Chapter 2 conceptualizes constitutional properties in both domestic and international settings. Drawing on domestic experiences, it defines constitutions, whether written or unwritten, as a special category of institutions that provide fundamental rules (of recognition and change) as well as rules that regulate a community of members, their relations, and their rights and duties (rules of conduct). It then identifies corresponding constitutional properties in the international setting, acknowledging the limits of this analogy. While still embryonic, international rules with constitutional relevance are especially apparent in those binding treaties of public international law that are universal in intended participation, global in scope, and of substantive importance. These rules are underpinned by the principle of sovereignty, which provides for their stability and superiority. International constitutional rules define states as the prime members, organize inter–state relations in an anarchical environment by concentrating authority in circumscribed domains, and lay out rights and duties that enable collective action and set standards of appropriate behavior.

This chapter takes a long view of the evolution of appeals for emergency aid. Our case studies of Ireland, Soviet Russia, and Ethiopia illustrate the trajectory of humanitarian fundraising over time. The chapter provides new empirical research on appeals for aid in each case, while identifying key distinctions as well as striking similarities and continuities in discourse and practice. In each case, transnational aid mobilisation gained momentum when the disaster received media attention after the crisis had escalated. The socio-political context differed, as Soviet Russia and Ethiopia were ruled by regimes hostile to the West, making transnational aid a delicate matter, while Ireland was part of the British Empire. While Irish and Russian representatives appealed directly to donors, Ethiopian victims depended on brokers abroad to make the calls for aid. However, humanitarian actors were also forced to complement their support for distant sufferers with ancillary campaigns for the local charity market.

This chapter presents an overview of the history of humanitarian efforts as seen according to a new periodisation scheme, which identifies three main phases of engagement. These are the laissez-faire 'ad hoc humanitarianism' of the nineteenth century, the 'organised humanitarianism' associated with Taylorism and mass society (c. 1900–70), and the 'expressive humanitarianism' characterising the period since 1968. We combine this with background information on the context of the three case studies: relief efforts during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s; the famine that ravaged Soviet Russia and the Ukraine in 1921–3; and the devastating famine in Ethiopia of the mid-1980s.

Introduction

In 2011 and 2012, shocking videos of the abuse and torture of Kyrgyz female migrants in Russia were posted on the Internet. The videos captured scenes of beating, insults and death threats, as well as women being forced to get naked. These acts of violence were committed, filmed and posted online by their compatriots, a group of ethnic Kyrgyz male migrants in Russia, who called themselves ‘patriots of the [Kyrgyz] nation’. They claim to have punished the female ‘traitors of the [Kyrgyz] nation’ for being ‘morally loose’ and ‘having relations with men of other ethnicities [non-Kyrgyz]’ (Ibraeva et al, 2015: 4). These cases are indicative of a violent ethno-nationalist sentiment that has emerged in contemporary Kyrgyz society. They also highlight the following phenomena: (1) the role of the media in promoting rather than countering ethno-nationalism; and (2) the securitization of mixed couples/marriages seen as a threat to the Kyrgyz nation. Similar cases can also be observed in Kazakhstan, where male ‘patriots’ who are on social media, also referred as ‘uyat men’ (uyat from Kazakh/Kyrgyz/Uzbek can be translated as ‘shame’), shame women for moral ‘crimes’ (marrying foreigners, prostitution, promiscuous behaviour and so on) (Kumemov, 2018).

The monitoring and shaming of women for moral ‘crimes’ and the crossing of ethnic boundaries is a global phenomenon and not unique to Central Asia. A number of scholars worldwide have illuminated this problem in their works on honour and shame, the control of women's sexuality, and honour and moral crimes. These include, for example, Goddard's (2013) work on the control of women's sexuality in Nepal, Yeşilçiçek's (2017) study of violence against women in the name of honour in Turkey, research on women from minority groups murdered in the name of honour in Britain (Gill, 2017) and research on patriarchal social control over young women's clothing and bodies (Honkatukia and Keskinen, 2018).

In Kyrgyzstan, the suppression of women is often discussed in the context of bride kidnapping/abduction, which is referred to in the Kyrgyz language as literally ‘grab and run’ (ala/alyp kachuu).

