ABSTRACT
The principal development challenge in the Central Asian countries that emerged from communism is one of transforming previously authoritarian, centrally planned societies into open democratic polities and market-led economies with the institutions and processes of a civil society. This is what the political leaders of the former communist countries have themselves announced as the goal of their strategies. It is not simply a discretionary policy choice. It is a requirement of today’s continuously expanding network of global interactions in law, commerce, communication, and culture. It is a requirement imposed by the nature of the international community at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Only by making this transition can the former communist countries of Central Asia escape the negative legacies of communism, avoid a descent into syndromes of bad government and autarkic, exploitative economics, and participate in the international community as full partners.
