Paper abstract:

Until recently, the Kyrgyz Republic was rated as “partly free” by Freedom House (2020) and in comparison to other Central Asian republics, it was considered a relatively democratic country with moderate level of civil liberties and political rights. Due to volatile nature of Kyrgyzstan’s domestic politics, the studies on political developments in this nation tend to examine the manifestation of certain aspects of democracy in the functioning of institutions and in organization of political processes (Fumagali 2021, Schmitz 2021, Montgomery 2021, Somfalvy 2021). However, there is no significant literature on public perception of democracy and the level of civic engagement in Kyrgyzstan. The Freedom House report, for instance, evaluates different indicators of democracy such as political pluralism, civil liberties, and electoral process etc, but due to its methodological approach, this study does not tell how people participate in political processes and how they personally perceive the concept of democracy.

This research addresses the existing gap in the literature by examining the public attitude toward democracy and the level of civic engagement. The study is guided by the question of how the society in Kyrgyzstan perceives democracy and how people participate in political processes. The study is based on nationwide survey (N=1650) carried out between 2019-2022, which examines public attitude toward various dimensions of democracy to learn the degree of civic engagement, and perception of democratic values and its aspects. The results The preliminary findings demonstrate that the majority of people have distorted or incomplete knowledge about democracy as a concept and have little understanding about mechanisms of civic participation. The empirical findings of this study will make several contributions to understanding the issue of how democracy is perceived by the public – whether and how people understand or support various aspects of democracy, and how people actually participate in democratic processes in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.

Literature cited

Fumagalli, M. (2021). Challenges amid Kyrgyzstan’s return to presidential politics. East Asia Forum (ANU).

Schmitz, A. (2021). Revolution Again in Kyrgyzstan: Forward to the Past? Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. doi:10.18449/2021C08.

Montgomery, D. W. (2021). Building Pluralism in Central Asia: Outlining an Experiential Approach in Kyrgyzstan. The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 2021, Volume 19, Number 4, Page 98. DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2021.1989823.

Somfalvy, E. (2021). The Challenges to De-localising Constituencies through Electoral Reform in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Europe-Asia Studies, 73:3, 533 558, DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2020.1840518