Kazakhstan’s Quandry

Except for the Baltic states, the countries of the former Soviet Union may be less democratic today than in the last years of the USSR.

This region’s five republics have just lived through a remarkable first decade of independence that raises questions about “preconditions”-based theories of democratization.

The March 2005 “Tulip Revolution” that toppled President Askar Akeyev is often grouped with the “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine, but in many ways the Kyrgyz case was unique.