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Systems Theory and Regime Change. Divergent Developments in Post-Revolutionary Kyrgyzstan (Paper presented at FRC CESS 2008 )

Introduction: Interpretations of the Tulip Revolution

The Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in March 2005 and its consequences have been extensively analyzed within comparative politics and beyond. Interpretations of these developments usually tend to focus only on one aspect, either sidelining the progressive achievements like the November constitution in 2006 and describing the revolutionary events as a medium for a regime to reproduce itself; or, recently less often, they tend to ignore the authoritarian trends of the newly ruling elite and label the Tulip Revolution a breakthrough to democracy or at least as a move back to the track to democracy. On one hand, attempts for democratic reforms are viewed as mere side effects of a revolutionary game played by a political elite which is dedicated to authoritarian rules of accumulating and distributing power. On the other hand, the revolution is perceived as a positive movement that showed once again the existence of the vivid civil society in the Central Asian island of democracy, a civil society that helps democratically minded politicians to topple the authoritarian leader but finds itself now in struggle to strip off the remnants of the old system.

Before I develop my own explanation, making thereby use of Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, I take a closer look on this irritating difficulty to satisfyingly explain for both progressive and regressive developments in post-revolutionary Kyrgyzstan. I hypothesize that this inability is caused by the distinction between state and society usually made within political sciences.

Current Approaches to Central Asian Politics

I start with looking upon different approaches to the politics of Central Asia in current political sciences. One branch, I call it Traditional Comparative Politics, observes the dynamics within political regimes, where it usually compares the role of elite actors and their relation to specific institutional designs within differing transitional contexts (for example Hale 2005, Hale 2006, D’Anieri 2006, Bunce 2006, McFaul). Some scholars develop rather narrow models of regime transition, selecting only a few variables, whereas others broaden the perspective and include factors like civil society or social capital into their models. However, even if the perspective is broadened, it lacks a clear understanding of the role of the society within the political system. What usually is referred to as civil society or, its opposite, traditional or informal social practices, is not fully clear and somewhat remains vague among easily quantifiable factors like the formal rule of appointing the prime minister for example. To tackle this question, an alternative approach, I refer to it as Comparative Central Asian Politics, relies on findings and methods of anthropology of the Middle East and Nomad societies. Before deducing explanations about the dynamics of politics in Central Asia, scholars within this field first try to come up with a picture of society in the Central Asian states (Collins 2006, Radnitz 2006, Schatz 2004, Luong 2002). Clans, regionalism or localism all are concepts that try to catch the peculiar nature, the neo-traditional essence of the society in this region and its impact on political dynamics. It is assumed that the non-modern parts of society hold hostage the modern state and leave to it only a few reserved spaces to accomplish its tasks. Corruption, cronyism, and patron-client relations are conceived to be political manifestations of those neo-traditional social structures. The problem with this approach is different: while the Traditional Comparative Politics approach struggles to include society into its considerations on regime politics, the Comparative Central Asian Politics approach places the modern state into the residual category of an artificial construct of lesser importance. The modern state becomes a fully dependent variable, exposed to the determinant influence of the neo-traditionalized society.

Unable to integrate both political system and society, no description of the interdependencies between the two social segments, their reciprocal conditioning, seems possible. Accounts for progression or regression thus become dependent on the process of factor selection, on political attitude, and/or on the distance to the object of interest.

A New Approach

I want to combine both “modes of observing Central Asian politics” and to generate an explanation for both progressive and regressive elements in the post-revolutionary developments in Kyrgyzstan. For this purpose I will make use of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of society, thereby leaving the field of actor-centered approaches behind, since Luhmann’s theory of society is built on his systems theory. I will start with an introduction into some main aspects of Luhmann’s theory before I develop my own concept. In the final part I demonstrate the validity of my interpretation by retelling the story of main post-revolutionary events and developments in Kyrgyzstan.

In Luhmann’s understanding, society is always world society, where the confinement to territory is lost in times with every spot on earth communicatively accessible from any other spot (Luhmann 1997, Luhmann 2000). Secondly, Luhmann states that society consists of communication, and only of communication. People are left outside and become environment to the social system ’society’. Thirdly, society is an autopoietic system, i.e. a self-generic and self-reproducing system. Society reproduces its own structures and also changes only according to its own structures. Like any other autopoietic system, the environment can irritate but never determine reactions within the system. Any irritation to a social system will be processed according to the system’s own structures and rules.

Luhmann’s theory of society contains a theory of evolution. Society’s form is defined by its mode of differentiation. Luhmann detects four such modes in history, starting with the mode of segmentary differentiation. Here society is divided into different tribes or clans, basically into social units that differentiate from each other in relation to the two social markers: relatedness and territorial belonging. Further modes of differentiation are based on the center / periphery distinction, and stratification. Today modern society, according to Luhmann, is differentiated into function systems. In fully differentiated, fully disentangled systems like the modern economy, in science, in the political system, a symbolically generated medium structures communication in relation to, what Luhmann calls, a code. In the political system, communication is always structured by the medium power. In politics every communication is observed in terms of the distinction between power superiority and power inferiority, being the code of the system. The political system, in its fully disentangled modern form develops a second code, a super-code. The distinction between superior and inferior is super-coded by the distinction between government and opposition in regard to which every communication is now primarily observed.

