Central Asia

If you ever took a course in international relations, you’ve already been here and done that, but you can comment if you like:

Starting on August 16th, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) begins its Annual Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic.  The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a collective security organization that demonstrates many elegant capabilities within the Central Asian region.  While Bishkek scours its streets and prepares its ornamental plantings for the summit, here at FPA Central Asia we’ll also be getting prepared. 

What is Collective Security?
Collective security theory is a liberal theory of international relations in that it emphasizes venues of cooperation and mutual obligation.  States enter multilateral agreement to refrain from attacking one another and for economic relations, but within an overarching organization to which they owe allegiance.  According to the theory, pledging to an international organization will create a more stable commitment than a large, confusing set of bilateral treaties.  In addition, collective security arrangements indicate that member states will not attack each other, and that they will rise in defense of a member state thus attacked.   According to Claude (1956):

The twentieth-century hope that international organizations might serve to prevent war, or , failing that, to defend states subjected to armed attack in defiance of organized efforts to maintain the peace, has been epitomized in the concept of collective security. . . .
Collective security can be described as resting upon the proposition that war can be prevented by the deterrent effect of overwhelming power upon states which are too rational to invite certain defeat.  

The first notable collective security arrangement was the ill-fated League of Nations.  The notion that The League was necessary came after a brutal World War I, where numerous bilateral and trilateral arrangments under balance-of-power initiatives could not be reconciled with each other when various nations commenced hostilities.  In some cases, states were committed by treaty to fight both for and against another; the war concluded nothing, and wrecked much. 

After Flanders Field, deterrence looked like an act of genius.  An overarching community system looked like the best way to maintain peace as a whole.  However, states were not yet ready for community; war reparations, isolationism, world economic depression contributed to the death of the League of Nations and the beginning of World War II.

Post-World War II
The United Nations is of course the most famous and successful collective security organization, and its Article 51 puts forth the obligation of mutual defense.  However, other collective security arrangement flourished, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Warsaw Pact countries, demarcating the lines of the Cold War. 

The rise of collective security was complicated by an increasing perception of clashing interests between the capitalist and communist blocs of states.  In the U.S., the theory of structural realism described the alliances of smaller states with “superpowers”.  Structural realism might magnificently explain the motives of these great powers, but even so, the motives of satellite states within these arrangements is better described by collective security: an alliance with a large, powerful state and its allies that would engage to protect it.  Smaller states could ally in order to meet security needs such as military training and military equipment.  In addition, they could more easily develop economic ties, for education exchange, industrial contracts, and infrastructure development. 

Each of these collective security arrangements also had substantial economic communities that developed alongside them, which has been one reason they have endured.  Collective defense plus economic communities has helped keep them strong, and in the case of NATO and Warsaw Pact arrangements, helped them evolve into new functions and spin off new organizations when the world changed, circa 1990. 

Post-Cold War
Now that the reason for structural realism and bipolar relations appears to have disappeared, collective security is described by even more overlap.  For instance, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, numerous collective organizations have arisen for economic or military cooperation.  Most of these states belong to more than one organization, with somewhat differing membership.  NATO, the OSCE, GUAM, the CSTO, EurAsEc, and –last but not least– the SCO–all have alliances or significant relations with Central Asian nations. 

This overlap in security alliances keeps Central Asian politics interesting and complicated.  One thing is for certain, however: most major collective security arrangements in Central Asia have a strong superpower component, and that superpower component tends to set the direction of activities within the alliance.  There is still an element of “great power” maneuvering involved–just more interlaced and multivalent. 

A second complication to the new collective security is that its enemies are frequently not other states or other collective security arrangements–but rather, non-state actors such as terrorists or international crime syndicates.  This also makes state cooperation under collective security more important than ever.

References:
The IR Theory Knowledge Base Web page
Inis L. Claude, Jr.  From Ploughs into Swordshares (1956) and Power and International Relations (1962).
Warsaw Pact at Wikipedia
NATO at NATO: click on “What is NATO?”
The UN Charter

Photos: Flickr.com; Watersecretsblog

The hazards of expertise–and listening to experts
 Articles like this, that call into question what I am doing in my life and in this venue, make me want to turn off the news and go to the closest July barbecue: I can be a witty guest, so please send invite immediately.

In a 2005 review of  Expert Political Judgement: How good is it? How can we know?, Louis Menand discusses the author’s bleak findings for those of us who follow expert opinions and try to stay interested in world developments.  According to the book’s author, Philip Tetlock, news experts and forecasters–people that comment upon the outcomes of political news/events–are worse at predicting the future than the average Joe or Jane.  And this is what Menand at least has to say:

When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable. . . they insist that they were just off on timing, or blindsided by an improbable event, or almost right, or wrong for the right reasons.  They have the same repertoire of self-justification that everyone has. . .

