Central Asian Political Transitions

Political Transitions
in Central Asia
CA-PoliticalTransitions.com
Jonathan K. Zartman

Home	VULNERABILITY AND CENTRAL ASIAN DEVELOPMENT	Research Papers
Table of Contents	CHAPTER IV: IDENTITY VULNERABILITY	Chapter Five

Indentity Vulnerability

This chapter builds upon the justification of three dimensions of vulnerability established in Chapter I and the linkage proposed between cultural identity and domestic political stability. In this view, vulnerability within the dimension of political and cultural identity then flows from those cross-border interactions, and from internal conditions, exploitable by outside powers to undermine stability.⁽¹⁾ The central portion of the chapter delineates the layers of identity in Central Asia, and suggests measures of identity vulnerability. This leads to the operationalization of vulnerability in two parts, contact access and ethnicity. A sharp policy change in Kyrgyzstan provides the test case for connecting identity vulnerability with state control over the media.

A well established segment of the comparative politics literature considers the political and the economic effects associated with differences in "culture." Global economic relations that bring diverse peoples and countries into closer contact create political consequences. The growth of trade and technology has raised predictions of the globalization of culture and accusations of cultural imperialism.⁽²⁾ These changes affect both international relations and state-society relations. Therefore, a unified and multidimensional theory of vulnerability requires the inclusion of cultural and political identity.

The Definition and Significance of the Politics of Identity:

The significance of identity in politics can be seen in widely divergent perspectives from Weber to Gramsci. The present increasing relevance of cultural and political identity in international relations derives from general global developments. To the extent that much discussion of international relations centers on the analysis of conflict, the decline of conflict in one dimension can shift attention to conflicts in other dimensions.⁽³⁾ Competing trade blocs create the perception that international relations will be shaped by economic conflict. However, culture and identity have also experienced a great resurgence of theoretical interest. Many widely publicized conflicts underscore the power of the politics of identity. These include the religion related troubles of northern Ireland, the Basque pursuit of greater ethnic autonomy, Chechen insurrection and Quebequois linguistic assertiveness.⁽⁴⁾

States seek self-preservation in terms of political and cultural identity. Glen Fisher describes the need for security of identity that drives all states: "National identity and pride, a sense of place in history, popular beliefs about the role that one's nation plays on the world scene--all have major consequences for the international process."⁽⁵⁾ The modern state system operates as a mechanism exerting conforming pressure through exchanges of recognition. Norms of legitimacy which sanction, and even mandate the pursuit of control over territory and over economic instruments such as currency also support the drive for exclusive and monopolistic patterns of identity. Therefore, national policy orientation seeks control over three interests: security, economics and identity.⁽⁶⁾

Western states rely on social and civic factors to support loyalty and to buttress claims of state legitimacy founded upon national identity. Fisher explains: "Social purpose, . . . is both the basis for ideological persuasions and an underlying element in the thinking of economic policy planners."⁽⁷⁾ However, many polities employ larger degrees of coercion, and even authoritarian intimidation, as the foundation of stability. Drawing upon Amitai Etzioni's definition of a good society, Brenda Creasey defines the requirements of social order: "All forms of social order possess coercive elements [police], 'utilitarian' elements [economic incentives], and normative elements [appeals to values and moral education]."⁽⁸⁾ An alignment between the state and the moral commitments of its members implies the concept of legitimacy. Social order and legitimacy requirements force the Central Asian states to consider side effects from interstate relations upon all three elements of social order. A schematic summarizing the relations between dimensions of national interest is provided in Appendix F.

The whole subject of national development in the contemporary academic use of the term includes constituent elements of identity, such as shared history, language, or even religion, but more generally a shared vision of boundaries of belonging. Therefore, politically significant, and measurable elements of identity can be specified as ethnicity, culture, religion, ideology and language (ECRIL).⁽⁹⁾ As a shorthand expression for political identity this discussion uses the term culture not as the realm of the arts, literature, dance, etc., but rather as a label for the combined nexus of ideational factors upon which states can build legitimacy.⁽¹⁰⁾ Separate elements of identity such as religion and language overlap. They interact and sometimes reinforce each other. They are evoked according to social context. They are stimulated by the perception of threats, such as conflict across boundaries of belonging. They can lead to and support loyalty. Loyalty is exchanged for rewards, such as fulfillment of the human psychological need for group belonging, and for material benefits.⁽¹¹⁾ To the extent that identity comprises many overlapping layers that interact and change over time in response to conditions, and is even context dependent, it is called socially constructed. Therefore, national policies promoted without considering their effects on political identity can lead to instability.

Theoretical Framework: Neo-Gramscian Analysis

While the discussion of political identity and culture may benefit from illustration using journalistic accounts, an example of a theoretical framework in which to locate the discussion can be found in Antonio Gramsci.⁽¹²⁾ Gramsci proposed a "consensus model of society" rather than the Leninist "dictatorship of the state."⁽¹³⁾ Gramsci emphasizes ideology as a legitimating tool. In the same way, Central Asian identity vulnerability goes beyond simplistic formulas of ethnic unrest, failed Soviet nationality policy or Islamic revival movements.⁽¹⁴⁾

The western failure to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union revealed the misguided focus of political analysts. Glen Fisher explains: "Our focus was, understandably, in a Cold War context, on nuclear and military capability and on international intentions. As it turned out, social and psychological forces were more consequential."⁽¹⁵⁾ However, the leadership of Central Asia was successful in carrying out a "passive revolution," by quickly relabeling themselves as nationalists and democrats, and through the use of state institutions of control, they retained power.

In a neo-Gramscian formulation, the contradiction between the consciousness in the Muslim people and the Soviet ideology made governance fragile.⁽¹⁶⁾ This vulnerability has not yet today disappeared, but only changed shape, because the same group of people remains in the political leadership, only wearing different labels.⁽¹⁷⁾ The extent to which this relabeling, and the "passive revolution," have brought the leadership into conformity with the consciousness of the people may be indicated by the degree of authoritarian control which the political elites feel compelled to exercise.⁽¹⁸⁾ A convenient focus for the perception of vulnerability by these elites is the extent to which external actors can appeal to, or exploit, relations and conditions within the state that can undermine legitimacy by raising contradictory identities. If the "passive revolution" and relabeling successfully aligns the leadership with the masses, then the political leadership will enjoy security through cultural hegemony, will not be "decedent" and thus not vulnerable to further revolution.⁽¹⁹⁾

Context of Identity Politics: Identity in Central Asia

Interest in identity issues in Central Asia has surged and faded since 1991. The first post-independence reaction of many observers in the popular press considered the possible growth of political Islam or the potential for a renewed version of pan-Turkism. Neither of these streams of thought had grounding in the historical or social realities of Central Asia.⁽²⁰⁾ Then the focus of interest shifted from questions of identity to competition for natural resources. The development of state policy orientation within the arena of competing identities does not lend itself to simple metaphors. Yet, as Merdad Haghayeghi explains, the future development of these states will not be shaped by competition between Iran, Turkey, the West and Russia, as states, but between competing complexes of identity: "In this process, Islam, democracy, and ethnicity are the principle players in the Central Asian drama, whose script has yet to assume its final shape."⁽²¹⁾ This thesis claims that identity is one dimension of stability and of sovereignty which states act to protect from influence by external agents.Sovereignty is a psychocultural construct that depends on the ordinary perception of identity.⁽²²⁾

