I am a comparative politics professor at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA. My regional focus is on Central Asia and post-communist states and societies. My broad research interests include issues related to inter-ethnic relations, state building and national integration and issues of local political economy.
In The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics
Due to Central Asia's strategic location as well as the presence of hydrocarbons, for the past th... more Due to Central Asia's strategic location as well as the presence of hydrocarbons, for the past thirty years the region has been of great interest to global and regional powers such as Russia, China, the United States, the EU, India, Iran, and Turkey. The states of the region (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) have adopted multivector foreign policies to balance outside interests. Through their flexible and pragmatic foreign policies, these states have avoided outside domination and exploited competition between external powers to advance the interests of their (predominantly) authoritarian regimes. Because of great and regional power interest in the region, Central Asian regimes have a great deal of opportunity to extract benefits from these powers, but they rarely do so collectively. To date, efforts to form coherent, robust regional Central Asian institutions have failed. Among the many reasons for these failures include the colonial legacy of undelimitated borders as well as a lack of economic interdependence, the entrenchment of personalist autocratic regimes in the region, and the establishment of externally sponsored international organizations such as the Russianled Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Although Russia's invasion of Ukraine is having profound effects on the region, it remains unclear whether, in the short or medium term, a regional hegemon will emerge or a regional organization will form.
Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Regimes generally possess multifaceted repressive re... more Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Regimes generally possess multifaceted repressive repertoires. When faced with societal challengers, a regime can utilize overt or covert forms of coercion as well as indirect forms of repression, known as channeling. Using case material from Central Asia, this article investigates the interplay between channeling and coercion in two contexts: 1) the regulation of civil liberties; and 2) Kazakhstan’s efforts to demobilize a protest wave. Through an overview of freedom of assembly laws across the region, we demonstrate that most Central Asian states mix coercive and channeling tactics to limit opportunities for contentious acts. We then analyze Kazakhstan’s repressive reactions to a single coherent national protest wave (the 2016 anti-land reform protest). Our analysis reveals that in response to the threat of these protests, the Kazakhstani regime utilized coercive and channeling tactics in roughly equal measure. We show that the most prominent form of channeling attempted was elite mediation, whereby officials personally encouraged protesters to relocate to non-public spaces and/or offered to articulate collective grievances to higher authorities in exchange for protest dispersal. Through evaluating the role of channeling in this wave we demonstrate how non-democratic regimes can maintain regime stability when challenged without relying solely on overt forms of coercion.
in The Oxford Handbook of Economic Imperialism., 2022
Prepublication Version of Forthcoming Piece. This article traces the development of extractive co... more Prepublication Version of Forthcoming Piece. This article traces the development of extractive colonial institutions in Central Asia and the Caucasus under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and addresses their legacies. It demonstrates that Soviet-era patterns of natural resource extraction from the region have been resilient in the post-independence period. As in the Soviet-era, valuable unrefined commodities, particularly raw cotton, and crude oil, have continued to flow out of the region. Although additional exports, including gold and labour migrants, have been added to the outflow, the general pattern of resource extraction established under the Soviet Union remains. However, major changes have occurred to the direction of the flow of resources from the region, as resources no longer head solely north to Russia. The establishment of new networks, with goods being exported to destinations such as China and Europe, have integrated the region into the global economy. The globalization of the region has enabled large amounts of wealth to be transferred into Western financial institutions where it is held, laundered, and sometimes moved on. This article argues that the flourishing of these global networks of extraction have buttressed autocratic rule in the region and reinforced the patronage networks that were first forged under the Soviet Union.
Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. This article advances a straightforward argument: a ... more Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. This article advances a straightforward argument: a complete analysis of land reform processes in Central Asia needs to account for gender dynamics. More explicitly, it argues that alongside the feminization of agriculture, customary gender norms restricting female economic opportunities and property acquisition represent a structural advantage for local elites interested in hindering or delaying the process of farm individualization in Tajikistan. After overviewing the gap between female legal rights to agricultural land and the actualization of these rights in four Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) the article narrows its focus to Tajikistan. After regression analyses reveal that gendered information gaps are insufficient to account for gaps in the registration of farmland, the article presents qualitative data examining the relationship between female-headed households and the slow pace of agrarian change in Tajikistan.
Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Despite the essential position of introductory cours... more Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Despite the essential position of introductory courses within most political science department’s curriculum, comprehensive comparisons of introductory requirements for majors have been somewhat rare. In this manuscript, I report on the state of introductory requirements through analyses of data from 381 national liberal arts colleges and universities (164 colleges and 217 universities, respectively) that offer a major or its equivalent in political science. My analyses reveal that a great deal of curricula diversity exists across departments: while nearly 30% of departments require at least 3 distinct introductory subfield courses, another near-30% do not require any specific introductory courses. Despite this diversity, an introductory course in American politics represents the de facto standard introductory course within the discipline. In comparison, a general, cross-subfield introductory course in political science is required in a minority of the departments sampled. My analyses reveal that structural and curriculum-based variables, including the total number of courses required, whether or not a department grants Ph.D.’s, and faculty size, are correlated with a general introductory requirement.
Pre-publication Version:
In this paper, we introduce the concept of substate populism to account ... more Pre-publication Version: In this paper, we introduce the concept of substate populism to account for dynamics in which populist speech is used to critique national elites for harming the interests of the "pure" local people. We also identify three preconditions for substate populism: decentralization, pre-existing resentment or anxiety, and the capacity to dominate the local narrative. We explore the concept through a comparison of the frames used by Narendra Modi while serving as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat in India and Melis Myrzakmatov while serving as the mayor of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. We demonstrate that in both cases Modi and Myrzakmatov utilized substate populism following deadly ethnic riots to articulate local resentments, maintain popular support, and delegitimize external efforts to promote post-conflict reconciliation. We argue that through eradicating at least one of the three identified preconditions, a national government can undermine substate populism.
Pre-publication version
Published version can be found as Chapter 5 in
Laruelle, Marlene, ed., ... more Pre-publication version Published version can be found as Chapter 5 in Laruelle, Marlene, ed., 2018. Tajikistan on the Move: Statebuilding and Societal Transformations. Lexington Books.
Over the past 25 years, the government of Tajikistan has experienced a slow and disjointed process of agricultural reform and farm individualization. Formally, the agricultural reform process has been deconcentrated; local authorities are responsible for implementing central laws with limited discretion or decision-making power. As designed, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that all farm members are informed of their rights to withdraw shares and are guaranteed access to the instruments for claiming these shares. In other words, the decision of whether or not a farm breaks up is intended to be made by adequately informed farm members; however, in practice, this has rarely occurred. Instead, the reform process has been perverted by information and power asymmetries, and in many cases, the capacities or preferences of farmers are tertiary factors in the decision to break-up farms. While the proponents of land reform can point to some successes in the agricultural sector, the data reveal inequities in land access, particularly between male and female headed households. Examining these rural dynamics has the potential to help analysts understand the transformations underway in Tajikistan with regard to rural political power.
Pre-Publication Version:
As in other post-communist states, Tajikistan's agricultural decollectiv... more Pre-Publication Version: As in other post-communist states, Tajikistan's agricultural decollectivization was initiated through top-down measures. However, the implementation process has not been uniform across the state's territory; in some districts, collective farms were quickly and thoroughly broken-up, while in others, the process is just now beginning. In this paper, we investigate spatial variation in Tajikistan's decollectivization process. Through the analyses of diverse data, we reveal that low cotton yield is a necessary condition for farm individualization in districts that are distant from the capital. We interpret this result as indicating that farm managers responsible for unproductive farms often have little incentive or capacity to resist the break-up of farms. In contrast, managers of productive farms have both an incentive and capacity to maintain collective farming. Furthermore, although human capital dimensions, including family size, off-farm income, and education affect an individual farmer's preference for private farming, these are not necessary conditions for widespread farm individualization at the district level. In other words, we did not find evidence that farmers had the capacity to directly determine collective farm dissolution.
Since the 1990s, Sino-Central Asian relations have deepened to the degree that China now has the ... more Since the 1990s, Sino-Central Asian relations have deepened to the degree that China now has the capacity to drastically alter the political and economic trajectories of each of the five states of the region. To date, China has enjoyed tremendous success in pursuing its interests in the region. Whether this continues to be the case will be determined in part by how Central Asians react to Chinese involvement in the region. In this paper, I overview the development of Sino-Central Asian relations and discuss four narratives about China’s role in the region which have the potential to shape these relations over the short and medium term future. These four narratives are: China as protector; China as aggressor; China as investor; and China as exploiter.
