Gregory Gleason analyzes the significance of cultural differences for public policy in the countries of Central Asia and explains why international efforts to promote democratic institutions and processes have met with limited success.

Gregory Gleason is an associate professor of political science and public administration at the University of New Mexico and a Fellow-in-Residence of the J. Robert Oppenheimer Institute for Science and International Cooperation.

Values, not institutions, have played the determining role in the recent systemic transitions in Central Asian states of the post-communist world. In each of the five countries of Central Asia-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, political institutions of democratic government and market-oriented economies were adopted soon after these nations attained independence in 1991. As these countries began the first stages of transition, the leaders of each of the Central Asian countries spoke out, at least on a rhetorical level, in favor of the establishment of democratic institutions and secular government. Following independence, each of them adopted a constitutionally limited, representative form of government with a separation of powers and a legal and regulatory framework in accordance with international standards. For a brief period during the first stages of national consolidation, there was a widespread assumption in these countries and in the outside world that if the right democratic institutions could be transplanted to the fertile soils of post-communist reorganization, the processes of true democracy could be expected surely to follow.

Today, nearly a decade after national independence, it is clear that the governments of Central Asia have indeed succeeded in adopting many of the structures of western style democracy. But they have not succeeded in the subtler yet more significant transition to the spirit and processes of true democracy. All of them have established legislatures, yet none has succeeded in establishing a true, deliberative legislature with powers of the purse. All of them have adopted judicial systems for adjudication and dispute resolution, yet none has succeeded in creating the conditions for true judicial independence. All of them have adopted constitutional and legal statutes that purport to safeguard the rights of individuals, minorities, and to protect due process of law, yet none has actually succeeded in providing functioning protections for fundamental civil and human rights, including such basic freedoms as the right to due process, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religious belief.

All the Central Asian countries now have "presidents." But these are leaders who came from the former Soviet apparat or high rungs of the Soviet establishment. They have established what they refer to as "presidential systems," which give the executive branch the power to rule by decree with the force of "constitutional law." The executive branch of these governments dominates the other branches, undercutting the separation of powers and checks and balances. All of them have held elections, yet none of which has fully conformed to international standards for free and fair elections. Three of these governments have former communist leaders who have extended their mandate in extra-constitutional ways. Even in the most open and liberal of these countries-Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the parliaments have been routed by presidential decree.

In short, none of the countries can be said to have truly succeeded in making the transition from democratic structure to democratic function. As a consequence, many of the formal institutions of government have acquired a showcase quality. The formal institutions exist but it is the informal institutions that actually guide the processes of policy decision-making. The legal and regulatory framework exists and purports to protect the rights of individuals and legal entities, but in reality many critical public decisions are made on an ad hoc basis and with the interposition of individuals whose interests are directly affected by the outcome. The existence of the formal institutions of democratic governance creates expectations that the government cannot realize, leading to disillusionment and cynicism. In such a situation, it is, ironically, the least democratic of the leaders of the region who cynically take the greatest credit for progress and reform. Turkmenistan's president, Saparmurad Niyazov, has boasted that in Turkmenistan there are no violations of civil liberties of the government's opponents because the government has no opponents.

The experience of these countries in the past decade raises important theoretical and urgent practical questions. What accounts for the resilience of authoritarian practices in societies that have adopted democratic, market oriented institutions? What accounts for the yawning divergence between structure and function? What public policy correctives are in order under these circumstances? What role can the good offices of outside institutions play in promoting democratic change and reform? In addressing these questions, it is important to begin by noting that, at least in the first decade of Central Asian independence, values have played a more important role than institutions.

Globalization, Democracy and Authoritarianism

Globalization-the transition to a single, tightly integrated, global economic and communication space-is transforming public policy in the contemporary world. The evidence is clear that globalization rewards those countries that practice it well, but punishes those countries that fail to conform to international standards. Many countries adapting to the challenges of globalization enjoy the rewards of prosperity and technological progress, and find that their public institutions come under the influence of great forces for convergence and conformity. Major international institutions are now basing their strategies and policy prescriptions on the recognition that globalization requires policy harmonization on a worldwide basis. In fact, many of the more important UN organizations have on an informal basis essentially adopted global policy harmonization as their institutional goal.

But not everyone shares the view that globalization implies democratization, at least in the respect that it implies the adoption of functioning western-style democratic institutions as a precondition for effective integration into the international community. The political leadership of the Central Asian states is clearly aware that the dominant international force at the beginning of the 21^st century is globalization. But these leaders tend to see globalization as a state-empowering rather than state-limiting trend. They do not regard globalization and policy conformance as implying a need for internal democratic reforms, but rather view integration into the international community as requiring a more intensified and directed role for the state in managing society and focusing the energies of the citizenry on the achievement of national goals.

