Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure more

Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 GLOBAL DIALOGUE Volume 13 ● Number 1 ● Winter/Spring 2011—Failed States Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure CAI WILKINSON Cai Wilkinson is lecturer in Russian and international relations in the School of Government and Society at the University of Birmingham, UK. I n the wake of 9/11, Kyrgyzstan has all too frequently found itself described as a state in danger of “failing”, with dire warnings of the consequences for international security and particularly the fight against terrorism if its slide towards failure is not prevented. Ten years on from that signal event, concern over Kyrgyzstan’s viability as a sovereign state continues. Although the most recent Failed States Index, which was compiled using data collected in the latter part of 2009, saw the small ex-Soviet republic record a score of 88.4 out of 120, giving it a slightly improved ranking of forty-fifth, the violent overthrow of the Bakiev regime in April 2010 and the outbreak of bloody conflict in the south of the country in the following months have led to renewed warnings that Kyrgyzstan is on the edge of failure—if indeed it has not already “failed”. Even nominally positive developments such as the election of a new parliament on 21 October 2010, which marked the creation of the first parliamentary democracy in Central Asia, have done little to allay fears; the new government quickly became paralysed by infighting and factionalism that prevented the appointment of a prime minister until almost two months after the elections. In short, Kyrgyzstan’s future looks far from certain or stable regardless of whether an assessment is based on events of the last year or the last decade. However, this article does not seek to answer the question of whether Kyrgyzstan is or isn’t failing, but rather to explore the implications of being labelled a “failing” state. What are the consequences for the Kyrgyz Republic of having gained a reputation as a “candidate for state failure” domestically and internationally? This article addresses the question in three parts. The initial section provides an overview of the events that have led to Kyrgyzstan’s being perceived as a potential failed state, with a particular focus on events since 2005. Attention then turns to how international actors such as the United States, the European Union, Russia and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have responded to these events. As will become clear, responses to instability in Kyrgyzstan have been significantly influenced by the actors’ strategic interests in Kyrgyzstan and the wider region, raising the question of whose security is actually being prioritised and what purpose warnings of potential state failure serve. These questions are discussed in the second part of the article, which suggests that in practice, http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 1 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 labelling a state “failed” or “failing” serves little purpose beyond identifying it as a threat to the interests and security of other states, with any assistance or intervention focused primarily on containing this threat to strategic interests rather than representing a commitment to improving the long-term stability of the state and, by extension, the wellbeing of its inhabitants. As such, the concept relies on a very specific Westphalian notion of statehood and sovereignty, resulting in a strong normative agenda. The final section reflects on the implications of this agenda. It is argued that the continued invocation of the failed-state concept in relation to Kyrgyzstan in fact risks further undermining the country’s development by encouraging the creation of a “Potemkin state” whose sovereignty is internationally recognised, but which will continue to lack domestic legitimacy because of its inability to guarantee not only the basic safety and security of its inhabitants, but also a positive future for them both individually and collectively. This dynamic is compounded by the West’s insistence on neo-liberal democracy as the remedy for states at risk of failure. The end result is that rather than representing a considered assessment of a state’s viability and capacity to provide political goods for its citizens, the concept of state failure is primarily a normative measure of a state’s conformity to Western criteria of formal statehood—a fact that is all too evident in the case of Kyrgyzstan. A Decade of Impending Failure The 1990s saw Kyrgyzstan enjoy a reputation under the presidency of Askar Akaev as a positive exception to regional political norms, causing it to be dubbed an “island of democracy” and “the Switzerland of Central Asia”. However, by the turn of the century, it was becoming increasingly evident that all was not well in Kyrgyzstan. The Aksy tragedy of March 2002 in particular provided concrete grounds for increased concern about the socio-political stability of the young republic: around one thousand protestors in the southern Aksy District who had gathered in support of Azimbek Beknazarov, an opposition politician on trial for alleged corruption, found themselves under fire from the police, resulting in six deaths and many more injuries. The event was a watershed moment that marked a fundamental breakdown in state–society relations. It triggered mass protests that continued for months, eventually leading to the fall of the government, headed by future president Kurmanbek Bakiev, in May 2003. In light of these events and the broader socio-economic problems facing Kyrgyzstan, Robert Rotberg’s classification in 2003 of Kyrgyzstan as being “on the continuum of weakness tending towards failure” is arguably unsurprising. As he explained, the ex-Soviet Central Asian republic, with limited resources and arbitrary rule, has contended