This paper posits that a great deal of cross-national variation in clientelistic investment strat... more This paper posits that a great deal of cross-national variation in clientelistic investment strategies can be explained through an examination of the different forms of risk faced by the political elite of different types of regimes. It also maintains that demand from clients/potential clients is, by itself, insufficient to explain the level or scope of clientelistic investments. The argument is advanced through an examination of the linkages (and non-linkages) between patrons/potential patrons and clients/potential clients amongst the ethnic Uzbek populations of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In Kyrgyzstan, a semi-authoritarian state, electoral risk predominates; however, the character of electoral risk in Kyrgyzstan provides Uzbek members of the political elite with an incentive to diversify their clientelistic investments. Consequently, many engage in direct exchanges with their constituents while simultaneously investing in private, cultural organizations that serve party-like functions. Alternatively, in contemporary Tajikistan, best described as an authoritarian state, electoral risk has been replaced with the risk of expulsion from the presidential clientelistic network. As a result, members of the Tajikistani political elite have a disincentive to publicly invest in constituent clients as this investment may increase the risk of expulsion
Efforts to repress dissent in Xinjiang are leading Uighurs to discover common grievances and inte... more Efforts to repress dissent in Xinjiang are leading Uighurs to discover common grievances and interests.
In The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics
Due to Central Asia's strategic location as well as the presence of hydrocarbons, for the past th... more Due to Central Asia's strategic location as well as the presence of hydrocarbons, for the past thirty years the region has been of great interest to global and regional powers such as Russia, China, the United States, the EU, India, Iran, and Turkey. The states of the region (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) have adopted multivector foreign policies to balance outside interests. Through their flexible and pragmatic foreign policies, these states have avoided outside domination and exploited competition between external powers to advance the interests of their (predominantly) authoritarian regimes. Because of great and regional power interest in the region, Central Asian regimes have a great deal of opportunity to extract benefits from these powers, but they rarely do so collectively. To date, efforts to form coherent, robust regional Central Asian institutions have failed. Among the many reasons for these failures include the colonial legacy of undelimitated borders as well as a lack of economic interdependence, the entrenchment of personalist autocratic regimes in the region, and the establishment of externally sponsored international organizations such as the Russianled Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Although Russia's invasion of Ukraine is having profound effects on the region, it remains unclear whether, in the short or medium term, a regional hegemon will emerge or a regional organization will form.
Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Regimes generally possess multifaceted repressive re... more Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Regimes generally possess multifaceted repressive repertoires. When faced with societal challengers, a regime can utilize overt or covert forms of coercion as well as indirect forms of repression, known as channeling. Using case material from Central Asia, this article investigates the interplay between channeling and coercion in two contexts: 1) the regulation of civil liberties; and 2) Kazakhstan’s efforts to demobilize a protest wave. Through an overview of freedom of assembly laws across the region, we demonstrate that most Central Asian states mix coercive and channeling tactics to limit opportunities for contentious acts. We then analyze Kazakhstan’s repressive reactions to a single coherent national protest wave (the 2016 anti-land reform protest). Our analysis reveals that in response to the threat of these protests, the Kazakhstani regime utilized coercive and channeling tactics in roughly equal measure. We show that the most prominent form of channeling attempted was elite mediation, whereby officials personally encouraged protesters to relocate to non-public spaces and/or offered to articulate collective grievances to higher authorities in exchange for protest dispersal. Through evaluating the role of channeling in this wave we demonstrate how non-democratic regimes can maintain regime stability when challenged without relying solely on overt forms of coercion.
