The Limits of the OSCE Fostering Change in Central Asia

Central Asia seldom attracts great attention. Even less so the two territorially smallest countries—Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan—which have also have the lowest GDP in the region. What connects them further is that Tajikistan had a five-year-long civil war during 1992–97, with casualties of up to 100,000, while Kyrgyzstan went through two “revolutions” in 2005 and 2010. Although Kyrgyzstan is the most democratic state in Central Asia, and Tajikistan increasingly authoritarian, their turbulent pasts have similar consequences: in both cases, leaders have used the threat of instability as points of reference to deter the population from political engagement, albeit with differing consequences. Kyrgyzstan holds largely free elections with some bias due to vote buying and imbalance as far as media access, while Tajikistan does not allow for opposition voices, having banned its main political opposition, the Islamic Renaissance Party, in 2015.

Steve Schlegel published his PhD thesis on bases of thorough analysis and field study in Central Asia. The result is a remarkably detailed book divided into three main parts: theory of weak statehood, post-Soviet history, and the role of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in contributing to the management—but not solution—of the problems in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The book's theoretical foundations are well integrated with policy analysis. Schlegel starts with Max Weber's concept of statehood (the monopoly of the legitimate use of force) and concludes that the state can only be understood in conjunction with society. He then proposes three main functions of the state: security, welfare, and legitimacy/rule of law, and analyzes their most important weaknesses. First, a weak, fragmented, and oversized security sector riddled with corruption and nepotism, while the status quo-oriented leadership is interested in external assistance and technical improvements but not in transparency. Second, the functioning of the state welfare system suffers from a nefarious relationship between the economy and politics. The fact that in both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the elite are also businessmen (and some have close connections with the criminal underworld) distorts the economy. A weak economy, low incomes, and small tax revenues also result in a decaying infrastructure and evaporating social services. Consequently, both states are dependent upon remittances primarily from Russia and infrastructural development given China's plan to connect the two states with its larger geo-economic and ultimately geopolitical designs. It is in fact impossible to understand the problem without such external economic factors. Third, of the two, Kyrgyzstan is inconclusively democratic, Tajikistan conclusively and increasingly autocratic. The result is the populations’ lack of trust in politicians, politics, and an abusive judiciary.

In the second part of the book, Schlegel offers detailed descriptions of the histories of the two states. Both have some similar internal problems, including unaddressed ethnic and religious problems, and dependence on remittances. This is the part where Schlegel should have overcome the internal–external division. The fact is, for example, that Russia is the labor market of one-and-a-half million citizens of the two states, the main destination of emigration, and a major factor of the external stability for the region.

The analysis of the OSCE's role in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan does not play a prominent place in the book (221–310). To his credit, however, Schlegel has overcome the difficulties everyone faces when studying an OSCE that has massive deficits as far as reaching out to the public, while its activities are poorly documented and it suffers from opaqueness. Schlegel, however, has applied a great deal of effort to systematically document the activities of the two field missions and the OSCE's Permanent Council meetings. This demonstrates that although it is not easy to do research on the OSCE, it is not impossible, either.

Although the OSCE Centers in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan changed into “Programme Offices,” their mission size and budget did not go through a radical reduction. As an OSCE diplomat stated: “We used to have small Centres and now we have large Program Offices.”Footnote ¹ With the new status since 2017, however, the Program Offices require the approval of the host state for all activities. The OSCE has always emphasized the importance of field presence in the life of the organization, but its field presence in Central Asia presents two dilemmas: they have to “survive,” and for this reason they have to accept the host state's priorities. Missions thus have to understand that their situation is interdependent, if not outright dependent upon the will of the host state. They thus have to live with a role reduced to what is deemed acceptable by the host state. This requires patience and often excellent diplomatic skills. Still, there is no reason for taking a defeatist attitude, and as the case of Uzbekistan since the death of its dictator, Islam Karimov, in 2016 has demonstrated, change may arrive belatedly but it does come, normally for reasons unrelated to the OSCE. The Program Offices in Bishkek and Dushanbe have the two highest field presence budgets in Central Asia, combined at around €7–8 million/year. Without cooperation with the main donors, however, the OSCE's influence in attempting to avoid state failure remains highly limited.