Anyway, the work is based upon a twenty-year study of commentators, and he used statistics to help him codify the solutions.  One thing he noted was that “the more facts that a person knew, the less likely he was to predict the outcome”, because in part, the expert included more variables into his prediction without assigning probability to these factors.  In other words, choices such as State A will go to war/ State A will not go to war have a statistical probability of 50% each, but an expert will add factors such as the temperament of the leader, the economic exchanges, the trend of the most recent speeches in State A’s legislature, et cetera, using more factors to obscure probability rather than view it–a “diminishing marginal predictive return” for each fact or factoid the expert pulls forward to make his or her case.

This just sounds so contrary to the usefulness of scholarship that I had to think about it for awhile, and I believe I partly understand why: we are accustomed to writing, from say middle school on, essays where we defend a position by using specific facts to argue our case.  In other words, we are accustomed to rhetorical arguments rather than mathematical ones–personally I wouldn’t be able to stand news that included a lot of equations in order to decide the human dimension–but apparently this is wrong-spirited of me, as Tetlock has apparently proved. 

One reason experts ignore the probable: they have pet theories, which they hold to loyally, in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, and even in the face of overwhelming evidence.  
Second reason: 50-50 isn’t good enough to make a plan, especially when the outcomes are lucrative or dangerous.   
Third reason: it has to be interesting, so that we will watch them on television or read their articles and books and blog entries. 
Fourth reason: experts as well as audiences tend to self-select data.  For analysts, that means a more rigorous fact-checking of that which falsifies their theoretical knowledge; and for the public, it means that they “self-select” what they read and study.  The example Menand uses is U.S. liberals reading The Nation and conservatives The National Review.  It actually goes much deeper (or I should say, wider) than that: as a former bookstore manager, I have noted the increasing number of self-prescribing titles on the bookshelves these days.  Titles such as  these tend to aid in that self selection, from marriage to elections to World War III.  Such books cut off self-study and can be scurrilous and detestable, but they do make the reader, who actually already knows the contents, feel comfortably angry at the other side’s opinion.
Fifth reason: we believe scenarios that are filled in with details, e.g., the rhetorical argument rather than the mathematical argument.

So how do we protect ourselves from experts? And how, as potential experts, do we evaluate the world?  First, Tetlock says that experts who follow some kind of universal theory, a “one big pattern” are more likely to be wrong, where experts who believe in a kind of flexible “ad hoc” approach are more likely to be right.  This cuts out any unitary belief in “Democratic Peace Theory”, “Balance of Power”  “Great Man Theory” “Trade Peace Theory”–at least, if exercised to the exclusion of any other theories.  The problem for those who use an ad hoc approach, however, is that they never fail largely, but they don’t win largely, either.  It’s more of a gamble, but one looks more statesmanlike and profound when one is right with the “One Big Theory”.

Back in the 1990’s Susan Strange discussed the insularity of the U.S. in both academic congress–for instance, U.S.  academic journals on international relations most frequently accept U.S. authors–and in their continued use of “one big” theories when writing policy and predictions.  In contrast, she described Europeans as more able to accommodate more than one theory at a time and use them in concert when studying and planning.  We can argue the relative dogmatism of the U.S. versus Europe all day, but that’s not the point: the point is that no one-paragraph theory can encompass all the variables.  It’s also interesting that in that same talk (to Europeans) she takes them to task for self-selection and pet projects.

But once again, this only serves as a reminder against rhetorical reasoning and may very well bring us back to probability theory, and, since greater numbers of opinions tend to follow probability rather than rhetoric, “the wisdom of crowds” may well have a point.  Last of all, two quotes by eminent logicians, who would disdain the wisdom of crowds, but not that of simplicity or academic rigor rather than personal theories:

“I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.”
Socrates, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Greek philosopher in Athens (469 BC - 399 B.C.E.)

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.
William of Ockham, English philosopher (1288- ca. 1348 C.E.)

And that’s how we are going to have to measure our experts, and their arguments, as well: by watching for clues of their world-view as prejudicial to their predictions, no matter what world-view it is; and by discarding the irrelevant in their arguments.

And now that we’ve discovered yet again how hollow the world is, I’d like to come over for barbecue: that is, if you also have potato salad.  I can bring lemonade.  You’ll find me out on the street, taking my pet theories out for a little walk around the park.

Further Reading:
Sample Chapter of Tetlock’s Book

References: See Worth Reading Page for Strange (1998 ) and Tetlock (2005); also, thanks to various quotation pages on the Internet and Wikipedia for Occam dates.

Tajikistan, in partnership with the World Bank, is soliciting investment in its cotton enterprises, and international agricultural concerns have another two weeks to submit bids for investment.  The forward, signed by Sharif Rahimov, the Chairman of the State Committee for Investments and State Property Management and attached to the call for bids, is beautifully-expressed:  it asserts that Tajikistan’s commitment to cotton industry is long-lasting; it points out that Tajikistan began its economic sector reforms in earnest in 1999, after a period of “Civil Unrest” and then a period of post-conflict consolidation; it then calls attention to the work of the last eight years, where significant economic reform has been undertaken.  Then:

However, we are now benefiting from a period of political and economic stability, a situation that many of our neighbouring countries are not benefiting from.

