The Pitfalls of Family Rule in Eurasia and Beyond

• In Event: Corruption and Institutions in the (Post-)Communist World

Abstract

This paper documents the unintended consequences that accrue when the families of strong-man presidents breach the norms (rules, expectations, and mutual obligations) associated with patronage, an institution widely accepted as vital to keeping personalist rulers in power. In Eurasia, patronage norms violations committed by presidential families in Kazakhstan (2001, 2007, 2022), Kyrgyzstan (2005, 2010), Ukraine (2013-2014), and Uzbekistan (2005, 2013-14) led to elite defection and political crisis for multiple strong-man presidents. Yet, the outcomes of these crises differed dramatically. Norms violations and family overreach in Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine led the overthrow of Presidents Akayev, Bakiey, and Yanukovych. Presidents in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in contrast, survived defection by righting patronage wrongs and demonstrating the lengths to which they would go to uphold broad elite interests over narrow, familial ones. To conclude, I extend the lens of patronage norms violations to a cross-regional analysis, illuminating the ouster of Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali; Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak; and Igor Smirnov, the first president of Transnistria, a secessionist region of Moldova. All three were powerful, entrenched autocrats who fell from power, unexpectedly and within months of each other, in 2011; all three are emblematic of the pitfalls of family rule initially uncovered in Eurasia.

Author

• Barbara J. Junisbai, Pitzer College