The Pitfalls of Family Rule is an important contribution to the dynamics of authoritarian regimes, particularly those in the post-Soviet space. Junisbai considers 10 of the 15 post-soviet states to be personalist dictatorships, and eight of those are family-based – all but Russia and Belarus. The book will be invaluable to scholars of the region, and is accessible for advanced undergraduates.
Junisbai argues that dictatorships are more fractious and potentially unstable than is commonly supposed. Mainstream academic accounts tend to focus on the ability of rulers to use a range of political and economic tools to stay in power and enrich themselves (election rigging, information manipulation, rent-seeking, etc.). Pitfalls points to the presence of pluralism and contestation even in centralized, repressive authoritarian regimes. Patrimonial regimes are not simply transactional, with the exchange of loyalty for favors: they also involve the emergence of norms of behavior that constrain the ruler as well as their acolytes. Norms and institutions in authoritarian regimes really matter, they are not just window-dressing.
Junisbai focuses on the temptation for rulers to allow their family to loot the state, taking over lucrative economic operations not just from opposition business people but even from allies of the ruler. This can lead to defections by key elite members which, if combined with a surge in popular unrest, may even bring down the ruler. There is tension between providing differential access to favored family members versus ensuring a degree of fair play to maintain the loyalty of elites beyond the family. So the smart dictator will put limits on ‘familism’, disciplining family members who are recklessly greedy, and maintaining norms of reciprocity and fair treatment for loyal elites, which Junisbai argues is key to the stability of patrimonial regimes.
This is a clear and convincing argument. Junisbai came up with this model based on her familiarity with the cases of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, detailed in Chapters 2 and 3, whose leaders eventually punished egregious behavior by some of their offspring. She extends the analysis to all the post-soviet states (apart from the Baltics), and the Arab Spring cases of Tunisia and Egypt. This phenomenon is pervasive in the post-soviet world.
At times the ruler will choose to side with their family and crush elite members who complain that they are being mistreated (as did Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov in 2005, and Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2001). The other path is to restore elite trust by punishing the family for overreach, as did Nazarbaev in 2001 and 2007, and Karimov in 2013.
Nazarbayev left the presidency in 2019, but his family unleashed mass protests against his chosen successor Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in January 2022 that were only suppressed with the help of troops sent from Russia. Junisbai cites this as illustrating “the slender margin separating strongman success from autocratic failure.” (p. 113) Cases of overreach that led to regime collapse include Kyrgyzstan (Askar Akaev in 2005 and Kurmanbek Bakiyev in 2010), Transnistria (Igor Smirnov in 2011) and Ukraine (Viktor Yanukovych in 2013).
Chapter 5 extends the analysis to include Tunisia, Egypt and Transnistria. Rampant familism contributed to the elite defections that sealed the fate of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in the face of the Arab spring popular protests. Ben Ali was spreading the favors around his three children, seven siblings, and second wife’s ten siblings. (p. 120)
The book is studded with fascinating and at times shocking details, as in the spectacular rise and fall of Karimov’s daughter Gulnara. The analysis makes it clear that family-based dictatorship is highly compatible with market reform and integration into the global economy: whether it be Coca Cola franchises, telecom licenses or investment in oil fields, multinational corporations are usually happy to deal with whoever is favored by the incumbent ruler.
Junisbai does not provide much analysis of ethnic divisions (such as the Russians in Kazakhstan) or clan and regional loyalties beyond the immediate family of the nation’s ruler. Surely such factors are important in structuring the elite coalitions supporting the Central Asian leaders.
There are of course several cases in the post-soviet space where ‘familism’ has ruled unchecked and has not produced regime instability – Heydar Aliev in Azerbaijan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow in Turkmenistan and Emomali Rakhmon in Tajikistan. Aliev and Berdimuhamedow even managed to effect a father-son power transition. So rampant familism is not always fatal to regime stability. Thus far, Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin have resisted the temptation to make family ties central to their dictatorial rule, though in recent years Putin has promoted to positions of power some of his own relatives and the children of his inner circle. So familism may also loom large in the future of Belarus and Russia.