We, the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, feel that the time is now right for a deepening of reforms, encouragement of foreign investment and a determined effort to support the private sector development of our economy. We are working closely with the wider international development community to foster and strengthen the enabling environment that will provide the structure within which the private sector will work. A number of important reforms have already been implemented in many areas of our economy. The most dramatic program for development and reform lies in the agricultural sector and specifically cotton. The President of the Republic and his Government have been working closely with donors for the past year to develop a vision for the cotton sector – a “Road Map” - that will lead to the true realisation of the potential of the sector in our Republic .

We appreciate that certain international companies may have previously had less than satisfactory experiences in investing in the cotton sector in our Republic and in exporting our baled cotton. Whilst these experiences were not connected with the actions of our Government, we can ensure investors and the wider international cotton community that we are making all possible efforts to ensure the existence of a more transparent, equitable, dependable and profitable sector for all.

Passages like this would melt a heart of stone.  They show Tajikistan not just able to evaluate previous performance, but any future performance in state to firm diplomacy.  But since businessmen do not commonly invest by heart-strings, it’s just as well that Tajikistan has made this part of a “Road Map” to success; and that it has World Bank partnership.  In particular, the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank loans money to firms engaging in development of transition economies.  More than that, they put a seal of legitimacy and create what is considered a “halo effect” on other loans to the same project.  In general, firms solicit IFC loan syndication because of this halo effect.  Likewise, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank insures high-risk parts of development projects for corporations, and can also help create an insurance syndicate.  The combined efforts of IFC and MIGA frequently assure a well-funded and well-managed project, which is a guarantee to both state and corporation. 

According to this report (and bid tender), Tajikistan is the fourth largest cotton exporter in the world.  However, it does not have many value-added aspects of the industry, including ginning and baling facilities and warehouses to support those parts of cotton enterprise.  Yield per acre has been increasing due to the initiatives of some individual growers (unlike Uzbekistan, where growers are not allowed to have initiative) but is still low.  Another aspect of Tajikistan’s cotton agriculture is that it grows medium-staple and long-staple cotton (long-staple makes the silkiest yarn and is most valuable), which means that the loss of value-added processes costs even more.  Farmers and middlemen have also been given the right to negotiate price under a more free-market international regime.

Further reading:
Check out the report: it’s great. (58 pages, pdf, with lots of graphs and easy read)
BBC article, 2006
Also, for more on the theory, you can read Susan Strange (1992) States, firms, and diplomacy, a shorter summary of the more brilliant Susan Strange and John Stopford (1992) States and markets.  See Worth reading page for details on these articles/books.

Through twenty-six years of war and repression, Afghanistan has lost its ability to meet its public health needs.  The efforts to rebuild health care systems continues, with mixed results.  

This was illustrated for me yesterday, when I read Asne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul. Though Seierstad’s book focused upon family relations, disease just kept cropping up over and over again as a barrier to progress, a root cause of desperate acts–in short, a contributor to a poor environment for reconstruction.   One story in particular in Seierstad’s work had a father who stole from his employer in order to feed his family: two daughters had polio, and medical treatment was out of the question.  He ended up in prison, which is a great place to pick up tuberculosis, and an impossible place to try to feed your already starving family.

In industrialized societies, we frequently get our immunizations and vitamins as a matter of course; we don’t have to know these diseases in the way that Afghanistan’s citizens do.  Therefore, I’ll discuss the diseases and eradication efforts  in alphabetical order:  

Leishmaniasis:
Cutaneous leishmaniasis reached epidemic proportions in Afghanistan and was targeted by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) in 2004.  In 2004, and estimated 200,000 people were infected, 67,500 of whom resided in Kabul.  A protozoan infection [Thanks, Ms. Clark: see comments below] from Phlebotomus sergenti, a sandfly, infest the skin, making ”active lesions”, primarily on the face and hands.  Later, the scars remain, and can be as much as one inch wide.  The flies are active from April to October, which gives them plenty of opportunities to cause this parasitic disease.

As in malaria, the insect vector itself is not strong; it has increased its habitat by living in the cracks of walls.  Therefore, it is most likely to affect those who are house-bound in regions with poor or decaying construction–this would include women, children, and the aged all over Northern Afghanistan.  A Belgian grant of Euro 200,000 in 2004 enabled a program to combine drug treatment and the purchase of anti-insect bed nets.  This was to be the beginning of a national eradication programme.  So far I have not found any information after 2004 on this programme.  Since the disease is not life-threatening, it does not have the priority of other public health efforts.  However, the disease does affect the quality of life, particularly for women, as there is a social stigma attached to the scars.