with a sharply contracted economy, poverty, and two forms of militant insurgency. Those militant rivals for power remain, respect for human rights and democratic processes has slipped, and Kyrgyzstan’s ability to emerge from inherited weakness is questionable, even given the creation of a U.S. airbase and the arrival of free-spending Americans.1 The Tulip Revolution http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 2 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 Yet, despite the bleakness of Rotberg’s assessment, it was not until 2005 that Kyrgyzstan truly became the focus of international attention and, almost as rapidly, concern. Initially, this was due to the prospect of the republic’s returning to a “democratic path of development” as opposition politicians led growing protests against the Akaev regime’s blatant rigging of forthcoming parliamentary elections. These protests eventually culminated, largely unexpectedly, in the storming of the presidential compound in the capital Bishkek and the notably bloodless ousting of Akaev on 24 March 2005. However, it was not long before the “Tulip Revolution”, at first internationally feted, became seen as the start of the republic’s descent into socio-political crisis and potential state failure as the new government, headed by ex-prime minister Bakiev, struggled to establish stability. The most tangible manifestation of the difficulties facing the new leadership was the continuation of public protests throughout the year and into 2006; official figures put the number of protests in 2005 at approximately two thousand, and at more than seven hundred in 2006. Such protests, which were increasingly directed against the national government, rather than reflecting local concerns, predictably attracted considerable coverage from local and international media and analysts, who seized upon them as evidence of Kyrgyzstan’s continuing socio-political instability and possibly even impending state failure. Forebodings of Failure By December 2005, little optimism appeared to remain about the outcome of the Tulip Revolution, which was increasingly referred to as the “March events”, reflecting the growing sense of ambivalence it provoked. The release of a report by the respected conflict-resolving body, the International Crisis Group, entitled “Kyrgyzstan: A Faltering State”, confirmed the level of concern felt about events in the republic. Although avoiding direct use of the word “failing” in the title, the report did not pull its punches, warning that “there is a real risk that the central government will lose control of institutions and territory, and the country will drift into irreversible criminality and permanent low-level violence”. 2 It argued that without increased international support Kyrgyzstan risked becoming a failed state. Nevertheless, 2006 saw the central government, headed by the uneasy tandem of President Bakiev and long-term opposition figure Feliks Kulov as his prime minister, manage to hold on to power despite a seemingly endless series of challenges from a variety of sources. While the start of the year saw a lull in protest activity, other events did nothing to lessen concerns about the government’s ability to pull Kyrgyzstan back from the brink. Political infighting continued, with high-profile incidents such as the sudden resignation in February of the parliamentary speaker, Omurbek Tekebaev, after an acrimonious spat with President Bakiev making the government look far from authoritative. An attack on the prominent civil society leader Edil Baisalov in April that many thought motivated by his vocal criticism of organised crime boss Ryspek Akmatbaev further heightened fears of the criminalisation of the state apparatus. In addition, the spectre of inter-ethnic conflict—often seen as a central component of state failure —appeared to have returned to Kyrgyzstan in February 2006 following a brawl between two gangs of Kyrgyz and Dungan teenagers in the village of Iskra, some seventy kilometres east of Bishkek. The incident, which rapidly escalated to the point that Dungan families fled their homes fearing further reprisals, was frequently described in “ethnic” terms, despite acknowledgement (if not discussion) of pre-existing socio-economic tensions by commentators. The implication that the outbreak of “inter-ethnic” conflict was a further sign of crisis was difficult to ignore, especially http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 3 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 given allusions in reportage of the clash not only to the 1990 strife between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the Kyrgyz city of Osh that left around one thousand people dead, but also to the Tajik civil war. Coverage in March 2006 of the first anniversary of the Tulip Revolution was almost entirely negative, with one local analyst offering the stark conclusion that “[t]he March events destroyed the most democratic country that ever existed in the Central Asian region”. 3 Internationally, analysts were no longer talking about possible crisis; it was by now widely accepted that Kyrgyzstan was in crisis or, in other words, was “failing” as a state—a fact underlined by the republic’s rapid rise up the rankings in the second Failed States Index, to twenty-eighth place from sixty-fifth the previous year. The recommencement of opposition-led mass protests on 29 April and 27 May 2006 in Bishkek demanding that long-promised reforms be carried out and calling for Bakiev’s resignation seemed on the surface to confirm the verdict. Yet there were those who felt that the ongoing disturbances should not be seen as an inevitable precursor to state failure, but rather as “the unavoidable, and even positive, concomitants of social change”.4 Similarly, Bakiev’s continued political survival in the face of challenges from the opposition in Bishkek and elsewhere in the country and his