The prospect for the emergence of rule of law is bleak in many formerly Soviet states. Outside of Russia and Azerbaijan, it is bleakest in Central Asia.
The latest installment of Freedom House’s annual report, Nations in Transit 2024, shows that all five Central Asian states were deemed “consolidated authoritarian regimes,” the lowest category in the survey in terms of individual rights and competitive political systems. The report evaluated the state of political freedom in 29 states that once had communist systems. In all, eight countries received the “consolidated authoritarian” designation. Belarus was the eighth state of the authoritarian confederacy, according to Freedom House’s rankings.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan all registered declines in their rule-of-law score in 2023, which Freedom House determined by examining seven categories of performance, including press freedom, independent judiciary and electoral process.
“In Uzbekistan, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s regime enacted audacious constitutional amendments that cleared the way for him to extend his rule until 2040,” the report noted. “Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which previously scored on the less repressive end of the authoritarian range, now fit the broader Central Asian trend of authoritarian consolidation. The regimes in these two countries worked to extinguish local autonomy and civil society activity.”
The scores of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan remained unchanged but were the lowest of all the countries surveyed – worse even than Russia.
Freedom House raised alarm that Russia’s “ongoing attempt to destroy Ukraine,” along with Azerbaijan’s reconquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, were catalyzing the expansion of authoritarian practices. “These and other events in recent years have accelerated a geopolitical reordering in the region, with countries sorting themselves into two opposing blocs: those committed to a liberal, democratic order and those that violently reject it.”
Authoritarian-minded states are reinforcing their political frameworks by increasing mutual economic cooperation. In the Central Asian context, the report cited Uzbekistan’s plan spend $500 million on expanding its pipeline network to accommodate rising Russian imports, as a move that can “benefit the economic and political stability of both authoritarian regimes.”
The only hope for a revival of rule of law in Eurasia, the report says, is for democratically minded states in the West to work together to ensure that Russia fails to accomplish its strategic goals in Ukraine.
“The future of European democracy and security is now inextricably linked to the fate of Ukraine,” the report says. “EU and NATO member states must not only invest far more – and more efficiently – in their collective defense, but also provide Ukraine with the assistance it needs to roll back Russian advances and build a durable democracy of its own.”