Polio
Polio has been endemic in Afghanistan, and programs to eradicate it started in 2002.  The disease is caused by the poliomyelitis virus and first enters the body by mouth, multiplies in the intestine, and causes paralysis, sometimes total paralysis in five hours.  The conditions favorable to it are primarily poor sanitation.   Vaccination efforts continued, and in 2005, only 9 new cases were reported.

In 2006, however, 29 additional cases were reported.  The disease especially affects the Southern regions of Afghanistan, where fighting had been most concentrated; which also hampered health care efforts.  The combined 2006 efforts of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Health, the WHO and UNICEF planned to immunize 5 to 7 million children in 3 days, in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.  Previous to that effort, immunization was estimated at a 66%.  It was thought that this new effort would halt indigenous polio transmission in Afghanistan.  The three-day push was repeated five times in 2006.  The effort was funded by the World Bank, USAID, Rotary International, the State of Japan, and the UK’s DFID.  The children were also given Vitamin A, which is considered a major aid in battling children’s diseases.  This year, Taliban activity and edicts against accessing medical aid has halted polio immunizations in Uruzgan province.

Rickets
Vitamin D is essential to bone growth, the movement of Calcium and other minerals through the bloodstream.  Children born with vitamin D deficiencies are prone to “soft bones” and bone deformation from rickets.  One primary way humans manufacture Vitamin D is through exposure to sunlight.  Therefore, most of Afghanistan’s women, enjoined to stay indoors or go outside clad in a burka are especially at risk.  This becomes more acute in homes that do not have walled backyards, so that the women may get no exposure to sunlight at all, and their infants are especially prone to the disease.

Tetanus
Tetanus is an extremely painful bacterial disease: its painsful symptoms are caused by a nerve poison produced by the bacteria Clostridium tetani.  Its onset usually comes from untreated wounds of all sorts, but particularly puncture wounds.  Last month, 300,000 mothers and children were immunized against tetanus and measles in Kabul, along with efforts in other parts of Afghanistan.  Not all of those eligible for vaccination chose to accept the invitation for treatement, but anywhere from 50% to 70% of mothers were treated in all regions, and 55% to 70% of children were vaccinated.   Measles is a highly contagious viral disease, causing very high fever, cough, and conjunctivitis.  It’s high contagion makes epidemic fast able to outstrip hospital resources in states all over the world. 

Tuberculosis
In 2003, IRIN news reported that Afghanistan had one of the highest TB rates in the world: and estimated 70,000 cases annually–of which only 15% were treated.   Of TB-related deaths, 65% were women.  The symptoms of TB usually include cough, fever, and wasting away, but it is a very complex disease.  The culprit is primarily poverty and malnutrition. 

There are a lot of subtexts here, including the present and future conditions of Afghanistan’s women and children; the urgent need for reconstruction and the rebuilding of education systems; the future social costs of  today’s disease; and the ability of Afghanistan’s people to move forward economically.  For the moment, I want to focus on another aspect: many are interested in reviving public health systems in Afghanistan–and to their great number, many more need to be added.

A real friend is one who takes his hand in a time of distress and helplessness.     –Afghanistan proverb

 Further Reading:
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad is available (See Worth Reading page-Afghanistan).  A portion of book proceeds go to Afghanistan’s reconstruction.

See also the WHO Web site for Topic Information and Country Information; UNICEF Country Information portal page
Rotary International’s Polio Plus Program worldwide

Photos: Doctors without Borders; IRIN

Well, the authorities nabbed Mr. Aliev as he returned from the barber shop, based upon a court order issued in Vienna.  Personally, with his millions, I would have asked for a house call.  The puns that come to mind are endless: e.g., giving one’s head for washing. . .

but on to the serious aspects of the Aliev case.

Many are saying that this scandalous affair puts paid to Kazakhstan’s OSCE ambitions.  This is a bit cultural-centric.  Getting Mr. Aliev out of Austria and into Kazakhstan is going to require a lot of negotiating.  The end result may have Kazakhstan divesting itself of OSCE ambitions almost as easily.

Extradition and Human Rights Law
Right now, Mr. Aliev is out on a bail of Euro 1 million (that’s USD 1.3 million), but still faces the prospect of extradition.  There are no existing extradition treaties between Kazakhstan and Austria, so extradition will probably be a laborious process.  For one thing, Mr. Aliev and the six other staffers and associates named in the extradition request may not be extradited if Kazakhstan cannot guarantee a due process that meets European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)/EU standards of human rights law. 

In The Soering Case (ECHR, 1989), the ECHR reviewed U.S. standards of jurisprudence, conditions of imprisonment, and the EU-outlawed use of capital punishment in its efforts to decide whether or not to extradite Jens Soering of Germany to the U.S. in a murder trial.  The U.S. had to stipulate that it would not try Mr. Soering under charges conducive to death-penalty stipulation before Mr. Soering could be extradited. 

