Nation‐Building in Central Asia: Institutions, Politics, and Culture.

Despite a wealth of invaluable insights generated over the last three decades about ongoing processes of nation-building in Central Asia, our understanding of the broader dynamics at work in the construction of the region's five republics remain woefully incomplete. In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, state authorities have tried to incorporate female religious authorities - the I otin-oyi i and I bibi-khalife i - into the orbit of the state by employing them as teachers of religion in schools and other state-sponsored projects. In Kyrgyzstan, patronage networks mushroomed inside the state bureaucracy during the presidency of Kurmanbek Bakiyev (2005-2010), distributing public employment, government positions, and positions within state-owned enterprises, all depending on one's proximity to the ruling elite or based on one's ethnicity. 27 Muteusz Laszkowski, "State Building(s): Built Forms, Materiality, and the State in Astana", in I Ethnographies of the State in Central Asia i , eds. [Extracted from the article]