Paper abstract:

This research explores the specifics of informality, Uzbek societies' trust and reciprocity practices, and how social norms, trust and debt-based trade serve as an alternative means of doing business in Ferghana Valley, in the specific case of rassiychilar. Debt-based trade and economic exchanges are becoming more and more widespread phenomena in the context of most post-Soviet Central Asian societies, especially in Uzbekistan. In the absence of viable state economic support, a functional banking system and an effective legal system, trust-based economic exchanges serve as an alternative means for conducting micro-level businesses in Uzbekistan. This debt-based trade in the example of agriculture involves a myriad of informal economic exchanges among various actors (1) rassiychilar, that is, micro-level entrepreneurs who export Uzbek agricultural products to Russian markets; (2) dehqonlar, that is, local farmers who produce agricultural products in their land and then sell them to brokers; (3) brokerlar, brokers or middleman who buy agricultural products from dehqonlar, and then resell to rassiychilar; (4) fura arendatorlari, that is, local wealthy businessmen who rent large trucks to rassiychilar, and (5) truck drivers, who drives local wealthy businessmen’s trucks to Russia and help to facilitate the business of rassiychilar. The phenomenon of rassiychilar, which is the central focus of this research, is one of the intriguing examples of debt-based trade in rural Fergana, Uzbekistan.

Paper abstract:

This research aims to examine how social media activists, namely bloggers operating on social media platforms, use art and humour to engage in social engineering and democratisation processes in the context of authoritarian regimes. A particular emphasis will be placed on exploring how bloggers operating in authoritarian contexts utilise art and humour on various social media platforms to avoid and bypass tight government control and unofficial censorship and to criticise government inadequacies and inefficiencies, namely, corruption and kleptocratic practices. The research project is timely given that the world is witnessing a crisis of democracy, observed by policymakers and scholars. However, grassroots strategies challenging authoritarian polities are also proliferating. Given these global tendencies, there is a need to produce a more in-depth, nuanced, and contextualized understanding of how grassroots civil society actors and institutions creatively respond to restrictions imposed by authoritarian regimes by utilizing less politically salient but socially penetrative tools (e.g., digital art and humor) that have the potential to redefine state-society relations and democratization processes in the long run. These processes will be empirically investigated in the context of Uzbekistan, an authoritarian regime in a post-Soviet context that is currently transitioning from a heavily repressive to a softer form of authoritarianism.

Paper abstract:

This paper is based on field research conducted in Uzbekistan in 2021, which aimed to study the informality that exists in Uzbekistan and how it serves as a buffer for the continuity and safety of the regime in this country. The research found that in Uzbekistan even though there are laws that regulate the business environment in this country, they are implemented selectively and arbitrarily depending on the cultural and political sensitivities of the people and the interests of the ruling elite.

This situation creates a gap between the written laws and their actual implementation, which can be used by the ruling elite to maintain their power and control over the country. This informality provides them a wide space to take and develop new positions to adjust themselves.

Turkish businessman seems as if smoothly floating with this informal business environment even though as a late comer they would be influenced by these informalities in a very harsh way in times of crisis. An important portion of Turkish business in Uzbekistan was subject to harsh treatment during the time of the previous president. However, many Turkish businessmen decided to stay or come back to Uzbekistan after the normalization.

The paper also tries to understand why and how those business actors prefer to stay in this country and what kind of exit strategies they developed.

Paper abstract:

Many Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan face a number of challenges on a daily basis. The main difficulties affect the economically active, who suffer constant pressure and intimidation from the state authorities and criminals alike. As a result, businesspeople have resorted to finding different kinds of creative strategies to keep their businesses secure. Measures include moving trading from the bazaar to the mahallas (neighbourhoods), using mobile phones for taking passenger bookings from the bus station and the airport, and avoiding selling to, or serving, potentially ‘suspicious’ clients. Uzbeks do not openly avoid developing businesses within their economic niches; rather they have tried to turn their existing niches into safer places by using practices that are not visible to the Kyrgyz community, and in this manner, safeguarding their businesses. Some businesses have been turned into ‘safe’ social projects, such as a school, hospital and madrasa. They have created ethnically exclusive zones as well as developed public services that are less likely to be targeted out of distrust.

Respondents to my research also try to use avoidance and concealment of businesses and identities, as well as using video cameras and social networks to evade contact with criminal networks. These securityscapes have developed as a reaction to different ‘anticipations’: the realities are experienced as physical violence, harassment and the seizure of Uzbek businesses. According to von Boemcken et al. “securityscapes can be understood as ‘imagined worlds’ of security and insecurity that goad and structure the lives of people as they go about their daily business.” Thus, securityscapes are based on inter-subjectively enacted social practices and emphasise the individual agency of actors in seeking security – which is especially evident if these actors do not and cannot rely on state authorities. Below I would like to discuss three cases to show how people experience and create securityscapes: 1) Against Suyun Omurzakov’s network; 2) against corruption and the system of ‘dolya’ (share, cut); and 3) balance between ‘low’ nationalism and ‘high’ nationalism.

Paper abstract:

The political landscape of Central Asia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation in December 1991 with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. While there are certain common trends, such as the shift from planned to market economies or the attempts towards some degree of democratization, the unique context of each Central Asian state has played a vital role in shaping their transition. These states have been rebuilding their disintegrated state, legal, and market structures in a peculiar combination of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and entirely new institutions, and norms (Luong, 2004; Morozova, 2004) within a political and legal landscape where Soviet, Islamic, and Western systems coexist and clash occasionally.

While these several political, economic, and legal systems operate together, the adoption of international law and standards has quickened pace since the early 2000s as various actors - states, multinational companies, NGOs, and international organizations have entered the region, increased their activities and influence on politics, economics, law, culture, and security (Morozova, 2004; Menon, 2015). As it has happened in other post-Socialist states (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2005; Grabbe, 2006), norms generation, reproduction, and diffusion have become a powerful force that impact the policies, laws, and institutions, pushing for political, legal, and economic changes in the region. As noted in the literature, international organizations have acted as norm entrepreneurs and played significant roles in norm diffusion processes in Central Asia.

Though it has been actively involved in the region, UNODC’s specific activities, projects, and the mechanisms by which it disseminates norms on issue areas within its mandate in Central Asia remain unexplored.To address this gap, this research seeks to answer key questions: How does UNODC foster international norms and standards in response to transnational challenges? Why is UNODC's involvement crucial in facilitating norm diffusion within Central Asia? Furthermore, the study delves into potential contestation from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) against UNODC's norm diffusion and reflects upon evolving global governance dynamics and the boundaries of norm diffusion in the Central Asian region.