in The Oxford Handbook of Economic Imperialism., 2022
Prepublication Version of Forthcoming Piece. This article traces the development of extractive co... more Prepublication Version of Forthcoming Piece. This article traces the development of extractive colonial institutions in Central Asia and the Caucasus under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and addresses their legacies. It demonstrates that Soviet-era patterns of natural resource extraction from the region have been resilient in the post-independence period. As in the Soviet-era, valuable unrefined commodities, particularly raw cotton, and crude oil, have continued to flow out of the region. Although additional exports, including gold and labour migrants, have been added to the outflow, the general pattern of resource extraction established under the Soviet Union remains. However, major changes have occurred to the direction of the flow of resources from the region, as resources no longer head solely north to Russia. The establishment of new networks, with goods being exported to destinations such as China and Europe, have integrated the region into the global economy. The globalization of the region has enabled large amounts of wealth to be transferred into Western financial institutions where it is held, laundered, and sometimes moved on. This article argues that the flourishing of these global networks of extraction have buttressed autocratic rule in the region and reinforced the patronage networks that were first forged under the Soviet Union.
Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. This article advances a straightforward argument: a ... more Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. This article advances a straightforward argument: a complete analysis of land reform processes in Central Asia needs to account for gender dynamics. More explicitly, it argues that alongside the feminization of agriculture, customary gender norms restricting female economic opportunities and property acquisition represent a structural advantage for local elites interested in hindering or delaying the process of farm individualization in Tajikistan. After overviewing the gap between female legal rights to agricultural land and the actualization of these rights in four Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) the article narrows its focus to Tajikistan. After regression analyses reveal that gendered information gaps are insufficient to account for gaps in the registration of farmland, the article presents qualitative data examining the relationship between female-headed households and the slow pace of agrarian change in Tajikistan.
Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Despite the essential position of introductory cours... more Prepublication version of forthcoming piece. Despite the essential position of introductory courses within most political science department’s curriculum, comprehensive comparisons of introductory requirements for majors have been somewhat rare. In this manuscript, I report on the state of introductory requirements through analyses of data from 381 national liberal arts colleges and universities (164 colleges and 217 universities, respectively) that offer a major or its equivalent in political science. My analyses reveal that a great deal of curricula diversity exists across departments: while nearly 30% of departments require at least 3 distinct introductory subfield courses, another near-30% do not require any specific introductory courses. Despite this diversity, an introductory course in American politics represents the de facto standard introductory course within the discipline. In comparison, a general, cross-subfield introductory course in political science is required in a minority of the departments sampled. My analyses reveal that structural and curriculum-based variables, including the total number of courses required, whether or not a department grants Ph.D.’s, and faculty size, are correlated with a general introductory requirement.
Pre-publication Version:
In this paper, we introduce the concept of substate populism to account ... more Pre-publication Version: In this paper, we introduce the concept of substate populism to account for dynamics in which populist speech is used to critique national elites for harming the interests of the "pure" local people. We also identify three preconditions for substate populism: decentralization, pre-existing resentment or anxiety, and the capacity to dominate the local narrative. We explore the concept through a comparison of the frames used by Narendra Modi while serving as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat in India and Melis Myrzakmatov while serving as the mayor of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. We demonstrate that in both cases Modi and Myrzakmatov utilized substate populism following deadly ethnic riots to articulate local resentments, maintain popular support, and delegitimize external efforts to promote post-conflict reconciliation. We argue that through eradicating at least one of the three identified preconditions, a national government can undermine substate populism.
Pre-publication version
Published version can be found as Chapter 5 in
Laruelle, Marlene, ed., ... more Pre-publication version Published version can be found as Chapter 5 in Laruelle, Marlene, ed., 2018. Tajikistan on the Move: Statebuilding and Societal Transformations. Lexington Books.
Over the past 25 years, the government of Tajikistan has experienced a slow and disjointed process of agricultural reform and farm individualization. Formally, the agricultural reform process has been deconcentrated; local authorities are responsible for implementing central laws with limited discretion or decision-making power. As designed, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that all farm members are informed of their rights to withdraw shares and are guaranteed access to the instruments for claiming these shares. In other words, the decision of whether or not a farm breaks up is intended to be made by adequately informed farm members; however, in practice, this has rarely occurred. Instead, the reform process has been perverted by information and power asymmetries, and in many cases, the capacities or preferences of farmers are tertiary factors in the decision to break-up farms. While the proponents of land reform can point to some successes in the agricultural sector, the data reveal inequities in land access, particularly between male and female headed households. Examining these rural dynamics has the potential to help analysts understand the transformations underway in Tajikistan with regard to rural political power.
