Explaining the failure of legislative agency in patronal divided executives: deputy meaning making and its impact on legislative quality in Kyrgyzstan 2010–2020

ABSTRACT

In divided-executive patronal systems, legislatures have been sites of resistance to the centralization of power in a single patronal pyramid. Kyrgyzstan is an anomaly among divided-executive patronal systems when between 2010 to 2020, the Kyrgyz parliament was neither a site of opposition nor did it demonstrate legislative agency vis-à-vis the executive. Instead, following another uprising in 2020, a unified single patronal pyramid was re-established. Adopting an approach rooted in the semiotics of meaning making and drawing on a dataset of interviews with parliamentary deputies and a range of documentary sources, this article complements existing institutional approaches to explaining weak legislative agency by revealing a series of dialogical relationships between deputy meaning making and broader institutional and cultural constraints which shaped the Kyrgyz’s parliament’s overall quality and strength. These relationships pertain to legislative initiative, the protection of private interests and representation, with the interplay between the ascribed meaning and its constitution within broader institutional and cultural context contributing to the diminishment of legislative agency vis-à-vis the presidency. Kyrgyzstan illustrates the value of meaning making as an approach to understanding legislative-executive relations in non-democratic contexts, and its impact in conjunction with cultural and institutional constraints in shaping legislative agency.

KEYWORDS:

• Kyrgyzstan
• Legislative agency
• Executive-legislative relations
• Authoritarianism
• Central Asia

There is a consensus that successor communist states have developed varying shades of patronalism, also termed neopatrimonial, hybrid, or kleptocratic regimes.¹ With patronalism, politics is organized around “personalized exchange of concrete rewards and punishments through chains of actual acquaintance, and not around abstract, impersonal principles such as ideological belief or categorizations like economic class.”² Patronal systems are often organized around single-pyramid structures where a president (or as in the Moldovan parliamentary system a Prime Minister) is the preeminent actor ultimately responsible for the distribution of rewards and punishments.³ In cases where constitutions have divided executives, such as in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, two competing pyramids are meant to emerge with power balanced between groups, although the fundamental logic of informal rewards and punishment remains. Divided executives typically have greater de jure constitutional powers for legislatures. Despite this, and with a few exceptions, the role and functions of legislatures have been largely overlooked in the study of divided executive patronal regimes.⁴

A focus on legislatures in divided executive patronal regimes is important for two reasons. Firstly, even though de jure powers are considered to be subservient to informal patronal powers, the literature on authoritarian legislatures demonstrates that under such conditions, parliaments perform an important role for autocratic durability via information gathering, co-optation, coordination, and bargaining,⁵ achieved via functions such as bill amendment, legislative making, and representation.⁶ Secondly, given the divided nature of the executive we would expect the legislature to emerge as a crucible of resistance, or at the very least a site of struggle among competing patronal pyramids.⁷ In Ukraine, for example, the legislature was not just a site of protest for parliamentarians against encroaching authoritarianism, but those protests were para-institutional instruments in a patronal struggle.⁸ In Georgia, parliament was a site for oligarchic competition between Bidzina Ivanishvili and Mikheil Saakashvili, with parties acting as proxies for their interests.⁹ But, the other case of a divided executive in a patronal system in successor communist states, Kyrgyzstan, poses a puzzle when it comes to the legislature.

After the 2010 revolution in Kyrgyzstan a new constitutional settlement divested power from the president to the legislature, the Zhogorku Kenesh, establishing a divided executive system. The legislature was endowed with agency to act as a check on the power of the president to ensure no single figure or group gained supremacy. But after a third popular uprising in 2020, and a new president in power, Sadyr Japarov, a constitution was adopted with power again consolidated in the presidency and Kyrgyzstan reverted to single hierarchical pyramid patronal model. What explains the failure of legislative agency in this case? Why did the legislature not provide a site of resistance against the executive in this period from 2010–2020?

Contrary to the patronal politics literature, Kyrgyzstan demonstrates legislatures in divided executive patronal systems are not naturally disposed to being the site for competing patronal pyramids. Neither do they necessarily become spaces of resistance. Rather, in Kyrgyzstan, the legislature’s agency remained largely constrained like in non-divided executive patronal regimes. This research finds a causal explanation for the failure of legislative agency in Kyrgyzstan during the 2010–2020 period not solely in a factor such as weak party institutionalization, although that is important as others have argued,¹⁰ but rather in the dialogical relationship between the meaning ascribed by parliamentary deputies to legislative practices and broader cultural and institutional factors. Kyrgyz deputies’ understanding of parliamentary functions, and the chamber’s agency, led to an overemphasis on the legislative function – which deputies understood as their main role. This was conditioned by cultural and institutional issues pertaining to weak parliamentary expertise and high deputy turnover. The Zhogorku Kenesh was also ascribed meaning by deputies as a site for private interests, this meaning itself was tempered by the patronal political economy where business interests were opaque and legally violable meaning the president could easily use the threat of punishment to ensure compliance. Ascribing meaning to legislative initiation and the chamber as a place to protect business interests weakened deputies’ engagement with the representation function, which was also shaped by an electoral system that decoupled representation from regional constituencies, harming the public reputation of the legislature in the process.

This article adopts an analytical and methodological framework built from semiotics to identify deputy meaning making in the Zhogorku Kenesh. The analysis draws on data collected from 30 semi-structured interviews with serving and past deputies underpinned by documentary secondary sources. Using thematic analysis, three key themes emerged regarding the legislative “signs” observed by deputies, and how meaning is produced in relation to these signs and their impact on legislative strength and quality. These themes are the over initiation of legislation; the protection of private business interests; and representation.

The analysis is divided into five sections. Firstly, there is an account of recent scholarship on legislative politics in non-democracies and in patronal regimes specifically. Secondly, there is a contextual discussion on the Zhogorku Kenesh, explaining its paradoxical position in a divided executive patronal regime. Thirdly, an analytical and methodological framework is constructed centred on semiotics and thematic analysis. The fourth section provides a thematic analysis of deputy meaning making in the Kyrgyz parliament concerning the frequency of legislative initiation, the protection/lobbying of business interests, and representation. Finally, there are concluding remarks.

Legislatures, authoritarianism, and patronal regimes

The literature on authoritarian legislatures emphasizes how autocratic leaders use legislatures to integrate prospective rivals into the regime by giving them a “stake in the ruler’s survival.”¹¹ Co-optation is achieved through economic transfers, rents,¹² and policy concessions.¹³ In return, the autocrat receives important information from a range of social actors central to their survival.¹⁴ While this approach has tended to adopt a functionalist stance, implicitly interpreting parliaments’ existence vis-à-vis the function they serve the autocrat, others have sought to reveal examples of legislative agency. Such literature has uncovered how legislators are involved in legislative debate,¹⁵ amendment making and¹⁶ legislative initiation¹⁷ and such activity “can be messy and inefficient, contrary to popular notions of authoritarian policy making,” and that “policy processes in these institutions are often defined by competing regime actors who hold divergent preferences.”¹⁸ It illustrates how constraints on authoritarian power can emerge from the legislature.¹⁹

The extent of legislative agency is dependent on regime type and context. Irrespective of agency expressed through legislative functions, parliaments still exist largely for the use they serve autocrats regarding power sharing and controlling the public more effectively.²⁰ Amendment making in the Russian legislature, for example, has been shown to result from “the continuation and resolution of intraexecutive policy-making” and thus while the legislature is a “place of action,” it is action driven by intra-executive disputes rather than by legislators themselves.²¹ The literature demonstrates legislative agency is not driven by and for the legislature itself, or legislators, but rather on behalf of the executive.

