ABSTRACT
How have Tajikistan’s economic policy choices since independence affected the country’s political development? Tajikistan’s economic choices have been constrained by its situation. It is probable that Tajikistan would have moved decisively in the direction of structural reform initially if the country had not fallen prey to an internal contest for power in the first year of independence. The contest plunged the country into civil war. While Tajikistan would have been classified as a lower middle-income economy in the former Soviet period, in the decade since independence it has become one of the world poorest countries.1
