Ayil Okmotu Between State and Society: Local Governance, Appointment Processes, and State Development in Kyrgyzstan

November 26, 2013

David Siegel, City University of New York

Abstract: Despite similar histories, the post-independent trajectories of state development in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan could not be more different. Kyrgyzstan is fragmented and regionalized, with the center facing persistent difficulty administering the periphery; Kazakhstan, which is several times larger, has been much more successful at centralizing power under a single administrative structure. What explains this difference? I argue that variations in systems of local governance reinforce different patterns of social relations between local state officials and local populations. These different patterns of social relations, in turn, affect state appointment processes, sometimes constraining the state’s ability to appoint personnel to regional outposts, thereby delimiting its reach into that territory. Two national revolutions and the somewhat normalized installation of “people’s governors” in the regions of Kyrgyzstan are all indicators of a contentious politics of regional appointment and territorial control. These events were discussed in the context of the deep and overlapping local social ties that are fostered and reinforced by Kyrgyzstan’s system of local-self governance.

Bio: Dave Siegel is a PhD candidate in political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is conducting his research in Kyrgyzstan under the Fulbright U.S. Students Program and will continue research in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan with the support of IREX’s Individual Advanced Research Opportunity.

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