More powerful examples of legislative agency can be found in divided executive patronal systems. In the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, for example, different forms of protests emerged within the chamber when elites were denied access to patronal networks, and when there were efforts by one side to centralize a single pyramid of power.²² Parliament was also used as the site of protest where opposition elites sought to shape and influence the broader rules of the game.²³ Therefore, levels of legislative agency can be dependent on the type of patronal regime within which the legislature is constituted. Within single hierarchical executives on the other hand, typically embodied in a constitution defined by “presidential supremacy” (as in Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan),²⁴ forms of legislative agency, usually channelled through formal functions such as legislative oversight or amendment making, only exist for the purpose they serve the presidential executive as a form of legitimation²⁵ or for solving intra-executive policy disputes.²⁶ The nature of Kyrgyzstan’s patronal system in the period from 2010–2020 challenges our expectations of the role of legislatures in divided executives. Rather than provide a site for contestation between rival patronal pyramids, as we would expect in a divided executive, parliament remained subservient to the presidential executive. The following section develops this paradox of parliamentarism in Kyrgyzstan.

The paradox of the “parliamentary experiment” in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan never lived up to the sobriquet “island of democracy,” rather in the last three decades it “has swung between democracy and authoritarianism,”²⁷ or at least between attempts to consolidate authoritarianism and aspirations for democracy. Kyrgyzstan’s pre-2010 presidents established single executive patronal systems. Askar Akaev seemingly began the early 1990s as a president ostensibly committed to liberal democracy, but by the latter half of the decade patronal politics defined his approach to elite and economic management, with his close network of family members appropriating key sectors of the economy,²⁸ while law enforcement agencies protected those interests and eliminated potential rivals.²⁹ Those elites excluded from the centralization of resources within Akaev’s patronal network became frustrated and defected to the opposition, leading eventually to the 2005 Tulip Revolution where Akaev was overthrown.³⁰ Akaev’s successor, Kurmanbek Bakiev, was initially a consensus figure. For the first 18 months of his presidency Bakiev held an uneasy alliance with his prime minister, Felix Kulov, who had his own powerful patronage network. Bakiev was able to oust Kulov in January 2007 and sought to construct a single-pyramid system around his presidency by revising the constitution and establishing an even deeper patronal logic than Akaev.³¹ Bakiev’s family members took direct formal control of the economy and the security services,³² while criminal groups infiltrated the state apparatus.³³ While there were various attempts by competing opposition elite groups throughout 2007–2009 to mobilize street protests to oust Bakiev, such efforts were muted.³⁴ Rather it was the deteriorating economic situation which saw his regime crumble. Bakiev was eventually overthrown in a popular uprising in April 2010 initially driven by frustrations over hydro-electric shortages, serving to remind the population of the corrupt nature of the regime.³⁵

In the aftermath of the 2010 uprising, the new constitution was designed to “make formal rules supersede the informal,” to provide a regulatory map for patronal politics, to stop the singular concentration of power and resources, and to avoid the cycles of violent regime change which had dominated Kyrgyz politics.³⁶ The post-2010 constitution represented a shift to a divided executive, and one which according to Hale served to complicate the network coordination necessary for establishing the single-pyramid patronal presidency.³⁷ The Zhogorku Kenesh, was to play a significant role in the management and regulation of competing patronal networks. The new constitution saw the presidency limited to a single six-year term with reduced budgetary and legislative powers, including no longer having the right to appoint or remove the prime minister, a power instead reserved only for the legislature.³⁸ However, the president kept the authority to veto legislation and appoint non-ministerial state positions, while also retaining the position of commander-in-chief of the army and security forces. The size of the legislature was increased from 90 to 120 seats, all deputies were to be elected through a proportional system with no single party being permitted to hold more than 65 seats, and parties had to win 0.5% in each region and 5% nationally to enter parliament.³⁹ Analysts and politicians referred to the new constitutional settlement as a parliamentary-presidential system.⁴⁰

These changes while ostensibly divesting power to parliament, and seemingly establishing a divided executive, featured ill-defined contours of authority. While many of the levers of power were removed from the president, Almazbek Atambayev, who won the 2011 presidential election under the new constitutional rules, was still able to centralize power.⁴¹ The constitution was ambiguous. The president retained the right to appoint heads of important state agencies, while the power of parliament and prime minster relied on strong parties and governing coalitions, something in short supply from 2010–2020, easily allowing presidential interference and control.⁴²

Yet, the logic of patronal politics remained hardwired in the system; rather than rents being channelled centrally via the presidential executive as under Akaev and Bakiev, in the post-2010 context they were to be managed through a coalition-based system in which parliament became the centre of the state-business nexus, where access to positions in government, the state and even in parliament were akin to an “investment market.”⁴³ Officials paid for positions as posts represented an investment in potential earning capabilities. Consequently, corruption and vote-buying continued to pervade Kyrgyz politics after 2010. Nonetheless, under such conditions, and as expected according to a patronal logic in divided executives, the legislature would be a site to act as a barrier to the centralization of presidential authority via a single hierarchical pyramid, and the institutional forum where patronal networks were managed. Indeed, early assessments suggested that was the case. According to Erica Marat, “the institution eased competition over economic resources among players who otherwise would choose to destabilize the state to reach their goals.”⁴⁴ Despite this, the Zhogorku Kenesh, during the period of 2010–2020 did not fulfil these expectations. Not only did the legislature fail to demonstrate significant agency vis-à-vis the presidency, but by 2021 the constitution was revised with power again being formally centralized in the presidential executive, and with a new single-pyramid patronal regime under Sadyr Japarov. This formal re-centralization of presidential power was a consequence of Atamabayev’s hand-picked successor as president, Sooronbay Jeenbekov,⁴⁵ being routed from his position in the aftermath of the 2020 parliamentary election in which street protests, initially galvanized by pandemic-related economic decline, and then the rigged parliamentary election, were overtaken by Japarov, who was broken out of prison during the violence.⁴⁶ In the midst of the protests, and seeking to shore up his position, Jeenbekov agreed to the appointment of Japarov as Prime Minister, but Jeenbekov resigned the following day leaving Japarov as acting president who then won the January 2021 presidential election. Following the election Japarov held a constitutional referendum asking voters if they preferred a presidential or parliamentary system, 85% voted for a return to presidentialism on a 35% turnout. In April 2021, Japarov signed the new constitution into law and Kyrgyzstan’s divided executive experiment ended.

