The authority of the Tajik regime rests arguably on four main pillars: 1) foreign support, 2) political patronage, 3) Tajik nationalism, and 4) war-weariness. There is little to suggest this will change in the foreseeable future, making the alarmist forecasts for Tajikistan debatable.
Foreign military and economic support
Tajikistan has been able to amass foreign military and economic support thanks to its strategic location and perceived fragility. Its 1,300-km border with Afghanistan has been viewed by foreign powers as both an opportunity and a liability. Between 2001 and 2014, the United States and its allies used Tajikistan as a bridgehead for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. But they have also funnelled military support to Dushanbe for the purpose of preventing a violent spillover from its southern neighbour.
Anxieties over Afghanistan have been central to Russian strategic thinking, too. Moscow maintains one of its largest military forces outside of Russia in Tajikistan, where the 201st Motorised Rifle Division has been stationed since the end of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–89) as a bulwark against intrusions from Afghanistan. Following heightened instability in northern Afghanistan this year and last, moves were made to expand that presence, including in June, when a new shipment of military vehicles was offered to Dushanbe.[12]
Foreign military support has strengthened the coercive powers of Dushanbe, whose martial might would be far slighter without it. True, the Russian forces have no mandate to intervene against domestic threats but they represent a powerful show of support to the regime, are potentially fungible and arguably act as a deterrent to any foreign militants who contemplate pushing into Tajikistan. Meanwhile, US-trained troops have been used in unintended ways. Dushanbe’s July 2012 crackdown in Khorugh was spearheaded by US-trained special forces.[13] The same was true for the manhunt for former deputy defence minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda in September 2015. Apparently, Nazarzoda fled with a group of followers when he discovered he was wanted for arrest. Rather than face detention, he took to the mountains near Dushanbe, where he engaged state forces in a final battle that claimed his life.[14]
Alongside military support, foreign countries have disbursed development aid to Tajikistan. For 2015, total commitments were 540 million USD[15] – 6% of GDP – at a time when Tajikistan ranked 129th of 188 on the Human Development Index.[16] Such aid has numerous effects beyond funding development. First, a portion of it is diverted by corrupt officials who use it to line their pockets and finance patronage networks. It strengthens informal mechanisms of power and provides an additional source of income for a regime heavily reliant on patronage. Second, it gives the government the chance to take credit for externally financed projects, pointing at improvements in service provision and living standards to bolster its prestige. Third, being fungible, aid may free up resources for less legitimate uses, helping to bankroll authoritarian and corrupt practices. The researcher Filippo de Danieli has suggested that international counter-narcotics assistance, for instance, has permitted the Tajik regime to spend more resources on maintaining social control while it ostensibly acts to meet its international obligations.[17]
Finally, international peace-building efforts have not only failed to counter authoritarian politics in Tajikistan but may have helped to legitimise it. This is suggested by John Heathershaw, a leading expert on post-civil war Tajikistan, who notes that many democracy- and peace-building initiatives have been derailed by regime actors, who use them as opportunities to affirm the dominance of the regime and the subordination of opposition voices.[18] At meetings between regime and civil society groups, government representatives have routinely taken charge, relegating independent actors to the margins. The regime’s outward playing-along with peace-building initiatives helps, according to Heathershaw, to “keep international aid flowing and sustain[s] the Tajikistani state as a sovereign and legitimate member of the international community.”[19]
Political patronage
More to the point, the ruling circle uses patronage to secure support. It does so through its control of government appointments – “one of the few paths to even moderate enrichment”, according to an ICG report[20] – and key economic assets in the country. A part of the value of some of the economic assets is diverted into foreign shell companies reportedly set up for the benefit of the ruling elite. For instance, the Tajik aluminium company, TALCO, the largest industrial enterprise in Tajikistan and once estimated to account for one-third of the country’s GDP,[21] operates as part of an offshore arrangement that saw an estimated one billion USD redirected from TALCO into a shell company in the British Virgin Islands between 2005 and 2008 alone.[22] While the nature of the ownership of the shell company is shrouded in secrecy, TALCO is under Rahmon’s control, indicating that the arrangement exists with his approval. Certainly, there has been much speculation that offshore companies are used as personal slush funds by regime figures to reinforce their powers of patronage, among other purposes.[23] In the case of TALCO, the British Virgin Islands-based company buys the company’s produce for a modest fee, then resells it on world markets.[24] The details of this arrangement remain opaque, but the de-nationalisation of a part of Tajikistan’s economic wealth – in ways that are consistent with international financial regulations – at the very least removes it by one step from domestic political and bureaucratic processes and increases opportunities for economic predation.
Tajik nationalism
The Rahmon regime has shed its Communist guise since the civil war and has played up its nationalist credentials. It now casts itself as the guardian of the nation and a bulwark against foreign interference. Ruling the only Persianate country in post-Soviet Central Asia, it promotes a discourse of Turkic encirclement, pointing at bellicose posturing by Uzbekistan, among other things, as evidence of Tajikistan’s precarious position.
It is difficult to gauge the discourse’s popular traction, but researchers such as Heathershaw and Edmund Herzig believe it to have considerable currency. By portraying Tajikistan as a fledgling state surrounded by scheming Turks, the regime maintains a rhetoric of vulnerability. It is used to justify its strong-fisted rule and to support claims that it alone can guarantee Tajikistan’s future prosperity. This discourse has recently been reinvigorated by the alleged threat posed by Islamic militants. That perceived menace is used as a counterpoint to the regime’s secular vision of Tajik nationality, offering a tool to mobilise people around the official interpretation of Tajik nationhood and statehood.
War-weariness
There is widespread fear of renewed conflict in Tajikistan, where the civil war has left the population with a deep trauma. That fear seems to act as a deterrent to political militancy. Certainly, opposition figures, citing their commitment to peace, have shown astonishing restraint in the past when faced with the heavy hand of the government. For instance, the leadership of the Islamic Renaissance Party has been remarkably conciliatory towards the regime, even to the point of requesting President Rahmon’s support when it defended itself against heavy pressure from the government last summer.[25] Presumably, the party’s leaders understood that a more militant stance would have won little favour from the war-weary public. Nevertheless, in the end, their appeal proved futile. The party was banned and declared a terrorist organisation. Much of the leadership was imprisoned.
To keep the memory of the civil war fresh, state television regularly airs footage of the conflict. State-written religious sermons have endorsed the official narrative, blaming the war on the opposition.[26] State-controlled media have portrayed Rahmon as the sole peace-maker, conveniently forgetting that the now-deceased former IRP head, Said Abdullo Nuri, was also instrumental in ending the war.
One implicit message in the commemorations is that political division breeds instability. Responsibility for the civil war is laid at the feet of the opposition groups who challenged the central government’s authority in 1990–92. This interpretation, which has wide resonance in Tajik society, places the onus for stability in Tajikistan squarely on the shoulders of non-state actors. It is also a tacit reminder to would-be dissenters of the high stakes that political opposition entails.