Tajikistan: a chronic stagnation

Abstract:

Since gaining its independence Tajikistan had faced severe political, economic and social problems. The last several months had seen a clear increase in their intensity. This was in part caused by the deteriorating economic situation in Russia and the significant fall of remittances from the Tajik labour migrants in Russia, as well as by President Emomali Rahmon’s rising authoritarianism. Despite this intensification, qualitatively speaking Tajikistan’s problems had been unchanged for years. Besides the state’s structural weakness, the main cause was the ongoing neo-colonial dependence on Russia, which effectively limited Dushanbe’s room for political manoeuvre and kept Tajikistan in Russia’s sphere of control.

This dependence on the one hand protected the country from collapsing, but on the other it precluded the development of the state, resulting in Tajikistan’s enduring stagnation. Similar processes also took place in other countries of post-Soviet Central Asia. However, in the case of Tajikistan the dependence and stagnation it caused were the strongest and their mechanisms most easily observed.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: Website: Tajikistan http://www.europeansources.info/record/website-tajikistan/

The Conversation, 07.09.16: After 25 years of independence, Tajikistan is a bastion of torture and repression http://theconversation.com/after-25-years-of-independence-tajikistan-is-a-bastion-of-torture-and-repression-64945

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