Discovering Opportunities in the Pandemic? Four Economic Response Scenarios for Central Asia
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program
Silk Road Paper
July 2020
The COVID-19 crisis represents not only an
unprecedented economic disruption but also an opportunity for Central Asia. A specific economic policy response may trigger either game-changing reforms that can facilitate the development of full-fledged market institutions or lead to a protracted crisis that would jeopardize almost 30-year long market economy transition progress. As it is rather unclear where the recovery pendulum will make its final swing, the current situation provides fruitful soil for various assumptions. This paper proposes and examines four scenarios of economic response strategies for the region as a whole, and for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in particular, that result in unique development trajectories. The paper employs the foresight methodology to build four scenarios related to the situation after the lockdown is fully lifted. The scenarios serve the purpose of helping decision makers to embark on informed decisions while shaping anti-crisis measures and better understand causality mechanisms behind their policy choices.
Scenario 1 (Protectionist Autarky): Stability upheld, limited reforms, increased role of the state and protectionism.
Scenario 2 (Impactful Diversification): Increased social support, augmented role of the private sector, comprehensive diversification and enhanced regionalization.
Scenario 3 (Inertial Asymmetry): Selective support measures, inequality-conducive, restricted diversification and limited reforms, “business-as-usual” commodity market, growing regionalization.
Scenario 4 (Unleashed Bazaar): Major institutional reforms, FDI-oriented economic openness, leapfrogging from stagnant to advanced emerging markets.
CACI Forum: Economic Outlook for the Caucasus and Central Asia with Presentations
Economic Outlook for the Caucasus and Central Asia
Growth remains broadly stable in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA), but it is still well below the long-term potential for the region — and too low if the region is to raise living standards to the level of other emerging economies in Europe and Asia. The challenge is to leverage good domestic policies, increased economic diversification, and stronger international cooperation to generate higher and more inclusive growth that lifts up the prospects of all CCA citizens. This task is complicated by global uncertainties, weaknesses in the banking sectors, and elevated public debt. This event coincides with the launch of the IMF's Departmental Paper: Promoting Inclusive Growth in the Caucasus and Central Asia presented by one of the authors, Mercedes Vera-Martin.
Speakers:
Juha Kähkönen, Deputy Director, Middle East and Central Asia Department, IMF
Mercedes Vera Martin, Deputy Division Chief, Middle East and Central Asia Department, IMF
Moderator: S. Frederick Starr,Chairman Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council
Where: Middle East Institute: 1319 18th Street NW, 20036
When: Wednesday, June 4, 2019 from 4:00 - 5:30 pm,
The PowerPoint Presentations from both speakers are available below.
Uzbekistan: A New Model for Reform in the Muslim World
By S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell
Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst
May 12, 2018
Dramatic and important changes are taking place in Central Asia. For more than a year the region’s historic core and geopolitical focal point has been immersed in a whirlwind of reform without precedent in the region. At a time when one-man rule has been reinforced in China and Russia, when the rule of law is in abeyance in countries as diverse as South Africa and Venezuela, and when most Muslim majority societies appear to be receding into a new authoritarianism informed by religious ideology, Uzbekistan has instituted reforms that are ambitious in aim and extensive in scope.
It is far too early to say how it will all come out, or even how far it will go. But there is little doubt that that the current reforms are all organized around solid commitment to the rule of law, the rights of citizens, elective governance, an open market economy, religious tolerance, cordial relations with the great powers without sacrificing sovereignty, and a new embrace of the Central Asian region itself as an actor on the world state. It’s time for the world to take stock of this startling development.
CACI Forum with Rumsfeld Fellows - Impact of Digital Connectivity on Governance and Economies of CAMCA Countries
CACI Forum with the Rumsfeld Fellows - Impact of Digital Connectivity on Governance and Economies of CAMCA Countries
The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute presented this spring's team of Rumsfeld Fellows, emerging leaders from the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Central Asia (which the alumni themselves have dubbed the 'CAMCA Region.') At this session, they discussed how new platforms of digital connectivity between CAMCA countries can contribute to diversifying and strenthening of national economies, accelerate emerging regionalism in CAMCA and help to better integrate the region into the world economy.