The Central Asians draw these conclusions not from traditions of political theory, but from the events taking place immediately around them. They point, first of all, to the contrast between the failed development strategy of the Russian Federation and what they see as a successful strategy in China. The Russia strategy, as they understand it, was premised upon the interdependence of economic and political reform. The Chinese strategy assumes that economic reform is best carried out under the watchful eye of a paternal and vigilant state. Only after economic reform has created prosperity, according to the latter, can political reform be expected to succeed. Central Asian leaders and political strategists also point to the success of the Asian Tigers in harnessing the capacities of the modern, technological state to achieve national objectives in ways that are consonant with their cultures.

The Central Asia states are currently experiencing a revival of "traditionalism," which is visible throughout the region in a variety of different forms. It is often expressed in public ceremonies and events designed to rekindle a sense of continuity with these countries' historical achievements and glorious past. Late in 1998, Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, was awarded the country's newly established highest honor, the "Order of Emir Timur" in a public ceremony that was designed to dramatize the cultural roots of Uzbek society and to reinforce the government's appeals for discipline and dedication to national goals.

The revival of traditionalism is also expressed in reference to the wisdom of ancient cultural traditions and practices. In Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan's neighbor to the south, president Saparmurad Niyazov recently reintroduced genealogical descent as a criterion for public sector employment. He defended this new criterion of advancement by arguing that Turkministan should rely on "the experience of our ancestors, who chose their leaders, military commanders, and judges from among the worthiest compatriots with high moral standards."

The Asian Development Path

Central Asia's search for traditions and values from the past invites comparisons with similar yearnings in some other Asian societies. Anxieties created by the rapid pace of events and technological change in the contemporary world sometimes cannot be assuaged by the thin reassurances of modern cultural institutions. When confronted with risk, confusion, and rapid change, Central Asian societies, like other Asian societies, have the advantage of having great historical and cultural depth on which to draw.

To many Asian thinkers, western theories born of the rationalist ideas of the European enlightenment thinkers provided a foundation for society and state that was bounded by this very rationality. The predominant western conceptions of the state reflect shared assumptions of the western world, rather than universal principles of human thought and behavior. Neoclassical economics champions the virtues of the individual and emphasizes the ideal of a relatively limited state. The ideal state plays a restrained role in markets, doing little more than providing a stable macroeconomic environment and a stable legal system that enforces private property rights and contract law. This state operates internally with reference to universalistic, rather than particularistic criteria. In order to assure that government is responsive to a large class of undifferentiated actors in the polity, the state utilizes abstract and rule-bound, rather than discretionary, methods for conducting business. Precedents and rules supplant personal preferences. Impersonal codes provide prescriptions for behavior.

Asian thinkers that rejected this minimalist conception of the state and the individual's role in society could refer to the more collectivist traditions of state-led development. Marxist and socialist models of the state called upon societal mobilization and internal redistribution for social benefit. But such strong-state policies had many evident disadvantages. For instance, strong government is often associated with populism, import substitution, regulatory manipulation of markets, and unsustainable redistributive goals. In many developing countries, the paternalistic role of government in organizing and subsidizing preferred industries could lead to direct social benefit, but it could also create avenues for rent seeking and bribe taking. The experience of many developing countries has tended to confirm the general principle that without well-defined property rights and a rule-regulated market, clientelism, informal decision structures, and secrecy could easily develop.

The experience of many developing countries also illustrates that governments often welcome state interventionist policies, which provide government leaders with ways to curry political support through constituency-building handouts and favors. Expanding the state's economic role provide the government with resources to reward its supporters. Privileges can be distributed in the form of special interest legislation, tariff protection, price supports, and direct fiscal and financial transfers. But these handouts also tend in the long run to create an anticipation of rent seeking and favoritism. The resulting patronage, nepotism, and corruption allow the state to be captured by narrow, private interest groups. Once captured, governments are unable to deliver policies that benefit the entire population

The Asian experience developed against the background of these experiences and "models." The Asian path is different from other competing approaches in that it is synthetic-binding together the interests of the state, the society, the family, and the individual. There are of course many Asian paths. One version that has gained a great deal of attention is the formula of Singapore associated with the efforts of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's Prime Minister from 1959 - 1990 and now Senior Minister of State. In evaluating Singapore's success, reference is often made to the fact that Singapore's strategy was more than an economic model. It looks to historical traditions that, in turn, provide a stable guide to the future. The Confucian principles of filial piety that emphasize rule by persons of moral authority over the rule of law, paternalism over legalism, offer a unique approach to the relationship between modern man and the modern state.