The Einhorn Case, (around 2001) again between an EU state (France) and the US, sets a precedent against extradition after trials in absentia, which might limit Kazakhstan’s legal recourse against Aliev.  It is also another precedent that limits extradition when the custodial state perceives a lack of due process in the state requesting extradition.

One possibility: Legal coordination between Kazakhstan and EU could well result from this process, making Aliyev’s charges less of a liability to EU-OSCE-Kazakhstan cooperation than an avenue toward it.

Another possibility: Based upon Soering, Kazakhstan may have to concede, just as the U.S. did, the scope of punishment available for Mr. Aliev (not capital punishment).  This could be a concession that would be easy for Kazakhstan to give, or difficult, depending upon what charges and the range of punishments possible from those charges against Mr. Aliev.

Third possibility: If Austria does not release Mr. Aliev, it could be an enduring point of contention.  In the absence of extradition treaties, a state has no obligation to return a prisoner when requested, especially if they consider it a political crime.  This also has precedents:

 In 2000, opposition leader and former Premier Akezhan Kazhegeldin was wanted for criminal charges.  Kazakhstan’s request to Italy for Mr. Kazhegeldin’s extradition was not honored and he was freed.  Eventually, Mr. Kazhegeldin went to Russia, where extradition treaties were in effect.  He returned to Kazakhstan on his own recognizance. 

Further reading:
Wikipedia on extradition
A model extradition treaty from the University of Michigan
Janis & Noyes, that legal tome: see Sourcenotes: general

Painting: Robert Cottingham at the Seavest Collection

Reviewing recent events:
Last week, I wrote on the Nurbank scandal and the about-face decision to investigate Mr. Aliev rather than to send him out of the country until the scandal died down.  At the time that Mr. Aliev was demoted from his Foreign Ministry position and made Ambassador to Austria, he was feeling his relative impunity well enough to a. admit that he and his wife Dariga Nazarbaeva did still own a great part of the Kazakhstan media empire, and b. to sue, for slander and libel, the wives of the men he allegedly kidnapped and tortured. 

Since then, President Nazarbaev accepted a grateful legislatures’ permission to be exempt from all constitutional term limits, with the ability to run for office indefinitely.  It is worth noting that Mr. Aliev’s father, Mukhtar Aliev, was one of the few people quoted as not in favor of this motion.  And apparently, Rakhat Aliev had been making his election plans for 2012 known within the Aliev and Nazarbaev family circles.  

But on Friday, the Kazakhstan government penalized KTK Television and Karavan, two media outlets owned by Aliev & Nazarbaeva, for failure to follow the laws concerning legal percentages of local content broadcasting.  They are closed for three months, which means a loss of market share, advertising revenue, and, quite likely, some heavy fines upon its return to broadcasting.  And on Saturday, Aliev was fired from his post as ambassador to Austria. 

Rakhat Aliev publicly denounced the new constitutional amendment and began discussing his own presidential hopes, and served all this up with accusing President Nazarbaev with election irregularities in 2005.  The coup de grace, as far as I am concerned, is in Rakhat Aliev’s newfound fidelity to electoral principles.  Only last summer, he was the one that suggested Mr. Nazarbaev be elected as president for life–only to be shouted down. 

Family feuds?
It’s not uncommon for the hook that draws people in to analyses of Kazakhstan politics to emphasize the father versus daughter/son-in-law dynamic.  And it can’t be ignored, but there are two other relevant principles to consider when looking at these events.

(more…)

The first tidal wave
In 1996, Martha Brill Olcott wrote an important paper on the pressures for migration in Central Asia during the 1990’s: “Demographic upheavals in Central Asia.”  In this paper, she discussed the many Central Asian natives, primarily of Russian ethnicity, who picked up stakes and left the five newly-independent Central Asian states to head back to a Russia they did not know.  In Olcott’s words:

  . . . millions of people have chosen to suffer the costs of relocation from Central Asia, even though no one has really wanted them to leave.  The demographic changes occurring from this relaocation will make the transition to independence more difficult for Central Asian states, as well as change the nature of the societies evolving there.

The reasons for this were varied: 1. the leadership in Central Asia emphasized the ethnic heroism of predominant ethnic groups (e.g., Turkmen in Turkmenistan or Tamerlane in Uzbekistan), which (perhaps unintentionally) made the new independent environment look far less welcoming; 2. with less aid from a Soviet center, social service fabric broke down, making poverty more acute and economic hardship more dangerous; 3. the maintenance of industrial complexes hit the skids, meaning that ethnic Russian skilled workers or management, faced worse working conditions, and 4. the imposition of a national language, such as Uzbek or Kirghiz, for official documents and proceedings over Central Asia’s lingua franca, Russian.  No doubt Central Asia’s natives and outmigrants could give a variety more reasons, including instances where anti-Russian resentment flourished.  In the case of Tajikistan, the 1992-1997 Civil War was a powerful inducement to leave if at all possible.  According to World Bank, 40,000 went to Turkmenistan alone. 

