Security Sector Reform in Central Asia: Exploring the Policy- Practice Gap of Police Reforms and the Civil Society Factor in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Master thesis Olivier Korthals Altes Radboud University Nijmegen – School of Management MSc Conflicts, Territories and Identities Master thesis supervisor: Dr. H.W. Bomert Second reader: Dr. M. van Leeuwen Version August 14, 2018 Word count: 39336 MSc Conflicts, Territories & Identities 2016 – 2017 Master Thesis Security Sector Reform in Central Asia: Exploring the Policy- Practice Gap of Police Reforms and the Civil Society Factor in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Olivier Korthals Altes For the cover page, images have been used from the following sources, clockwise from top left: Yaroslavskaya (2011), Abibakir (2017), The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Website (2016) and Flagpedia. The picture on the bottom left is taken by myself at the OSCE Conference on Security Sector Governance and Reform, Bishkek, December 19, 2017. S4810007 O.P. Korthals Altes i MSc Conflicts, Territories & Identities 2016 – 2017 Master Thesis Table of contents Executive summary………………………………………...………………...……………………………………..v Preface……………………………………………………...……………………………..………………………..vii List of abbreviations……………………………………...………………………………………………………viii List of figures……………………………………………...………………...………………………………………x 1. Introduction………………………………………………...…………………………………..1 1.1 Background………………………………………………………………………………………………1 1.2 Research objective and research questions……………………………………………………………....4 1.3 Scientific and societal relevance………………………………………………………………………....5 1.3.1 Scientific relevance……………………………………………………………………………....5 1.3.2 Societal relevance……………………………………………………………………………......6 1.4 Research methodology and data collection …………………….……………………………………......8 1.5 Structure………………………………………………………………………………………………....10 2. Literature review and conceptual framework…………………..……………………….....12 2.1 The concepts of Security Sector Reform, democratic governance, police reforms and civil society...…12 2.1.1 Security Sector Reform………………………………………………………………………...11 2.1.2 Democratic governance of the security sector..……………………………………………......16 2.1.3 Police reforms………………………………………………………………………..…………18 2.1.4 Civil society……………………………………………………………………………………..20 2.2 Bridging the policy-practice gap…………………..…………………………………………………….23 2.3 SSR and state-building………….……………………………………………………………………….25 2.4 Towards the second generation of SSR………………………………………………………………….27 2.5 Conceptual framework…………………………………………………………………………………..29 2.5.1 Contextual analysis………………………………………………………………………………29 2.5.2 Policy formulations……………………………………………………………………………...32 2.5.3 Measuring the progress of SSR and introducing the indicators …………………..…………….33 2.6 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………37 3. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in context………………….………………………………….38 3.1 Regional context…………………………………………………………………………………………38 3.2 Kazakhstan……………………………………………………………………………………………….41 3.2.1 State, polity and society…………………………………………………………………………..41 S4810007 O.P. Korthals Altes ii MSc Conflicts, Territories & Identities 2016 – 2017 Master Thesis 3.2.2 Conflict, security and the police…………………………………………………………………….43 3.2.3 Civil society…………………………………………………………………………………….......45 3.3 Kyrgyzstan………………………………………………………………………………………………….49 3.3.1 State, polity and society…………………………………………………………………………….49 3.3.2 Conflict, security and the police……………………………………………………………….……50 3.3.3 Civil society…………………………………………………………………………………….…..52 3.4 Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………55 4. The Kazakh and Kyrgyz policies on police reforms, and the role of international organizations…………………………………………..………………………………………57 4.1 Kazakhstan………………………………………………………………………………………………….59 4.1.1 The role of international organizations……………………………………………………………59 4.2 Kyrgyzstan …………………………………………………………………………………………………63 4.2.1 The role of international organizations…………………………………………………………….65 4.3 Summary …………………………………………………………………………………………………...69 5. The Kazakh and Kyrgyz practices of police reforms, and the role of civil society…….…71 5.1 Kazakhstan………………………………………………………………………………………………….71 Indicator #1: Public oversight and monitoring…………………………………………..…………………71 Indicator #2: Integrity…..…………………………………………………………………………………..73 Indicator #3: Participation……..………………………………………………………………...…………76 Indicator #4: Transparency……..…………………………………………………………………………..78 Indicator #5: Upholding the rule of law and human rights……………….………………………………..79 Indicator #6: Responsiveness………………………………………………………………………………80 5.2 Kyrgyzstan……………………………………………………………………………..…………………...81 Indicator #1: Public oversight and monitoring…………………………………………..……………........81 Indicator #2: Integrity…..…………………………………………………………………………………..83 Indicator #3: Participation…..…………………………………………………………………...