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Stephen Blank: Azerbaijan Strongly Resembles Arab Regimes
Azeri Report
March 4, 2013
WASHINGTON, DC. March 4, 2013: Stephen Blank, Professor at Strategic
Studies Institute of US Army War College, articulated his concerns at
the US Congress over a variety of threats in Azerbaijan `raised by the
combination of misrule and foreign or state sponsorship.'
`Azerbaijan's security, by virtue of its geography and energy
capabilities, is a vital US interest..
Nevertheless its political system resembles most of those in
post-Soviet times in its authoritarianism and ideological
justification of such a regime by virtue of a strong president
centralizing power and authority in his hands,' he stated during the
testimony on `Islamist Militant Threats to Eurasia' hosted by the
House Foreign Affairs subcommittees later last week, with
participation of State Department assistant secretary and other top
analysts, TURAN's US correspondent Alakbar Raufoglu reports.
In other words, he emphasized, `like Middle Eastern and Central Asian
autocracies, Azerbaijan also contains a strong element of familial and
even dynastic aspiration.'
President Aliyev, has astutely expanded and transformed the elite from
regional clan groupings into bureaucratic factional ones, linked by
patronage in typical patron-client relationships. Despite its current
apparent stability, Azerbaijan `is vulnerable,' according to the
analyst.
Among the stability factors, the US expert listed the self-confidence
of the ruling elite, the prevalence of strong informal institutions
and a government based on `understandings' rather than formal
institutional and legal accountability and rules among that
elite. Furthermore, if the energy price and demand for Azeri
hydrocarbons stay high the regime can buy time to buy off potential
threats to itself from within.
As a political system, Stephen Blank says, Azerbaijan =80=9Cstrongly
resembles other post-Soviet and even Arab regimes in its basic
structures' such as the ones he listed below:
- Overwhelming domination by and even many manifestations of the cult
of personality of the ruler, President Ilham Aliyev;
- Strong signs of an attempt to make the ruling family permanently
dynastic and dynamic element of the regime that could last even after
the current president;
- The absence of guaranteed human rights and increasing signs of
repression.
`Indeed, there are more political prisoners in Azerbaijan than in
Belarus - hardly an enviable record. This could become dangerous,
especially as more signs of opposition make themselves felt, e.g. the
rise of Salafi Islam preachers and congregations. But that is not the
only potential source of Islamist opposition', he said.
Some of the characteristics that he listed are below.
- Despite the economic growth signs of regional and other forms of
widespread inequality in the distribution of economic wealth.
- A form of politics heavily weighted to familial connections or to
strong patron-client ties making the entire system a vast patronage
network;
- Anti-liberal and anti-democratic political culture buttressed by
repression, and manifested in the prevalence of `understandings' or
informal institutions and ties over formal-legal rule;
- A low-trust society and a weak, disorganized civil society and
divided opposition;
- Excessive domination of the economy by the hydrocarbon industry
leading to the well-known resource curse that features prominently in
energy-dominated economies;
- Signs of the oppression or repression of ethnic or religious
minorities leading to ever more recurrent protests;
- Ongoing efforts by the state to formulate and disseminate a state
nationalist ideology to create a legitimacy narrative and an image of
a united state. In Azerbaijan's case, this effort is buttressed by the
threats connected with the unresolved conflict with Armenia in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
`This is an Achilles heel of all such regimes and the prospect of a
succession crisis interacting with other crises generated by
authoritarian misrule could lead to a partial or even more complete
disintegration of the system as we have seen in the Arab world,' the
US expert argued.
As a result, he added, apart from the pressure of the unresolved
conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, both Moscow and Tehran have
sought to undermine Azerbaijan and incite unrest, and in Iran's case,
violence. Both Russia and Iran have sought to exploit fissures arising
out of the Azeri government's domestic policies.
As for the topic of the testimony, all participants agreed that there
are no imminent threats from the Arab region's Islamist radical groups
to Caucasus and Central Asia, but there is concern that the groups
could become a threat after the US withdraws from the region after the
2014 troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Contributions to radical groups emanate from the Persian Gulf in legal
forms like zakat, according to Ariel Cohen, senior research fellow for
Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
Drug trafficking is the other major source of money for radical
Islamist groups, he said. Afghan poppy products, both heroin and
opium, provide major fiscal support to these groups, he said.
Adding to the dilemma is that `we have no reliable way of measuring
the incidence or likelihood of terrorism in the region', said Blank.
The problem is, he argued, virtually every form of dissent and
opposition has been labeled by local governments as Islamic
fundamentalism or worse and then harshly repressed. As a result there
is neither a political vocabulary or movement or space available to
dissenters other than the religious one of Islam and that is driven
underground.
`Indeed I know of no published research that accurately tracks the
likelihood or incidence of genuinely militant or terrorist (not
necessarily the same thing) movements in Central Asia. A further
problem here and in Azerbaijan is the fact that in all these places
the religious authority is an arm of the state and thus inherently
politicized,' he concluded (Turan).