Common explanations of the appearance of strong government control in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan include the lack of a nationalist struggle for independence, passivity and dependency. The Central Asian republics did not seek independence: it was thrust upon them without a struggle for nationalism. They resisted the breakup of the Soviet Union. Except for Kyrgyzstan, they are still led by ex-Communist bosses even in spite of the civil war in Tajikistan. An American observer in Uzbekistan attributes this to a certain passivity of the people.⁽²³⁾ Anthony Hyman echoes a similar view: "Part of the explanation for the different public response probably lies in the lower receptivity of the Central Asians to nationalist appeals based on historical memory."⁽²⁴⁾ In addition, dependency affects identity. Alexander Wendt says: "Indeed, dependency, whether intersubjective or material, is a key determinant of the extent to which an actor's identity is shaped by interaction."⁽²⁵⁾ The Soviets tried to use dependency to promote identity change toward the new "Soviet Man," but could not overcome the consciousness of Muslim identity.⁽²⁶⁾ In the mean time, the political structures being formed in Central Asia reflect the balance between the influence of Islam, ethnicity, nationalism, and kinship ties. The national leaders are exploiting the inability of any one identity to form a politically dominant combination. This allows them to use the materials of collective heritage to create their own distinctive forms of personal leadership.

In a typical analysis, Mustafa Aydin concludes that a rational cost-benefit calculation underlies a purposeful avoidance of harnessing political Islam or pan-Turkism for nationalism. The national leaders resist pressures to choose between the Islam of Iran or a greater Turkish identity.⁽²⁷⁾ The presence of large Russian minorities and the urgent need for economic development creates additional competitive pressures. Competition between the patrons of different identities allows Central Asian political elites to balance opposing forces against each other and to pursue independent paths. Each of the Central Asian Republics demonstrates an increasing divergence in policies and identities.

Identity Management

The role of national elites as bridges across the identity faultlines forces them to create identities for legitimacy. Bess Brown explains: "One of the first tasks of the political and intellectual elite of postindependence Central Asia has been the promotion of national patriotism in place of the local or clan loyalties that traditionally have dominated the region."⁽²⁸⁾ Igor Lipovsky describes the general process of national identity creation used in Central Asia as an eclectic borrowing from different periods of Turkish history. The ingredients include controlled democracy, an economy half liberal and the other half state-owned, and an ideological appeal blending both nationalistic and Islamic values.⁽²⁹⁾

Layers of Identity:

Ethnicity and Language

This chapter uses ethnicity statistics as a proxy for culture, religion and language because of the prominence of overlap and the availability of statistics regarding ethnicity. This overlap is strongest along the division between Muslim vs. and typically Russian-speaking non-Muslim. The most ambiguous, problematic and artificially constructed categorization pits Tajiks against Uzbeks in spite of nearly universal Tajik bilingualism and common intermarriage.⁽³⁰⁾

The measurement of identity must overcome the objections and protests of the postmodernist assertion regarding the social construction of identity. In disclaiming the utility of published ethnicity statistics, many anecdotes refer to misalignment between the identity written on passports and evidence such as ethnic heritage and linguistic usage. This illustrates the importance of ethnicity even as the measurement is hindered. Given the widely evident technical inaccuracy of ethnicity statistics based on surveys and self-identification, it can be argued that nationality studies are really showing voluntary affiliation. To the extent that this factor operates, it supports the argument that ethnicity matters.

The second justification for ethnicity derives from the practice of political elites claiming that they consider ethnicity and borders, in shaping their policies. For example, explaining Turkmenistan's international recognized claim of neutrality, James Meek quotes Yolbaz Kebanov:

A senior Turkmen energy official in the capital Ashkhabad, said: 'By all means let the U. S. say straight out, "Don't make friends with Iran." But we can't do that, because we are a neutral country. In principle everyone has to be equal in our eyes, but Iran has to come first. We've got 1,500km (900 miles) of common border. There are 2 million Turkmen in the north of Iran. We have to cooperate with them.' ⁽³¹⁾

Ethnicity has become important largely as a political instrument on which state leaders seek to build a sense of nationalism. These "nation-building" efforts have provoked significant tensions.⁽³²⁾ The graphs in Appendix D attempt to show the significance of large minority populations for each of these republics. To some extent interethnic tensions are merely subsets of clan, tribal and regional allegiances.⁽³³⁾

Language, Religion, and Ideology

Language issues in Central Asia act in concert with ethnicity rather than independently. This lowers the value of language as an independent indicator used for index construction. For the operationalization of the geographical distribution of cultural vulnerability inadequate data have forced a reliance on published ethnicity percentages and data on forms of cross cultural contact. Like language, religion plays less of an independent role, but rather reinforces ethnicity. This study does not attempt to measure religion and ideology in the vulnerability perception of elites, because of the overlap of layers and inadequate statistics.

Each of these republics developed organizations that sought greater cultural autonomy from Russian control in 1989 because of Glasnost. Over time these organizations also began demanding greater political participation and support for Islamic practices and institutions. The issue of religious identity shows a greater complexity within Central Asia.⁽³⁴⁾ This complexity itself stands as a redoubt to the ideological uniformity demanded by forms of political Islam such as developed in the Republic of Iran.

The best information concerning the significance and intensity of Islam as a source of political and cultural identity consists of description in relative terms, as Michael Rywkin explains:

The religious factor can only partially be measured in standard terms (percentage of believers, attendance at mosques, adherence to rituals), although even in these terms it shows considerably more strength than the Russian Orthodox Church. What really matters are the whole range of social attitudes dominated by Islam and the reality of national-religious symbiosis.⁽³⁵⁾

The low receptivity of Central Asian people to the appeal of the Iranian model of Islam reflects not just the Shi'a-Sunni divide or the legacy of seventy years of Soviet secular repression of religion, but also the diverse and complex character of Central Asian Islam.⁽³⁶⁾ Islam is, at least until now, unable to act as a political force in Central Asia. According to Nancy Luban and her surveys for the U. S. Institute of Peace, nationality has a very low hold on people's identity compared to family and community, and Central Asians "displayed almost as much wariness of each other as they did of the Russians."⁽³⁷⁾ More importantly, a high percentage could not identify, or translate the most fundamental tenant of Islam. Furthermore, 20 percent of the same group of Kazakh Muslims said they disagreed with the statement.⁽³⁸⁾ Lubin concludes: "For some, Islam means the traditional practices of their particular family, village, or urban quarter and not of people outside those groups."⁽³⁹⁾

Measuring Identity Vulnerability

The lack of state resources and motivation hinders statistical collection in Central Asia. The effort of statistical collection requires justification in terms of advancing such priorities as economic recovery and political independence. Data collection regarding the role of identity falls low on the list of state priorities. Collecting data on factors affecting the legitimacy of state control becomes less important when states rely on authoritarian control for stability. Furthermore, state repression of opposition groups precludes the public measuring of their membership. Finally, many of the relevant loci of identity and loyalty such as extended family, occupation or native region, while extremely relevant to internal stability, do not lend themselves to comparative measurement. It is precisely to these factors that several well-informed commentators attribute the bloody civil war in Tajikistan.⁽⁴⁰⁾

Cross-Cultural Contacts as Channels of Vulnerability

The second category of identity vulnerability indicators includes channels of contact access across international borders such as students, tourists, foreign workers, missionaries, media broadcasts and media imports.