What are the underlying conditions explaining the lack of legislative agency in this instance? This is a period where according to the logic of patronal politics in divided executives, parliament should be a site of contentious politics for different groups to compete for access to power and resources, while also challenging presidential authority. A broad range of social, cultural, and political factors have been posited to explain the weakness of some political institutions in Kyrgyzstan over the last 30 years. Not least, this has included a political culture predicated on personalism where political parties are vanity vehicles for aspiring politicians and whose base of support is a horizontal network premised on clan ties.⁴⁷ Economically, the weakness of Kyrgyzstan’s exports has also hindered efforts of democratization in the country,⁴⁸ leaving some presidents weak and ineffectual in dealing with challenges to their rule.⁴⁹ A Soviet legacy of centralized authoritarian leadership is also proffered as an explanation for the weakness of parliamentary power in Kyrgyzstan.⁵⁰ Undoubtedly, all these factors (and this is not an exhaustive discussion) play a role in explaining the complexity of weak legislative agency in Kyrgyzstan in both the pre- and post-2010 period. In explaining the paradox of parliamentarism during the 2010–2020 period, Engvall has pointed exclusively to an institutional argument and specifically, weak party institutionalization. Under the post-2010 constitutional rules, parties were vested with the power to form governments and make senior appointments, but failed to take on the responsibility as they remained largely impermanent vanity vehicles for special interests and political elites seeking a seat in parliament.⁵¹ Consequently, parliament became a site for persistent political infighting which created unstable coalition governments through which the successive presidencies of Atambayev and Jeenbekov exploited to centralize power and wield influence over the legislature.⁵²

While weak party institutionalization (especially party switching, where deputies change parties between elections), and the instability arising from political infighting can explain the conditions in which the presidency was able to take advantage of an ambiguous constitution, it does not address why parliamentarians behaved the way they did. To focus on only institutional incentives risks underplaying the role of agency and specifically how parliamentarians understand the meaning of their role and how that might shape political outcomes. In this way, we can draw on a structuration approach. Structure (i.e. institutions) “has no existence independent of the knowledge that agents have about what they do in their day-to-day activity.”⁵³ Thus, explanations of political and social outcomes cannot be levelled solely at structural or agential factors, but rather agents shape institutions as much as institutions shape agents. With Kyrgyzstan, this is not to say weak party institutionalization is an insufficient explanation for the failure of legislative agency vis-a-vis the presidency rather it is only half the story. Parties are weakly institutionalized partly because of the attitudes, perspectives, and meaning attributed to them by actors within them. This meaning-making approach is being used to complement rather than contest other institutional, cultural, and social factors. Parties and parliament cannot be divorced from the agents who constitute those institutions. It is those individuals, their attitudes, their understanding, and the meaning they ascribe to the activities of parliament which condition the broader power and operation of these larger political structures. Thus, to understand the lack of parliamentary agency we need to understand the attitudes and meaning ascribed to the practice of the institutions from those within them and how those meanings are also shaped in turn.

The questions we are left with concern the context, contingency, and meaning ascribed to the legislature by those working within it. How did Kyrgyz deputies understand the functions and meaning of parliament and legislative-executive relations during this period? And what does that explain of parliament’s respective agency, strength, and quality as an institution vis-à-vis the executive in a divided executive patronal system? To address these questions the article now develops a framework for analysing deputing meaning-making derived from semiotics.

Theorizing deputy meaning making in authoritarian legislatures

Meaning making and the semiotics of authoritarian legislatures

Semiotics and meaning making has been under-used in legislative studies. Whitmore’s work on the Russian Duma is the sole example in patronal systems, but that research focused on a single hierarchical patronal pyramid (rather than divided) and a single legislative function (oversight), rather than multiple functions.⁵⁴ There is also body of scholarship on somatic performance in parliaments,⁵⁵ but how deputies understand the role and power of parliament is limited. Outside of patronal regimes, Jaakko Turunen drew upon semiotic thinkers to explore parliamentary debate in the Slovakian and Polish cases, revealing how parliamentary talk is characterized by a constantly evolving topic whereby the meaning of the bill changes over the course of different readings. Despite legislative studies moving beyond behavioural and rational choice approaches with more sociological and normative focused studies, these studies represent the limits of scholarship which has addressed parliament using semiotics and meaning making.⁵⁶

Meaning making “is the proposition that humans constantly seek to understand the world around them, and the imposition of meaning on the world is a goal in itself, a spur to action, and a site of contestation.”⁵⁷ Meaning making can be framed through semiotics, understood as the study of signs that stand for or represent something else.⁵⁸ Charles Pierce defined a sign “in the widest sense for any medium for the communication or extension of a Form (or feature). Being medium, it is determined by something, called its Object, and determines something, called its Interpretant.”⁵⁹ Peirce’s introduction of an interpretative element to semiotics overcame previously held assumptions about the logical, linear, and progressively accumulated syntagmatic structure of signs in which they exist in a shared coherent code.⁶⁰ Rather, the triadic relationship between sign, object, and interpretant is possibly unlimited, pointing to the complexity and multi-vocal nature of semiotics.⁶¹

In applying meaning making to an authoritarian legislature, I establish a three-part analytical sign structure (Figure 1). Firstly, the signifying element of signs includes the functions of legislatures as would typically exist in an autocratic context: e.g. legislative initiation/policy making, oversight, representation, and elite interests. Secondly, the object is the legislature and its position vis-à-vis the executive. Thirdly, how the object is understood is dependent upon the meaning ascribed to signs: the interpretant. In the Kyrgyz legislature, deputies are responsible for the development of the interpretant, they ascribe meaning and interpret the functions and role of the legislature within the broader cultural context of Kyrgyz politics. These three elements of meaning making are cooperative, dialogical, and connected in a mutually constitutive process. The interpretant (deputies) influences the object (executive-legislative relations) through their interpretations of signs (functions), but the interpretant is also influenced by the broader context in which those signs are constituted (institutional, political, and cultural factors).

Figure 1. Analytical sign structure for studying meaning making in an authoritarian legislature.

Meaning making is important for the study of legislatures in divided executive patronal systems. We know authoritarian legislatures (objects) are imbued with functions (signs) typically associated with democratic legislatures, but how these functions are interpreted in an authoritarian context is dependent on the meaning given to them by deputies and other actors (interpretant), as has been noted by Whitmore in the Russian Duma and the oversight function.⁶² The dialogical interplay between signs, object, and interpretant unpacks more closely the interaction between structure (political institutions) and agency (deputies) and its influence on legislative strength. The focus on this interplay is lacking in functionalist approaches which tend towards structure and in behaviouralist/rational choice approaches which emphasize agency. Thus, through meaning making we gain a clearer sense of the context, contingency, and agency which governs legislative-executive relations by unpacking the social construction of legislative practice and its relational and interpretative underparts.

Legislative quality and strength

While this study is not principally about measuring legislative strength, it is necessary to have a grasp on the indicators to assess the impact of meaning making on the Kyrgyz legislative-executive relations. Legislative quality and strength have been measured using the Parliamentary Powers Index (PPI), an index of 32 legislative powers. The PPI is framed around the legislature’s hold over the executive, legislative autonomy, its power over policy areas, and institutional capacity.⁶³ While there have been criticisms of the PPI,⁶⁴ as this study is not seeking to measure legislative strength comparatively, using the PPI as a methodological tool is less important. Rather, what this work adopts from the PPI is its focus on expert interviews to measure and interpret legislature powers. This study establishes three broad categories of legislative power to examine the impact of meaning-making on legislative strength and quality. This was achieved through a thematic analysis of how deputies and other actors associated with the Kyrgyz legislature interpret and give meaning to the powers, actions, and behaviour of parliament concerning the capacity of the legislature: (1) to hold the executive to account, (2) to develop and enact quality legislation, and (3) for representation.

