Uzbekistan’s ‘Real’ Second Chance: a Structural Account of the Reforms of Shavkat Mirziyoyev

What is it about?

In 2016, Uzbekistan's long-time president, Islam Karimov was pronounced dead. He would eventually be replaced by Shavkat Mirziyoyev, a man who was initially dismissed as yet another authoritarian Central Asian strongman. However, in the years since his ascendancy, Mirziyoyev has sought some slow, yet promising reforms. This paper seeks to make a structural argument for why Mirziyoyev has pursued these reforms and what elements of the transition of power have enabled him to do so. Ultimately it will be argued that dynamics, previously thought of as being inappropriate and non-existent in an outright dictatorship like Uzbekistan are in fact present- entailing changes in how we think about outright autocratic rule across the former Soviet Union and beyond.

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