The shortcomings of the book can be summarized as follows: first, its focus is almost exclusively on the internal developments of the two states while international aspects appear only on the margins, when they have some bearing upon domestic matters. Such issues include the importance of labor migration on the economy and border management, the latter being an issue of particular significance in the context of Tajikistan's practically uncontrollable 1,200 km border with Afghanistan. Second, corruption and its associated ills apparently have not been an issue for the two states’ political-security-economic partners, China and Russia. Naturally, eliminating corruption, addressing the rule of law, and respecting human rights have thus far not been among the primary aims of the two states. Third, when Schlgel states that “external threats to security are absent” in Tajikistan (just as in Kyrgyzstan, 165), he goes against stated Tajik security policy and geopolitical facts. Schlegel should have presented why he has sidelined external factors. It is for this reason that he may have inadvertently “pulled the rug from under the feet” of Tajik security policy that has emphasized for decades the existential importance of the danger of the spill-over of instability from Afghanistan. Is it possible to argue that the prime threats facing Tajikistan are domestic and ask if it is just exaggerated security concerns or sheer manipulation designed to help guarantee the assistance of donors and strategic partners? Due to the shortcut Schlegel applies, we do not get an answer to this.

The larger problem that the book should have addressed is the relations between domestic and international matters. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are not extensively integrated into international institutions; they are small and weak with multiple dependencies and hence their freedom is constrained by external push and pull factors. Irrespective of whether this is the case, it is a fact that their viability as states cannot be understood separately from their geopolitics, external partners, and donors.

Analyzing the Role of Political Organizations through State Weakness: The OSCE in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan

Steve Schlegel's book on OSCE operations is Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is a timely contribution to the overall literature on the presence and impact of international organizations (IOs) in the post-Soviet space. Placed in this stream of literature, the book stands out as solid research with two concrete cases that engage into theoretical discussions of what constitutes a modern state and its functions. By unpacking the concept of state failure through the prism of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Schlegel engages into broader dialogue with a theoretical discussion of sovereignty and the state as units for analysis of international affairs, while similarly addressing wider issues of securitization practices in the region.

In general, the research on international and regional organizations in post-Soviet Central Asia is reduced into three specific analytical and theoretical domains: functionalist, geopolitical, and ideational. The functionalist analysis of IOs, where most of the research on the OSCE, Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and United Nations agencies are focused are primarily in the realm of the functionalist logic looking at the potential to foster change in economic, political, and social settings of post-Soviet countries. The second stream that has been in vogue since the 1990s looks at the geopolitical analysis and revisits the neo-Great Game model, focusing on the clout of big powers through IOs. Finally, the third stream adopts a constructivist analysis in relation to organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Eurasian Economic Union to analyze their capacity to embed certain ideas and identities.

Schlegel's work on the OSCE returns the research into the classical realm of International Relations (IR) where he cites the state as a unit of analysis, bringing in Max Weber's theoretical discussions and taking two concrete post-Soviet cases through which he looks at the concepts of weak and failing states. The choice of states is particularly noteworthy. Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have traditionally been put in the category of either “weak” or “failing” states in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan, similar to neighboring Kazakhstan, is often cast as an “over-researched” case study. However, Schlegel's book does not contribute to this fatigue. Instead, it once again reminds us about these two different but also very similar cases of states in Central Asia through the concrete prism of analyzing the capacity of a multilateral organization aiming to assist state institutions. The conclusions are evident in that the OSCE is not a solution, but the process of arriving at this conclusion is insightful. It is the third section of the book (from page 221 onwards), where Schlegel analyzes OSCE operations in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that is the cornerstone of Schlegel's work.