Speaking with deputies: thematic analysis

The main categories were developed through a thematic analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews with deputies, former serving deputies, government advisors, journalists, and political experts in Kyrgyzstan conducted in Bishkek between March to July 2019. Participants were recruited through initial gatekeepers, via contact information available on the Zhogorku Kenesh website and snowball sampling. A reflexive approach to thematic analysis was adopted in which interview data was broken down, line-by-line, cross-referenced with other interviews, and triangulated with documentary sources (online media sources, NGO reports, speeches, policy documents) to establish an initial set of codes. These codes, via a process of constant comparison and cross-referencing, were then collated into broader themes, and further refined and abstracted upwards to establish the three main “signs,” interpretant categories, categories of legislative strength, and intervening factors (see Table 1).

Table 1. Relationship between interpretant categories, corresponding legislative strength and explanations for executive dominance.

Sign	Interpretant categories developed through thematic analysis	Corresponding legislative strength category	Intervening. cultural, social, institutional factors
Legislative function	Over initiation of legislation, perceived as main role, weakness of oversight and control functions	Capacity of legislature to develop and enact quality legislation	Weak parliamentary expertise, political infighting, weak party institutionalization
Composition of Legislature	Site for the protection of private interests	Capacity of legislature to hold executive to account	Political economy of patronal system, executive control of deputies through “suspended punishment”
Representation	Representation; focus on regional aspect of representation, legislation derived from “real life”, importance of institutional framework	Capacity of legislature for representation	Lack of formal regional representation and representation activities weakens public legitimation of parliament

It is worth noting deputies in a non-liberal democratic context are drawing upon expectations of legislative functions based on a “Western” model of what constitutes such functions and agency. Consequently, there is potential for deputies to ascribe meanings based on assumptive feelings of what they should be expected to say, and any analysis must be sensitive to this issue. Meanings as pertaining to legislative activity will also be conditioned by the subjective interests of the intra- and extra-parliamentary competition which comprises Kyrgyzstan’s patronal politics. Deputies are interested in settling scores and boosting public profiles, and an interview with a western researcher is a forum for that. Nevertheless, this research is premised on an interpretivist methodology where the author has a role in interpreting the meaning of deputy meaning making in the context within which meaning is constructed, and where it is necessary to recognize and account for, as much as possible, subjective bias and intention. Next, I explore the three main interpretant categories: over initiation of legislation; protection of private interests; and representation.

Over initiation of legislation

In patronal systems, the legislative function of parliament is important for patronal presidents to ensure their policy becomes enacted by a reliable cadre of deputies.⁶⁵ In divided executive patronal systems, however, there is a tendency for “legislative spam” whereby deputies abuse their right to amend amendments to bills passing through the chamber, impacting the efficiency and quality of legislation and overall effectiveness of parliament.⁶⁶ We can observe this latter phenomenon in the Kyrgyz case. Parliamentarians in Kyrgyzstan construed the principal meaning of their role within the legislative largely on a single “sign”: the legislative function. From the interviews, the legislative function was often discussed has having most meaning in terms of deputy agency and this was expressed via the production of excessive draft legislation.⁶⁷ As one deputy noted they just “understand their role as creators of laws, despite the fact that they also have a role in terms of oversight and representation.”⁶⁸ A common characterization of the 2010–2020 period arising from interview data was that because deputies interpreted the legislative function as the primary function of their work, they ended up initiating too many draft laws. One high-profile deputy noted “deputies were in a world championship of inventing laws, changing laws, and introducing new laws … deputies think that the main indicator of their job is the number of laws passed and they strive for quantity,”⁶⁹ and “parliamentarians think their rating of effectiveness is on the number of legislative initiatives.”⁷⁰ One deputy who has served from 2010 until the present spoke of personally initiating 37 draft laws just in relation to social issues.⁷¹

The meaning ascribed to the legislative function is backed up by legislative data. The fifth convocation from 2010–2015 considered 1377 draft laws, of which 1018 (74%) were adopted.⁷² With the sixth convocation (2015–2020) 1232 laws were initiated, with 697 being signed off by the president (57%).⁷³ The discrepancy between the two convocations can be explained by the parliamentary leadership and the government trying to restrain deputy legislative initiative. This was achieved principally by the government delaying law development and presidential sign off.⁷⁴ This level of legislative initiative is comparatively high. Compared with Ukraine, while there is a larger volume of legislative initiation than in Kyrgyzstan, the percentage of laws adopted into law is lower (37%), and the number of deputies significantly higher (450 compared to 120).⁷⁵

What was the impact of deputies placing more meaning on legislative initiation? One explanation was that it shaped other elements of legislative agency, notably parliamentary debate, and scrutiny of draft laws via the process of readings. Article 80, clause 4 of the 2010 Kyrgyz constitution commits the legislature to passing laws in three readings.⁷⁶ While this was a marked improvement of Soviet and early Soviet practice of legislative reading, one noted problem was how deputies ascribed little meaning to the importance of readings, because “the practice was misused … sitting deputies accepted the laws in one reading, but announced that it was three readings … they just voted three times in one sitting.”⁷⁷ This is backed up by data on the parliament’s website where it is often documented that bills are passed in just one reading.⁷⁸ The over initiation of legislation is also observed as causing problems of contradiction, with laws beings passed which negate or go against existing legal precedents.⁷⁹ One serving deputy noted that

laws are passed very quickly, without expert opinion in a rush. Then when implementing these laws, it creates chaos and a public relations disaster. To rectify the situation, we adopt another 10 laws to amend the mess that was created by the previous 10 laws.⁸⁰

What factors might explain why deputies would interpret the meaning of their legislative role as primarily that of initiators of draft laws? For some interviewees the answer lies in the inexperience and lack of expertise of deputies in the fifth and sixth convocations. As one noted, “not wanting to insult anyone, but the quality of deputies, and their level of preparedness in this cohort is low. There is a lack of understanding of the law-making process.”⁸¹ The context to this is a broader culture of high deputy turnover between convocations, something not uncommon in patronal systems. For example, in the convocations relevant to the period under study, turnover was 91% from the fourth (2007–2010) to the fifth (2010–2015) with only 8 deputies retaining a place in the legislature, and 75% from the fifth to the sixth convocation (2015–2020), with 30 deputies keeping a seat in the new convocation. The high turnover between the fourth to fifth convocations needs to be understood in the context of the 2010 revolution and the ousting of Bakiev from power, as the fourth convocation had been dominated by his party Ak Zhol (Bright Path).