Moderator:
S. Frederick Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
For a list of the 2018 Spring Central Asia-Caucasus Fellows, a partnership between the Rumsfeld Foundation and American Foreign Policy Council's Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, click HERE.
For a link to the Rumfeld Fellows' Presentation, click HERE.
Where: The Middle East Institute, 1319 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20036
When: Wednesday, May 2, 2018 from 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
The Economic Modernization of Uzbekistan
News
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Read CACI Chairman S. Frederick Starr's recent interview on the resurgence of Imperial Russia with The American Purpose
Why Russians Support the War: Jeffrey Gedmin interviews S. Frederick Starr on the resurgence of Imperial Russia.
The American Purpose, May 23, 2023
Jeffrey Gedmin: Do we have a Putin problem or a Russia problem today?
S. Frederick Starr: We have a Putin problem because we have a Russia problem. Bluntly, the mass of Russians are passive and easily manipulated—down to the moment they aren’t. Two decades ago they made a deal with Vladimir Putin, as they have done with many of his predecessors: You give us a basic income, prospects for a better future, and a country we can take pride in, and we will give you a free hand. This is the same formula for autocracy that prevailed in Soviet times, and, before that, under the czars. The difference is that this time Russia’s leader—Putin—and his entourage have adopted a bizarre and dangerous ideology, “Eurasianism,” that empowers them to expand Russian power at will over the entire former territory of the USSR and even beyond. It is a grand and awful vision that puffs up ruler and ruled alike.
What do most Russians think of this deal? It leaves them bereft of the normal rights of citizenship but free from its day-to-day responsibilities. So instead of debating, voting, and demonstrating, Russians store up their frustrations and then release them in elemental, often destructive, and usually futile acts of rebellion. This “Russia problem” leaves the prospect of change in Russia today in the hands of alienated members of Putin’s immediate entourage, many of whom share his vision of Russia’s destiny and are anyway subject to Putin’s ample levers for control. Thus, our “Putin problem” arises from our “Russia problem.”
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CACI director Svante Cornell's interviewed on the 'John Batchelor Show' podcast regarding Turkey's 2023 presidential election
Listen to CACI director Svante Cornell's recent interview on the 'John Batchelor Show' podcast regarding Turkey's 2023 presidential election. Click here!
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New Article Series on Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus
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CACI Initiative on Religion and the Secular State in Central Asia and the Caucasus
In 2016, the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program launched an initiative on documenting the interrelationship of religion and the secular state in the region. This initiative departed from the fact that little systematic reserch had been undertaken on the subject thus far. While there was and remains much commentary and criticism of religious policy in the region, there was no comprehensive analysis available on the interrelationship of religion and the state in any regional state, let alone the region as a whole. The result of this initiative has been the publication of six Silk Road Papers studying the matter in regional states, with more to come. In addition, work is ongoing on a volume putting the regional situation in the context of the Muslim world as a whole.
Case Studies
Each study below can be freely downloaded in PDF format.
Azerbaijan's Formula: Secular Governance and Civil Nationhood
By Svante E. Cornell, Halil Karaveli, and Boris Ajeganov
November 2016
Religion and the Secular State in Kazakhstan
By Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr and Julian Tucker
April 2018
Religion and the Secular State in Uzbekistan
Svante E. Cornell and Jacob Zenn
June 2018
Religion and the Secular State in Kyrgyzstan
Johan Engvall
June 2020
Religion and the Secular State in Turkmenistan
Victoria Clement
June 2020Articles and Analyses
Svante E. Cornell, "Religion and the State in Central Asia," in Ilan Berman, ed., Wars of Ideas: Theology, Interpretation and Power in the Muslim World, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.
Svante E. Cornell, "Central Asia: Where Did Islamic Radicalization Go?" in Religion, Conflict and Stability in the Former Soviet Union, eds. Katya Migacheva and Bryan Frederick, Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 2018.