CAIS Brownbag Seminar: Janyl MOLDALIEVA (UNU-MERIT) – Playing the “Game” of Transparency and Accountability: The Agency of Communities in Kyrgyzstan’s Natural Resources Governance

This paper examines how transparency and accountability (TA) work in settings where resources are governed by informal patronage, personalized relations, and elite-enforced formal rules. Situating itself within the discourse on post-Soviet politics, the discussions herein reveal TA as embroiled in Kyrgyzstan’s political economy, and suggest that TA should not be analyzed outside of the political regime(s) within which they operate. This context-specific analysis of TA points to the political game strategies employed by community members (non-elites) to challenge power-holders for transparent and accountable natural resource governance. These discussions, first, remediate the lopsided, elite-centered narratives on post-Soviet politics by highlighting how and why community members (non-elites) exert their “agency” in governing natural resources. They also problematize the manner in which certain questions are framed: for instance, rather than asking why TA are or are not effective, the chapter asks how and why TA are enacted differently within different geopolitical and socio-economic contexts.