One impact of the over-initiation of law was an underemphasis of the oversight function which complicated government implementation of legislation.⁸² As one deputy noted, “the control function is weaker than it should be because there are many laws, and we are unable to control their implementation.”⁸³ Evidence from the parliament’s website supports this claim. There is only 68 documented examples of parliamentary oversight of initiated laws compared to 4539 documented examples of legislative initiation.⁸⁴ At the same time, this was not just the case that the government could get away with not implementing laws, or that deputies were too fixated on legislative initiation and neglected ex-post oversight, rather that the initiation and then adoption of laws had been so high that it was “difficult for the government and officials keep up with new rules and procedures.”⁸⁵ Furthermore, oversight of how government and the presidential administration administered laws was specifically lacking in parliamentary written instruction.⁸⁶ Thus, the legislative sign of “oversight” is weak in what it communicates to deputies. Without forceful written instruction to guide and shape the activities of parliamentarians, deputies were left to interpret more meaning from the legislative function.

A further impact of deputies’ interpretation of legislative activity being focused on bill initiation was the extent to which parliamentary agency vis-à-vis the executive was subservient to presidential will. The expectation with the post-2010 convocations (2010–2020) was they should have displayed agency and strength given they were part of a divided executive. Yet, the sixth convocation was taunted as the “legendary parliament for being criticised,” noted not just for its lack of expertise, but also for the tendency to pass laws almost unanimously (an investigation by Kloop.kg found 98% deputy approval of all laws initiated by the government),⁸⁷ and a tendency to just waive through all presidential initiatives without opposition.⁸⁸

Deputy meaning making in the Kyrgyz parliament is ascribed by the fact that deputies understood initiating legislation as fundamental to their agency. The issue of over initiation is central to the dialogical relationship of meaning making in authoritarian legislative politics. The parliamentary “sign” (legislative function) is interpreted as the main activity of parliamentarians (interpretant), but this is conditioned by the broader cultural context including high deputy turn over/weak parliamentary expertise (a product of the unstable political context with shifting competition between patronal groups) which impacts legislative agency vis-à-vis the executive. Thus, the relationship between meaning making and other factors exists in a mutually constituted dialogue. Meaning making shapes political outcomes in terms of legislative-executive relations but is also shaped by the broader cultural and institutional context. The focus on legislative initiative shapes the second “sign” of Kyrgyz legislature politics: which is how between 2010 and 2020 the Zhogorku Kenesh was given meaning by deputies as a site for business elites to protect their interests.

Protection of interests

In interviews with deputies, parliament was ascribed meaning as a place where businessmen obtained seats to protect their private interests. For example, one deputy noted “parliament consists of businesspeople who have money and use that to buy seats … they have access to the PM’s office, to the General Prosecutor’s office, and sometimes the president … they have access to investors and probably use it for their own interests.”⁸⁹ As another noted:

I am not against businessmen or them being represented in parliament, it’s society, all groups should be represented and definitely businessmen as well, but it shouldn’t be the majority, and … not necessarily the specific leaders of business companies themselves, who leave their business and go into politics without the appropriate skills … I just think that, many are motivated by business interests.⁹⁰

This interpretation of a parliamentary sign (the composition of parliament) was widely held across interviewees.⁹¹

That deputies should interpret parliament as a site where they can protect private interests should be no surprise to scholars of patronal systems in the former communist space. The role of private interests in parliament via businessmen taking up seats in legislatures is a common phenomenon in states such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Georgia, among others.⁹² While businessmen had always taken seats in the Zhogorku Kenesh, especially from 1995 once privatization had taken effect,⁹³ the post-2010 convocations became most associated with business and private interests. One measure of this is the number of criminal cases instigated against deputies increased substantially from 2010, especially in relation to corruption. In the first convocation (1995–2000) there was just two criminal cases, one in the second (2000–2005), none in the third (2005–2007), three in the fourth (2007–2010), 20 in the fifth (2010–2015) and seven in the sixth (2015–2020).⁹⁴ The threat of criminal punishment against deputies was a useful tool for the patronal presidency to ensure the compliance of MPs (discussed below).

While deputies who were interviewed interpreted parliament as a place dominated by businessmen, to what extent did their perception reflect reality? Rough estimations were proffered ranging from 80% to 50%⁹⁵ although one report based on open-source data claimed 73% of deputies had business ties.⁹⁶ Deputies understanding for why parliament was composed this way was rooted in a broader political economy which left businessmen with little choice but to become parliamentarians. As one deputy noted, “they come to protect their business. If you are a very big businessman and not a deputy, it’s very difficult to protect your business from being attacked or captured, or you could even end up in jail.”⁹⁷ Thus, following Engvall’s notion of the state as a marketplace, seats in the Zhogorku Kenesh became a valuable commodity. Since the shift to a fully proportional system in 2007, by which deputies were elected via a party list, prospective deputies were able to buy a place on a given party list,⁹⁸ costing upwards of 1 million dollars.⁹⁹ Parties rely on such finance to fund election campaigns. The more money the party receives, the higher up the list a prospective candidate is placed.¹⁰⁰

How did interpreting the legislature in this way shape the agency of the Kyrgyz parliament? Firstly, some deputies interpreted other deputies using the legislature for the protection of interests as corruption.¹⁰¹ Throughout interviews one example of such perceived protection of business interests appeared frequently. This case concerned a law passed in October 2015 abolishing VAT on grain imports. For anti-corruption campaigner and former deputy Shirin Aitmatova, the fact the bill was introduced only 10 days after the 2015 parliamentary election was no coincidence and was linked to the interests of the so-called “flour mafia” in parliament.¹⁰² Aitmatov outlined in a video published online in 2019 how at the time in 2015 three parties in parliament put forward the VAT exemption bill, the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK), the Kyrgyzstan Party, and Onuguu-Progress.¹⁰³ According to Aitmatov, the bill was proposed because of the interests held in the milling, grain and flour sectors by prominent figures within these parties.¹⁰⁴ The allegation is that the proposers of the bill benefited from a million dollar profit on the back of the exemption.¹⁰⁵ Consequently, the state lost tax revenues. In 2017 the tax exemption was reversed after President Atambayev, at his final press conference when critiquing parliament during his six-year tenure as president, noted that within parliament there were “three flour millers who are so rich, and because of them we lost a billion Soms in the budget.”¹⁰⁶ However, the repealing of the tax amendment was because “they fell out of favour, it was a power struggle, and they could not protect their initiative.”¹⁰⁷ While the elite figures involved claimed that the change in law was not for personal gain, but rather a product of Kyrgyzstan’s ascension to the Eurasian Economic Union and their intention was to protect the domestic market with the opening of trade borders,¹⁰⁸ the scandal came to symbolize the way parliament had become a locus for personal business interests based on “favour trading.”¹⁰⁹ As one participant noted, “many businesses are monopolized by members of parliament, one controls the flour, one the medicine market, one the aviation market and so on.” And then one will say help me pass legislation on VAT exemption on flour and I will help you pass legislation on protecting medicines from competition.¹¹⁰

