Comparative Research Design - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 72

enabled them to participate in political discussions. Although they have only restricted access
to decision making, they take part in political discourse. The presidential administration is still
the main actor of decision making. Survey data provided by the Asiabarometer show that this
is also widely perceived by the population: 62.2% of the respondents in Kyrgyzstan agreed that
people do not have the power to influence political decisions. Consequently, people widely
counterbalance this deficit by relying on personal networks and using connections (Dadabaev
2006).
Tajikistan
In Tajikistan, the regime is more restricted and authoritarian than in Kyrgyzstan. The role of
the President and his apparatus is, as was described before, even more exclusive. In addition,
due to the civil war, a considerable part of the intelligentsiya emigrated, which weakened the
capacities to participate in the political discourse of state agencies as well as in the academic
and non governmental sector. The authoritarian rule provided no opportunities to strengthen
these or to establish forums to formulate positions, unlike in Kyrgyzstan. Much more so than
in Kyrgyzstan, the discussion of decision making in Tajikistan is restricted to the Presidential
decisions without public debate.
Despite general similarities, the values of this variable vary in both countries: In Kyrgyzstan the
formal and informal institutional design of the decision making processes allows more themat
ic openness and actors than in Tajikistan. However, in both countries the President and his
followers have the final say.

5.5.3

Institutional Conditions of the Agricultural Sector

Agriculture is worldwide and in the two studied cases the main water user. Hence many
water institutional reforms address water usage in agriculture. The agricultural sector shapes
the conditions based on which water institutional reforms have to be enforced.
The organization of agriculture in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is in a process of change. As
in the case of the water sector, the implosion of the USSR presented a critical juncture to the
agricultural sector which had been organized in huge collective and state farms ( kolkhozes and
sovkhoze s). 71 After independence, both states started to conduct a land reform. The privatiza
tion of state and collective farms did not only change the agricultural sector; it was also be
sides the state budget crisis the main stimulus for an irrigation reform: As thousands of small
farms came into existence, the new situation was a challenge for water management in the
irrigation sector. While before the large scale sovkhozes and kolkhozes had been responsible for
water distribution inside their areas and the maintenance of the on farm canals, now the newly
emerged small farms had to be supplied with water individually. As nobody felt responsible for
the operation and maintenance (O&M) of the on farm channels and due to the lack of finan
cial means, investments in infrastructure maintenance almost stopped, irrigation systems dete
riorated and water use was not controlled anymore. The new situation demanded new forms of
management and hence influenced problem awareness and policy formulation.
71 While a sovkhoz was directly managed by the government, a kolkhoz was managed by an elected administration, which
however had to be approved by the local party committee and also had to follow state instructions. The difference
between both were however rather marginal since the 1960s. Both encompassed typically more than 1,000 ha (Herbers
2006: 100ff).