MOCCA project participants attended the annual conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society from June 6 to 9, 2024, hosted by the esteemed Turan University, one of Kazakhstan's leading educational institutions.
The MOCCA project team presented their work under the panel title "Straddling between 'Legality' and 'Illegality' in Everyday Life: Corruption and Informal Practices in Central Asia". This panel aimed to explore the social life of corruption in Central Asia by presenting empirically grounded insights into people's and state officials' experiences of 'legality' and 'illegality' in everyday life situations. The central argument of the panel was that explanations of corruption in authoritarian regime contexts such as Central Asia cannot be reduced to 'black-and-white' perspectives, as the roles, meanings, and logics of corruption are fluid, potentially varying at different levels and orders of society depending upon a myriad of structural variables, power positions, and contextual and situational factors.
The panel included the following presentations:
- "Reforming Doctoral Education in Uzbekistan: Rules, Norms of Behaviour, and Informality" by Kobil Ruziev (UWE Bristol), Mokhidil Mamasolieva (University of Surrey), and Dilshoda Rabbimova (New Uzbekistan University).
- "Anti-corruption examination of regulatory legal acts: a comparative analysis of the cases of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan" by Daniya Nurmukhankyzy (Zhetysu University named after I.Zhansugurov).
- "Corruption and Access to Infrastructure: A Sociological Study in Kazakhstan" by Daniyar Kaldiyarov (Eurasian Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies) and Dinara Rakhmatullayeva (Eurasian Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies).
- "Corruption and Social Norms in Central Asia" by Patrik Olsson (Sociology of Law, Lund University).
