Return of the Central Asia Democracy Project 

View from UB

Having left the region of Nukehavistan (another new 'stan after Ethniklashistan!), it is good to be in Mongolia, where although there is a great deal of self-censorship people can criticize the government without the official threat of any prosecution/persecution. The context for development plays a huge role in determining the activities, their course (working with govterment, civil society and/or implementing the projects independently) and their level of success. Sometimes, environmental factors can be overcome, but it seems to require a magical combination of pre-project insight, strong leadership, and the will of the local partners (public, NGO, government) to make it succeed. This is a rare combination, but there are many additional factors that can influence this positively or negatively (way money is disbursed, focus on anticorruption or sustainability). Is there a single formula? Probably not, but there seems to be better strategies than others. More to come soon...

From the archives: The First Post [May 23, 2005]

I'm reprinting all of the original posts from the now-defunct site here, beginning with the first one (edited a bit for poor style - it was finals, so back off). Enjoy!



The project begins. You can follow along with the action if I have Internet access and am not too much of a slacker. Feel free to register and comment.

Sorry about all of the hyperlinks. They are for all of the link junkies who
love to track things to the source and all of the bookmarking packrats who collect interesting tidbits from the Internet.

If you want to keep up with the news, here are a few places to start.

I will be studying American democracy promotion programs in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, andUlan Bator, Mongolia.Democracy is a relatively new concept in Central Asian republics, which in 1991 suddenly became independent of Soviet authority. Nevertheless, Mongolia has been able to develop a relatively open system, while Kyrgyzstan initially the great democratic hope of Central Asia, slid into authoritarianism and Tajikistan fell into a civil war.

Yes, I am going to Central Asia. Why? Because it's an interesting area that I think will offer interesting insight into the on-the-ground effect of American democratization efforts.

The CADP Strikes Back

Well, the first CADP version may be gone, but the project continues. The destruction of the site created a multi-phasic temporal convergence in the space-time[-blog] continuum; the rupture may be sending out waves of temporal energy which are disrupting the normal flow of time. The reader will be jumping between past, present (and perhaps future) time-periods. Whatever; it worked for Tarantino, so maybe it will work here too.