ability to withstand international criticism indicated that his position was perhaps not as tenuous as many suggested. Indeed, while the domestic socio-political situation could not be described as having stabilised, Bakiev nonetheless felt secure enough to threaten to close the United States’ Manas airbase (supporting US operations in Afghanistan) if rental payments were not increased, and also to expel two US diplomats in July for “inappropriate” contacts with non-governmental organisations. After a relatively calm summer, protests once again broke out in November 2006 with five days of opposition rallies demanding that Bakiev resign given his continued failure to address the subject of constitutional reform. Yet this time, rather than acting as though under siege, the government was more proactive in its response. It hit back at the opposition and cast them as the source of instability and a threat to the Kyrgyzstani state. Moreover, for once there was political progress, as Bakiev signed an amended constitution limiting presidential powers. However, the subsequent resignation of the government six weeks later after a dispute with parliament and the signing into law in early January 2007 of new constitutional amendments that strengthened the president’s powers lent further weight to claims that Kyrgyzstan remained very much at risk of failure, even if the precise dynamics had changed substantially since March 2005. In many ways, the most immediate threats to the survival of the Kyrgyz Republic had rescinded by early 2007, and the following three years largely saw it return to its initial classification as a “representative example of perpetual [state] weakness”,5 rather than as a “failing” state. To a large extent, this reflected the international community’s increasing preference for stability, even if it was at the expense of democracy and human rights, in order to protect strategic interests. Thus, while protests against the government remained a prominent feature of political life, and even acquired increased significance as an indicator of the state’s growing intolerance of opposition (the police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protestors in Bishkek in April 2007), they were increasingly framed as domestic matters; albeit unsavoury, the use of force at least demonstrated that the government had the capacity to exert control. http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 4 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 Constitutional Reform Politically, Bakiev continued to consolidate his power. Constitutional reform remained a contentious issue throughout 2007 in the lead-up to a national referendum on 21 October that was called partially in response to the Constitutional Court’s invalidating of amendments passed in November and December 2006. The referendum was also on a proposed switch to part-list voting, which critics saw as an attempt to eliminate independent politicians and small parties from parliament. Perhaps unsurprisingly, approval of the adoption of the new constitution that Bakiev had presented only a month earlier was strong, with just over 76 per cent of votes cast in favour on both questions. Equally unsurprising for many analysts were observers’ reports of widespread irregularities in the conduct of the referendum and, given the now-approved electoral reform, Bakiev’s dissolution of parliament and calling of early elections the following day. These elections, held on 16 December, gave Bakiev’s Ak Jol party seventy-one out of ninety seats and were strongly criticised both by opposition parties and Western observer missions as being conducted unfairly and also a step away from the development of political pluralism in the republic. At the same time, such criticisms were tempered by reports that voters had chosen to vote for Ak Jol in the hope of increasing political stability in Kyrgyzstan. In some respects, the elections did indeed bring greater domestic stability, a fact reflected in the almost complete lack of high-profile political incidents in 2008. The downside of such stability was becoming increasingly evident, however. Not only were there growing signs of media restrictions, but President Bakiev appeared to be adopting a less accommodating stance towards Western involvement. The broadcasting rights of the Kyrgyz-language service of the US-funded Radio Liberty, which had been criticised for its negative reporting on Kyrgyzstan by government officials, were withdrawn in the autumn of 2008, allegedly for unpaid debts. This decision marked the start of a period of more tense relations with the United States. In February 2009, Bakiev announced that he intended to close down the United States’ Manas airbase that had been established in 2001. Officially, the decision was justified as being due to the US refusal to increase rental payments, but it also seemed that Russian pressure played a part in the announcement, which was made in Moscow after the conclusion of talks that saw Russia promise Kyrgyzstan a $2 billion loan and $150 million in aid. As 2009 progressed, however, it became evident that the closure of the airbase was not a foregone conclusion, even after parliament voted almost unanimously on 6 March to suspend the agreement permitting it to be used by US-led coalition forces to support operations in Afghanistan and ordered its closure by August: a new deal was eventually struck in late June. Bakiev’s Ouster Domestic politics returned fully to the spotlight on 23 July 2009 with the holding of a presidential election in which Bakiev was victorious, winning 76 per cent of the vote amid reports of widespread irregularities. The outcome sparked demonstrations that were broken up by police with the arrest of dozens of opposition activists for participating in unsanctioned protests. Yet despite widespread public dissatisfaction and disillusionment with Bakiev’s government, it was