Rentierism, Dependency and Sovereignty in Central Asia

In the case of Kazakhstan, the reliance on the Russian controlled infrastructure reinforced
by geographical proximity and an ethnic Russian minority living in Kazakhstan, has led to the
decision on parts of the ruling regime to largely follow the Russian lead on the international stage
(Cummings 2005; Dave 2007). Thus, the Kazakh regime pursues the long term goal of not
antagonizing Russia but to rather grow in strength next to it, at least for the time being. Rather
tellingly, Kazakhstan only began consolidating its relationships with China in the mid-2000s after
Chinese-Russian rapprochement, whereas the influence of Western oil companies has been largely
limited to oil enclaves. Turkmenistan, contrary to Kazakhstan engaged on the one hand in a series
of disputes concerning the price of gas sold to Russia and Ukraine through Russian controlled
pipelines, and, on the other hand, chose to pursue a policy of virtual isolation from the outside
world. The change at the apex of power of the ruling regime in the second half of 2000s was
marked by a continuation of foreign policy rather than a meaningful shift towards greater openness
(Anceschi 2008).
The situation has been very different in the case of Uzbekistan which overwhelmingly
relies on cotton and gold, and whose exports to international markets do not depend to the same
extent as in the case of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on Russian controlled infrastructure. This
situation has allowed the Uzbek regime to manoeuvre rather freely between Russia, US, European
states as well as China (Spechler and Spechler 2009). This highly flexible foreign policy leads not
only to the consolidation of the ruling regime and suppression of internal dissent, but also greatly
increases Uzbek sovereignty. Thus, when compared to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
emerges as a unique case in Central Asia since it is the only state that managed to end its direct
dependency on Russia. At the same time, Uzbek independent foreign policy is built on very weak
foundations. Over the last two decades, the ruling regime failed to diversify the country’s economy
away from cotton, the prices of which are highly unstable, and instead became increasingly reliant
on indirect taxation of labour remittances by different levels of the state bureaucracy. Hence, the
maintenance of the Uzbek version of “multi-vector” foreign policy and state sovereignty is a
serious challenge to the authoritarian regime.
In recent years, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, similarly to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan also
declared the intention of pursuing a “multi-vector” foreign policy. However, while in the Uzbek
context the multi-vector policy has been framed as an outcome of strategic repositioning and in
Kazakhstan as an expression of the regime’s inspiration to achieve full sovereignty, in the Kyrgyz
and Tajik cases the policy of “multi-vector” policy has been rather a reflection of a position in
which those states found themselves on the regional “chessboard” (Spechler 2008). In both cases,
the almost full dependency of aid and labour remittances significantly narrows a leader’s room to
manoeuvre and inevitably undercuts these states’ sovereignty.
Conclusion: Rent and Sovereignty in Central Asia
Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union Central Asian republics are still shaped by the
Soviet policies the legacy of which has been chiefly upheld and reinforced by the neo-liberal
project. In the new post-Soviet reality the rulers of the three Central Asian states Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan largely embraced the role that was envisioned for their republics by
the Soviet planners. The privatisation of state assets by the elites in the 1990s has guaranteed them
access to rent, the constant flow of which quickly became their main preoccupation. As a result of
this, an interest of the ruling cliques in state sovereignty has been directly and unbreakably linked
to the issue of rent and its control. That is to say that whoever guarantees a steady flow of rent is
also seen as a strategic partner and a best guarantor of a country’s sovereignty. The situation is
largely the same in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
A political reality in which private interests are a key political and economical determinant
is a product of an elite which was shaped by imperial project and accepted its values. In this sense
Central Asia follows a path travelled by other post-colonial resources-rich states (Gammer 2000).
And if history can tell us anything we can safely concluded that rent will chiefly determine the
Copyright PSA 2011
12