Unlootable resources and state security institutions in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Why, when faced with similar conditions of weakening central control, do some institutions of state security fragment into autonomous agents of organized violence whereas others cohere around coercive rent seeking without challenging the central government? Focusing on Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, this article explains these divergent state security outcomes as a consequence of resource concentrations and patronage pressures that influence the political elites who leverage local offices of state security. The article finds that privatizing violence within state apparatuses of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan took very different forms in the 1990s.