Author Description

This study investigates trends in the relationship between state structures and criminal actors in Central Asia, including indications of merger between crime and state. The study specifically focuses on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the smallest and weakest states in Central Asia, who have been affected by this phenomenon to a higher degree than its larger neighbors. It argues that the legacies of the Soviet regime have a powerful impact not only on the functioning of state structures, but also on the way non-state criminal actors emerged in the Central Asian states' periphery. With weak state institutions unable to supply basic public services and a large percentage of the rural population lacking entrepreneurial skills, intermediaries between the state and the rural communities emerged as the gap between the two widened in the 1990s. Among them, leaders of industrial and production sites, sportsmen, former inmates, shuttle traders and other actors with some experience in economic activities or with political connections benefited from the collapse of the Soviet regime. These actors mobilized into networks on the local and transnational level much faster than post-Soviet states could develop national political institutions and reestablish old economic ties. Central Asian traditionalist cultures that welcome machismo and approve of violence facilitated the establishment of control by organized criminal groups and their leaders in areas where state institutions were especially weak. Over time, these criminal elements developed political ambitions, and state actors themselves became interested in cooperating with powerful local entrepreneurs. Criminal leaders sought to expand their own activities and/or receive political immunity by either permeating political institutions or building relations with state officials. The state, however, was also in need of support from non-state actors when political competition turned particularly severe. Government officials, parliamen