Tajikistan: Authoritarian reaction in a postwar state

Why and how has Tajikistan responded to the threat of democratic revolution? In this article, I argue that state failure and civil war in Tajikistan have imposed limitations on the country's emergent path of authoritarian development. Scarce resources and limited rent-seeking opportunities in postwar Tajikistan weakened the informal bases of presidential power and fragmented the country's state security institutions. As a consequence of its weakened presidential power and fragmented coercive capacity, Tajikistan's leadership has taken a moderated response to the threat of democratic revolution and pursued a slow, graduated strengthening of authoritarian rule. While electoral reforms were reversed, restrictions imposed on the media and on nongovernmental organizations were selective and temporary and the use of force has been relatively circumscribed.