…………85 Indicator #4: Transparency……..…………………………………………………………………………..87 Indicator #5: Upholding the rule of law and human rights……………….………………………………..88 Indicator #6: Responsiveness….…………………………………………………………………………...89 5.3 Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………90 S4810007 O.P. Korthals Altes iii MSc Conflicts, Territories & Identities 2016 – 2017 Master Thesis 6. Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………92 6.1 Answers to research questions……………………………………………………………………………...92 6.2 Recommendations…………………………………………………………………………………………..94 6.2.1 Policy implications………………………………………………………………………………….94 6.2.2 Suggested research directions………………………………………………………………………95 6.3 Reflections and limitations………………………………………………………………………………….95 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………….97 Appendixes………………………………………………………………………………………………………..104 Appendix I CMR Index……………………………………………………………………………………104 Appendix II Overview of SSR related indexes and datasets………………………………………………105 Appendix III Transcriptions of conducted interviews and surveys..……….……………………………..107 Appendix IV Freedom House Index………………………………………………………………………111 S4810007 O.P. Korthals Altes iv MSc Conflicts, Territories & Identities 2016 – 2017 Master Thesis Executive summary Security Sector Reform (SSR) as a current dominant paradigm in security assistance programmes aims at (re)building and professionalising security institutions while creating and consolidating democratic control over these institutions. Democratically governed security institutions are accountable and transparent for public oversight and must guarantee citizens’ rights and freedoms while executing its primary tasks. While Security Sector Reform has enjoyed great successes in its conceptualisation and adoption in key policy documents of most international organisations working on security and democratisation, its impact remains limited and its empirical base rather weak. In many SSR programmes, a policy-practice gap can be identified, or a discrepancy between prescribed strategies and policies and the progress of SSR over time. While all-encompassing SSR fieldwork studies are usually conducted over an extended period of time, I have decided to focus on the policy-practice gap of democratising the police forces in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The police forces are the most profound security institutions in Central Asia, originating from the Soviet period and hard to change. Without paying attention to the dimension of democratic governance, external security assistance to police forces might lead to tolerating politicised and corrupt security forces, which negatively affects the long-term political and economic stability. SSR programs need to be implemented carefully in the political and social context. Where institutional and legal frameworks to democratically govern the security forces (in this case, the police) could be installed in time, changing the actual culture and behavioural attitude towards democratic governance turns out to be more difficult, as human nature is impossible to manage according to fixed programme schedules. Based on the existing literature, a conceptual framework has been designed to analyse the regional and national context of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, their policy formulations, and progress or practice towards police reforms based six indicators: #1 Public oversight and monitoring; #2 Integrity; #3 Participation of citizens and civil society; #4 Transparency; #5 Upholding the rule of law and human rights; and #6 Responsiveness to local citizens. Furthermore, key literature on SSR, development and democratisation points at the important role of civil society, that has the necessary knowledge and skills to strengthen state-citizens relationships as well as guaranteeing local ownership. To test the important factor of civil society, I have identified a number of key CSOs involved in police reforms in both countries. Overall, one must be critical when analysing strategic and policy documents that refer to notions such as trust building, enhancing transparency or respecting the freedoms and rights of citizens. Such written commitments or statements are not always consistent with actual efforts, especially when analysed within an authoritarian or flawed democratic setting like the one in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan. Rather, these documents must be read next to sources of relevant online databases, CSOs, (international) NGOs and research institutes that S4810007 O.P. Korthals Altes v MSc Conflicts, Territories & Identities 2016 – 2017 Master Thesis approach the actual practice of police reforms on the ground more completely. Empowering civil society alone will not be enough, as long as the attitude of the government, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the broader public (especially in