Citing Asian values and historical experiences, East Asian leaders reject many of the conventional wisdoms of the neoclassical approach. They maintained that national development and shared growth require executive intervention in the market. They break with conventional international practice by fostering land reform, significant investment in agriculture and rural infrastructure, conscious industrial policy, encouragement of small- and medium-sized enterprises, and limits on inflation. The East Asian success stories often hold it as self-evident that subsidized and directed finance should be made available to promote investment and infant industries. The success of the Asia's Little Tigers provides a good empirical foundation for the claim that values matter in development strategies.

The contrasts between the western and eastern models exist in degree rather than in kind; but the differences are nonetheless significant in practice. The western model of political accommodation is based upon the assumption that the determination of individual rights is best played out in an adversarial process of open contestation, brokered by the rule of law and the near universal acceptance of the importance of the process as opposed to the outcome. The sanctity of due process is much more important than any single ruling or outcome. If the adversarial process is protected, the defeated parties always have an opportunity-and perhaps even an advantage-in returning to the contest at a later point. The American business model relies upon the preservation of impersonal, abstract legal rules to ensure even-handed, fair, and freewheeling competition.

Contrast this approach to the more traditional Asian practice. The Asian model conceives of politics as consisting in the first instance of personal obligation and duty; business relations depend in the first instance upon networks and social obligations. The western model stresses laissez-faire, open economics; the Asian one relies on national strategies, and entails the government's actively supervising, monitoring, and even regimenting the competitors. The cornerstone of the former is individualism; that of the latter is loyalty. In the former, independence is expected and opposition is considered a challenge. In the latter, disagreement is regarded as impolite and opposition treachery.

Central Asian Traditions

Are these contrasts applicable to Central Asian societies? In addressing this question, it is important to note that there are many countries in Central Asia. The largest one is Kazakhstan. Its oil wealth, mixed Kazakh and Russian populations, and the fact that it possessed over one thousand nuclear warheads in its territory when it gained independence were the defining features of its domestic political context during the initial years of independence. The Kazakhstan communist party leader of the Soviet era, Nursultan Nazarbaev-previously one of the most articulate and progressive of the Soviet leaders-soon became a steadfast defender of an independent Kazakhstan. During the first years of his leadership, Nazarbaev pioneered the idea of Eurasian integration based on the community of cultural and economic linkages among the peoples of the Central Eurasian landmass. Kazakhstan's foreign policy followed a careful line, balancing between China, Russia, and the west but always geared toward Kazakhstan's future oil and gas development.

The most auspicious democratic reforms took place in the small, remote, and mountainous country of Kyrgyzstan. Largely thanks to the efforts of its president, Askar Akaev, Kyrgyzstan initially became the wunderkind of the international donor community, attracting a disproportionately large share of humanitarian and technical assistance from donor organizations. Kyrgyzstan was the first post-Soviet state to follow the advice of the international donor community and withdrew from the ruble zone in 1993. It was also the first post-Soviet state to adopt a western style civil code, a modern legal and regulatory framework, to liberalize prices, to privatize industry, and to adopt at least the superficial trappings of an open and competitive political system. Kyrgyzstan was the first country of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to join the World Trade Organization. However, Kyrgyzstan's limited resource endowment and trade dependence on the outside world-there is little manufacturing in this small and remote mountainous state-constrained its progress. Important political reforms took place, but the promised benefits of rising prosperity remained elusive for most of the population.

The smallest and poorest of the Central Asian countries is Tajikistan. Tajikistan would also likely have moved in the direction of reform if the country had not fallen prey to an internal contest for power in the first year of independence. The contest plunged the country into civil war. Tajikistan is a landlocked, mountainous country lacking good transportation routes. The war resulted in a blockade by its neighbors, further compressing the already collapsing Tajikistan economy. The modest level of civil normality maintained in Tajikistan was largely a result of the presence of foreign (mainly Russian) peacekeeping forces. After a decade of independence, Tajikistan has become one of the world's poorest countries. The tiny economy is based largely on subsistence barter relations and foreign assistance from donor organizations.

The most heavily populated of these Central Asian republics, Uzbekistan, quickly established itself as defiantly nationalist after independence. Upon independence, Uzbekistan's strong-willed president, Islam Karimov, who, only a few years before had been a dutiful communist, rapidly became an enthusiastic champion of an independent political path and engineered the "Uzbek cultural renewal." In ways reminiscent of the actions of Turkey's Kemal Ataturk, Karimov sought to create a national identity forged from an alchemy of history and myth, and based upon a vision of Uzbekistan's playing a pivotal international role in the 21^st century. Government, economics, culture-the entire spectrum of policy arenas-was subsumed into the drive to shape the future in the image of a "recovered" but largely apocryphal past.

