This is the executive brief of my master dissertation. I will accompany my slides with this short document, which will help the commission during the defense of my thesis. Please write me if the material I use infringes your copyright

1. Why Are There No Democracies in Central Asia?
A Methodological Proposal
Francesco Piccinelli Casagrande
Relatore: Luca Verzichelli - Controrelatore: Maurizio Cotta

2. 2
Central Asia

3. 3
Purposes of This Work
• To study an area which is becoming important on the global scene
• To make a small Ns study with mixed methods and data-driven techniques
• To develop a sensible methodology to study remote areas with limited data
• To find sensible generalizations on post-soviet and hybrid regimes
Further Material
Central Asia is about to become, again, a major trade route between China and Europe. A multi-billion
dollars plan by the Chinese government plans to propose a vision of development which is alternative to
the one based upon the Washington Consensus. What are the theoretical consequences of such a plan?
We take for granted that development and market economy go hand in hand with democracy, but data
from this area and other parts of the globe suggest a more complex picture.
Figure 1 - 1 The chart divides world population by regime type (left) and income (right). The width of the links between the two sides
represents the share of population. The larger it is, the more people it represents.
17.3 %
39.6 %
18.1 %
25.0 %
17.0 %
34.7 %
40.3 %
8.0 %
High Income Countries
Upper Mean Income Countries
Lower Mean Income Countries
Low Income Countries
Democracy
Electoral Democracy
Electoral Autocracy
Closed Autocracy
A New World Order
Democracy Under Pressure

4. 4
Dimensions, Indicators and Sources
• Development
- Human Development Index
- Resource Rents
• Religion
- v2clrelig_osp
• Patronage
- v2pepwrsoc_osp
• Development
- Wang, et. al (2015)
- Louong & Weinthal (2010)
• Religion
- Khalid (2014)
• Patronage
- Hale (2015)
- Collins (2006)
Quantitaive & Data driven Literature for Triangulation
Further Material
References
Indicators
v2x_libdem: From 0 to 1, how the ideal of liberal democracy is respected.
HDI: Human Development Index, calculated by the UN Development Program from three dimensions:
Wealth (generally GDP per capita), Health, in terms of child mortality and other indicators and School
attainment;
v2clrelig: Question: Is there freedom of religion?
Clarification: This indicator specifies the extent to which individuals and groups have the right to choose
a religion, change their religion, and practice that religion in private or in public as well as to proselytize
peacefully without being subject to restrictions by public authorities. The answer is from 0 to 4;
v2pepwrsoc: Is political power distributed according to social groups?
Clarification: A social group is differentiated within a country by caste, ethnicity, language, race, region,
religion, or some combination thereof. (It does not include identities grounded in sexual orientation or
socioeconomic status.) Social group identity is contextually defined and is likely to vary across countries
and through time. The answer is from 0 to 4;
Resource Rents: Total natural resources rents are the sum of oil rents, natural gas rents, coal rents (hard
and soft), mineral rents, and forest rents.
I N S T I T U T E
Does Democracy or Good Governance
Enhance Health? New Empirical
Evidence 1900-2012
Yi-ting Wang
Valeriya Mechkova
Frida Andersson
Working Paper
SERIES 2015:11
THE VARIETIES OF DEMOCRACY INSTITUTE
September 2015

5. 5
GovernmentResource Rents Power Networks HDI
Consolidation of the status quo
Religious Groups
resources
legitimation
Main Findings
Further Material
Parametric Model
Baseline
Results Comparison
Nonparametric
Model
Parametric
Model
Triangulation
Data
Analysis
Qualitative
Analysis
Generalizations
Figure 3 - 1 The Methodology

6. 6
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
1991
19921993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008 2009
2010
2011
2012
2013 2014
2015
2000
2001 2002
2003 2004
2005
2006 2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.6 0.7 0.8
HDI
v2x_libdem
Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Resource_Rents 10 20
v2x_libdem, HDI and Resource Rents
Empirical Basis - I
Further Material
The Baseline PCSE Results
HDI and Country Specific Trends

7. 7
Measuring The Resource Curse
Resource rents - Nonparametric
log(Resource rents) - Nonparametric
Development and Natural Resources
Resource Rents and Human Development are at the input and at the output side of the scheme
I proposed in the previous slide. After a careful examination of the literature, it is sensible to think that the
level of democracy depends on how resources are collected and spent. It is, therefore, plausible to argue
that development is provided to consolidate a pre-existing inertia within a political system.
This explains why out of three countries I found three different trends. This is not an inconsistent finding.
It has to do with the way the political community settles down. It can do it in a more competitive and
liberal way, or it can settle in a more vertical and centralized way. In this case, democracy will never grow.
log(Resource rents) - Parametric

8. 8
v2clrelig
Empirical Basis - II
Freedom of Religion
Although out of the input/output scheme, this indicator, like the others, follows country-specific patterns.
In facts, after an examination of the literature mainly concerned with Uzbekistan, I came to the conclusion
that the use, by governments of region and religious freedoms, is more complex than we could imagine.
In facts, what the quantitative analysis shows when triangulated with the available literature is that religious
groups are allowed to operate when functional to the current power agreement. If they are not, they are
actively fought.
Example:
Islam Karimov banned, in the early ‘00s, the Gulen’s movement from Uzbekistan. The Uzbek Republic
was facing a diplomatic crysis with Turkey. Gulen’s schools were, therefore, no longer functional to the
regime, so they were banned.
Further Material
v2clrelig - Parametric

9. 9
v2pepwrsoc
Empirical Basis - III
Concentration of Power
Social groups are, in the scheme, the gatekeepers of the resource flow. The social groups I talk about
are what Hale calls power pyramids. Power pyramids are clientelist networks which are responsible of the
distribution of resources to common citizens, whether in the form of education, healthcare or jobs. These
dynamics are partially described by Kathleen Collins and by Luong & Weinthal. Governments, in relation
with social groups, have 3 options: one is to include groups, another is to fight groups, the last is to build
a more regulated setting where stakeholders can better broker the distribution of resources to their clients.
Example:
Kyrgyzstan, after 2010, appears to have chosen the third option. In facts, it switched from presidentialism
to parliamentrasim. That’s why the country lost its status of electoral autocracy to electoral democracy. In
Uzbekistan the maintenance of the single pyramid that rules the country led to the arrest of the defunct
president’s daughter accused of corruption.
Further Material
Methodological Note
For this indicator, I didn’t include the Kazakh chart in the thesis. In facts, it is non-significant (p>0.05).
I decided to put it into this presentation because it is interesting to notice how difficult it is, for a comput-
er, to find a pattern when there are multiple ys for a single x.
v2pepwrsoc - Parametric

10. 10
Concluding Remarks
• Future Developments
- Study of Legislations and parties
- The role of women
- The role of technology
- Methodological suggestions
• What about these countries?
- Trajectories are country-specific
- Patronage matters
- Development matters
- Is there any democratic transition?
Nursulstan Nazarbajev
Almazbek Atambayev
Roza Otunbayeva
Kurmanbek Bakiyev
* Ishenbai Kadyrbekov, 6 days
Askar Akayev
Shavkat Mirziyoyev
**Nigmatilla Yuldashev: 1 day
Islam Karimov
*
**
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Uzbekistan
1/9/1991 26/10/2017
***
***Sooronbay Jeenbekov elected on Oct. 15, 2017, due to be in office on Dec 1, 2017
Further Material
Figure 1-2 This chart shows how different and country specific the trajecotries of these countries are