All Intensive Purposes

Henry at Crooked Timber discusses an interesting article in the Financial Times about the causes of events in Kyrgyzstan.

From the FT:

There is certainly a domino effect at work. Supporters of the US’s democracy campaign have been quick to cast Kyrgyzstan as the latest state to join “the global march of freedom led by President Bush”, as the conservative Wall Street Journal said on Friday, praising Washington’s policies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, of more relevance to Kyrgyzstan have been the peaceful revolts against authoritarian leaders in the former Soviet Union, in Georgia and Ukraine. Television and the internet has spread the message. The common element has been a drive to get rid of self-serving corrupt cliques which have often been in power, as in Kyrgyzstan, since Soviet times. These cliques have generally been supported by Moscow, but the revolts against them have not been principally anti-Russian or pro-western. Domestic issues have mattered most.

Crooked Timber adds:

The FT article identifies two effects at work in Central Asia. First, there’s a geographic contagion effect – countries are more likely to move towards democracy if other countries nearby are established democracies (or have recently moved towards democracy). This was a key causal variable in the last wave of democratization – Jeff Kopstein and David Reilly have a nice paper providing statistical evidence in favour of geographic proximity as a key factor explaining the degree of democratization in Central and Eastern Europe. Here indeed, US policy has had some indirect effects – the US support for regime change in Georgia has probably had unanticipated consequences as Georgia became an example of change for other countries in the post-Soviet space.

Second, there’s a particular institution that has played a vital role – the OSCE. The FT anticipates that the OSCE has been important in Kyrgyzstan, and could help push for change in forthcoming elections in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

As in Georgia, Ukraine and, now, Kyrgyzstan, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which organises election monitors, could play a key role. Its criticisms of polls have given anti-government forces vital ammunition.