only in February 2010 that mass protests once again flared, triggered by proposed increases in heating and electricity prices of 400 per cent and 170 per cent respectively. Discontent continued to grow nationally throughout March as protests intensified around the republic, the international community adding its voice to criticism of Bakiev for human-rights abuses. Events came to a head on 7 April when protesters in Bishkek stormed the presidential compound. Government forces and http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 5 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 snipers opened fire, killing at least eighty people. Bakiev fled to his home region of Jalalabad, and an interim government headed by Roza Otunbaeva was formed the following day, claiming control over all of Kyrgyzstan except for Osh and Jalalabad. However, as in 2005, the new government’s ability to impose control was rapidly found to be wanting, and in a matter of weeks analysts were once again asking whether Kyrgyzstan could slip into full-blown failure or even cease to exist. Ethnic Violence The outbreak of inter-ethnic conflict in the southern city of Jalalabad in late May 2010 seemed to confirm the worst fears of scholars and policymakers alike. The situation worsened as large-scale violence erupted in Osh on 9 June and continued for several days before subsiding into low-level skirmishes; the violence was apparently triggered by five co-ordinated attacks by masked gunmen with the aim of fomenting conflict between the city’s Uzbek and Kyrgyz communities. The clashes resulted in thousands of Uzbeks fleeing the city and attempting to cross the border into Uzbekistan or seeking refuge in temporary camps, the destruction of large areas of Osh, an estimated two thousand deaths and potentially irreparable damage to relations between the south’s two main ethnic communities. The interim government’s reaction to the crisis was not reassuring. It initially requested military aid from Russia, which was refused, as was a later request to the United States. A state of emergency was declared on 12 June, but did little to alleviate the situation; rather, it increased the fears of Uzbeks that they were the target of a state-sponsored genocide because of their perception that they were being harassed by the overwhelmingly ethnic Kyrgyz army. Despite the severity of the crisis and the humanitarian consequences of the violence, only a week later the interim government felt able to say that the situation was becoming “stabilised” and to deny that there was any need for peacekeepers. Similarly, while there were very real fears that violence could erupt again, interim president Roza Otunbaeva remained adamant that a planned constitutional referendum on a proposed switch from presidential to parliamentary rule would go ahead at the end of June, arguing that it was vital for the legitimacy of the new government. Critics, however, argued that providing assistance to the thousands of displaced persons and re-establishing a basic level of security should have been the government’s overriding priority. In addition, it was pointed out that many people who had fled their homes would potentially be unable to vote because they would be unable to prove their identity or place of residence. Nonetheless, the referendum duly went ahead on 27 June and passed without violence. The official turnout was slightly more than 72 per cent, with more than 90 per cent of voters in favour of the proposed change. A New Beginning? While Otunbaeva’s argument that the referendum represented a new political beginning for the beleaguered republic undoubtedly appealed to Kyrgyzstanis and the international community alike, the overall reception was understandably cautious: in terms of political culture, would the introduction of a parliamentary democracy lead to a substantive change in how politics was conducted in Kyrgyzstan and, equally importantly, by whom? Furthermore, could the government offer meaningful leadership to re-engage with its disillusioned and fearful citizenry, or would it retreat into political introspection and inaction? The evidence from the ensuing six months is mixed at best. On the one hand, parliamentary elections were successfully held in October 2010 and were described as “a further consolidation of http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 6 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 the democratic process” by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, despite the “urgent need for profound electoral reform”. On the other, the limitations of a system likely to result in coalition government were all too evident as parties failed to form an administration until 15 December, largely paralysing any efforts to begin tackling the country’s sizable socio-economic problems. In this respect, the report of Kyrgyzstan’s National Commission into the violence in Osh and Jalalabad last summer gives cause for concern, since, as Madeleine Reeves argues, it presents inter-ethnic tensions between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz as being “firmly beyond the scope of state policy” and ignores the role of the state and its representatives in the conflict. 