Russia and China are assumed to challenge democratization and to promote autocracy. In a first step, we analyze Central Asia as the most-likely case, considering both Russia and China as relevant external actors. We develop a concept for our analysis based on the different strategies of Russia...

Russland versucht seit Beginn des Jahres 2006 die Spielregeln auf dem internationalen Energiemarkt zu seinen Gunsten zu verändern und seine reichhaltigen Erdgas- und Erdölreserven für eine Rückkehr als Großmacht auf internationaler Ebene zu instrumentalisieren. Der Westen hat wenig Zeit,...

The quality of institutions is considerable worse in Central Asia than in other transition countries. Based on a panel of 25 transition countries for the period from 1996 to 2005, this paper shows that oil and aid exert a negative influence on institutional development. At the same time,...

Using 2005 firm level data for 26 ECA countries, this paper estimates performance gaps between male- and female-owned businesses, while controlling for their location by industry and country. We find that female entrepreneurs have significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales...

After more than two decades of agrarian change in Tajikistan, farming structures seem to crystallise. The first signs towards farm individualisation were observed only around 2000, which were the result of significant pressure from outside, when the post-conflict state was highly susceptible to...