Abstract
After the collapse of the USSR, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have gradually developed into countries with strongly authoritarian presidential powers. The leaders of both countries, at various stages, have ruled out Western democracy as a suitable model. Instead, they have extensively used examples of authoritarian leadership and economic policies from Asia to justify their approach to political and economic affairs. In this chapter, the reforms undertaken by Uzbek and Kazakh leaders in the first 25 years of their independence are compared with the key reforms put forward by Singaporean post-independence leader Lee Kuan Yew, concluding with a discussion of why Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have been unable to match Singapore’s rapid development.
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Notes
- 1.
China can also be reached via mountainous regions in Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan.
- 2.
A legal case, which publicly revealed the extent of corruption in cotton production and reporting in the Uzbek Soviet Republic in the 1980s.
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Akimov, A. (2020). Why Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan Are Not Singapore: Comparing the First 25 Years of Reforms. In: Akimov, A., Kazakevitch, G. (eds) 30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0317-7_10
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