Policing Public Protest in Central Asia
In: Central Asian AffairsSearch for other papers by Erica Marat in
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While Central Asia’s Soviet-era physical infrastructure crumbles, and the quality and availability of public healthcare and education decline, the police remain the one institution that controls the state’s most remote territories. This article argues that, over the past two decades, the functions of Central Asian police forces have become increasingly punitive. Their negative influence was particularly visible in the aftermath of public protests in the 2000–2010s that resulted in fatal clashes between police units and civilian population. These watershed events were followed by government decisions to overhaul their police forces to preempt a recurrence of public protest. Depending on how willing the incumbent regimes are to control political dissent and how capable the state is in performing these control functions, changes in the Interior Ministries follow. When political will is matched by the economic and administrative resource of the state, policing functions are distributed among additional state institutions. But when the regime lacks the resources to upgrade policing techniques to the desired level, it almost always requests international support to facilitate police reform.
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4
A. Beck, and Y. Chistyakova, “Crime and Policing in Post-Soviet Societies: Bridging the Police/Public Divide”, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy 12, no. 2 (2002): 123–137.
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6
S. Hensell, “The Patrimonial Logic of the Police in Eastern Europe,” Europe-Asia Studies 64, no. 5 (2012): 811–833.
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7
Anna Matveeva, “The Perils of Emerging Statehood: Civil War and State Reconstruction in Tajikistan,” Development as State-making (Working Paper no. 46, Crisis States Research Centre, March 2009); Erica Marat, “Kyrgyzstan’s Fragmented Police and Armed Forces,” The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, no. 11 (2010).
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10
Ibid., Lewis 2011. On the police as one the state’s predatory and corrupt institutions see Johan Engvall, The State as Investment Market: An Analytical Framework for Interpreting Politics and Bureaucracy in Kyrgyzstan (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 2012), 154, 180–184. Eric McGlinchey, Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia (Pittsburg: Pittsburg University Press, 2012), 24–25.
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11
A. Osipian, “Corrupt Organizational Hierarchies in the Former Soviet Bloc,” Transition Studies Review 17, no. 4 (2010): 822–836.
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12
J.D. Grant, and R.T. Galvin, Agents of Change: A Study in Police Reform (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975).
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13
L. Steven, and A.W. Lucan, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
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14
L.A. Way, and S. Levitsky, “The Dynamics of Autocratic Coercion after the Cold War,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 29 (2006): 387–410.
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15
P. Tremblay, and R. Rochon, “Police organizations and their use of knowledge: A grounded research agenda,” Policing and Society 1, no. 4 (1991): 269–283.
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18
Ibid., Lewis 2012.
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B. David, “Democratizing the Police Abroad: What to Do and How to Do It,” Issues in International Crime, (Washington, DC: u.s. Department of Justice, 2011).
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21
C. Thomas, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999); S. Baranyi, and J.E. Salahub, “Police reform and democratic development in lower-profile fragile states,” Canadian Journal of Development Studies 32, no. 1 (2011): 48–63; D. Lewis, “Who’s Socialising Whom? Regional Organisations and Contested Norms in Central Asia,” Europe-Asia Studies 64, no. 7 (2012): 1219–1237; R.M. Oakley, M.J., Dziedzic, and E.M. Goldberg, Policing the New World Disorder: Police Operations and New Public Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1998).
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27
P. Salmon, “Repression Intensifies Against Kazakh Oil Workers’ Uprising,” Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 19, no. 1–2 (2011): 507–510.
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29
Saule Yessenova, “Worker Riot at the Tenghiz Oilfield: Who is to Blame?” Central Asia – Caucasus Analyst, February 21, 2007.
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31
Ibid., Lewis 2011.
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34
Ibid., Lewis 2011.
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40
Erica Marat, “Human behavior - Trafficking increases in Central Asia”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, October 2011.
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49
Ibid., Bloed; Lewis 2011.
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50
Kyrgyzstan Interior Ministry, “Programma reformy organov vnutrennikh del,” mvd.kg, no date, http://www.mvd.kg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=186&Itemid=70&lang=ru (accessed August 24, 2013).
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51
Ibid., Engvall 2011; Marat, 2010.
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56
International Crisis Group, “Tajikistan: The Changing Insurgent Threat”, Asia Report #205, May 24, 2011.
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60
Ibid., Crisis Group, 2011.
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61
Nazar Turduev, “The Tajik authorities are going to reform militia,” Voice of Freedom, October 18, 2010.
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Policing Public Protest in Central Asia
In: Central Asian AffairsSearch for other papers by Erica Marat in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
While Central Asia’s Soviet-era physical infrastructure crumbles, and the quality and availability of public healthcare and education decline, the police remain the one institution that controls the state’s most remote territories. This article argues that, over the past two decades, the functions of Central Asian police forces have become increasingly punitive. Their negative influence was particularly visible in the aftermath of public protests in the 2000–2010s that resulted in fatal clashes between police units and civilian population. These watershed events were followed by government decisions to overhaul their police forces to preempt a recurrence of public protest. Depending on how willing the incumbent regimes are to control political dissent and how capable the state is in performing these control functions, changes in the Interior Ministries follow. When political will is matched by the economic and administrative resource of the state, policing functions are distributed among additional state institutions. But when the regime lacks the resources to upgrade policing techniques to the desired level, it almost always requests international support to facilitate police reform.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 649 | 133 | 62 |
| Full Text Views | 284 | 6 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 86 | 18 | 2 |