Students

Several events related to Central Asia suggestion using students as a measure of cross border cultural influences. The most well publicized is the role played by Afghan students in religious training centers in Pakistan who have returned to Afghanistan and have now taken control of more than two-thirds of Afghanistan.⁽⁴¹⁾ The implications of student exchange are well understood by the governments of sending and receiving states. Student exchange does not merely serve the purpose of raising the level of human capital, indirectly a form of technology transfer. Elements of vulnerability underlay the symbolism of student exchange that implies compatibility between states and willingness to cooperate.⁽⁴²⁾ The study by UNESCO concerning this function of culture carrying, concluded that: "The foreign student has come in order to be affected by his stay. Culture carrying to him and through him is legitimate, and required, the raison d'etre of his stay.⁽⁴³⁾ In spite of these qualifications, and the caution not to exaggerate their role, the sending of exchange students can be an easily measurable statistic for cultural vulnerability.

Tourists, Expatriates, and Missionaries: Airline Service Capacity

Using the category of mechanisms, or tools, of cultural imperialism, Sreberny-Mohammadi defines and defends the importance of many of these categories. Her list includes missionaries and the export of religion, education, and travel and tourism.⁽⁴⁴⁾ If statistics were available on the numbers of expatriate workers and missionaries these would be useful measurements. Expatriate workers and missionaries, to the extent that they have a high degree of contact with the native population, and often the status of teachers, carry culture in a person-to-person manner beyond government supervision.⁽⁴⁵⁾

States often inaugurate regular scheduled airline service to a target country as a symbol of interest and the desire for influence.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Regular airline flights provide a channel that involves economic potential as well as cultural exchange and diplomatic reciprocity of recognition.⁽⁴⁷⁾ Businessmen who will invest millions and direct large enterprises want to fly in to their target country. Sometimes the target country greatly needs the hard currency that tourists bring. For some countries, even a significant amount of their foreign trade is even carried by individual entrepreneurs using suitcases, the so-called shuttle trade. Airline flights also represent a channel for the transmission of infectious diseases, drugs and terrorism. The availability of seating capacity statistics for the four Turkic airports, (Almaty, Ashghabat, Bishkek, and Tashkent) allows their use here to support a geographical distribution.⁽⁴⁸⁾

Media Imports

To the extent that movies, music compact disks, and cassette tapes embody and symbolize western cultural values such as materialism, individualism, and even secularism, democracy and different sexual mores, they can be very threatening to native cultural values.⁽⁴⁹⁾ While statistics on the geographical distribution of sources of imported cultural products are elusive, UNESCO figures on the sources of imported long films are used where available. The significance of cultural products and the media is evident from the protests against them made in third world countries.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Protests such as these once took the form of a project called the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO).⁽⁵¹⁾ Measurement of cross-cultural contact, must include media such as cross-border radio broadcasting. Radio broadcasting still aims at influencing attitudes and opinions, although it is no longer a tool of the Cold War⁽⁵²⁾ As radio broadcasting functions within the whole structure of cultural production controlled by the government, minority groups perceive its function as a tool of cultural assimilation or conquest.⁽⁵³⁾

This study includes cross-border broadcasting and imported films as proxies for cultural contact and interaction. Without implying any actual effect on identity, this procedure merely tries to capture the base on which elites do perceive media as a channel of interaction.⁽⁵⁴⁾ Measurement of radio broadcasting used market surveys of radio listeners performed by the company Intermedia for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.⁽⁵⁵⁾

Satellite television broadcasts also represent an evasion of government's controlled production and transmission of culture, and have faced uneven efforts at prohibition in countries like Iran and China. No figures are available for Central Asia. Internet connections also represent a potentially uncontrollable access for the public to information that governments may find threatening.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Western philanthropic organizations such as George Soros' Open Society have made Internet access provision a high priority, but measurements of the geographical distribution of information flows along the Internet are not available.

Weaknesses and Cautions

The effects of these types of influences must not be exaggerated, but only measured and considered in combination with other channels of influence from outside the state. Daniel Deudney explains that caution must be extended not to exaggerate the influence of consumption, production, leisure, telecommunications and the general international effects of greater connectedness referred to as the global village.⁽⁵⁷⁾ Therefore, exposure to outside cultural influences says nothing about the changes in identity as such. Exposure to Western materialism, for example, is an ingredient that can provoke reactive rejection and increase particularistic identity if the outside culture threatens to overwhelm the native ways of thinking and believing. As Gramsci's approach explains, because outside cultural influences potentially threaten the monopolization of cultural production by the state, and thereby state power and control, they should be understood as sources of vulnerability. This requires that interactional channels be measured as indicators of the geographical distribution of vulnerability.

Identity Vulnerability Test Case: Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz Policy Response to Rising Vulnerability

Corollary 3.-- Increasing identity vulnerability tends to support increasing state control over the instruments of cultural production--the media.

Changing vulnerability forced a sharp policy change in Kyrgyzstan. But this vulnerability was not carried by the variables suggested earlier. Kyrgyz identity vulnerability arose in the economic dimension and operated through an intervening variable--corruption. Kyrgyz policy changed from allowing the greatest freedom of the press in Central Asia and rapid progress in democratization to abuse and persecution of the press. This policy change resulted from the perception of political danger produced indirectly from a concentration of economic relations. The threat perception and response must be considered in the context of the political career of President Askar Akayev.

Context of Kyrgyz Media Policy

Explaining Kyrgyzstan's initial policy orientation requires both the historical and institutional context and the configuration of vulnerability distribution. Unlike the other Central Asian states, the President of Kyrgyzstan is not the former First Secretary of the Communist Party.⁽⁵⁸⁾ Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev gained election as the result of a power vacuum when the previous First Secretary of the Communist Party lost the support of the Kyrgyz Supreme Soviet. From the presidency of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences, Askar Akayev became Kyrgyz Republic President through alliances with a new movement, the Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan (DMK), and reformist politicians and economists, against opposition from the Communist party and the security forces.⁽⁵⁹⁾ Following the August 19, 1991 coup attempt in Moscow, a coup attempted against Akayev caused him to resign from the Communist party and the Communist party lost credibility.

