperative agreements and alliances. She writes: "States can reduce their trade vulnerability by changing their own policies to diminish the power their partner gains within the relationship. They can also minimize their vulnerability by building international "regimes" that establish norms of reciprocity and rules and procedures to determine who controls markets and to limit the power trading partners can exercise over one another." Crawford, ibid., 47. The current implausibility of western European war testifies to the effectiveness of NATO and the EU in transcending enduring vulnerabilities. For example, Huseyin Bagci describes the motivations of the German Chancellor in supporting the EMU as a battle against the violence of nationalist conflict. "He considers himself as the last barrier against the return of the poison of nationalism." Huseyin Bagci, "Turkey and the European Triangle," Turkish Daily News, January 29, 1998. Reprinted in Turkistan Newsletter, 98-2:0018, [Turkistan-N@vm.ege.edu.tr], January 30, 1998.

13. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has set up a scale to measure progress to a market economy. This scale from 1 to 4 covers enterprises, markets, financial institutions and legal transition. The EBRD has rated Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan a 2.75, Uzbekistan at 2.2 and Tajikistan and Turkmenistan at the bottom with 1.5. Transition Report 1997, (London: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1997), 21

14. Vulnerability perspective tries to more fully capture the ". . . nature of the international state system, the quest for sovereignty, independence, political autonomy, economic independence and other sacred cows of the nation state." Therefore, it tries to overcome the limitations and obstacles in these pursuits as the most important explanatory variable in International Relations. Jaap de Wilde, "Norman Angell: Ancestor of Interdependence Theory" in Rosenau, ibid., p. 21.

15. This study has used ratio-level data for the independent variables, but the dependent variable is nominal level, descriptive. Therefore, a better data quality index of state policy orientation should be constructed.

16. The test of factors promoting democracy by Alex Hadenius referenced earlier revealed a consistency at a global level. His correlations indicated ". . . that the relationships are primarily global and not regionally concentrated." Hadenius, 145.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER V

Appendix A