Islam Karimov was the 1st President of Uzbekistan from 1991 until his death in 2016.
Terrified by the economic devastation which gripped Russia in the 1990s, Karimov decided that he would rather close the door firmly on market economics if the transition towards it risked even slightly going the same way as Uzbekistan's former masters.
And so, Uzbekistan fossilised. The state retained ownership and control of industry. New collectivised farms were established. Foreign currencies were kept out - at least officially. Was Karimov right to do this? What were the trade offs involved? Should countries in the Global South be allowed to reject modernity? These are the dilemmas at the heart of today’s episode.
My guest today is Jen Murtazashvili. Jen is the Founding Director of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh, where she is also a Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She is a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and lived and worked in Uzbekistan on behalf of the United States Agency for International Development during the 1990s and early 2000s, before being asked to leave by Karimov’s government.