With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, former Communist Party leaders in Central Asia were faced with the daunting task of building states where they previously had not existed Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Their task was complicated by the institutional and ideological legacy of the Soviet system as well as by a more actively engaged international community. These nascent states inherited a set of institutions that included bloated bureaucracies, centralized economic planning, and patronage networks. Some of these institutions survived, others have...

The establishment of electoral systems in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan presents a complex set of empirical puzzles as well as a theoretical challenge. Why did three states with similar cultural, historical, and structural legacies establish such different electoral systems? How did these distinct outcomes result from strikingly similar institutional design processes? Explaining these puzzles requires understanding not only the outcome of institutional design but also the intricacies of the process that led to this outcome. Moreover, the transitional context in which the three states...