A non-academic reader may want to simply skip to the third section to find the gist of the puzzle, “the question whether political field missions can contribute to the structural prevention of state failure” (325) that Schlegel so eloquently develops from the beginning and engages into a theoretical overview of fragile states and the separate discussion of the two cases. The chapter adopts a comprehensive overview of OSCE interventions in their near entirety, examining their mandate and operational development. The areas of security, welfare, and rule of law are given particular attention in the overview in both cases to set the final scene for the discussion of the main research question (starting from 311) where Schlegel questions the use of field operations as a means of structural conflict prevention. The conclusion of the book draws a solid curtain by suggesting that while the political missions might not be capable in mitigating the structural factors of state failure, they are nonetheless useful in addressing crucial factors and cost considerably less than military missions.

Evidently, Schlegel makes an analytically- and methodologically-strong contribution to the field of OSCE analysis, which has regrettably been left to the periphery of research themes in the post-Soviet Central Asian membership by IOs. The majority of OSCE field operations mark their two-decade presence in their host countries with big regional conferences. These conferences are grand, high-level events where certain issues within the mandate of the OSCE “Centres” or “Projects” or “Program Offices” gather those that are “East- and West- of Vienna.” Rarely do these events focus on reflections like the kind that Schlegel offers through his book: highlighting the nature of the engagement with all relevant intricacies among the post-Soviet states, the field missions, and the processes of securitization, conflict prevention, state management, and relevant internal dynamics, themes that relate practically to IR and IOs and shed further light for policy makers.

One hopes that this type of research could be extended to field operations in cases like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where OSCE presences have maintained their activities since the 1990s and early 2000s, and it would be even more insightful to look at how these cases have changed the internal dynamics within the organization. While we anticipate this research, Steve Schlegel's book can undoubtedly join the libraries of the Centre for OSCE Research (CORE) at the University of Hamburg's Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH), the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, OSCE's Conflict Prevention Center (in Vienna), and practically that of any researcher and enthusiast keen to learn about the nature of engagement between IO political field presences and post-Soviet Central Asian states, as well as conflict prevention and the failing of weak states. The language of the narrator and his solid research makes for a worth journey to travel and learn.

The OSCE Field Missions in Weak States: Tackling Symptoms or the Disease?

Although the subject of international peace-building missions in post-conflict zones has been researched extensively, the topic of how to stop a weak state from becoming a failed one has been difficult to investigate due to the complicated nature of conflict prevention. Steve Schlegel's book delves into the under-researched area of understanding the root causes of fragile statehood and the role of international organizations (IOs) in the prevention of state failure. Schlegel has developed a complex theory of fragile statehood using cumulative theory-building and applies his model to the operations of the OSCE in the post-Soviet states of Kyrgyzstan (1998–2017) and Tajikistan (1992–2017).

According to Ulrich Schneckener, “the task of the state is to provide security, welfare, and legitimacy/rule-of-law to its citizens” and based on the fulfillment of these functions, states are categorized as consolidated, weak, failing, and failed (quoted on 51). Schlegel applies the functionalist approach of Schneckener's model of statehood to define Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as weak states: states upholding their security function, but being of limited effectiveness in fulfilling welfare, legitimacy, and rule-of-law functions. Such functions coincide with the three OSCE dimensions (baskets) of “comprehensive security”: politico-military, economic-environmental, and human. Schlegel combines the theory of fragile statehood with the three dilemmas of weak states—“Internal Security Dilemma,” “State Leader's Dilemma,” and “Liberalization Dilemma” (73)—to create a comprehensive model of symptomatic factors that may (or may not) be influenced by external actors, such as the OSCE. The three dilemmas are mutually reinforcing, Schlegel tells us, and form a vicious circle of fragile statehood in which weak states are entrapped. The Internal Security Dilemma can be understood as “the existence of [violent] non-state actors” within the state posing a threat to the “ruling elite” (73). A state caught in this dilemma has a greater risk of becoming a failed state.

