Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (59 page)

all make the right motions and noises to assuage the ego of the insecure

ruler, sensitive to any signs of disaffection lest it signal the end of his relationship with the people.

So why hold elections in post-Soviet Central Asia? For much the same

reasons that they were held in Soviet times. Elections are for ratifying and

gratifying. However, the Central Asian leaders did not slip back to com-

munism; this had been discredited and could not provide legitimization.

Instead, they maintained a slimmed down version of Soviet authoritarian

rule, not a Stalinist model but certainly more despotic than the practices of

the late Gorbachev era, when a variety of diverse interest groups and

movements bloomed.

Western bewilderment at blatant acts of rigging, manipulation and plain

theft should be tempered by an appreciation of the fact that Central Asian

autocrats, schooled in Soviet style democracy and eager to establish a tow-

ering place in their nation’s history, cannot think of any other way to

achieve their ambitions. With a desire for unbridled power comes a fear of

the repercussions should they lose an election. Unlike their Western coun-

terparts, who are merely condemned to lecture tours, writing memoirs and

spending more time with their family, ousted Central Asian presidents

know they risk death, exile, and loss of enormous wealth, not to mention

F A K I N G I T : N E O - S O V I E T E L E C T O R A L P O L I T I C S

225

their place in history should they be unceremoniously dislodged.26 For that

reason, most prefer their personal life expectancy rather than the electorate

to determine presidential terms of office.

Bibliography

This article owes much to dozens of interviews conducted with political

leaders, activists and analysts in the five countries of post-Soviet Central

Asia. It also utilized several election reports, particularly those compiled by

the OSCE. In addition, the following secondary sources were employed:

Akbarzadeh, Shahram (1999). National Identity and Political Legitimacy in Turk-

menistan.
Nationalities Papers
, 27, 271–90.

Beyme, Klaus von (1996).
Transition to Democracy in Eastern Europe
. London: Macmillan.

Brooks, Jeffrey (2000).
Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution
to Cold War
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Carothers, Thomas (2002). The End of the Transition Paradigm.
Journal of Democracy
, 13, 5–21.

— (2006). The Backlash Against Democracy Promotion.
Foreign Affairs
, 85, 55–68.

Diamond, Larry, Marc F. Plattner, Yun-han Chu, and Hung-mao Tien (eds.).

(1997).
Consolidating Third-Wave Democracies. Themes and Perspectives
. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Friedgut, Theodore (1979).
Political Participation in the USSR
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gleason, Gregory (1997).
The Central Asian States: Discovering Independence
. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Hoffman, Barak D., and Jack Santucci (2009).
The Democratic Recession
, available at http://www8.georgetown.edu/centers/cdacs/globalizing/democratic_reces-sion_5apr09.pdf

Lane, David (1985).
State and Politics in the USSR
. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Levinsky, Stephen, and Lucan A. Way (2002). The Rise of Competitive Authori-

tarianism.
Journal of Democracy
, 13, 51–56.

——————

26 Thompson and Kuntz (2006) have coined the term “electoral sultanism” to describe those regimes where incumbents have too much to lose by allowing the opposition to win an election; such regimes, they conclude, are highly repressive and weakly institutionalized, a description for many, if not all, of the Central Asian states.

226

D O N N A C H A Ó B E A C H Á I N

Lindberg, Staffan I. (2006). Tragic Protest: Why Do Opposition Parties Boycott

Elections. In Andreas Schedler (ed.).
Electoral Authoritarianism
:
The Dynamics of
Unfree Competition
, 203–23. Boulder, CO: L. Rienner Publishers.

Lijphart, Arend, and Carlos H. Waisman (1996).
Institutional Design in New Democracies. Eastern
,
Europe and Latin America
. Boulder, CO.: Westview Press.

Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan (1996).
Problems of Democratic Consolidation: Southern
Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe
. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

Linz, Juan J. (2000).
Totalitarian and Authoritarian regimes
. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

Ó Beacháin, Donnacha (2005). Parliamentary Elections in Kazakhstan.
Electoral
Studies
, 24, 762–69.

—, and Abel Polese (2008). American Boots and Russian Vodka: The importance

of external factors in colour revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

Totalitarismus und Demokratie
, 5, 87–113.

— (2009a). Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution. In Immanuel Ness (ed.).
The World

Encyclopedia of Protest and Revolution: 1600 to Present
, 3228–33. Oxford: Blackwell.

— (2009b). Roses and Tulips: Dynamics of Colour Revolutions in Georgia and

Kyrgyzstan.
Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics
, 25, 199–226.

—, and Abel Polese (2009). From Roses to Bullets: The Rise and Decline of Post-

Soviet Colour Revolutions. In Uwe Backes, Tytus Jaskulowski, and Abel Polese

(eds.).
Totalitarianism and Transformation: Central and Eastern Europe between Socialist
Legacy and Democratic Transformation (Totalitarismus und Transformation Defizite der
Demokratiekonsolidierung in Mittel- und Osteuropa)
, 63–100. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

—, and Abel Polese (eds.). (2010).
The Colour Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics
.

London: Routledge.

O’Donnell, Guillermo, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (eds.).

(1986).
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Polese, Abel (2009). Russia, the US, “the others” and the “101 things to do to win a (colour) revolution”: reflections on Georgia and Ukraine, available at

www.politics.plymouth.ac.uk/PIP/Polese.pdf.

Przeworski, Adam (1991).
Democracy and Market. Political and Economic Reforms in
Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

— (ed.). (2000).
Democracy and Development; Political Institutions and Well-Being in the
World, 1950–1990
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rigby, T.H. (1980). A Conceptual Approach to Authority, Power and Policy in the

Soviet Union. In T.H. Rigby, Archie Brown, and Peter Reddaway (eds.).

Authority, Power and Policy in the USSR
, 9–31. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Sabol, Stephen (2003). Turkmenbashi: Going It Alone.
Problems of Post-Communism
, 50, 48–57.

F A K I N G I T : N E O - S O V I E T E L E C T O R A L P O L I T I C S

227

Schedler, Andreas (2006).
Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition.
Boulder, CO: L. Rienner Publishers.

Schmitter, Philippe C. (1994). The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Con-solidationists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?.
Slavic Review
, 53, 173–85.

Smith. Godan B. (1988).
Soviet Politics: Continuity and Contradiction
. London: Macmillan.

Thompson, Mark R., and Philipp Kuntz (2006). After Defeat: When Do Rulers

Steal Elections?. In Andreas Schedler (ed.).
Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition
, 113–28. Boulder, CO: L. Rienner Publishers.

Van de Walle, Nicolas (2006). Tipping Games: When Do Opposition Parties

Coalesce? In Andreas Schedler (ed.).
Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of
Unfree Competition
, 77–92. Boulder, CO: L. Rienner Publishers.

Wilson, Andrew (2005).
Virtual Politics.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

III Dissent and Loyalty