GOVERNMENT CRISIS IN KAZAKHSTAN: WARM-UP FOR THE SUCCESSION TO NAZARBAEV?
By Robert M. Cutler (12/5/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: After Kazakhstan unwillingly obtained its independence upon the disintegration of the Soviet regime, Nazarbaev tacitly proclaimed war against the bloated state bureaucracy he inherited, which also constituted a potential opposition power base. After the first post-Soviet parliament was elected in 1994, on the basis of the country's first post-Soviet constitution, lobbies and alliances began to emerge between parliamentary groupings on the one hand, and the lower and middle ranks of the ministerial structures on the other. Nazarbaev engineered the parliament's dissolution in 1994 when, on the basis of an accusation of electoral fraud by an anti-Nazarbaev candidate in a single electoral district, the Constitutional Court ruled the entire parliament to be illegal.
WESTERN POWERS BOLSTER TAJIKISTAN AS IT FACES RENEWED THREATS TO STABILITY AND SECURITY.
By Ahmed Rashid (5/23/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Tajikistan faces major threats which include a likely renewed summer offensive by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which has bases in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, but also has military camps and recruiting centers in the Tavildera valley in central Tajikistan; the threat from the Taliban and continued fighting on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border between the Taliban and the opposition United Front led by Ahmad Shah Masud; drug trafficking from Afghanistan and a worsening economic crisis due to the earlier neglect of the international donor community to fulfill its pledges after the 1997 ceasefire and establishment of a coalition government which ended the five year civil war, to help reconstruct Tajikistan. The US and other leading powers have finally recognized what President Imomali Rakhmanov has long said, that sustaining the coalition government in Dushanbe is vital for peace and security in Central Asia and that it could provide a model for an eventual peaceful settlement of the civil war in Afghanistan.
General Franks visited Dushanbe on May 16, where he conveyed a message from the Bush administration that the US considers Tajikistan ‘a strategically significant country’ for peace and security in Central Asia.
WATER SHORTAGE IN CENTRAL ASIA AND RE-ROUTING OF SIBERIAN RIVERS TO CENTRAL ASIA
By Abdukhalil Razzakov (6/6/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The end of 20th century and the beginning of 21st has seen serious drought in Central Asia and adjoining regions. The water problem has never been so acute in the post-independent history of the Central Asian states. The ecologic situation in the Aral Sea basin is disastrous; only one third of the Aral Sea’s surface remains.
A sweeping package of constitutional reforms have been announced by President Shevardnadze
By Ivlian Haindrava (6/6/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In fact there is nothing new in the idea of Cabinet. Before the adoption of the Constitution in August 1995, the Cabinet system did exist in Georgia though poorly operating and characterized by an amorphous structure. The 1995 Georgian Constitution established a presidential republic with the President being both the Head of State and the chief executive.Visit also
Joint Center Publications
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Modernization and Regional Cooperation in Central Asia: A New Spring, November 2018.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, ed., Uzbekistan’s New Face, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Article Svante E. Cornell, “Turkish-Saudi Rivalry: Behind the Khashoggi Affair,” The American Interest, November 6, 2018.
Article Mamuka Tsereteli, “Landmark Caspian Deal Could Pave Way for Long-Stalled Energy Projects,” World Politics Review, September 2018.
Article Halil Karaveli, “The Myth of Erdoğan’s Power,” Foreign Affairs, August 2018.
Book Halil Karaveli, Why Turkey is Authoritarian, London: Pluto Press, 2018.
Article Svante E. Cornell, “Erbakan, Kısakürek and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018.
Article S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, “Uzbekistan: A New Model for Reform in the Muslim World,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, May 12, 2018.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, Religion and the Secular State in Kazakhstan, April 2018.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, The Long Game on the Silk Road: US and EU Strategy for Central Asia and the Caucasus, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Article Svante E. Cornell, “Central Asia: Where Did Islamic Radicalization Go?,” Religion, Conflict and Stability in the Former Soviet Union, eds Katya Migacheva and Bryan Frederick, Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 2018.