6 Given such reluctance by official bodies to engage with fundamental questions about the purpose of the state and its relations with its citizens, it seems likely that Kyrgyzstan will continue to elicit warnings of the risk of state failure for the foreseeable future. The question, however, is what is achieved by such warnings. Whom Does a ‘Failing State’ Threaten? Given the above account of the past decade in Kyrgyzstan and the frequent warnings that the republic could become a failed state, how has the international community responded? It is often asserted that the utility of the term “failed state” is that it furnishes criteria against which to assess the ability of a state to provide political goods for its citizens. If a state is judged to be deficient in this respect, therefore, it is assumed that the international community will supply assistance to try and halt the state’s decline from “failing” to “failed” or even “collapsed”. However, the case of Kyrgyzstan suggests that warnings of impending failure do not generally result in what could be described as “extraordinary” assistance. Refusing Involvement There are two key reasons for this. First, in practice, deference to state sovereignty inhibits action by the international community in all but the most critical cases—by which time it is usually too late to avert large-scale violence and attendant humanitarian crises, leaving the international community to act in an unambiguously ethical way by providing assistance after the event. In effect, formal sovereignty and, by extension, the primacy of the state, continue to trump human security right up until large-scale violence has actually occurred. International responses to the violence in Osh and Jalalabad are instructive in this regard: aware of her limited capacity to impose order, acting president Roza Otunbaeva requested external assistance. Reports suggest that she initially made an informal appeal to the United States for military support, including a supply of rubber bullets. No such support was forthcoming, however, and the following day a formal request for Russian military assistance was submitted, only to be rebuffed on the grounds that Moscow viewed the Kyrgyzstan crisis as an “internal conflict” that did not warrant intervention. At the same time, both the United States and Russia were quick to express their strong concern over events in the republic, stressing their desire for a swift end to the violence and their willingness to provide humanitarian assistance. The broader international response was similarly limited to declarations of concern and calls for the restoration of law and order. Yet there seemed to be a marked reluctance by foreign actors to offer concrete support to the interim government other than as part of a collective international response. The OSCE, which already had a presence in Kyrgyzstan, was seen as the logical choice to co-ordinate any response, as US State Department official Nancy McEldowney made clear at http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 7 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 the OSCE’s Annual Security Review Conference in Vienna in June 2010. She argued that the Kyrgyzstan “tragedy” was “a powerful reminder of the fact that we, the participating states of the OSCE, have a responsibility to take all possible action to prevent these types of conflict, and to help resolve them once they occur”. This statement highlights the paradoxical nature of international responses to states deemed to be failing. On the one hand, both scholars and policymakers are quick to warn that states are in danger of failing, but on the other, action beyond reiterating the importance of democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights is rarely sanctioned. This pattern can be seen repeatedly in Kyrgyzstan over the last decade and calls into question the purpose of warning of possible state failure, not least, as Rotberg points out, because preventing states from failing is “far easier than reviving them after they have definitively failed or collapsed”.7 The result is that the international community sets itself a significantly more challenging task, due in no small part to the extreme deference accorded to sovereignty as an international norm. Putting National Interests First The second factor explaining the dissonance between the declarations and policies of international actors in responding to failing or failed states is the centrality of the national strategic interests of individual states. In short, regime stability is often prioritised by external actors who wish to protect their strategic interests, even if it may be to the detriment of the failing state’s long-term political development. In Kyrgyzstan, the presence of both US and Russian airbases has given the republic disproportionate importance for the national interests of the two external powers. Particularly in the case of the United States, its efforts to keep the Manas airbase open have led to criticisms that geostrategic concerns been placed ahead of normative influence on matters such as democratisation, the rule of law and the promotion of human rights, with the recent controversy over the awarding of fuel-supply contracts to the controversial Mina Corp being the latest example cited by critics. Given the apparent primacy of national interests in determining states’ behaviour in the international system, the concept of state failure potentially takes on a distinctly instrumental function: invoking the risk of state failure, rather than being a prelude to action by the international community, serves to indicate the presence of a threat to other states, either materially (as in the case of the United States in Kyrgyzstan) or normatively in terms of failing to conform to international standards of statehood. This logic is particularly clear in how international actors conceptualise global security dynamics, whereby state failure is seen to facilitate the growth of transnational threats to national security. Hence, US National Intelligence Director John Negroponte’s assessment of Central Asia in 2006: In the worst, but not implausible case, central authority in one or more of these states could evaporate as rival clans or regions vie for power, opening the door to an expansion of terrorist and criminal activity on the model of failed states like Somalia and, when it was under Taliban rule, Afghanistan. 