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| Volume XIV, Spring 2007, Number 1 |
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ABSTRACT
Challenges for Democratization in Central Asia: What Can the United States Do?
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| Pinar Ipek |
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Dr. Ipek is an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. She has conducted field research in Central Asia and was a visiting scholar of an NGO program (Civic Education Project) designed to strengthen democracy through education.
The agenda of post-communist transformation seemed to have faded away in Central Asian countries until the tragic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the aftermath of the Iraq War, democratization in “failed” and authoritarian states has rapidly become the focus of U.S. foreign policy. Since the events in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia has been added to the debate on third-wave democratization that has been witnessed in Georgia and Ukraine. In light of the increasing turbulence in Iraq and the unexpected death of Turkmenistan’s President Niyazov, the challenges for democratization in Central Asia should be reevaluated. This article argues that the prospects for democracy in that region are vulnerable to internal and external actors as well as structural problems in the individual states, which possess vast energy resources and crucial routes for exporting them. Thus, to avoid the error of coddling dictators to serve its agenda, the United States should consider developing a longer-term policy that takes into consideration not only the strategic importance of Central Asia, but also the development of its civil society.
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