Secondly, a consequence of deputy making meaning of the legislature by way of their private interest resulted in a weakening of legislative agency vis-à-vis the executive. The violability of law in Kyrgyzstan meant most businessmen operate under the threat of “suspended punishment” where actual punishment can be enforced at any time, and thus can be used by authorities to sanction perceived disloyal behaviour.¹¹¹ As one interviewee noted, “every company sometimes misses some information, or maybe some taxes … in this case the financial police or security services can find violations in the law or tax law. It is a leverage on deputies in the parliament. This is why they cannot criticize the president and they cannot resist the president’s will.”¹¹² The president’s constitutional position as commander in-chief, head of the security council, and right to appoint judges and the general prosecutor were viewed as “suffocating parliament … and all deputies are afraid of him as a sheep is afraid of a wolf … 90 percent of MPs are like soldiers.”¹¹³ Crucial security and judicial institutions are accountable to the president because of the power of appointment, thus, while formally the legislature had strong powers of executive oversight, because parliament was composed of deputies with considerable private interests, often achieved through dubious or extra-legal means, the president had control over deputies through the veiled threat of sanctions against those private interests. Qualitatively it meant that rather than the parliamentary-presidential system Kyrgyz politicians professed to have constructed in 2010 with a divided-executive, what was in existence was a “de facto presidential system”¹¹⁴ or at the very least “a presidential-parliamentary system.”¹¹⁵

Again, via the lens of meaning making we can understand the complex dialogical interplay between deputy meaning making, broader cultural and institutional factors, and its impact on legislative-executive relations. Deputies took meaning of the composition of the legislature (sign) as a place designated for the protection of private interests (interpretant), this was explained by a broader culture of political economy familiar in patronal systems where the legislature was important for the protection of business interests. However, the relationship between deputy meaning making in this fashion within a legal institutional context in which the violability of the law exists ad nauseam impacts on legislative agency because of the power of “suspended” punishment.

Representation

The final theme to emerge concerned representation. Generally, both the meaning ascribed by deputies to representation and the institutional determinants of representation (i.e. the electoral system, a 100% proportional single nationwide constituency) affected the ability of the Zhogorku Kenesh to hold the executive to account and establish the “legitimacy” of the body within a divided executive system, weakening its agency and overall position publicly. The meaning ascribed appeared in several ways.

Firstly, representation was understood in regional terms. Without specific constituencies deputies felt the party list system combined with the “seller’s market” undermined the representation of specific regions in parliament. This established a lop-sided system where some regions were represented by as many as 10 deputies and others none.¹¹⁶ Without a direct constituency link, deputies default to representing the region they are from. One former deputy revealed

if I am from Talas, I don’t work with the whole country but only Talas, those who are from Naryn only work with Naryn. Small factions cannot cover the whole country, larger party factions can cover bigger territories, but to find a relationship between voters and deputies is a serious problem.¹¹⁷

Observers noted that a consequence of this was its impact on descriptive representation, while we might typically expect party list systems to deliver a good balance in terms of descriptive representation, in the case of Kyrgyzstan:

representation is a bit problematic because it is difficult to see who they represent … some see their role in terms of constituency, business people represent business, there are certain categories, for example ethnic minorities, but it is difficult to say how MPs represent any part of society … it can be seasonal … in the spring the agricultural season starts and MPs start to come out to farms and then there is a form of representation, but there is no continuous representation.¹¹⁸

Secondly, representation was meaningful for deputies regarding “going out to the people” on either a regular or frequent basis as a “problem solving” exercise. One former deputy explained, representation concerned “going out to meet the people and to ask them what their problems are. We then try to analyse all these problems and see what types of laws we can create to resolve these problems.”¹¹⁹ But such an interpretation of the role of representation varied in term of practice. Some deputies such as Janar Akaev or Aida Kassymeliva were viewed as active “visiting more or less regularly 3–4 times a year”¹²⁰ and using it as a photo opportunity through social media.¹²¹ But largely, meeting with voters was not routine or institutionalized, and especially with party factions who were supposed to hold regular regional public commissions, which some deputies admitted was not the case.¹²²

Thirdly, some deputies referred to how the meaning of representation pertained to their ability to construct legislation that was rooted in the “real world.” One deputy explained how they initiated legislation based on their work on “real life cases” of bride kidnapping as well as improving the salaries of academics, all developed from their “meeting with the people.” ¹²³ Others spoke of the importance of representing people through addressing the real-life issues of citizens who were being failed by local authorities and regional governors.¹²⁴

Finally, for some deputies, representation only seemed to hold meaning in institutional terms. There was reference back to how the electoral system did not facilitate representation because of the single nationwide constituency. Some deputies, especially from the opposition party Ata-meken, spoke of adopting new electoral legislation which would allow voters to vote for specific names within the party list, therefore ensuring direct voter representation.¹²⁵ Others lamented the fully proportional system believing it undermined representation as small factions could not cover the whole country, while deputies played a

canny game, they build bridges, lay some roads, refurbish some schools … while deputies are required to visit the regions every two months, there is no control of this. Either they go or they don’t … this relationship between deputies and voters is a serious problem.¹²⁶

How does meaning attached to representation relate to questions of legislative strength and quality? Snapshot opinion polling from 2018 highlighted little awareness of representation efforts of parliamentary deputies. 70% of respondents were not well-informed of communication channels with deputies.¹²⁷ While not a comprehensive survey of the 2010–2020 period, it does suggest the quality and accessibility of the representative function of deputies was weak. At the same time, the survey also highlighted general attitudes towards the work of the legislature, with over 70% of respondents indicating they held either a negative view of parliament, or they did not know what deputies did or could not answer, meaning less than 30% held any positive view of parliamentary deputies and only 18% of respondents indicating that deputies knew and understood the needs of citizens.¹²⁸ Such findings were reflected in interview responses where a general picture emerged of how citizens had a negative view of parliamentarians. As one deputy noted,

they [citizens] don’t like parliament, they don’t have a positive view. Some MPs don’t contact ordinary people, some of the legislation we implement does not meet the expectations of ordinary people and if their lives have not changed in three years, then they don’t have a very positive view of us.¹²⁹

Others interpreted citizen-parliamentary linkages through the prism of vote-buying, suggesting that “for the general population parliament is just a way to earn $20 during the election, otherwise they don’t ask anything from parliamentarians.”¹³⁰ Whether this kind of transactional relationship is how all or most people viewed or understood the representative function is of course difficult to say, but it reveals a fundamental weakness of the Kyrgyz legislature in terms of its representative capacity. A lack of broader public legitimation only served to undermine the preeminent constitutional role the parliament had gained since 2010 and demonstrated its continued subservience to the presidential executive in the public imagination.

The different ways in which deputies took meaning from representation were conditioned by the institutional context. Understanding representation (sign) via a regional lens, “going out to the people” and developing legislation based on “real life” (interpretant), was perceived to be shaped by institutional constraints (electoral system) and personal ambition (using constituency visits for self-promotion). While representation was a theme which arose frequently across the interviews, rarely did deputies speak of it as an important aspect of their role, rather there was an emphasis on the obligation of meeting voters at certain times, the issue of regional representation (or under representation) and the weakness of the institutional context pertaining to representation. This contributed towards negative public attitudes towards the legislature, which weakened its position vis-à-vis the executive. The failure of deputies to speak in a meaningful way about representation, in that they did not view voter representation as something core to their identities as deputies is arguably rooted in the fact that the primary meaning of their role as deputies was legislative initiation and that private interests dominated their agency. With meaning ascribed in this way the executive was easily able to control deputies through the veiled threat of sanctions.