Azeri Report
March 4, 2013
WASHINGTON, DC. March 4, 2013: Stephen Blank, Professor at Strategic
Studies Institute of US Army War College, articulated his concerns at
the US Congress over a variety of threats in Azerbaijan `raised by the
combination of misrule and foreign or state sponsorship.'
`Azerbaijan's security, by virtue of its geography and energy
capabilities, is a vital US interest..
Nevertheless its political system resembles most of those in
post-Soviet times in its authoritarianism and ideological
justification of such a regime by virtue of a strong president
centralizing power and authority in his hands,' he stated during the
testimony on `Islamist Militant Threats to Eurasia' hosted by the
House Foreign Affairs subcommittees later last week, with
participation of State Department assistant secretary and other top
analysts, TURAN's US correspondent Alakbar Raufoglu reports.
In other words, he emphasized, `like Middle Eastern and Central Asian
autocracies, Azerbaijan also contains a strong element of familial and
even dynastic aspiration.'
President Aliyev, has astutely expanded and transformed the elite from
regional clan groupings into bureaucratic factional ones, linked by
patronage in typical patron-client relationships. Despite its current
apparent stability, Azerbaijan `is vulnerable,' according to the
analyst.
Among the stability factors, the US expert listed the self-confidence
of the ruling elite, the prevalence of strong informal institutions
and a government based on `understandings' rather than formal
institutional and legal accountability and rules among that
elite. Furthermore, if the energy price and demand for Azeri
hydrocarbons stay high the regime can buy time to buy off potential
threats to itself from within.
As a political system, Stephen Blank says, Azerbaijan =80=9Cstrongly
resembles other post-Soviet and even Arab regimes in its basic
structures' such as the ones he listed below:
- Overwhelming domination by and even many manifestations of the cult
of personality of the ruler, President Ilham Aliyev;
- Strong signs of an attempt to make the ruling family permanently
dynastic and dynamic element of the regime that could last even after
the current president;
- The absence of guaranteed human rights and increasing signs of
repression.
`Indeed, there are more political prisoners in Azerbaijan than in
Belarus - hardly an enviable record. This could become dangerous,
especially as more signs of opposition make themselves felt, e.g. the
rise of Salafi Islam preachers and congregations. But that is not the
only potential source of Islamist opposition', he said.
Some of the characteristics that he listed are below.
- Despite the economic growth signs of regional and other forms of
widespread inequality in the distribution of economic wealth.
- A form of politics heavily weighted to familial connections or to
strong patron-client ties making the entire system a vast patronage
network;
- Anti-liberal and anti-democratic political culture buttressed by
repression, and manifested in the prevalence of `understandings' or
informal institutions and ties over formal-legal rule;
- A low-trust society and a weak, disorganized civil society and
divided opposition;
- Excessive domination of the economy by the hydrocarbon industry
leading to the well-known resource curse that features prominently in
energy-dominated economies;
- Signs of the oppression or repression of ethnic or religious
minorities leading to ever more recurrent protests;
- Ongoing efforts by the state to formulate and disseminate a state
nationalist ideology to create a legitimacy narrative and an image of
a united state. In Azerbaijan's case, this effort is buttressed by the
threats connected with the unresolved conflict with Armenia in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
`This is an Achilles heel of all such regimes and the prospect of a
succession crisis interacting with other crises generated by
authoritarian misrule could lead to a partial or even more complete
disintegration of the system as we have seen in the Arab world,' the
US expert argued.
As a result, he added, apart from the pressure of the unresolved
conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, both Moscow and Tehran have
sought to undermine Azerbaijan and incite unrest, and in Iran's case,
violence. Both Russia and Iran have sought to exploit fissures arising
out of the Azeri government's domestic policies.
As for the topic of the testimony, all participants agreed that there
are no imminent threats from the Arab region's Islamist radical groups
to Caucasus and Central Asia, but there is concern that the groups
could become a threat after the US withdraws from the region after the
2014 troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Contributions to radical groups emanate from the Persian Gulf in legal
forms like zakat, according to Ariel Cohen, senior research fellow for
Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
Drug trafficking is the other major source of money for radical
Islamist groups, he said. Afghan poppy products, both heroin and
opium, provide major fiscal support to these groups, he said.
Adding to the dilemma is that `we have no reliable way of measuring
the incidence or likelihood of terrorism in the region', said Blank.
The problem is, he argued, virtually every form of dissent and
opposition has been labeled by local governments as Islamic
fundamentalism or worse and then harshly repressed. As a result there
is neither a political vocabulary or movement or space available to
dissenters other than the religious one of Islam and that is driven
underground.
`Indeed I know of no published research that accurately tracks the
likelihood or incidence of genuinely militant or terrorist (not
necessarily the same thing) movements in Central Asia. A further
problem here and in Azerbaijan is the fact that in all these places
the religious authority is an arm of the state and thus inherently
politicized,' he concluded (Turan).