8 Taken in combination, the international community’s deference towards the principle of sovereignty and the importance of national interest in determining countries’ actions indicate that http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 8 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 notions of statehood and, consequently, state failure, continue to be defined by the so-called “Westphalian straitjacket”—that is, the assumption that “the model [of statehood] established in seventeenth century Europe should define what the international system is for all times and places”. 9 The result is that statehood, and therefore security, is seen from the viewpoint of Western international actors (i.e., Western states and Western-dominated international organisations such as the United Nations and the OSCE). By implication, this suggests that the only recognised way for states to avoid failure is to conform to these Western norms. Therefore, regardless of the intentions of scholars, in practice state failure is an inherently political and normative concept that is employed primarily to help maintain the current dominant world order, rather than representing a call to work towards global political emancipation. ‘State Failure’ as a Normative Concept The case of Kyrgyzstan clearly demonstrates the limited utility of the concept of failed statehood from a policy perspective. More important, however, are the implications of continuing to utilise the concept without explicitly questioning the normative assumptions that underpin it. The effect of the Westphalian straitjacket is that the consequences of state failure are defined in almost exclusively state-centric terms, namely, the danger posed by failure to the formal sovereignty not only of the country deemed to be failing, but also to that of other states. This dynamic has become increasingly evident in the policies of actors such as the United States and the European Union towards Central Asia since 9/11, with domestic instability and potential state failure being framed explicitly as threats to both national and global security. A further consequence of such framing is to reinforce Westphalian norms of statehood and, by extension, to facilitate the maintenance of the existing international status quo. For countries such as Kyrgyzstan that are deemed to be weak or at risk of failure, the implications are clear: in order to be recognised as a full member of the international community, sovereignty must be realised in a particular way, with the creation of appropriate formal democratic institutions constituting the foundations for successful statehood. Yet as Kyrgyzstan demonstrates, and indeed the Central Asian region as a whole, this focus on formal statehood has proven problematic since it risks encouraging the development of “Potemkin states” in which governments prioritise immediate political security and international approval over longer-term societal development. This danger was clearly illustrated by the insistence of Kyrgyzstan’s interim government on proceeding with constitutional reform only two weeks after the most severe violence the republic had ever seen, reflecting priorities that were at odds with those of its citizens. For them, in the words of one NGO representative, “safety, security and a return to normality are more important than voting.” 10 The narrow definition of statehood at the heart of the concept of state failure means that the latter can do little more than indicate the extent to which a state conforms to or deviates from current international norms of statehood. It tells us little about the fundamental nature of a particular country’s statehood and challenges to it. At the same time, however, it purports to offer a universal remedy in the form of neo-liberal democracy. Currently, Kyrgyzstan appears to be a willing patient, seeing this medicine as a necessity in its quest to be deemed a fully fledged member of the international community. It remains to be seen, however, if this treatment will result in a reappraisal of the republic’s status as candidate for state failure. While it may improve http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 9 of 10 Giving a State a Bad Name? Kyrgyzstan and the Risk of State Failure - Centre for World Dialogue 11/07/2011 08:38 Kyrgyzstan’s rankings on paper, unless the country’s deeper societal and economic issues are also substantively addressed, doubts will persist about its viability as a sovereign state. ENDNOTES 1. Robert I. Rotberg, ed., When States Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 17. 2. International Crisis Group, “Kyrgyzstan: A Faltering State”, Asia Report 109, Bishkek/Brussels, 16 December 2005 [http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/central-asia/kyrgyzstan/109kyrgyzstan-a-faltering-state.aspx], p. ii. 3. Aleksandr Knyazev, Gosudarstvennyi perevorot 24 marta 2005 v Kirgizii (The coup d’etat of 24 March 2005 in Kirghizia) [Bishkek, Almaty: Obshchestvennyi fond “Aleksandra Knyazeva”, 2006], p. 7. 4. Kumar Bekbolotov, “End of the Beginning in Kyrgyzstan”, IWPR Reporting Central Asia 434, 15 February 2006 [http://iwpr.net/report-news/end-beginning-kyrgyzstan]. 5. Robert I. Rotberg, “The New Nature of Nation-State Failure”, Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (summer 2002), p. 93. 6. Madeleine Reeves, “Osh Report: Quick Conclusions, Lost Opportunities”, openDemocracy, 24 January 2011 [http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/madeleine-reeves/osh-report-quickconclusions-lost-opportunities]. 7. Rotberg, “The New Nature of Nation-State Failure”, p. 94. 8. John D. Negroponte, “Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence”, statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C., 2 February 2006. 9. Barry Buzan and Richard Little, “Why International Relations Has Failed as an Intellectual Project and What to Do about It”, Millennium 30, no. 1 (January 2001), p. 19. 10. Luke Harding, “Kyrgyzstan Holds Referendum amid Civil War Fears”, Guardian (London), 27 June 2010. http://www.worlddialogue.org/print.php?id=503 Page 10 of 10