Kyrgyzstan

I have finished and submitted my term paper for Democratization in the Middle East. Naturally, I did a democracy assessment for Kyrgyzstan. While not in the Middle East per se, it is a majority Muslim country that before 1991 had never been.

The research was the most fascinating thing. Taking my conversations with people about the nature of Central Asian identity beyond the talking and finding what actual scholars had to say was a real treat. I didn't find anything particularly shocking, really. In fact, most of what I thought I would find, I found. Still, it was good to see the process in action.

Conclusions: Slow and steady wins the democratization race. The final piece including bibliography came out to be just shy of 50 pages. As I understand it, the instructor only wanted 20-25. Ho hum.

It will be posted here when I've edited the little bugger sufficiently. Perhaps someday I'll turn it in to the big project that we always dreamed about.