The Ideology of the Turkmenbashy Regime

Abstract

Unlike for people in the West the state is not 'a night watchman' for Turkmens. They consider it to be a universal institution. They see in it a paternalistic organ, which displays father-like care for them, transforms the population into a single nation. It also takes care of its unity, ensures its security, makes them happy and provides them with a free life. This is the reason why the Turkmen people adore with devotion the state and its President, believe in it, support it and are willing to defend it even laying down their lives. Saparmurat Turkmenbashy 1Political elites in the majority of states pursue their own ideology, which helps them explain the most important points of their internal and external policy. The influence and even need for propaganda is less important in so called democratic states, with the constant threat of the elite changing in an election. There is little time to inculcate the appropriate ideology in the people. In such states propaganda usually relates to general issues with a wider consensus across the political spectrum. The idea of Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 6:2

25 Years of transformations of higher education systems in post-Soviet countries: reform and continuity

“…According to the model developed by the first President of Turkmenistan, Niyazov, the country has had to emphasize transformation from the Soviet model to what he called a democratic model, which was declared in the first Constitution of independent Turkmenistan. However, according to this political model, the state should be the main driver and guarantor of this process (Horak 2005). Building the education system, which had to respond to the national interests identified by Niyazov, has driven many reforms in this country.…”

The Transformation of Higher Education in Turkmenistan: Continuity and Change

“…According to Niyazow, a new democratic society could appear only through the state taking responsibilities for the well-being of the nation, which led to the total control of overall economic, social and political life of the country (Horak 2005). Post-independence reform of education was intimately tied to language and alphabet reform (Clement 2008).…”

Between “imagined” and “real” nation-building: identities and nationhood in post-Soviet Central Asia

“…Firstly, as hinted to earlier, given the authoritarian and closed nature of the regimes in the region, often nation-building policies are linked to efforts of power concentration and regime-building. The case of Turkmenistan is perhaps the most obvious example of this whereby the development of a discourse regarding a common sense of belonging was framed using the personality cult of President Niyazov in the first instance and then his successor Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow (Horak 2005(Horak , 2015Polese and Horak 2015). While there is nothing problematic about such a focus, indeed it is to be expected given the authoritarian nature of the regimes, it does portend to a top-down perspective on nation-building in the region which does not account for the other side of the state-society relationship.…”