Sustainable development and comprehensive capital : The post-Soviet decline of Central Asia

Abstract

The general post-Soviet decline of the states of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) mirrors specific declines in the robustness of these states' stocks of financial, physical, natural, human, organizational, and social capital assets. This loss of various kinds of capital assets over the past decade reduces the current potential and capacity of the region to implement reforms for sustainable development. While Central Asia entered the 20th century as a comparatively marginal and underdeveloped area of the world, during the Soviet period it amassed appreciable stocks of capital, especially human, physical, and social capital. The emergence of a vibrant scientific community in Central Asia during the middle of the century marked one of the most rapid expansions of scientific prestige, talent, and institutions in the developing world. With the disassembly of the Soviet Union, development and reform projects within Central Asia and funded by foreign donors have failed to achieve their development and reform goals. Within the environmental sphere, the post-Soviet period, despite a massive investment in environmental aid to the region from the West and Japan, has yielded few environmental benefits and seen the worsening of several environmental conditions, captured in the desiccation of the Aral Sea and the collapse of Caspian Sea fisheries.

(cont.) Paralleling this trend, democracy and rule of law have not taken strong root in Central Asia; rather authoritarianism and corruption are the norm in national governments. While processes of globalization (especially the free movement of human and financial capital) suggest that Central Asia could not have avoided decline in the 1990s, the severity of declines could have been mitigated by a more robust Western appreciation of the unique endowments of the Soviet era in human (the scientific community) and organizational (Perestroika public dialogues on rule of law, civil society, and democracy) capital.