Kyrgyzstan is probably the best known of any central Asian country, the one that has elicited the most academic publications, reports by NGOs or advocacy groups, and op-eds in the media. The country opened up massively to Western influence through development aid for civil society and for economic reforms, faced two revolutions in 2005 and 2010, and experienced bloody interethnic conflict in 2010. Kyrgyzstan is therefore commonly studied as a twin case: that of having been, for more than two decades, both an island of democracy in Central Asiaand the only country of the region to have made the transition to a parliamentary regimeand the archetypical example of a failing state, one marked by endemic corruption, criminalization of the state apparatus, and collapse of public services. This volume goes beyond these two clichés and provides a research-based and unideological narrative on the country. It identifies political dynamics, their powerbrokers, and the role of international organizations; investigates the profound social transformations of both the rural and the urban worlds; and examines the broad feeling, by local actors, that Kyrgyzstans fragile state identity should be consolidated. This book gives the floor to the new generation of scholars whose long-term vernacular-language field research made it possible to provide new interpretative prisms for the complex evolution of Kyrgyzstan.

Marlene Laruelle is research professor, director of the Central Asia Program, and associate director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at the Elliott School of International Affairs of George Washington University.Johan Engvall is research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) and a non-resident research fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute& Silk Road Studies Program.

Chapter 1: Kyrgyzstan and the Trials of Independence,Johan EngvallChapter 2: The Evolving Role of Political Parties in Kyrgyz Politics,Shairbek JuraevChapter 3: Why Are Public Offices Sold in Kyrgyzstan?,Johan EngvallChapter 4: Peripheral Protests as an Opportunity: Brokers in Action,Asel DoolotkeldievaChapter 5: In Search ofTolerantnost': Preventive Development and Its Limits at the KyrgyzstanUzbekistan Border,Madeleine ReevesChapter 6: Why Class Matters in Kyrgyzstan: Everyday Experiences, Moral Sentiments, and the Politics of the Poor,Elmira SatybaldievaChapter 7: Sewing to satisfaction: craft-based entrepreneurs in contemporary Kyrgyzstan,Aisalkyn Botoeva and Regine A. SpectorChapter 8: Myths and Realities of Bishkeks Novostroikas,Emil Nasritdinov, Bermet Zhumakadyr kyzy, and Diana AsanalievaChapter 9: Kyrgyzstans Nationhood: From a Monopoly of Production to a Plural Market,Marlene LaruelleChapter 10: The Affective Politics of Sovereignty: Reflecting on the 2010 Conflict in Kyrgyzstan,David Gullette and John HeathershawChapter 11: We Disputed Every Word: The Plight of Moderates in Post-Violence Kyrgyzstan,Erica MaratChapter 12: Islam beyond Democracy and State in Kyrgyzstan, David W. Montgomery