State erosion : unlootable resources and unruly elites in Central Asia /

State erosion : unlootable resources and unruly elites in Central Asia /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Markowitz, Lawrence P., 1970- author.
Imprint:	Ithaca, New York : Cornell University Press, 2013.
Description:	xv, 195 pages : maps ; 25 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	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. Elite (Social sciences) -- Political activity. Failed states. Natural resources -- Political aspects. Politics and government Tajikistan -- Politics and government -- 1991- Uzbekistan -- Politics and government -- 1991- Tajikistan. Uzbekistan.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9796561

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780801451874 (cloth : alk. paper) 0801451876 (cloth : alk. paper)
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"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"--

Table of 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