These are the statistics cited by Olcott (1996), who also said it was difficult to get good numbers in such reactive conditions:

In Uzbekistan, 17% of ethnic Russians left between 1989 and 1996.
In Kyrgyzstan, 20% left, although many returned in 1995-1996, in Olcott’s estimation, based upon policies designed to attract them to return.
In Tajikistan, Russian ethnic population decreased by 41%. 

Two items that might not be true now, but were in the 1990’s:
First, Olcott reports that Russia did not want ethnic Russians to leave Central Asian states or the Ukraine, in order to keep a significant population that would presumably retain loyal ties to Russia and identify with Russian interests.  In the case of the Ukraine, such a sentiment has certainly borne out, as the less-Russian side of Ukraine pushed for the Orange Revolution, and the more Russian-populated regions of Ukraine wanted everyone to go home and get back to work.

Second, in Kazakhstan, ethnic Kazakhs from other states were welcomed into the state in order to dilute the Russian influence on voting and presumably ensure more Kazakh solidarity.  Olcott writes that this strategy backfired somewhat, as ethnic Kazakhs from Mongolia and elsewhere did not share an exact language or cultural practice with former Soviet Kazakhs. 

Little new data
Professor Olcott’s poll results are over ten years old.  1995 is also the last year for which we have census figures of this sort for Central Asian republics, which means that the ethnic and religious information one can find on the region is also inaccurate.  Therefore, looking at CIA statistics or State Department Country Reports (that use the CIA statistics) gives an outdated picture.  When reading about the ethnic or religious composition of the region, one must substantially discount any Russian population in most of these states.  And yet, one must not discount their presence altogether.

There have been enough demographic upheavals since 1995 to warrant gathering new information.  However, we can only guess or estimate these demographic flows based upon isolated news reports.  One thing is certain: migration activity is a constant pressure within Central Asia, and its streams and eddies mark opportunities and challenges for Central Asia’s governments. 

The bulk of migration in Central Asia now is economic migration largely unrelated to ethnicity and violence.  I will feature some issues of economic migration in a subsequent post.

References:
Check out the FPA Migration blog by Rich Basas and Cathryn Cluver, about the importance of good population statistics
See this blog’s “Worth Reading Page” for Martha Brill Olcott’s pioneering article
International Organization of Migration’s country pages, accessible from Central Asia portal page:
Robert Greenall for BBC (2005, November 23) on Central Asia’s ethnic Russians with estimated population data

Photos: OrganizingLA.blog; GardenVisit.com; WUMag.Kiev; OSCE

I found this Central Asia album book in my favorite used bookstore.  Original publishing date: Glasnost.

Magown, Robin (text) and Gippenreiter, Vadim (photos).  Fabled Cities of Central Asia: Samarkand-Bukhara-Khiva.  New York: Abbeville Press, 1989.

This is not the first old book I have become enchanted with, nor will it be the last.  My all-time favorite self-help book is an Officer’s Manual for the US Air Force from 1954 (cost: USD 1) that advises me to buck up and be a man when facing difficulties (good idea, part one; not likely, part two).  The charm of old books is that their sociological assumptions are so completely out of date.  Therefore, cultural assumptions are easily bypassed onto whatever lasting virtue is conveyed.  Running into those older conceptions also prompts me to realize that my cherished assumptions will be quite fusty soon–maybe as early as next week.

Uzbek SSR–A veritable Paradise
A great part of the text’s tone is one of euphoric wonder.  After so many decades of restricted travel, the writer breached the old Iron Curtain.  He was able to work with one of the Soviet Union’s premier architectural photographers.  They could walk around relatively freely in villages, taking pictures and being invited to places that few had ever been able to see, much less bring back, to the Other Side.  When you add that euphoria to the normal joyous complacency that seems to attach to travel writing, you get a very glossy view of life in the Uzbek SSR. 

At times, however, this wonder can turn into a wilfully suspended disbelief.  For instance, when discussing Samarkand’s Bibi Khanum’s dome, the Magown writes: “the project of rebuilding a structure of the Bibi Khanum’s scale could not help but appeal to the men of the Kremlin”  –which is why the dome was renovated (a-historically) to remove “the most poetic of cracks.”  Is it better to fix it or not fix it?  Somehow I think Magown would have rhapsodized over either.  And more along this vein. 

Uzbek SSR–Glorious Views
Some of the kitschy attitude in the writing also appears in the photographs as well: a sure indication that this book is about beauty and not documentary truth.   Accordingly, the photos with people in them are reminiscent of National Geographic: Every costume clean and Elaborate; everyone in native dress; the picturesque aged and young women.   No kommisars, young men, or children in this book.  But the kitsch disappears when the photographer confronts his real subject: Islamic architecture. 

The sense of space and proportion in these buildings is beautifully conveyed; the decay of past glory through both climate and neglect; the strong design sense that applies to decoration.  This is of course, the book’s true value, and how it does eventually, transcend time: by turning to the monuments that have transcended time for far longer.