To understand my argument it is necessary to introduce a second function system, which I simply call the public. The public structures communication in relation with the distinction made between actual / non-actual, i.e. in the public as a function system, communication is observed in relation to this code (Görke 2003). The public is related to politics by, what Luhmann calls, a structural linkage. This structural linkage can be labeled as public opinion. In public opinion, both the public system and the political system relate to each other in a recursive form. The public causes an endless storm of irritations to the political system, supplying the public opinion with constant need to produce opinions. The political system, on the other hand, guarantees the contingency on every issue under public discussion by automatically generating a certain position of the government and a certain position of the opposition. A society, fully differentiated into its function systems, has the public opinion as its real and truly political ruler. Here it is decided which public topic to transform into a political issue and here it is where government and opposition can compete for support.

Observations of Political Communication in Kyrgyzstan

From a Luhmann’ian perspective, today Kyrgyz politics can be perceived as follows: Kyrgyz society is differentiated into function systems. The political system in Kyrgyzstan as well as the public system are included into global processes of further systemic disentanglement and do structure their communication in relation to their codes. In Kyrgyzstan we may make a clear distinction between government communication and opposition communication and we find the mass media, the organizations of the public system, to decide every minute anew, what is worth to be labeled actual and what is not. However, as modern as it seems, I think, in society in Kyrgyzstan use is also made of modes of observation that are rooted in different modes of societal differentiation. Here I follow those who claim, that traditions still play a role in Kyrgyz (and Central Asian) society. Modernized un-modern forms of observing communication are still valid. I do not contend that Kyrgyz society is – in an ontological sense – differentiated into segments like clans or tribes or regions, but I do observe categories of relatedness and territorial belonging being used to observe political communication in Kyrgyz society. To find out about someone’s place of birth or living or about his line of descent, finding out about his “zemlyachestvo” (compatriotism) or about someone’s “rodstvenniki” (relatives), is, according to my own observations, a game still widely played in Kyrgyzstan when it comes to politics. This game is usually played together with attempts to sort politics out according to the modern distinction between government and opposition. I hypothesize that this parallel existence of (roughly) two distinct modes of social differentiation as two different guidelines for observing political communication develops dynamics of its own.

The public in Kyrgyzstan forces both modes of observation to observe each other. Observing the other distinction at work poses a challenge to each mode of observation. The public produces endless storms of potentially political communication. The functional mode of observation now observes parallel attempts to understand political communication in relation to categories like “zemlyachestvo” or “rodsvennyje zvyazi”. It is not able to disintegrate those non-functional observations according to its own distinction. It usually calls them clanism, clientelism or simply corruption, puts them into black boxes without further questioning. The neo-traditional distinction, the use of categories like “zemlyachestvo” or “rodsvennyje zvyazi”, is, from its own perspective, not able to understand the use of the modern distinction between government and opposition. The problem is that both modes of observation could easily live along, if not the recurrent reciprocative observation would damage their effectiveness. No neo-traditional observation can draw the full picture of all the possible “rodsvennyje zvyazi” behind a political communication. Neither it is possible to leave those distinctions aside because they are publicly reproduced and thus validated within the modern mode of observation. Both modes of observation end up being not fully operative.

In such a situation any observation of political communication remains somewhat indecisive. Neither the modern distinction nor the neo-traditional ones are able to identify superior political communication. Such status causes manifold problems, since only the clear identification of superior political communication allows for the making of political decisions, for example investing a vote or engaging in a political campaign. If no clear decision can be made, there are few options left. One, and in my opinion that option is broadly used in Kyrgyzstan, is to indicate any political communication as potential superior political communication. To be on the winning side of the political game an observer now tends to treat any political communication as potentially being related to the powerful side within the primary code distinction between power superiority and power inferiority. Declarations of the opposition are not treated any more as substantial challenges to the government but are conceived as being only part of an incomprehensible political game. This situation leads to consequences for both observers on the ground and in the political elite. The former starts to put his political loyalty either with current office holders or simply for sale. The latter in form of opposition communication faces difficulties to be understood as oppositional claims and hence uses its pressure on the government to get included into it. Co-optation as the general rule of the political game develops on a large scale and by unfolding it reproduces and reinforces itself. A general public suspicion towards political communication furthers the detection of opposition communication as actual superior political communication; especially in cases, where that opposition communication itself includes mechanisms to trigger the suspicion.