Conclusion

The power of meaning making lay in its interpretability. The meanings we attribute to signs shape the practice that govern the culture and institutions we operate within while, at the same time, such meaning making operates at a dialogical level where it is contoured by institutional and cultural constraints. This is no different in the case of the authoritarian setting of patronal systems and this is what has been revealed using a semiotic lens towards meaning making in the case of the Zhogorku Kenesh in seeking to explain legislative weakness in a divided-executive patronal system. As noted earlier, weak party institutionalization offers a partial explanation of the failure of legislative agency in Kyrgyzstan as it underplays agency over structure. A study of meaning making has allowed us to explore the role of deputy agency and how the meaning legislators ascribe to the object of parliament and executive-legislative relations exists within a dialogical relationship with broader structural factors.

The Zhogorku Kenesh largely failed to live up to the aspirations of the 2010 constitution and the intended central role of parliament partially because of how the chamber’s role was given meaning and used by the actors inside it. Deputy meaning via the lens of semiotics reveals a series of dialogical relationships between signs, interpretants, objects, and their broader context in explaining the failure of legislative agency vis-à-vis executive power. Firstly, parliamentary deputies placed considerable meaning on the legislative function of parliament. This led to the over-initiation of legislation, shaped also by the institutional and cultural context (high deputy turnover, lack of parliamentary expertise, ultimately derived from the political instability of the patronal system), which impacted executive-legislative relations, as parliament largely failed to live up to its responsibilities to hold the presidency to account, as the meaning ascribed to the legislative function came at the expense of the control and oversight functions over both legislation and executive power. Secondly, legislative composition was ascribed meaning as a site for private interests shaped largely by the broader political economy of a patronal system where violability of law gives the presidency power to use the threat of legal action against the business interests of deputies to keep them compliant, weakening legislative agency vis-à-vis the executive. Finally, deputies ascribed meaning to the representative function by way of a regional focus, “going out to the people” and constructing law rooted in the real-world experience of voters, but this was conditioned by an electoral system which disconnected direct constituency representation. This influenced executive-legislative relations by the fact that the representative function was largely neglected leading to a lack of public legitimation arguably sowing the seeds for the restoration of a presidential system in the referendum result of 2021.

The Zhogorku Kenesh is potentially unique in the respect that it differs from other examples of legislatures in patronal systems with divided executives as it is not the site for competition between competing pyramids, and neither a site for opposition to the executive. But it does share similarities with legislatures in other patronal systems (both unified and divided executive systems) not least in the way deputies overuse the legislative function, the dominance of private interests and how parliamentary seats are used as a marketplace. However, as the analysis revealed what can explain the Kyrgyz legislature’s divergence from other legislatures in divided-executive patronal systems is the dialogical relationship between the meaning ascribed by deputies and broader institutional and cultural constraints. Thus, there is a direct causal link between meaning making in conjunction with wider structural factors and the weakness of legislative agency. However, larger comparative studies are needed to fully assess the role of meaning making in this way.

Meaning making and semiotics have been used in this study as an analytical frame to give focus to agency in an authoritarian legislature and the way it exists in a dialogical relationship with structural constraints. The usefulness of such an approach lay therefore, not just in the vantage point it provides regarding the voices of those actors central to legislative-executive relations, something general quantitative studies of authoritarian legislatures obscure, but also in the contingent nature of formal institutions in non-democratic settings, and how their divergence and convergence from other cases is constituted by the interpretation of formal and informal institutional relations and the meaning embodied within them, but also how they interact with, shape and are shaped by, wider cultural and institutional constraints.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Sarah Whitmore and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. All mistakes and inaccuracies remain my sole ownership.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (RF-2018-188\8).

Notes on contributors

Rico Isaacs

Rico Isaacs is a Professor of International Politics in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Lincoln in the UK.

Notes

1 Hale, Patronal Politics; Isaacs, “Neopatrimonialism and beyond”; Lewis, “Understanding the Authoritarian State”; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.

2 Hale, Patronal Politics, 10.

3 Hale, Patronal Politics, 10.

4 Whitmore, “Parliamentary Oversight in Putin's Neopatrimonial State”, Whitmore, “Disrupted Democracy in Ukraine?”; Marat, “Kyrgyzstan.”

5 Magaloni, “Credible Power-Sharing”; Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule; Magaloni and Kricheli, “Political Order”; Gandhi and Przeworski, “Cooperation.”

6 Noble, “Authoritarian Amendments”; Krol, “Amending Legislatures,” “The Legislative Role”; Somfalvy, Parliamentary Representation.

7 Whitmore, “Disrupted Democracy in Ukraine?”

8 Whitmore, “Disrupted Democracy in Ukraine?”

9 Lebanidze and Kornely, “Informal Governance.”

10 Engvall, “‘Between Bandits and Bureaucrats.”

11 Gandhi and Przeworski, “Authoritarian Institutions,” 1280.

12 Wintrobe, Political Economy of Dictatorship, 213–14.

13 Gandhi and Przeworski, “Cooperation,” 2.

14 Magaloni and Kricheli, “Political Order,” 126.

15 Schuler, “Position Taking.”

16 Noble, “Authoritarian Amendments.”

17 Krol, “Parliamentary Initiative,” “The Legislative Role.”

18 Williamson and Magaloni, “Legislatures and Policy Making,” 1525.

19 Truex, “Authoritarian Gridlock?”,

20 Williamson and Magaloni, “Legislatures and Policy Making,” 1526.

21 Noble, “Authoritarian Amendments,” 1420.

22 Whitmore, “Disrupted Democracy in Ukraine?,” 1504.

23 Whitmore, “Disrupted Democracy in Ukraine?,” 1504.

24 Stykow, “The Devil in the Details,” 133.

25 Whitmore, “Parliamentary Oversight in Putin's Neopatrimonial State.”

26 Noble, “Authoritarian Amendments.”

27 Engvall, “Kyrgyzstan’s Poison Parliament,” 55.

28 Junisbai, “Improbable But Potentially Pivotal,” 902.

29 Engvall, Flirting with State Failure, 33.

30 Junisbai, “Improbable But Potentially Pivotal,” 903.

31 Hale, Patronal Politics, 318.

32 Engvall, Flirting with State Failure.

33 Marat, The State-Crime Nexus.

34 Hale, Patronal Politics, 231.

35 Wooden, “Kyrgyzstan’s Dark Ages,” 463.

36 Marat, “Kyrgyzstan,” 334.

37 Hale, Patronal Politics, 319.

38 Hale, Patronal Politics, 319.

39 Fumagali, “Semi-Presidentialism,” Marat, “Kyrgyzstan.”

40 Akshiev, “Vybory-2011.”

41 Baisalov, “Parlamentarizm v Kyrgyzstane.”

42 Engvall, “Kyrgyzstan’s Poison Parliament,” 57.

43 Engvall, “From Monopoly to Competition.”

44 Marat, “Kyrgyzstan,” 339.

45 Jeenbekov served as Atambayev’s First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration before being appointed as Prime Minister in April 2016. Jeenbekov was sponsored by Atambayev in the presidential election of 2017 (under the constitution Atambayev could only serve one six-year term). Atambayev’s plan had been to place his loyal protégé in the presidency so he could continue to influence decision-making. Once Jeenbekov was elected president relations between the two soured as the new president tired of Atambayev’s interventions in public. Jeenbekov removed Atambayev’s supporters from government and state posts, replacing them with his own loyalists and by 2019 Atambayev found himself arrested and in prison on corruption charges related to his role in the release of Aziz Batukayev in 2013, a convicted criminal.