These political battles did not cause Akayev to become more authoritarian out of personal vulnerability. The symbol of this relatively democratic policy orientation that contrasted so starkly with all of the neighboring states was freedom of the press. Glen Curtis observes: "Through late 1993, Kyrgyzstan's newspapers enjoyed the greatest freedom of publication of any of the Central Asian nations, rivaling the freedom of the post-1991 Moscow press."⁽⁶⁰⁾

Beginning in 1993, all of this changed. Newspaper editors were taken to trial and sentenced to prison for libel and assorted other crimes.⁽⁶¹⁾ Given the previous policy, this harassment of the media surprised Western governments and nongovernmental organizations, provoking protestations and complaints. Josephine Schmidt reports the extent of this new control over products affecting cultural and political identity: New customs regulations have "banned the import of books and other printed matter, audiovisual material, computer disks, handwritten documents and other items that 'may damage the political and economic interests, national security, public order, health, and public morals' of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan."⁽⁶²⁾

Economic Concentration and Vulnerability

What is it that changed Akayev's policy regarding the media? The Kyrgyz government oriented its policy to the West--democratization and a free press-- to attract foreign direct investment, but very little came.⁽⁶³⁾ This policy contrasted sharply with neighboring states. The extent and process of Kyrgyzstan's opening to the West led Martha Brill Olcott to claim that: " . . . Kyrgyzstan has allowed foreign economic experts to virtually dictate its reform program."⁽⁶⁴⁾ The small amount of foreign investment that came was dominated by the Canadian investment in the Komtor gold mine, which amounted, at that time, to 90% of total foreign direct investment in Kyrgyzstan.⁽⁶⁵⁾ Negotiations for this concession with the Canadian firm (Cameco) for the development of the gold mine resulted in a financial scandal when the media published evidence that Kyrgyz negotiating team members had financial interests in the deal.⁽⁶⁶⁾

Corruption as an Intervening Variable Between Economic Concentration and Control of the Media

Akayev had to deal with rumors and accusation regarding his family and the entourage of his wife. "In December 1993 public protest about this gold concession brought down the government of Prime Minister Tursunbek Chyngyshev and badly damaged Akayev's popularity and credibility." The next year impartial observers concluded that the public referendum for Akayev's presidency in January 1994 was fraudulent.⁽⁶⁷⁾ Although the government claimed to fight corruption, it turned against the media that exposed the corruption.⁽⁶⁸⁾ A free press that could have served as the best friend of a government fighting corruption became a threat.

The concentration of economic relations aids the diversion of funds. Potential for abuse increases when all foreign investment flows through the government instead of directly business to business. A concentrated source of money involves fewer parties that need to be controlled or paid off. Corruption directly links a concentration of economic relations and the political vulnerability of a government. President Akayev had endured a great deal of personal vulnerability in the progress of a career climbing the political ladder under the Communist system and even a potentially fatal coup attempt. But these threats did not produce authoritarianism. However, the fall of the government of former Prime Minister Chyngyshev communicated vulnerability on a state as well as an individual level. In this respect corruption and instability did not result from any specific quality characteristic of the foreign investment source (Canada) but from the effect of concentration itself.

Kyrgyz democratization placed its political orientation very much out of alignment or congruence with its neighbors. The constraints of landlocked isolation and Soviet economic heritage, with its associated dependencies and vulnerabilities, fed subverting pressures. The combination of a concentration in economic interactions and weak institutions of state economic management supported corruption. The political vulnerabilities forced a Kyrgyz policy change that brought its orientation into alignment with its neighbors. Identity vulnerability does not derive solely from large minorities of different ethnicity, culture, religion, ideology or language. Nor is it solely a product of cross-border cultural interactions, but it is enormously under the influence of economic relations. Economic relations produce effects on political identity through their effect on popular perception of government legitimacy. These policy changes in Kyrgyzstan illustrate the hazards associated with the concentration of interactions, whether in economics, or in security or identity.⁽⁶⁹⁾ The charts in Chapter III, figures 7, 8 and 9 show that Kyrgyzstan reduced its export concentration dramatically (together with actively-reforming Kazakhstan) after independence and in contrast to the increasing market concentration of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. However, efforts to disperse Kyrgyz economic relations have been less successful. The following chart dramatizes the significance of foreign investment in Kyrgyzstan in comparison to the other Central Asian states, especially when adjusted for population, size of economy and the amount of domestic investment.

FIGURE 14: COMPARATIVE LEVELS OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

(FDI)

ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY THROUGH FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Country FDI/Cap.($U.S.) FDI as %
of GDI FDI as %
of GDP FDI as %
of fixed capital FDI (1995)
as % of PCI Official Assist.
as % of GNP

Kazakhstan 180 8.1 1.3 13.0 5.1 0.3

Kyrgyzstan 31.0 3.2 0.5 68.0 12.7 5.8

Tajikistan 10.0 4.3 0.8 n. a. 2.2 3.2

Turkmenistan 81.0 --- 0 n. a. 7.8 0.1

Uzbekistan 8.0 1.1 0.5 16.0 1.2 0.1

Notes: Abbreviations are: (FDI) foreign direct investment, (GDI) gross domestic investment, (GDP) gross domestic product, (GNP) gross national product, (PCI) GDP/Capita. Sources: Column 2 1992-1996 Net flows: EIU Country Report Kazakhstan 3rd Quarter 1997, 38, Note: Turkmenistan seems unreasonable high, but EBRD reports cumulative 1989-1996 / capita of $118, and for 1996 alone $28/ capita, which amounted to 5% of GDP in 1996. Columns 3,4World Bank Development Indicators 1997, 232-235, Column 5 Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS, FDI to total capital investment volume, Personal Communication Feb. 1998, Column 6, Economic Survey of Europe, 30, Column 7, World Development Report, 1996.

The work of Alex Hadenius further supports the significance of direct investments and commodity concentration for the orientation of state policy. He used a multiple regression analysis of measures of dependency and level of democracy. Out of six factors that explained 53.4% of variance, the standardized regression coefficient of commodity concentration was -0.26 and for direct investment it was 0.22.⁽⁷⁰⁾ Tatu Vanhanen called these factors part of an index of power resources. Vanhanen compared democratization with the decentralization of non-agricultural economic resources and discovered a correlation of 0.872.⁽⁷¹⁾ These two studies support the view that a concentration of economic resources and relations works against the decentralization of political power implied by democracy. These studies are consistent with the view that the consolidation of democracy in Kyrgyzstan could be supported by a dispersal of economic resources and relations.

Summary

Kyrgyzstan'saggressive state reform policy orientation can be interpreted as an attempt

to balance a security and identity vulnerability to its more powerful neighbors with an economic and identity vulnerability to the West. Furthermore, the fall of one Kyrgyz government and the shift to media censorship illustrates the reality of vulnerability that openness can bring. It also shows the hazards of offsetting the orientation of vulnerability in one dimension with a concentration of vulnerability in another dimension. Kyrgyzstan, as the leading Central Asian state in the economic and political reform process, has also recovered first and fastest.⁽⁷²⁾ However, political instability still jeopardizes the reform process. Until the linkage between few sources of foreign investment, the ease of corruption, and popular dissatisfaction with economic decline is resolved, Western governments should not expect liberalization of the media.

