ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the political environment and governance trajectories in Uzbekistan since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The analysis of these processes equips readers with contextual information and insights into the political economy of anticorruption reforms in an authoritarian regime context. Such information and insights prove instructive to understanding the legal environment and institutional context as well as the ethnographic material and various case studies in the chapters that follow. When examining these processes, we place special emphasis on (1) political, economic, and societal transformations in the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union; (2) governance trajectories and transition from heavily repressive to a softer form of authoritarianism; (3) the country's position on international indicators concerning corruption, the rule of law, and good governance; (4) the business environment and legal culture; and (5) political and economic conditions under which informal, illegal practices take place.