Pre-Publication Version:
As in other post-communist states, Tajikistan's agricultural decollectiv... more Pre-Publication Version: As in other post-communist states, Tajikistan's agricultural decollectivization was initiated through top-down measures. However, the implementation process has not been uniform across the state's territory; in some districts, collective farms were quickly and thoroughly broken-up, while in others, the process is just now beginning. In this paper, we investigate spatial variation in Tajikistan's decollectivization process. Through the analyses of diverse data, we reveal that low cotton yield is a necessary condition for farm individualization in districts that are distant from the capital. We interpret this result as indicating that farm managers responsible for unproductive farms often have little incentive or capacity to resist the break-up of farms. In contrast, managers of productive farms have both an incentive and capacity to maintain collective farming. Furthermore, although human capital dimensions, including family size, off-farm income, and education affect an individual farmer's preference for private farming, these are not necessary conditions for widespread farm individualization at the district level. In other words, we did not find evidence that farmers had the capacity to directly determine collective farm dissolution.
Since the 1990s, Sino-Central Asian relations have deepened to the degree that China now has the ... more Since the 1990s, Sino-Central Asian relations have deepened to the degree that China now has the capacity to drastically alter the political and economic trajectories of each of the five states of the region. To date, China has enjoyed tremendous success in pursuing its interests in the region. Whether this continues to be the case will be determined in part by how Central Asians react to Chinese involvement in the region. In this paper, I overview the development of Sino-Central Asian relations and discuss four narratives about China’s role in the region which have the potential to shape these relations over the short and medium term future. These four narratives are: China as protector; China as aggressor; China as investor; and China as exploiter.
This paper posits that a great deal of cross-national variation in clientelistic investment strat... more This paper posits that a great deal of cross-national variation in clientelistic investment strategies can be explained through an examination of the different forms of risk faced by the political elite of different types of regimes. It also maintains that demand from clients/potential clients is, by itself, insufficient to explain the level or scope of clientelistic investments. The argument is advanced through an examination of the linkages (and non-linkages) between patrons/potential patrons and clients/potential clients amongst the ethnic Uzbek populations of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In Kyrgyzstan, a semi-authoritarian state, electoral risk predominates; however, the character of electoral risk in Kyrgyzstan provides Uzbek members of the political elite with an incentive to diversify their clientelistic investments. Consequently, many engage in direct exchanges with their constituents while simultaneously investing in private, cultural organizations that serve party-like functions. Alternatively, in contemporary Tajikistan, best described as an authoritarian state, electoral risk has been replaced with the risk of expulsion from the presidential clientelistic network. As a result, members of the Tajikistani political elite have a disincentive to publicly invest in constituent clients as this investment may increase the risk of expulsion
Efforts to repress dissent in Xinjiang are leading Uighurs to discover common grievances and inte... more Efforts to repress dissent in Xinjiang are leading Uighurs to discover common grievances and interests.
Abstract: In this dissertation I argue that political institutions in a plural society, through t... more Abstract: In this dissertation I argue that political institutions in a plural society, through their ability to induce and constrain a wide range of interactions, can facilitate (or hinder) the prospects for cross-ethnic trust generation, and by extension cross-ethnic cooperation. ...
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Papers by Brent Hierman
In this paper, we introduce the concept of substate populism to account for dynamics in which populist speech is used to critique national elites for harming the interests of the "pure" local people. We also identify three preconditions for substate populism: decentralization, pre-existing resentment or anxiety, and the capacity to dominate the local narrative. We explore the concept through a comparison of the frames used by Narendra Modi while serving as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat in India and Melis Myrzakmatov while serving as the mayor of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. We demonstrate that in both cases Modi and Myrzakmatov utilized substate populism following deadly ethnic riots to articulate local resentments, maintain popular support, and delegitimize external efforts to promote post-conflict reconciliation. We argue that through eradicating at least one of the three identified preconditions, a national government can undermine substate populism.
Published version can be found as Chapter 5 in
Laruelle, Marlene, ed., 2018. Tajikistan on the Move: Statebuilding and Societal Transformations. Lexington Books.
