Political Capital,Everyday Politics and Moral Obligations: Understanding the Political Strategies of Various Elites and the Poor in Kyrgyzstan

Using the Bourdieusian framework to analyse the nature of social stratification in rural Kyrgyzstan, this article examines how local politics is strategised by different groups in the social field. The article suggests two modifications to the Bourdieusian framework to reflect better the nature of local politics. First, despite lacking significant capital holdings, poor groups undertake everyday resistance and mediated politics. Second, intellectual and traditional elites engage in the politics of ‘doing the right thing’, motivated by a sense of moral obligation. The article provides a critical challenge to the concept of clan and elite-led politics which is often used to explain events in Central Asia.     

A mob for hire? Unpacking older women’s political activism in Kyrgyzstan

This article explores the politics of older women in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, who have emerged as informal leaders in urban neighbourhoods to ‘speak for the poor’ to the state. Their mediating role is crucial for understanding community micro-politics, women’s political agency and more broadly state–society relations in the post-Soviet context. Drawing on in-depth interviews with older female informal leaders, the paper examines their political legitimacy and modes of mediation with the state and elites. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of political capital and ‘double dealings’, the paper argues that older women are important informal mediators, whose representational practices involve communal leadership, protest activism, bargaining and vote mobilization. Their multitasking roles are necessitated by their legitimation struggles and elites’ strategies of state capture. The article challenges the dominant media representation of older women activists as ‘a mob for hire’ and offers a more nuanced account of older women’s politics, addressing a blind spot in the literature on politics in Central Asia.     

Effects of Out-of-Pocket Payments on Access to Maternal Health Services in Almaty,Kazakhstan: A Qualitative Study

The current study addresses health care reform in transitional countries and explores the impact of out-of-pocket payments on access to maternal health services drawing on Kazakhstan's case. Data on out-of-pocket payments and access to maternity care were generated through qualitative in-depth interviews conducted in Almaty during the period 2009–2010. The results indicate that while health sector reform was designed to improve the quality of care and equity, the introduction of official user charges accompanied by a rapid growth of informal payments created financial barriers that prevented women from accessing maternal services leading to reduction in utilisation of maternity care.