The uncompromising nationalism of Uzbekistan, however, pales in comparison with the policy posture of its southern neighbor, Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan is a small tribal civilization on the southern fringe of Central Asia. The area was largely undeveloped during the Soviet period. With the exception of gas and oil, the minimal economic activity that existed was largely maintained by Soviet government central subsidies. Industry unrelated to the gas and oil complex was generally not commercially viable. For instance, the country's specialization in cotton production was based upon massive irrigation subsidies. When Soviet subsidies came to an end, most of the non-subsistence agriculture and industry immediately became insolvent. Yet the country's rich gas reserves furnished support for an intense, highly personalistic nationalism revolving around the country's Soviet era communist party boss, Saparmurad Niyazov. Niyazov adopted an assertive posture of national self-reliance based on its gas and oil wealth, which he termed the policy of Turkmenistan's "positive neutrality."

International human rights organizations have been highly critical of the Turkmenistan government for failing to make even minimal progress toward international standards of policy and practice. The U.S. government and other major world powers have been criticized for turning a blind eye to Turkmenistan's record so as not to obstruct their goal of promoting the development of Turkmenistan's immense gas reserve^. However, Turkmenistan's civil rights record has clearly had an effect upon the international community. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a highly diplomatic institution not given to grand-standing and histrionics, took the unusual step of suspending its lending programs to the Turkmenistan government in April 2000, citing its failure to make progress in governance reforms.

The Case of Uzbekistan

Given the great variations among the Central Asian countries, only in superficial respects can they be described as having one culture. Generalizations seldom apply to all of them equally. Their peoples and cultures are varied, but intermixed. None of these countries ever existed within their present borders prior to the Soviet period. Their statehood and borders are inventions of the Soviet regime.

At the heart of Central Asia lies the agricultural oases and irrigated farm valleys of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is the largest Central Asian country in terms of population. It is the quintessential Central Asian country, defining the most important aspects of "Central Asian-ness." The Uzbeks emerged at the end of the 15^th century from a heterogeneous mix of inhabitants of the region brought together by military leaders. The Uzbek nation historically was defined primarily by local, i.e. territorial and religious, differences rather than what we would today call ethnic differences. During the Soviet period, the Uzbek language was standardized around the Tashkent dialect. Efforts were made to eliminate many of the traditional clan and regional differences.

The authoritarianism of the settled peoples of Uzbekistan has long been apparent to outsiders. Some scholars have sought explanation for these cultural differences by noting that the functions of regimentation and centralization required by the nature of the irrigated oasis society produced an effect on public psychology. In a famous although now often dismissed interpretation of the origins of "Oriental despotism," Karl Wittfogel argued that the necessity of managing a centralized irrigation system produced a socio-political organization which Wittfogel characterized as the "hydraulic society." Wittfogel's thesis was that unlike the individualistic political culture in many water-rich agrarian societies, semi-arid agricultural societies often required a high level of centralized decision making. The demands of the hydraulic society resulted in the formation of a "managerial state." The economic, administrative, and political functions of the managerial state were concentrated in a ruling class consisting of landowners, land managers, and the military.

The authoritarian culture is not merely a political value, but a deeply ensconced social value. The most visible aspect of the public culture of these countries is the great importance associated with hurmat, the idea of "deference" or "respect." In present day Uzbekistan, the origins of hurmat are not hard to find. Hurmat begins in the family. Personal life is family life in Uzbekistan. Property is communal, the universally preferred Uzbek meal, palov (rice pilaf) is eaten from a common bowl, elders are deferred to without question, and the subordinate position of women in society is reinforced through the family structure. Authority is a social phenomenon.

The hierarchies of political life are merely a natural extension of the structures of the family. Public political values are difficult to distinguish from family values. The structure of authority is emphatically patriarchal. In many regions of Uzbekistan, the elder or most respected man is the head of the family. Grown adults often will refrain from making important professional or commercial decisions until they have had an opportunity to consult their parents. In the northern province of Tajikistan, the people refer to Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov, whom they regarded as their protector in the Tajikistan civil war, as Islam-aka (Father Islam).

Given the importance of elders, funerals are very important political gatherings. When a respectable figure in the community dies, an important social position is vacated. Filling that position initiates a "vacancy chain" which influences all positions of a lower order throughout the hierarchy in the community. Members of the community naturally gather at funerals to determine the reordering of the informal authority structures.