This chapter explores the social origins of famine and outlines the book's fresh moral economic perspective on humanitarian aid – it updates and reconfigures moral economy as a tool for understanding prioritisations of transnational charity. The chapter draws on scholar-activists including Peter Singer, Amartya Sen, and E. P. Thompson, among others.

This book is about security and insecurity in Kyrgyzstan. It explores perceptions of existential danger in the country– and the means employed for dealing with them, that is, for surviving. However, the stories and social practices collected here diverge from many other publications on the same issue. As has been frequently argued, security is anything but a straightforward object of inquiry. The threats in question and the ways in which they are engaged are very much a matter of perspective– or, as we argue here, always tied to the particular securityscapes of certain actors. It is for this reason that we can expect to encounter multiple accounts of security and insecurity in any given space. This also holds true for our case of Kyrgyzstan, which is the smallest country in Central Asia. Nevertheless, the vast majority of both popular and scholarly accounts on security in Kyrgyzstan focus on a number of events that construct a fairly limited narrative of what danger is ostensibly all about here. It often evokes, for instance, the ‘Tulip Revolution’ of 2005 and the ‘Rose Revolution’ of 2010– popular uprisings that were provoked by corruption and nepotism among political elites and the resulting poverty of large parts of the population (Ismailbekova, 2018a). It equally foregrounds interethnic animosities. In the summer of 2010, violent clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbek residents in the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad left several hundred people dead (Akiner, 2016). Kyrgyzstan's ‘National Security Concept’ from 2012 counts ‘increasing separatist tendencies, interethnic animosities [and] ethno-regionalism’ among the top domestic threats. More recently, the country has also been identified as a breeding ground for Islamic radicalization and violent extremism (Matveeva, 2018). Picking up a book on security in Kyrgyzstan, one can reasonably expect to read about some dangerous mixture of political instability, ethnic tensions and terrorism.

The point of this volume is not to contest or challenge such a viewpoint. In fact, given the empirical material at hand, these threat perceptions appear to be quite warranted. Moreover, the data compiled here certainly concur with the observation that life in Kyrgyzstan can be dangerous indeed. Yet, the argument that we want to make is that this perspective alone sheds only partial light on security and danger in the country.

The Introduction outlines how this book takes a fresh look at humanitarian action over two centuries through the concept of moral economy. The book employs a theoretical outlook that reflects the emerging academic interest in histories of morality, the cross-disciplinary rise of a ‘moral economy’ discourse beyond the confines of E. P. Thompson’s framing, and the growing field of humanitarian studies. The integrated moral economy perspective draws on philosophical, humanitarian, and medical ethics, especially the problems of triage. We present three empirical studies which provide insights into the history of three humanitarian causes.

Introduction

I am sitting on the bench talking with my respondent about his everyday life in the ‘here and now’, which he seems to perceive positively and with a great optimism. He is a university student, wearing bright crimson pants and a yellow cap. The day is sunny and the park is quite crowded. People are walking along the avenue. They look at him for a second and pass by. One young mother with a stroller smiles at us. We do not notice how a group of young men have stopped nearby. One of them says several insulting words in Kyrgyz. My respondent replies rather rudely. In response, the speaker spits in his direction, and the group moves on, constantly looking back. “Do you see? That's why I’m going to move to San Francisco!” His tone stays optimistic but it becomes clear that his enthusiasm for studying and participating in extracurricular activities is not (or, at least, not only) about the ‘here and now’, but mostly about his future. His brave and provocative behaviour suddenly assumes a shade of detachment and alienation, creating a distance between him and his environment. I know that in the world of animals and insects, bright colours are the perfect means for ‘protective aggression’, warning others not to approach, but I have just understood that for this young gay man from Bishkek, they are also a vehicle for escape– to escape not ‘to somewhere’, but just ‘out of here’. Actually, he was the only respondent of mine who had the guts to dress in this way when walking through the city. Still, his reaction to the abuse belied his vulnerability and bravado because this kind of behaviour is really risky and he is completely aware of the risks. At that moment, I saw why he wanted to leave for San Francisco. Indeed, I came to see some kind of ‘San Francisco’ behind each and every story that I collected during my research.