Events in Kyrgyzstan demonstrate a close association

between a concentration in one sector of economic vulnerability and, through the intervening variable of corruption, state repression of the media. Identity vulnerability did not arise from external sources acting through the measures suggested. This is not the direct association of identity vulnerability and media repression posited by the third corollary hypothesis. This case study of policies and events in Kyrgyzstan can only be considered to offer a partial confirmation of the hypothesis.

Footnotes:

1. The vulnerability of the Central Asian republics is a product of the interest attracted to these states because of their geopolitical setting, their resources and the characteristics of the population that make linkages on the basis of shared identity exploitable. "This attention has rendered the republics vulnerable to systemic influences. . . . Because developments in Central Asia would inevitably affect the interests of these actors, they have tried to influence the internal evolution of the Central Asian countries and their foreign policies by encouraging specific ideological tendencies. . . . Their interference has tended to exacerbate the Central Asian countries' internal divisions and intensify differences and rivalries." Hunter, 17.

2. "The nature of individual and national relations will be transformed. Those wires and constellations of satellites and invisible beams of electronic signals criss-crossing the globe will literally form the fabric of future civilization." David Rothkopf, "In Praise of Cultural Imperialism?" Foreign Policy, 107 (Summer 1997) 48.

3. On a regional level, arms races continue to play a role in a cycle of tension, but the predominance of American military power after the end of the Cold War and in light of the Gulf War has illustrated the diminished significance of the global competition aspect in the realm of global defense spending and military capability.

4. For an example of comments on the dialectic of interaction between forces of economics and identity see Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine, 1995).

5. Glen Fisher, Mindsets, 2nd edition (Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, 1997), p. 75

6. From a technical and theoretical standpoint, even geopolitics assert a central role for identity in international politics. ". . . some geopolitics experts feel that space has not meaning except as a territorial container, . . . .Furthermore, the 'physical environment' and 'human society' are linked by the process of evaluation and 'envaluation,' which means that natural factors have to be transformed into socio-economic categories. Evaluation and 'envaluation' are shaped, on the one hand, by social and cultural norms and on the other hand, the effects of physical-geographical factors on social processes are also a function of technical and socio-economic development." Dieter Weiser, " 'Geopolitics' -- Renaissance of a Controversial Concept," Aussenpolitik 45, no. 4, 1994, 404

7. Fisher, 156.

8. Brenda Creasey, Personal Communication.

9. For simple expression, the word 'culture' will be used frequently, rather than listing the components (ECRIL).Tables and graphs related to this concept may still employ the acronym of (ECRIL).

10. Gerry Chick identifies four main types of definitions of culture. Arranged in order of increasing inclusiveness they are: Culture as mental, (shared systems of meaning); Culture as mental and behavioral (set of learned values and beliefs); Culture as mental, behavioral and material (patterns assumed to involve learning); and Culture as information, ("any single culture [is] an 'information economy' in which information is received, or created, retrieved, transmitted, utilized and even lost."). It is this last usage employed here which Chick credits to J. M. Roberts, "The self-management of cultures." In W. H. Goodenough (ed.) Explorations in Cultural Anthropology, . 433-454. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964). Gerry Chick, "Cultural Complexity: The Concept and Its Measurement." Cross-Cultural Research. 31, no. 4, (November, 1997),. 275-307

11. William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations,(New York: Cambridge University Press 1990).

12. Gramsci attributes ". . . importance to non-economic factors like ideology, ideas, values, beliefs, culture and politics," because, ". . . modern man is not ruled by force alone, but also ideas." Dorn, 11, 12. On page 12 quoting J. V. Fermia, "Review Article: Gramsci's Patrimony" British Journal of Political Science, 13, part 3, (July 1983), 346.

13. Allen E. Dorn, The Soviet Central Asian Challenge: a Neo-Gramscian Analysis," Thesis, (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, September 1986), 44. "The key to applying Gramscian or neo-Gramscian theory is to make the distinction between dominant and subordinate social divisions within a society. . . In reality, within any society both vertical and horizontal divisions exist simultaneously. . . . As such the important characteristic for applying Gramscian or neo-Gramscian theory to a particular society is to identify the dominant social division of control and intersocial cleavage." Dorn, p. 12

14. Also see Dorn, 46.

15. Glen Fisher, 88.

16. He defined the motivation for this challenge as the Central Asian's fear of losing their identity through assimilation into the Russian culture. Indeed, Central Asians "view the preservation of their identity as bound to the preservation of Islam." Dorn, 54. The strength of the Muslim family and the demographic pressure of large families, the Sufi movement, the Muslim intellectuals, and official and unofficial "parallel" Islam combine to offer a plausible mechanism for challenging Soviet cultural hegemony.

17. "The Soviets established their bureaucracies on the basis of the traditional networks of family, clan and region. They perpetuated the underlying tribal and imperial political cultures and their paternalistic, personality-based and authoritarian tendencies." Hunter, 16.

18. Steven Burg notes the forces that supported authoritarianism in Soviet times, and may still operate in different guises, include the interaction between loyalty and economic transfers. Steven L. Burg, "Central Asian Political Participation and Soviet Political Development," The USSR and the Muslim World, ed. Yaacov Ro'i, (London: George Allen and Unwin,

1984), 54

19. Gramsci applies the term 'hegemony' to the cultural ascendancy of the group associated with the political leadership. "The cultural ascendancy of the ruling group serves as the mechanism of rule for the society and allows for group dominance within society." Dorn, 13. Quoting Fiori, G. Antonio Gramsci, Life of a Revolutionary, New Left Books, 1990 According to Gramsci, hegemony produces the moral and cultural integration of the masses into the state because the state works to educate them into the beliefs and values of the dominant group. "After all, any institution which serves to justify the rule of the dominant group and extend that rule through consensus is by definition an hegemonic structure." Dorn, 42, 43. Against a state with such a mechanism of rule, how can the oppressed masses achieve justice in a social revolution? Gramsci suggests that a competition mounted by counterhegemonic forces in a 'battle for the mind' is necessary as the first stage of a social revolution that would, if successful, culminate in a ". . . battle for state power." Dorn, 18.

20. "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union , as political leaders around the area pondered the possible threat posed by competing identities they evaluated the balance between the influence of political Islam and pan-Turkism. These identities came packaged with external sponsors with Iran as the patron and symbol of political Islam and Turkey aspiring to lead a "Turkish century" with U. S. support. Yet the political potential of these identities is not reflected in their current strength. The civil war in Tajikistan, added to the continuing war in Afghanistan, prompted worry, for example, especially in neighboring China whether a pan-Turkic nationalism or militant Islam might pose a threat to the Moslem Turkish areas of Chinese Xinjiang province. However, political observers discovered over the period 1989 to 1992 that the Central Asian elites did not seek cultural, linguistic or religious development or connections, but rather economic development." Ross H. Munro, "Central Asia and China." In Central Asia and the World. ed. Michael Mandelbaum. (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1994), 229.

21. Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Islam and Politics in Central Asia, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), xv. Shireen Hunter also explains: "Despite early fears about a regional struggle in Central Asia, especially between Iran and Turkey, that could lead to domination by one of them, . . . . In fact most of the regional countries, except for Tajikistan, have skillfully manipulated competition for influence in the region to their own advantage." Hunter, p. xix

22. An expression adapted from the phrase, "The psychocultural issue is sovereignty . . ." from Glen Fisher, Mindsets, 112.

23. Personal interview with Jim Hall who spent 1994 and 1995 supervising the construction of an eye hospital in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

24. Anthony Hyman, book review of Russia and the New States of Eurasia. The Politics of Upheaval in Central Asian Survey (1996), 15(2), p. 312.

25. Alexander Wendt, "Collective Identity Formation and the International State" American Political Science Review. (1994) 88(2), 389. Wendt basically considers the obverse of my theme. "The structures of regional or global international systems constitute interaction contexts that either inhibit or facilitate the emergence of dynamics of collective identity formation."

26. The new export infrastructure routes between republics presently on the drawing boards will take many years to develop, but will ultimately reshape not only the lines of dependency, but also their identities. The Soviet project of creating a new "Soviet Man" failed in Central Asia and the evidence of that failure [decreasing fluency in Russian as revealed by the 1979 Census] played a part in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. National leaders also "saw the census results as objective reasons and justifications for escalating their demands on the center." Craig Calhoun, "Social Theory and the Politics of Identity," Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1994). p. 55.

27. "In contrast to all this activity and rivalry outside their countries, to gain a place of influence playing to their national identities, the Central Asian leadership, up to the present, have been consciously trying to avoid the poisonous questions as to the place of religion (Islam) and ethnicity(Turkism) in their identity, and have thus resisted outside pressures to choose between the 'models' presented to them on these grounds. Instead, they have focused primarily on the future of their economic relations and so far have kept all options open." Mustafa Aydin, "Turkey and Central Asia: Challenges of Change," Central Asian Survey, 15, no. 2, June, 1996, 167.

28. Bess A. Brown, "National Security and Military Issues in Central Asia," 235

29. "This eclectic model allows the Central Asian leaders to retain the structure of power and methods of leadership of the old communist regime, while making a smooth transition to a moderate, secular, nationalist political system, with a mixed economy." Igor Lipovsky, "Central Asia: In Search of a New Political Identity," Middle East Journal. 50, no. 2 (Spring 1996) 214

30. The overlapping between ethnicity and the religious and linguistic layers has tended to produce a dyadic structure of identities. For instance, the minority groups forcibly relocated to Central Asia predominantly speak Russian because it provides their only common language. Kulchik, Fadin and Sergeev, Central Asia After Empire, (Chicago: Pluto Press, 1996), 20. This produces a Russian speaking versus non-Russian speaking dyad largely corresponding to the Non-Muslim versus Muslim dyad. The rates at which Russian speakers have learned the local languages is also less than five percent anywhere in Central Asia, but the local urban population has had to learn enough Russian to cope, and often much more than they will now claim. The economic division of labor also reinforces the effective segregation of the European populations from the indigenous people as separate cultural communities.

31. James Meek, "Iranian Pipelines// Turkmenistan Riches," The Guardian (UK) February 3, 1998. Reprinted in Turkistan Newsletter, vol. 98-2:026 [Turkistan-N@vm.ege.edu.tr]. February 12, 1998.

32. After the Uzbeks held a celebration in 1996 in honor of the 660th birthday of Tamerlane whom Tajiks regard as an aggressor with a record of massacres, the Tajiks countered with a plan to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of the founding of the Samanides dynasty in 1999 as "a Tajik dynasty with Bukhara as its capital." The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization was forced to step into defuse the conflict. As journalist Guissou Jeannot-Jahangiri notes: "The planned celebration has become a stick for top-level politicians and does not seem to arouse any popular concerns."Abbas Djavadi, "Tajikistan: UNESCO Moves to Defuse Tajik-Uzbek Tension," RFE/RL, [http://www.refrl.org/nca/features/1997/10/F.RU.971031134343.
html], October 31, 1997. Also, Russian politicians use the condition of Russians in Central Asia as a central issue in policy for both political and economic reasons. Politically, Russian pride of status as a great state ties in with the state's ability to protect co-ethnics abroad. Economically, Russia cannot afford to provide jobs, housing or social services to Russians who may decide to move to Russia.

33. The cultural distance between Russians and Central Asians is a function not only of the coinciding faultlines through all five layers of ethnicity, culture, religion, ideology and language, but also of the resentment developed during the history of Russian political domination, economic exploitation and failed policies of Russification. In a famous quote Michael Rywkin explains the context dependence of identity: "Facing a Kazakh he feels Uzbek, facing a Tatar he feels Turkestani, while confronting a Christian or a Jew he feels Muslim. A Russian makes him feel all three (Uzbek, Turkestani, Muslim) and awakens the latent resentment of a native against a settler. These multiple identities, all opposed to the Russian, significantly increase the distance between these two groups." Michael Rwykin, Moscow's Muslim Challenge, Revised edition, (Armonk, N. Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), 10.

34. Historically, the predominant cultural divide separated the nomadic groups from the sedentary oasis farmers and village residents centered around the Emirates and Khanates of Kokand, Samarqand, Bukhara and Khiva. This cultural divide carries repercussions even today. The nomadic Turkmen, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz accepted Islam much later, more superficially and with greater syncretic accretions of Shamanism than the more sedentary Uzbeks and Tajiks. This is still reflected in differences in their proclivity to political Islam today.

35. Michael Rywkin, "National Symbiosis: Vitality, Religion, Identity, Allegiance." The USSR and the Muslim World, ed. Yaacov Ro'i, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1894), 8.

36. Sergei Poliakov relates a proverb illustrating the differences in religious expression and practice between Uzbeks and Turkmen, but he attributes it the influence of Shi'a thinking rather than the role of Sufic practice. "Shi'ism, at least on the everyday level, was widespread among the Turkmens as recently as the eighteenth century, and traces of it are still so strong in the Turkmen environment that there is even a saying, 'When the Turkmen prays, the Uzbek spits,' meaning that the Sunni Uzbeks do not accept the Shi'ite aspects of Turkmen Sunnism." Sergei P. Poliakov, Everyday Islam Religion and Tradition in Rural Central Asia, ed. Martha Brill Olcott. Translated by Anthony Olcott, (Armonk, N. Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), 134

37. Nancy Lubin, "Peaceworks No. 2" (Washington D. C.: United States Institutes of Peace, 1995), p. 15.

38. One third of self -proclaimed practicing Muslims in Uzbekistan and two thirds in Kazakhstan could not identify he Arabic expression "There is no God other than Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet."Lubin, 18.

