Searching for the State: Ethnic and Distributive Politics in Post-Conflict Southern Kyrgyzstan

In this article, I examine ethnic and distributive politics in southern Kyrgyzstan from the perspective of state performance. Salient intergroup differences in perceived access to public goods persist due to underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in public institutions and a strategy of state avoidance among this community following violent ethnic conflict in June 2010. Within-group variation in informal network integration among ethnic Kyrgyz and formal education among non-Kyrgyz additionally contributes to perceived differences in access to public resources. My findings provide grounded evidence to complement extant discussions of ethnic and distributive politics and highlight the subjective foundations of state capacity.