The Paradoxes of the Political Economy of Uzbekistan

Abstract

The ongoing global financial economic crisis which started in 2007-2008 hit many in the world including Central Asian states as well due to the fact that some of the states in the region are either highly dependent on the global market or have strong bilateral economic ties with the biggest economies in such as Russia and China. The official data by Uzbek government assures that Uzbekistan was not affected by the crisis, even not single problem occurred in the economy. There is the possibility that isolation of the economy from the global market and absence in international trade organizations helped Uzbekistan avoid the shock of the crisis. International data also shows regular GDP growth at the beginning of the crisis and after. Does the isolation of the economy guarantee the economic stability in a state? This thesis studies the economic reforms carried out by the Uzbek government in the years of independence and tries to figure out what is the features attributes of this economy which, as the government constantly claims, saved the country from the crisis and helped to avoid the possible losses. The paper uses rentier state and rentier economic models to investigate the case Uzbekistan owing to the fact that the main flow of income in Uzbekistan comes from exporting national resources. Moreover studying the peculiarities of Uzbek way of regulating the economy will reveal the opportunities and problems in the biggest domestic market in central Asia.