39. Lubin, ibid.

40. Shahram Akbarzadeh, "Why Did Nationalism Fail in Tajikistan?"

41. The degree to which they have enforced their understanding of Sharia' (Islamic law), especially in relation to women's dress, work outside the home, and access to education and health care has received unfavorable international attention. While the policies of the Taliban do not match up to those of the government of Pakistan, widespread reports claim that Pakistan has provided arms and supplies to the Taliban as agents of Pakistani interests. To the extent that Afghan students study in other countries, they became carriers of culture in both directions.

42. For example, Turkey established in January, 1992 a Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TICA), attached to the Foreign Ministry, for the promotion of its political objectives in Central Asia and the Caucasus through economic, cultural, educational and technical cooperation. This includes scholarships to 5,000 students from the Caucasus and Central Asia since 1992. The Internet news release of the organization claims, "Thus, the Turkish economic assistance and cooperation programme, along with humanitarian aid, reaches to almost $1.1 billion." Halil Akinci, "Turkey's Relations With the Central Asian Republics," [http://www.byegm.gov.tr/yayinlarimiz/
NEWSPOT/1997/2/N6.htm.]

43. Students as Links Between Cultures, edited by Ingrid Eidde (Oslo: UNESCO and the International Peace Research Institute, 1979), 179.

44. Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi, "The Many Cultural Faces of Imperialism" Beyond Cultural Imperialism, ed. Peter Golding and Phil Harris, 49-68. While she oversimplifies to define imperialism as cultural contact, her chapter emphasizes that imperialism relied on institutionalizing cultural structures, values and products in order to maintain its rule without relying on suppression alone. furthermore, she notes the multiple and profound impacts of tourism by virtue both of the demands of tourists that result in the commodification of culture, and from tourists acting as purveyors of modern values.

45. As an example, this author has heard the statistic that there were 50,000 Americans working in Iran before the 1979 revolution that asserted a populist resistance to the cultural invasion of westernization. Many numbers, such as religious workers from Iran or Saudi Arabia in Central Asia, that are floated in the popular press would be pertinent to this study, but press accounts do not provide substantiation or full comparability.

46. For instance, Israel quickly began air service to Uzbekistan not only as a channel to extricate Bukharan Jews in case of a turn toward their persecution, but also as part of a pattern of state policy to develop strong relations with Muslim states outside the ring of their immediate neighbors.

47. For example, the RFE/RL report on the air transport agreements signed by the U. S. and Uzbekistan included references to regional security and a broad range of issues of concern to the U. S., military contacts and bilateral ties of several types. Sonia Winter, "Uzbekistan: U. S. Expands Air Transport," RFE/RL. [http://www. rferl.org/nca/ features/1998/03/F. RU.980302143135.html.] March 2, 1998.

48. All transaction analysis that uses statistics of volume of exchange or capacity for communication can be criticized for any presumptions regarding the content of the exchange. This vulnerability perspective makes no claim or inference about the direction of any changes in attitudes, identity or political effects, but only that the degree of concentration of such channels is a measure of potential influence in any direction. This does not, therefore, make any claim about who is in any aircraft seat in terms of the threat they may pose, but only about the capacity as a component in the distribution of vulnerability.

49. In Jihad vs. McWorld, Benjamin Barber shows in an appendix that almost nine of the top ten most popular films in 22 countries were American products, a measure of American dominance of one segment of popular culture industry. David Rothkopf, in his controversial essay notes that while the U. S. share of the world book market was 32% in 1995, the U. S. had 60% of the prerecorded music market and 75% for prepackaged software. Many of his statements support this thesis, such as: "Globalization has economic roots and political consequences, but it has also brought into focus the power of culture in this global environment--the power to bind and to divide in a time when the tensions between integration and separation tug at every issue that is relevant to international relations. The impact of globalization on culture and the impact of culture on globalization merit discussion." "In Praise of Cultural Imperialism?" in Foreign Affairs Vol. 107, Summer 1997, p. 39.

50. The role of Western culture and of the domination by capitalist industrialized North over the news media in less developed countries creates the perception of cultural imperialism as explained by Morgenthau. "What we suggest by calling cultural imperialism is the most subtle and, if it were to succeed by itself alone, the most successful of imperialistic policies. It aims not at the conquest of territory or at the control of economic life, but at the conquest of the minds of men as an instrument for changing the power relations between two nations. . . . by the persuasiveness of a superior culture and a more attractive political ideology." K. L. Afrasiabi, After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy, (Boulder: Westview, 1994), 46. Quoting Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York Knopf, 1960) pp. 60-61

51. This debate took the form of proposals in the United Nations and its associated agencies by ". . . members of the Non-Aligned Movement, including most LDC governments and numerous intellectuals." Hamid Mowlana,"Toward a NWICO for the Twenty-First Century?" Journal of International Affairs, 47, no. 1, (Summer 1993), 61.

52. "The part western broadcasters played in the defeat of communism has won them praise from their governments." Cross-Frontier Broadcasting" The Economist, May 2, 1992, p. 22. See also Malcom S. Forbes, Jr, "Sending Cross-Border Static: On the Fate of Radio Free Europe and the Influence of International Broadcasting," Journal of International Affairs, 47, no. 1 (Summer 1993), 75. "You can't have a democracy without information. Domestic media in the emerging democracies are still for the most part extremely weak. Radio and television are predominantly under the control of governments that are run--below the ministerial level-- by many of the old apparatchiks. That's why democrats and reformers were horrified by the proposal to shut down the Radios. That's why Vaclav Havel wrote to members of Congress; that's why even Mikhail Gorbachev said publicly that it was a crazy idea to shut down the Radios, and he told our embassy he thought it was an appallingly bad idea." The Economist magazine notes that Iran now broadcasts 400 hours per week of programming in 18 languages.

53. "According to the newspaper AIF, Soviet internal propaganda is conducted in eighty languages for 2,257 hours per week or 322 hours per day. At the same time, the Turk people of our country are deprived of the radio stations and transmission on short-wave that are allocated to them according to international and the intra-Union electronic communications agreements." Ayaz Malikov, "The Question of the Turk: The Way Out of the Crisis" (Translated by Audrey L. Altstadt) Published in H. B. Paksoy, Ed., Central Asia Reader: The Rediscovery of History, (New York/London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).