A second aspect of Uzbekistan's culture is personalism. In Central Asia in general and in Uzbekistan in particular, power is often vested in the person, not the post. The all-powerful local official, the Hakim, presides over a Hakimiat. The terminology of European languages suggests that this practice may once have existed in European societies as well. For instance, the words we use for political structures also have associated with them words for the person who fills the leadership position of that structure. We have, for instance: Emperor-Empire, King-Kingdom, Emir-Emirate, and even Ambassador-Embassy. But the European terminology only suggests the vestiges of the past. In contemporary society, we tend to think of "counties" as purely administrative structures, rarely bringing to mind the idea of a "Count." We think of the president, but probably few of us have ever contemplated the idea of "Presidentia", presumably an area over which a president would preside. Steeped in liberal democratic traditions, we tend to automatically distinguish between the post and the person who fills it. Some Central Asians find this distinction difficult to draw.

Today, Uzbekistan's political leadership appeals to elements of Central Asian values while harkening back historical and cultural traditions of a halcyon and glorious (and largely fictitious) past. Uzbek President Karimov has become an ardent advocate of Uzbek traditionalism. In his recently published Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty First Century, he argued:

Our goal-as we outlined at the outset of the nineties-was not to lose that which has been created with the labor of many generations, to keep all that is best, to rearrange that which does not meet our national interests and our independence and to enrich the existing structures with new contents. The rich culture of the Uzbek nation, its educational system and its scientific establishment could not be dismissed merely as the totalitarian heritage. The course we have chosen is to reorient these systems towards a new ideological platform based both on the centuries old traditions, customs, culture and language of the Uzbek people, and on the achievements of world civilization.

Today Uzbekistan's authoritarian leadership defends its policies as being necessary to maintain social consensus and political stability. It defends Uzbekistan's neo-mercantilism as based on indigenous Uzbek cultural traditions and as following the successful model of the Asian Tigers. Uzbekistan's spokesmen say that America values are based on a revolutionary-that is, anti-imperial and anti-monarchical-doctrine of the preeminence of individual rights. The American beliefs in lateral management, citizen empowerment, horizontal authority structures, and incentives may work in America, these Uzbek critics argue, but these beliefs cannot be expected to work a culture as accustomed to the heavy hand of top-down management and hierarchical social structures as Uzbekistan.

Democratizing Democratic Institutions

Judged by the benchmark criteria for measuring democratic progress used by Freedom House (a U.S. based philanthropic research organization established in 1939), the Central Asian societies have not realized the full potential for democratic change. What does this lack of progress portend for democracy's future in Central Asia? What do the features of Central Asian culture spell for attempts to promote democracy? Does Uzbekistan's personalism mean that it is futile to promote the organization of political parties? Does veneration of traditions mean that it is inappropriate to urge the protection of the independence of the judiciary? Does the strength of the family mean that individual civil rights are not in need of legal protection? Does popular resignation in the face of capricious use of political authority mean that there is no need to assist the development of an independent deliberative assembly? No. None of these is true. What is true is that the structures and procedures of democracy do not constitute democracy itself. If democracy is to grow in Central Asia, it will grow from roots that already exist there.

There is growing recognition that the institutions of democracy are not the sufficient conditions for democracy. The failed transplantation of western structures and institutions should lead the promoters of democracy to the conclusion that efforts to recreate the developing world in the image of Europe and North America is not likely to succeed, and may provoke counterproductive repercussions. Politicians, always sensitive to the politically desired and opportune, are far better than scholars and analysts at recognizing this. President Jacques Chirac told an audience in Congo recently that "democracy is plural", inviting them to develop "in their countries and in their hearts a lively democracy in the colors of Africa." There is a growing recognition that democratic universalism is possible without institutional uniformity.

The complexities of promoting democracy in cultures so dramatically different from the European liberal traditions have convinced some people that democracy is not appropriate for Central Asia. Some have observed that Central Asia is "not yet ready" for democracy, that Central Asia "will not see democracy in our lifetime." Others have fallen back on more traditional arguments, maintaining that American assistance in the end should be related to American interests. America should help people help themselves, they say, but it should do so when that also means helping America.

These arguments overlook a basic reality of the modern world. Investment in democracy is not an investment in a form of government at all. It is an investment in good governance. Without good government, no form of foreign assistance is likely to prove beneficial in the long run. The rationale for promoting democracy is neither self-interest nor altruism. Malign dictators can just as easily appropriate for their own purposes the fruits of self-interested help as they can the fruits of genuine altruism. Good governance is good investment.