1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819942403321

Autore

Markowitz Lawrence P

Titolo

State erosion : unlootable resources and unruly elites in Central Asia / / Lawrence P. Markowitz

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, New York ; ; New York : , : Cornell University Press, , 2013

©2013

ISBN

0-8014-6945-7

0-8014-6946-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (214 p.)

Disciplina

958/.042

Soggetti

Failed states - Tajikistan

Natural resources - Political aspects - Tajikistan

Natural resources - Political aspects - Uzbekistan

Elite (Social sciences) - Political activity - Tajikistan

Elite (Social sciences) - Political activity - Uzbekistan

Tajikistan Politics and government 1991-

Uzbekistan Politics and government 1991-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- List of Figures, Tables, and Maps -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Rethinking the Resource Curse -- 2. Resources and Rents under Soviet Rule -- 3. Pathways to Failure: Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- 4. Tajikistan's Fractious State -- 5. Coercion and Rent-Seeking in Uzbekistan -- 6. Weak and Failed States in Comparative Perspective -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

State failure is a central challenge to international peace and security in the post-Cold War era. Yet theorizing on the causes of state failure remains surprisingly limited. In State Erosion, Lawrence P. Markowitz draws on his extensive fieldwork in two Central Asian republics-Tajikistan, where state institutions fragmented into a five-year civil war from 1992 through 1997, and Uzbekistan, which constructed one of the largest state security apparatuses in post-Soviet Eurasia-to advance



a theory of state failure focused on unlootable resources, rent seeking, and unruly elites. In Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and other countries with low capital mobility-where resources cannot be extracted, concealed, or transported to market without state intervention-local elites may control resources, but they depend on patrons to convert their resources into rents. Markowitz argues that different rent-seeking opportunities either promote the cooptation of local elites to the regime or incite competition over rents, which in turn lead to either cohesion or fragmentation. Markowitz distinguishes between weak states and failed states, challenges the assumption that state failure in a country begins at the center and radiates outward, and expands the "resource curse" argument to include cash crop economies, where mechanisms of state failure differ from those involved in fossil fuels and minerals. Broadening his argument to weak states in the Middle East (Syria and Lebanon) and Africa (Zimbabwe and Somalia), Markowitz shows how the distinct patterns of state failure in weak states with immobile capital can inform our understanding of regime change, ethnic violence, and security sector reform.