Abstract

Urban dynamics across Central Asia nowadays exhibit notable similarities, including rapid marketization, large-scale construction booms, commodification of public spaces, and powerful growth coalitions which link political and economic elites. However, despite these common pressures, urban activism patterns vary considerably, from frequent, well-organized NGO campaigns in some cities to rare, easily suppressed grassroots initiatives in others. This paper develops an integrated theoretical framework to explain this variation. This framework combines three bodies of literature: authoritarian neoliberalism theory explains how market-oriented reforms under illiberal state authority generate grievances through displacement and environmental degradation; growth machine theory identifies the coalitions of developers, politicians, and financiers driving urban development; and political opportunity structure (POS) theory, adapted for authoritarian contexts, explains why similar structural conditions produce different activism patterns. This framework specifies three POS dimensions critical in authoritarian urban contexts in Central Asia: first, international openness accounted for by the ratification of conventions like Aarhus and transnational NGO presence; second, civil society space comprising legal protections, state toleration of autonomous organizing; and third, state capacity manifested by fiscal resources enabling co-optation versus repression. These dimensions combine into regime-specific configurations that shape activism intensity and organizational forms. The framework generates six testable propositions linking POS configurations to activism patterns. For instance, higher international openness enables NGO-led activism through resource flows and accountability mechanisms; broader civil society space permits more frequent mobilization; and state capacity deployment determines whether regimes go for co-optation or repression as a means of control. Integrating political economy and political process theory, this framework addresses the structural conditions generating grievances and the political configurations shaping the ways residents engage in contentious politics under authoritarian rule at the city level.