54. In this regard William Harry Meyer's dissertation using multivariate analysis of English-language dailies from 24 nations of Black Africa concludes that "imported Western media are not associated with trends toward Westernization of Third World cultures. Rather Westernization is associated with increasing economic development (in the poorest of developing nations) and increasing press freedom (in the Third World as a whole)." Furthermore, "increasing levels of domestic violence are associated with higher levels of economic development and lower levels of press freedom; but not with increasing levels of Western media." William Harry Meyer, International Communications and the Political Economies of Developing Nations University of Iowa Dissertation 1984 (AC842873 ProQuest - Dissertation Abstracts DAI-A 45/09 p. 2986, Mar 1985

55. The Intermedia company says that local conditions prohibit survey work in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. These surveys do ask about degree of political interest and contentment with life position, but these numbers are not cross-tabulated to show the political interest of those who listen to foreign broadcasts. Also, these surveys have limited usefulness here because they did not ask about religious broadcasters that local governments might find threatening, or the Radio Voice of Iran. The Intermedia surveys allow the general conclusion that cross-frontier broadcasting does not reach much of the listening audience. A note from Intermedia explained, "These surveys were conducted in 1994, before Iranian radio began broadcasting in Central Asian languages. Their broadcasts in Uzbek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz began in 1996. Also you should know that the BBC did not begin broadcasting in Uzbek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz until 1996." Stephen Hegarty, Research Analyst, Central Asia, Intermedia. Personal communication March 2, 1998.This does not seem to take into account the presence or availability of reception of the Iranian radio station Gorgan, except that it would be heard primarily in the areas adjacent to Iran and heard by people understanding Farsi, which would include parts of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the two countries not surveyed because of conditions there.

56. For example, the government of Iran has only allowed one Internet server, at the Institute for Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and it only serves 25 lines. Marshall Ingwerson, "Iran Welcomes in West for Oil Projects, but Hopes to Check Cultural Baggage," The Christian Science Monitor (tm) Electronic Edition, Sunday, October 26, 1997. [http://www.csmonitor.com/mixed_media/specials/caspian/print/day6/intl.5.html]. Ingwerson gives an example of Iranian concerns over cultural corruption. ". . . political and religious leaders are debating: In the age of the Internet and satellite TV, how can the Islamic Republic of Iran sustain its special character?" Ingwerson combines several explanations for the Islamic Revolution, but recognizes the central place of cultural elements. "Perhaps no other industrial country has assumed such a hard stance against the global-sweeping secular culture and commerce of the West."

57. "Unfortunately, this culture is, as Anthony Smith argues, 'attenuated,' 'essentially calculated and artificial,' and 'affectively neutral.' It has only marginally diluted, not displaced, the psychic hold of nationalism because it is 'essentially memoryless' and is 'context-less, a true mélange of disparate components drawn from everywhere and nowhere.' (Smith 1990)." Daniel Deudney, "Ground Identity: Nature, Place and Space in Nationalism," The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, ed. Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil, (Boulder, CO : Lynne Rienner, 1996), 134.

58. In October 1990, the previous First Secretary, Absamat Masaliyev failed to win election by the Supreme Soviet to the newly created office of executive President. "Masaliyev had been seriously discredited in the aftermath of the Osh disturbances where violent clashes between Uzbek and Kyrgyz residents continued from June to August of 1990 leaving behind more than 600 dead and wounded." Haghayeghi, 135

59. Ibid.

60. "For the first two years of independence, Kyrgyzstan's newspapers were a remarkable phenomenon, with real political significance and power. Save that Kyrgyzstan's newspapers had not yet developed a Western-style code of journalistic scrupulousness and restraint, it would have been possible to say that the press was beginning to become the fourth estate that the media represent in developed democracies." "Kyrgyzstan," Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, ed. Glenn E. Curtis, 1997. Reprinted in BUSINESS, 98:064-07,[Turkistan-N@vm.ege.edu.tr]. May 6, 1998.

61. "Some examples of the growth of authoritarianism in Kyrgyzstan, and the restriction of the media include the closure and harassment of the independent radio station Almaz Radio in Bishkek." Narynbek Idinov, "Kyrgyzstan: Government Steps Up Harassment of the Media," RFE/RL. [http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1998/03/F.RU.980309133420.html], March 9, 1998.

62. Josephine Schmidt, "Kyrgyzstan: Banning 'Bad' News" Turkistan Newsletter, Vol. 97:1-121, [Turkistan-N@vm.ege.edu.tr], December 30, 1997. She also mentions that a "high-ranking U. S. state Department official curiously declared in August shortly after Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev ended a somewhat cool U. S. visit, that Kyrgyzstan is a 'pacesetter and model for reform in Central Asia. [Whereas in fact] The revival of political censorship follows the example of Belarus."

63. A Central Asian professor has commented that Kyrgyzstan has been forced by its small size and limited resources to outpace its neighbors in terms of the implementation of reforms and carrying out an open door policy. When Kazakhstan, with one-tenth of Russia's population, attracts more foreign investment than Russia ($45 billion) and as Uzbekistan attracts more foreign investment to its hydrocarbon and gold resources, this provokes government action to avoid slipping further behind the larger neighbors. Kyrgyzstan also sees its nearness to China, with its growing market and stable financial system and economic development, as a resource to be developed. Nurlan Eshmambetov, "Central Asia - National, Regional Interests Interconnect," Tsentralnaya Aziya i Kultura Mira, March 30, 1998. Reprinted in BUSINESS Vol 98:033, [Turkistan-N@vm.ege.edu.tr]., April 2, 1998. "The vector of economic improvement of the region is becoming increasingly determined by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and their economic achievements will invariably tell on the posture of affairs in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan." Kyrgyzstan boasts a greater portion of FDI/capita than any other Central Asian state, see charts at the end of this chapter.

64. Martha Brill Olcott, "Central Asia: The Calculus of Independence," Current History, October 1995. 337

65. That proportion has now been diluted by other FDI so that it is now only 45%. See Appendix H

66. "Kyrgyzstan," Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 11.

67. Ibid.

68. "In the early years of independence, a major cause of Kyrgyzstan's economic distress has been corruption and malfeasance. In a January 1993 speech, President Akayev reported that as much as 70 percent of the money that the country had invested in its economy had been diverted into private hands . . . . Official data indicated that since independence at least 100,000 tons of cast iron, steel, aluminum, and zinc had been sold abroad without legal permission and that a credit for 1.7 billion rubles for the purchase of grain had vanished.""Kyrgyzstan" Library of Congress Research, 5

69. The involvement and even commitment of the West to Kyrgyzstan has had contradictory effects. "The West's implicit or explicit support for those Central Asian regimes that have resorted to repression and violence will undoubtably produce an adverse effect on the perception of not only the Islamic but also the nascent democratic forces in those republics." Haghayeghi, 211.

70. Alex Hadenius, Democracy and Development, (Cambridge Mass: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 96

71. Tatu Vanhanen, The Process of Democratization, (New York: Crane Russak, 1990), 70. (1988 Data).

72. "According to official data released by the CIS Interstate Statistical Committee, Kyrgyzstan during the first nine months of the year [1997] reported a whopping 45.9 percent increase in industrial production (relative to the same period in 1996). This corresponds to growth in real GDP of 19.2 percent (for the first 8 months of the year, relative to the same period in 1996)." "CIS Data Show Kyrgyzstan, Georgia Continue Rapid Economic Growth," Jamestown Monitor, III, no. 205, [http://www.jamestown.org]. November 3, 1997. p. 3

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