During Soviet times, male homosexuality was criminalized in Kyrgyzstan. Transgender people and lesbians were mostly considered within a psychopathological framework.

Introduction

In his novel The day lasts more than a hundred years, the prominent Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aytmatov (1982) compares Sabitzhan, the book's main character epitomizing Soviet youth, with a mythological figure called Mankurt, who acts as a slave of the conquerors due to his loss of memory. Legend has it that the Zhuan-Zhuan tribe, the powerful conquerors of the Kazakh steppes, used a special technique to wipe out the memory of local people: they shaved their hair off, wrapped their shaved heads in an tripe freshly cut from a camel and left them for several days in the Kazakh steppe. In the sun, the tripe dried and clung ever-more tightly to the scalp of the victims. As a result, their hair did not grow outwards but was directed inwards to penetrate their brain. Most captives died from this unbearable suffering but a few sturdy and muscular men would survive. The survivors could not remember who they were and what their virtues or destiny had been. The Zhuan-Zhuan conquerors then used these Mankurts as memoryless slaves to suppress their own people.

Here, Aytmatov is exploring the loss of memory and identity of the oppressed groups of the Kazakh steppe during three invasions: by the Zhuan-Zhuan tribe; by the Bukhara Emirate; and by the Soviet Union. He defines the problem from the perspective of a class antagonism that divides slaves and slaveholders, or victims and victors.

This chapter, which draws on data collected through ethnographic field research, also reflects on the question of how the hegemonic demands of dominant local groups endanger minorities and thus influence their social and cultural life. However, in contrast to Aytmatov's narrative about the dominant role of the external conquerors in wiping out the memory of local groups, the Lyuli subgroup of Mughats, a minority group in the suburban area of Osh City, Kyrgyzstan, do not always have their memory wiped out; rather, they develop certain security practices in response to the demands of the dominant local groups and the economic deprivation in which they find themselves. Mughats generate these practices by learning from their own or their elders’ selected experiences of risk.

This chapter presents the main aims, research questions and key contributions. While a consensus seems to be emerging that bureaucracies of international organizations are of growing relevance for policy making beyond the nation-state, we still do not systematically understand if and how exactly international bureaucracies seek to influence policies. We show that, most importantly, there is a lack of concepts for a comparative assessment of bureaucratic influence across different international organizations.

Introduction

The cafe ‘Timur’ is considered to be one of the first cafes in Osh City to have emerged just after the 1990 riots in Osh and Kyrgyzstan's independence in 1991. The owner of this cafe, a man named Murat, acquired some land as private property in the city of Osh in early 1991. This plot of land was strategically located in a lively part of the city centre, close to the central market. Murat decided to enter the catering business by constructing a cafe and not a restaurant because the official requirements for constructing a restaurant were very high and would have necessitated considerable additional expenditure. Apparently, in the early 1990s, opening a restaurant was a difficult and financially risky endeavour. This was mainly because: a financial infrastructure was only just beginning to form in the new country; ordinary people lacked the means to purchase even bread; and, finally, a restaurant would attract attention not only from state fiscal and law enforcement bodies, but also from organized crime. Being relatively small, cafes do not generate profits as high as those of the bigger restaurants. Indeed, even when Murat's financial situation stabilized and improved, he still considered the financial risks associated with building up a restaurant business as too great. Despite his opting for less risk, Murat used to collect and keep all the documents and certificates in case they would be needed in future.

Another challenge for Murat was that the allocation of land, the cafe's construction and general cafe operations were all inexorably linked to corruption. The decision to allocate land for the construction of the cafe was taken at the level of the mayor of the city and the governor of the region, who expected a certain ‘reward’ in return. In Murat's case, this reward, or bribe, amounted to several thousand US dollars. Local Uzbek businessmen, like Murat, are often indifferent to the problems of documents and permits. However, Murat had been carefully collecting all the required documentation (related to selling, borrowing and buying the land, cattle and other goods) for 20 years to help him secure his business from arbitrary decisions by various government authorities.