As for the kitsch, I see it as a swan song for Perestroika and Glasnost, when it looked like the center might hold if it received enough Western compliments–it didn’t; and as a “before independence” look at the long ignored part of the Soviet periphery, one that endured further economic and political turbulence when glasnost was no more.  

Photos: Horizon Book.com; Uzbekistan.org; johndarm.clara.net

A recent article in Perspectives on Politics discusses the study of ethnic, religious, national, and other kinds of collective identity.  Specifically, Abdelal, et al note that political scientists use words like “ethnicity”, “religious group”, and “national identity” without regard to analytic rigor.  They present six different methods to ascertain group affiliation and bring scholarship back to earth. 

Nevertheless, I found myself reflecting less on methodology and more on the authors’ descriptions of the components of identity.   These components are also relevant to domestic lawmaking, diplomacy, and cross-cultural policy prescription. 

A. Collective identity, whether ethnic, national, linguistic, religious, gender-based or class-based, varies in content—what it means, for instance, to be Muslim or Kazakh or Irish-American. 

1. Group membership pre-conditions choices that individuals make.  They define boundaries and distinct practices.  These “rules” may be conscious ones, such as deciding to vote in a way that is consistent with one’s religious values.  The rules may be fleetingly conscious, such as “I’m just using common sense when I hire people that share my habits and practices”.  Or these rules may be so ingrained that each of us does not even realize how much we have assimilated the rules of our identity.

2. Collective identities have social purpose: they provide goals and the means to goals.  For instance, Russian-speakers across the CIS and Eastern Europe can seek others with like language skills to develop international and regional business.

3. Identity also involves comparison and contrast to other groups:  “Unlike these others (fill in the blank), we know how to (fill in another blank). ” I would say that comparison can be a part of strength, but also a means to complacency or discrimination.

4. Last of all, all of these aspects of identity make the frame and a lot of the picture in an individual or collective world view.

B. The next part of their description of identity has to do with its cohesiveness within.  Under global exchange, we can see that the agreement about identity within groups is beginning to change.  In some cases, the fidelity can become more marked; in others, more varied.  With globalization, individuals world-wide find themselves deciding which of their many affiliations are the most important.  As always, force may impel others to affiliate, but good politics makes affiliation compelling.

Recent Identity-Related Central Asian Political Events:
President Rahmon’s recent decision about his name and his intent to go on the Hajj bespeaks a change in identity for himself and possibly for national identity.

One could look at Uzbekistan’s recent persecution of Akramiya as counter-productive because it tends, through persecution, to highlight the otherness between Akromiya members and the government.  Group persecution also strengthens collective identity under adversity.  Some also say that persecution of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, from the UK to the Russian Federation to Central Asia, falls in this category.

Under identity-based criteria, forbidding Kyrgyzstani girls to attend school in hijab (or in French students or students from Minneapolis, for that matter) focuses identity at the point of the identity marker—identity as shown by contrasting dress.  By forbidding school attendance, they miss the opportunity to foster multiple identity: as common speakers, as educated, or as national citizens (Kyrgyz or French or Americans); as readers of Vecherny Bishkek, Le Figaro, or The New York Times. 

Psychologically, identity is highly ingrained, right after food, water, and shelter.  Policies which seem well-crafted by its authors, may unduly challenge identity and create conflict.  These new policy prescriptions look like a blunt stick, battering those who must live them.  At the same time, politicians cannot always avoid goals obstructed by identity politics, norms, and practices.  But considering identity affiliation can only help craft better policies and procedures. 

Understanding the components of identity also serves to show just how well we know our neighbors and ourselves.  It also helps us analyze how far each of us have come, individually and as part of numerous collectives, in our world relationships and views of others.

See Sourcenotes: General, for Abdelal, et al
Cathryn Cluver writes extensively on France’s politicization of identity and its hazards, posted on FPA’s Migration blog

Photo:  Trinity College
Map: University of Texas, Perry-Castaneda Library (Map link, Central Asian Newsroom) 

As noted in part 1 of this series, the Aral Sea is the endpoint of an exotic watershed, with water-rich areas upstream and an arid downstream.  Throughout the world, exotic watersheds are usually more heavily populated downstream.  In general, international law gives downstream human security priority over upstream ownership—in other words, people have a right to water, and upstream states cannot divert or subvert water supply to downstream states. 

Therefore, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Central Asia’s upstream states, have been saddled with the duty to provide water to its downstream neighbors.  At the same time, these downstream states have not used this water wisely.  Nor have they paid for much of the infrastructure improvement that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the two poorest states in Central Asia, must make.  A series of water treaties has been agreed upon and signed; all of them use approximately the same language, and none of them have been substantively followed.  Kazakhstan alone has agreed to pay for improvements in upstream states that affect their water supply; the other two states have continued their free ride.