This way self-discrediting tactics in form of de-substantialization of opposition communication becomes the rule. Promises are launched that can’t be kept, threats are declared that miss any substance, challenges are brought forward without any reason. The new oppositional communication further substantializes the new distinction being used for the observation of political communication, which now is between government and opposition on the one side and power inferiority on the other. In terms of Luhmann’s theory of society we might call this development de-differentiation. The public opinion, the engine of contingency and the production of political alternatives, is loosing its power, it is rendering all opinions on political issues to one choice only.

The Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan and Processes of De-Differentiation

I contend that we can observe mounting trends towards a policy of de-differentiation in Kyrgyzstan since independence. However, I also think, that the Tulip Revolution generated a window of opportunity, which gave a momentum to the modern form of observation. The following section aims at very briefly retelling the story of the post-revolutionary developments at the national level in Kyrgyzstan.

The regime that appeared after the Tulip Revolution was met by the public expectation to further validate the modern form of observation, expected was a push towards more functional differentiation in society. The now former opposition, itself observing Kyrgyz politics under both competing modes, i.e. functional and segmentary, could not decide either to launch wide ranging reforms, potentially loosing its new grip on power to competing factions, or to rebuild old regime structures, perhaps becoming a victim of another revolution. The result was half-attempted reforms within the political system, reforms, that at the same time tried to confine the possible consequences of the changes, they were supposed to initiate. This indecisiveness within the new regime not only failed to meet public expectations for further reforms but also caused the formation of a new oppositional movement in early 2006, which called itself “Za Reformy” (“For Reforms”). This new opposition, yet not able to launch revolutionary claims, developed a political agenda in the form of the ten points, which was unique to the political landscape in Central Asia, basically anticipating a parliamentary system of government, a separation of the branches of power, and the transformation of state media into public media. In the final days of the confrontation between government and opposition in November 2006, the power under president Bakiev yielded to the opposition. A new constitution was adopted that, despite its inherent contradictions, promised to realize the revolutionary breakthrough to less co-optational politics and to more modern rules for government and opposition to compete for political power.

Based on my findings I interpret the adoption of the November constitution as a change of a set of expectations in the public opinion. The opposition lost its public support due to the fulfillment of expectations, whereas the government perceived the constitution as a defeat, at least when interpreting it in terms of a competition between neo-traditional power factions. It appears that it followed this form of interpretation, since earlier attempts for raising public support for government policies had shown their ineffectiveness, had made it thus difficult to perceive the defeat in relation to the modern distinction between government and opposition. In accordance with this interpretation the government left the modern political battlefield that it also had tried to fight at during the last months. It reverted to the only mechanisms left to try to secure its hold on power in a situation, which could not be understood otherwise but as a defeat against competing segments. Buying off co-optation-willing candidates among the opposition and repressing the remaining ones, probably applying in most cases both strategies, generated a moment, where the contradictions within the new constitution could be used for a strike against the recently winning competing faction, mostly shutting the public out of this process. In January 2007 president Bakiev signed the December constitution, in which most reforms of the political system were revisited.

According to my observation, these events changed the public opinion completely. In fact, the public expectation that led to the November events was irretrievably lost. Change towards more functional differentiation in society did not occur, the new opposition lost all its public support in an incredibly short amount of time. The April protests of the new opposition movement United Front For a Worthy Future of Kyrgyzstan demonstrated this now newly refreshed suspicion against opposition communication. The Front’s attempts to mobilize the masses by public claims to overturn the government did not meet corresponding reactions. However, I think that most opposition claims were actually not made to raise support but to launch an offer to the government for co-optation. Former deputy of parliament Melis Eshimkanov’s announcement about the arrival of hundred thousand protesters on the 16^th of April, his public promise to take over the power from Bakiev only one day later were made without any reasonable foundation and may serve as an example for such launches. In times of a public opinion that was inclined to indicate any political communication as communication of power superiority, such declarations and promises could hardly be observed as substantial opposition challenges to the government. Before and after the April protests, the regime managed to co-opt those who were willing, to repress those who resisted, and to sideline any moderate oppositional activity, based on the change which occurred in the public opinion in December, when the policy of de-differentiation gained back its predominance.

What to Expect?

The current power regime as for now is perceived as stable, not being challenged by any serious oppositional claim. However, the only remaining power-strategy is to co-opt competing factions; and this situation has its own dynamics. The existent public guarantees a constant flow of news, or better: political issues that can be used for co-optation. Positions to be co-opted into, on the other hand, are scarce, therefore the competition is high. The power can’t differentiate unreal oppositional claims from real oppositional claims, it thus looses control in the long run. Substantial opposition claims, on the other hand, face the difficulty to generate support in a social atmosphere of general public suspicion towards political communication.

With my approach I wanted to demonstrate an alternative explanation for political developments in Kyrgyzstan, a model that is able to account for both progressive, functional-differentiation promoting developments, and regressive, de-differentiating moments. At the same time, I think it necessary to accentuate that this model is not determining in an explanatory sense. Events by chance can still have an impact on developments in the political system in Kyrgyzstan. However, to understand the impact, not the events themselves but the modes of observation available to the political system through the public opinion, must be the focus of our attention.

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