Uzbekistan: Examining the Possibilities for Change

Labor migration has emerged as a safety valve for Uzbekistan 's discontented population, says a leading American expert on the Central Asian state.

"To beat the regime, you have to leave," Russell Zanca, an anthropologist at Northeastern Illinois University , said during a February 28 presentation at Columbia University 's Harriman Institute in New York . The title of Zanca’s talk was "Where’s the Uzbek Revolt? Twenty Years of Dictatorship and Counting."

Zanca, the author of a study of the country’s cotton sector titled "Life in a Muslim Uzbek Village: Cotton Farming After Communism," was pessimistic about democratization’s near-term prospects in Uzbekistan. Based on President Islam Karimov's track record of squashing political and religious movements, as well as his administration’s lack of interest in loosening its grip over the country’s economy, change is unlikely to come soon, Zanca said.

Zanca suggested that labor migrants may end up acting as a catalyst for change in Uzbekistan, where new ideas are hard to come by because of strict state control of mass media outlets. "If anything will break up the dictatorship, it will be labor migration," he said.

At least 10 percent of Uzbekistan 's working-age population is currently believed to be working abroad, predominantly in Russia and Kazakhstan . The country regularly ranks near the bottom of global democracy and transparency surveys, including Reporters' Without Borders Press Freedom Index and Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, where it appears 163rd and 172nd out of 178, respectively.