Five-nation fidelity to a water regime is clearly necessary.  Yet, one can readily see the reasons for systemic water treaty violation.

Transition (?) Agriculture
In the 1990’s, Central Asian states needed export dollars and domestic food supply.  Repairing irrigation systems was not the highest priority.  Instead, the downstream Central Asian states—Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—intensified production of wheat, and a water-needy but valuable cash crop—cotton.

Neither Uzbekistan nor Turkmenistan effectively privatized land after the Soviet breakup, allowing the Soviet-style command structure for agriculture to continue.  To its environmental abuses, noted in post 2 of this series, one must add the disincentives to local farmers to make changes in crops, irrigation, or chemical use under this draconian, desperate cycle.

Furthermore, in the interests of both controlling and pacifying a population already undergoing tremendous change, few water regimes of any note were established.  International financial institutions targeted free water utilities for structural reform.  No matter how little one might pay for utility service, the expectation that one must pay (along with enforcement) tends to control waste.

Health, Grassroots, Reform: NGOs, WUAs
Environmentalists and agricultural experts have tried to reform the irrigation system in the Aral Sea Basin.  One of the most useful initiatives was bringing the concept of Water User Associations (WUAs) to irrigation and municipal utilities.  Using a community-based, stakeholder approach, locals could join with international water experts in developing ownership and care toward their water supplies.  In cities and townships, WUAs were able to target water waste, improve water quality, and increase awareness of water issues.  In rural areas, WUAs could make assessments and improvements to irrigation systems, and separate drinking water from water unfit for human consumption.  Nevertheless, the WUAs also brought locals together in a potential power structure not shared by the head of state.  As citizens were empowered by knowledge and infused with will, they could begin to analyze policies formulated above and make demands of their national leaders.  Many WUA initiatives have therefore been crushed, and many related NGOs have been disinvited, particularly from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. 

Infrastructure and engineering
A radical approach to Central Asia’s agricultural practice is clearly needed to achieve sustainable economic growth and remediate environmental abuses.  Make no mistake: such a program would be very difficult to implement.  The dollar investment to remodel and refurbish water systems remains enormous.

Turkmenistan’s Kara-Kum canal requires a complete refurbishment to fix its leaks.  The canal also needs to be essentially roofed as well, to minimize evaporation loss and increase its efficiency. 

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan: In many areas, irrigation leaks have killed the soil. Irrigation canal repair should therefore be undertaken in concert with land reclamation.   The irrigation network should be completely analyzed, and then revitalized under a phased approach.  Under a complete process, many of the canals would likely be re-sited.

Since 2000-2001 drought, Turkmenistan’s Kara-Kum deserts dunes have begun to transfer at rapid rate.  Strategic desert agriculture allows soil to aggregate, rather than become increasingly fine particles of dust. 

Perhaps saddest of all, desert planting may also be the best answer for the South Aral Sea.  Rather than reconstituting the South Aral, planting a windbreak may help ameliorate the effects of windborne dust and chemicals.

A sign of hope and progress
Kazakhstan, funded by the World Bank, began work in September, 2005 to build a 13-km dam to raise the level of the North Aral.  So far, the project shows great promise, and a second tranche of the World Bank loan is now being implemented.  According to reports, 40% of the water to the North Aral has returned; the distance of the North Aral from its port city of Aralsk is no longer 100 km away, but less than 20 km away.

International law: not yet updated for climate change
Uzbekistan, with the majority of the Central Asian population, has been able to use international humanitarian considerations to garner water for itself.  When humanitarianism fails, President Karimov has in the past secured water through military means and through the threat and implementation of fuel cut-offs.  Thus, legal precedent, threats, and force have caused other Central Asian states to consider short-term practicality rather than long-term humanitarian and legal questions. 

Adding concerns of climate change make the ethics of water use far less clear:  Do Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have a right to heating fuel just as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have a right to water?  Do Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have the right to waste the water they receive?  And if their actions threaten to desertify the region completely, doesn’t the region at large have a legal interest?

Last July, the World Bank conducted a Central Asia region drought reduction seminar in Uzbekistan.  During that seminar, the World Bank representative rather dryly noted that proposing another water regime was useless, if no one intended to abide by its provisions.  It should be further noted that not all Aral Sea basin states attended. 

Water-related conflict continues: Tajikistan, in an effort to supply the utility service Uzbekistan frequently denies them, is strengthening its hydropower capacity.  Uzbekistan, fearing for its water supply, will take its contention to the European Economic Community (EURASEC) meeting on April 18.  (IWPR, 2007, April 3, link unavailable). 

Plenty of hot air:  The debate rages on, and the dust storms still traverse the Aral Sea region.

References:
Beach et al; Micklin; two fine articles on WUAs by Kyle Wegerich (2000;2001).  See Worth Reading–Central Asia General.
Most of the World Bank’s efforts on Central Asian drought mitigation can be accessed from this portal page

Photos: Riverside.com; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation