Commons and Collectives: The Role of Social Capital in Central Asia's Land Reforms

Abstract

"The economies of the former Soviet Central Asia (Kazakhastan, Kyrghyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) are undergoing profound changes in agrarian institutions and land tenure policy. The character of reforms varies not just between the newly independent republics, but also within them. In principle, economic and political transition opens up space for the implementation of policies less strait-jacketed by ideology or assumed models of historical development. In practice, the embedded social and political context of public policy reforms will be as rapid or as certain in their effects as some observers would like. This preliminary paper begins to frame some research questions arising from the insights of new institutional economics and social capital theory in order to shed light on this challenging issue. Empirical illustrations are drawn from the experiences of land tenure reforms in Uzbekistan and Kyrghyzstan"