Over the past 25 years, the government of Tajikistan has experienced a slow and disjointed process of agricultural reform and farm individualization. Formally, the agricultural reform process has been deconcentrated; local authorities are responsible for implementing central laws with limited discretion or decision-making power. As designed, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that all farm members are informed of their rights to withdraw shares and are guaranteed access to the instruments for claiming these shares. In other words, the decision of whether or not a farm breaks up is intended to be made by adequately informed farm members; however, in practice, this has rarely occurred. Instead, the reform process has been perverted by information and power asymmetries, and in many cases, the capacities or preferences of farmers are tertiary factors in the decision to break-up farms. While the proponents of land reform can point to some successes in the agricultural sector, the data reveal inequities in land access, particularly between male and female headed households. Examining these rural dynamics has the potential to help analysts understand the transformations underway in Tajikistan with regard to rural political power.
As in other post-communist states, Tajikistan's agricultural decollectivization was initiated through top-down measures. However, the implementation process has not been uniform across the state's territory; in some districts, collective farms were quickly and thoroughly broken-up, while in others, the process is just now beginning. In this paper, we investigate spatial variation in Tajikistan's decollectivization process. Through the analyses of diverse data, we reveal that low cotton yield is a necessary condition for farm individualization in districts that are distant from the capital. We interpret this result as indicating that farm managers responsible for unproductive farms often have little incentive or capacity to resist the break-up of farms. In contrast, managers of productive farms have both an incentive and capacity to maintain collective farming. Furthermore, although human capital dimensions, including family size, off-farm income, and education affect an individual farmer's preference for private farming, these are not necessary conditions for widespread farm individualization at the district level. In other words, we did not find evidence that farmers had the capacity to directly determine collective farm dissolution.
Book Reviews by Brent Hierman
In this paper, we introduce the concept of substate populism to account for dynamics in which populist speech is used to critique national elites for harming the interests of the "pure" local people. We also identify three preconditions for substate populism: decentralization, pre-existing resentment or anxiety, and the capacity to dominate the local narrative. We explore the concept through a comparison of the frames used by Narendra Modi while serving as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat in India and Melis Myrzakmatov while serving as the mayor of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. We demonstrate that in both cases Modi and Myrzakmatov utilized substate populism following deadly ethnic riots to articulate local resentments, maintain popular support, and delegitimize external efforts to promote post-conflict reconciliation. We argue that through eradicating at least one of the three identified preconditions, a national government can undermine substate populism.
Published version can be found as Chapter 5 in
Laruelle, Marlene, ed., 2018. Tajikistan on the Move: Statebuilding and Societal Transformations. Lexington Books.
Over the past 25 years, the government of Tajikistan has experienced a slow and disjointed process of agricultural reform and farm individualization. Formally, the agricultural reform process has been deconcentrated; local authorities are responsible for implementing central laws with limited discretion or decision-making power. As designed, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that all farm members are informed of their rights to withdraw shares and are guaranteed access to the instruments for claiming these shares. In other words, the decision of whether or not a farm breaks up is intended to be made by adequately informed farm members; however, in practice, this has rarely occurred. Instead, the reform process has been perverted by information and power asymmetries, and in many cases, the capacities or preferences of farmers are tertiary factors in the decision to break-up farms. While the proponents of land reform can point to some successes in the agricultural sector, the data reveal inequities in land access, particularly between male and female headed households. Examining these rural dynamics has the potential to help analysts understand the transformations underway in Tajikistan with regard to rural political power.
As in other post-communist states, Tajikistan's agricultural decollectivization was initiated through top-down measures. However, the implementation process has not been uniform across the state's territory; in some districts, collective farms were quickly and thoroughly broken-up, while in others, the process is just now beginning. In this paper, we investigate spatial variation in Tajikistan's decollectivization process. Through the analyses of diverse data, we reveal that low cotton yield is a necessary condition for farm individualization in districts that are distant from the capital. We interpret this result as indicating that farm managers responsible for unproductive farms often have little incentive or capacity to resist the break-up of farms. In contrast, managers of productive farms have both an incentive and capacity to maintain collective farming. Furthermore, although human capital dimensions, including family size, off-farm income, and education affect an individual farmer's preference for private farming, these are not necessary conditions for widespread farm individualization at the district level. In other words, we did not find evidence that farmers had the capacity to directly determine collective farm dissolution.