The Micro-Foundations of Rebellion and Repression: Rents, Patronage, and Law Enforcement in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Lawrence Markowitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Micro-Foundations of Rebellion and Repression: Rents, Patronage, and Law Enforcement in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

July 24, 2008

Abstract

Why do some governmental agents of violence--law enforcement and internal security services--defect to join independent militias, while others remain loyal to the regime? What effects do these shifts in authority have on state collapse? This working paper examines the condictions under which local elites mobilize state units of violence, prolonging state decline in some countries but driving weak states into failure in others. Empirically, the report examines how these processes have reinforced the rise of a rent-seeking, repressive state in Uzbekistan while residing at the center of state failure and civil war in Tajikistan.

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