Schlegel further argues that Tajikistan after its 1992–1997 civil war and Kyrgyzstan before its 2010 revolution fell into the State Leader's Dilemma with the neo-patrimonial rule of Presidents Emomali Rahmon in Tajikistan and Askar Akaev (until 2005) and Kurmanbek Bakiev (until 2010) in Kyrgyzstan. Under the State Leader's Dilemma, both countries have been characterized with neo-patrimonial ruling systems to ensure the political survival of the elite via corruption, nepotism, and blackmail, while also utilizing state institutions to punish disloyal clients. Regime security created by the neo-patrimonial systems, argues Schlegel, leads to inefficiencies and potential fragmentation of what are oversized security forces, while corruption and nepotism result in blockage of reform. Within the welfare function, the symptomatic factors in both countries are the interlocking of state and economy where corrupt elite own the main enterprises, in addition to high unemployment and decayed infrastructure (both physical and service delivery). Under the State Leader's Dilemma model, claims Schlegel, the factors within the legitimacy/rule of law function, such as lack of independent courts, corruption and nepotism, resistance to reform, and lack of trust are almost fully out of the OSCE's influence.

A potential solution to the State Leader's Dilemma, says Schlegel, is liberalization, that is, transition to a market economy and a rule-of-law-based political system. Incomplete or premature transition, however, increases the potential for violent domestic conflict, which is the core of the Liberalization Dilemma as observed in Kyrgyzstan before and after the 2010 revolution. Factors that may lead to conflict include, inter alia, illiberal civil society, an example of which is the notorious “Kyrk Choro” (Forty Knights) nationalist movement in Kyrgyzstan, and ethno-nationalist entrepreneurs, such as former Mayor of Osh Melis Myrzakmatov. Failed liberalization, in turn, leads directly to the Internal Security Dilemma. The current President of Kyrgyzstan, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, for example, is re-establishing neo-patrimonial rule, and the country has digressed towards the State Leader's Dilemma.

Schlegel tells us that in both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the OSCE field missions have been unable to positively influence the symptomatic factors derived directly from the core dilemmas: fragmentation of security forces, lack of independent courts, corruption and nepotism, and the blocking of reform. With regard to the factors that could be influenced by external actors, the OSCE field missions have provided technical aid via training of personnel—for example, the OSCE Border Management and Staff College in Tajikistan and Community Policing in Kyrgyzstan—and other forms of so-called expert assistance to overcome ineffective security forces. Schlegel evaluates such efforts by the OSCE as acts of damage control rather than long-term stabilization. Except for encouraging dialogue through roundtables, the OSCE in Tajikistan could not foster reforms within the legitimacy/rule of law function, such as the establishment of independent courts or passive suffrage: the right to run in elections. The OSCE is also posed with the dilemma of being associated with the host government if it too closely engages with it and is perceived as neo-colonialist and infringing upon national sovereignty while trying to foster reforms.

Schlegel thus provides an elaborate analysis of the limitations and dilemmas of OSCE missions in weak post-Soviet states to prevent potential state failures. He concludes that despite the criticism towards the OSCE for not addressing the core causes of fragile statehood, in reality field missions can only tackle symptomatic factors within their areas of influence without infringing on national sovereignty. However, such a conclusion can be viewed as finding excuses for the OSCE's inability and unwillingness to tackle core problems associated with weak states. In reality, although the OSCE's project activities in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is dependent on the host state's consent, this does not necessarily mean that the IO is helpless. The OSCE has an international public image and standing that can be used even in weak states entrapped in the State Leader's Dilemma. Moreover, the field missions can focus their rather substantial budget and resources on projects that have sustainable impact rather than spending excessive amounts on short-term western study tours or paying exorbitant fees to international consultants.