Reforming the Police in Post-Soviet States: Georgia and Kyrgyzstan (Enlarged Edition)

This report identifies and explains the determinants of police reform in former Soviet states by examining the cases of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

The two cases were chosen to show two drastically different approaches to reform played out in countries facing arguably similar problems with state-crime links, dysfunctional governments, and corrupt police forces. In Georgia, the government's reform program has fundamentally transformed the police, but it also reinforced the president Mikhail Saakashvili regime's reliance on the police.

With two political regime changes in one decade, Kyrgyzstan's failed reform effort led to increasing levels of corruption within law enforcement agencies and the rise of violent nonstate groups.

The experiences of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan show that a militarized police force is unlikely to spontaneously reform itself, even if the broader political landscape becomes more democratic.