The Role of NGOs in Civil Society Development in Turkmenistan

Abstract

Soviet totalitarian past makes it difficult for democracy to flourish. Being an important component of civil society development, democracy implies liberal environment with its ideas and values. Though, such environment conflicts with the Soviet past that influenced today’s Turkmenistan political nature. It could not but reflect on Turkmen civil society sector. One may know that there are almost no political or social activists in Turkmenistan; however, there are few NGOs that might fulfill civil society functions in the state. Thereby, the aim of the research is to find out the role of NGOs in civil society development in Turkmenistan. A decent theoretical basis was developed to study two main concepts: the influence of path-dependence on civil society development; Turkmen uncivil society is based on social fragmentation. Path-dependence influenced on the very nature of Turkmen civil society, which mainly formed into NGOs (GONGOs and quasi-NGOs), with lack representatives of common people of Turkmenistan. It proves that Turkmen civil society could flourish only if the government of Turkmenistan takes a new direction toward modernization and liberalization of its political regime.