46 Doolotkeldieva, “The 2020 Violent Change.”

47 Ishiyama, “Political Party Development.”

48 Huskey, “An Economy of Authoritarianism?”

49 McGlinchey, “Chaos, Violence and Dynasty.”

50 Ishiyama, “Political Party Development.”

51 Engvall, “Kyrgyzstan’s Poison Parliament,” 63.

52 Engvall, “Kyrgyzstan’s Poison Parliament,” 57.

53 Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 26.

54 Whitmore, “Parliamentary Oversight in Putin's Neopatrimonial State.”

55 Whitmore, “Disrupted Democracy in Ukraine?”; Rai, “Disruptive Democracy.”

56 For example, in the 750-page Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies there is not a single reference to meaning making or semiotics.

57 Kurzman, “Meaning-Making,” 5.

58 The scholarship on semiotics is large and complex and there is neither the space, intention nor necessity to address here. The idea is simply to use semiotics and Peirce’s triadic relationship as a frame to analyse meaning making in the Kyrgyz legislature.

59 Peirce, Essential Peirce vol 2, 478.

60 Saussure, Course in General Linguistics.

61 Picione and Freda, “The Processes of Meaning Making,” 138.

62 Whitmore, “Parliamentary oversight in Putin's Neopatrimonial State,” 1001.

63 Fish and Kroenig, The Handbook of National Legislatures.

64 The PPI has been criticized for its weak conceptualization of power, its conflation between formal and informal institutions, and for its checklist approach which weakly discriminates among really existing legislative bodies. See Desposato, “Review of The Handbook of National Legislature.”

65 Isaacs and Whitmore, “The Limited Agency and Life-Cycles of Personalized Dominant Parties.”

66 Zozulia and Zozulia, On Consideration.

67 Interview with Almabet Shykmambetov, deputy in the 6th and 7th convocations, 26 March 2019, Bishkek.

68 Interview with Assiya Sasykbayeva, vice-speaker in the 5th convocation, 13 March 2019, Bishkek.

69 Interview with Zainidin Kurmanov, speaker in the 4th convocation, 15 April 2019, Bishkek.

70 Interview with ex-advisor to Kyrgyz Prime Minister, 21 May 2019, Bishkek.

71 Interview, Ainura Altybayeva, deputy in the 6th convocation, 11 April 2019, Bishkek.

72 MAG, “Za 5 let’ raboty Zhogorku Kenesha prinyato bolee 1000 zakonv.”

73 Grazhdanskaya Platforma, “Analiz Zakonolatel’noi.”

74 A common practice for deputy legislative initiation was simply for deputies to send a legislative concept to the relevant government department which would then develop the draft bill, see Grazhdanskaya Platforma, “Analiz Zakonolatel’noi.”

75 chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://parlament.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Monitoring_7-9-1.pdf.

76 Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic, adopted by referendum, June 27 2010.

77 Interview, Zainidin Kurmanov.

78 The website has a rolling three-month statistics section where it details number of bills passed after 1st, 2nd, and 3rd readings. The current stats show 18 bills passed on first reading, three on second, and none on third. Any random dip into the archives would see numerous occasions were bills are simply passed on just one reading, rather than three. See http://www.kenesh.kg/ru/draftlaw/statistics/6/4

79 Interview with academic political specialist, 21 March 2019, Bishkek.

80 Interview with Almabet Shykmambetov.

81 Interview with Iskhak Masaliev, deputy in the 2nd–4th and 6th &7th convocations, 15 March 2019, Bishkek.

82 Interview with Aigul Baiburayeva, deputy in the 4th convocation, 9th April, Bishkek; Interview with Aida Kasymalieva vice-speaker in the 6th convocation, 21 May 2019, Bishkek.

83 Interview, Aida Kasymalieva.

84 See http://www.kenesh.kg/ru/article/list/41.

85 Interview with Akylbek Sarbagyshov, former of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, 27 March 2019, Bishkek.

86 Interview, Almabet Shykmambetov.

87 Kloop. Kg, “Deputaty vsegda.”

88 Irgebaeva, “Deputat zayavil.”

89 Interview, Almabet Shykmambetov.

90 Interview with Natalia Nikitenko, Deputy in the 5th, 6th and 7th convocations, 1 April 2019, Bishkek.

91 interview with Kanybek Imanaliev, deputy in the 3rd, 5th & 6th convocations, 14 March 2019, Bishkek.

92 Radnitz, “The Color of Money.”

93 Engvall, “Between Bandits and Bureaucrats,” 7.

94 Uraliev, “Parlament pyatogo”; Podolskaya, “Shest’ cozyvov.”

95 Interview with Janar Akayev, deputy in the 6th & 7th convocations, 22 March 2019; Elvira Surabaldieava, deputy in the 6th & 7th convocations, 2 April 2019; Iskhak Masaliev and Marlen Mamataliev, deputy in the 6th & 7th convocations, 2 April 2019.

96 Shabalin, “73% deputatov.”

97 Interview, Aida Kasymalieva.

98 Interview, Aigul Baiburayeva.

99 Begaliva and Yntymakov, “Million za mandate.”

100 Interview, Iskhak Masaliev.

101 Interview, Iskhak Masaliev.

102 Fedorchuk, “Chynybai Tursunbekov.”

103 Radio Azattyk, “Umu 2020 razoblachilo.”

104 Fedorchuk, “Chynybai Tursunbekov.”

105 Radio Azattyk, “Umu 2020 razoblachilo.”

106 Radio Azattyk, “Press-konferentsiya Atambaeva.”

107 Interview with anonymous deputy, 14 April 2019.

108 Radio Azattyk, “Umu 2020 razoblachilo.”

109 Interview with Edil Baisalov, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, 25 March 2019, Bishkek.

110 Interview, ex-advisor to Kyrgyz Prime Minister. See also, Isayeva, “Biznes Kirgizskikh deputatov.”

111 Ledeneva, “Can Medvedev Change Sistema?,” 40.

112 Interview with Seitek Kachkynbaev, candidate for the 7th convocation11 April 2019, Bishkek.

113 Interview, Almabet Shykmambetov.

114 Interview, Edil Baisalov,

115 Interview, Marlen Mamatayev.

116 Interview, Kanybek Imanaliev.

117 Interview, Zainidin Kurmanov.

118 Interview, academic parliamentary specialist.

119 Interview, Asiya Sasykbayeva.

120 Interview, academic parliamentary specialist.

121 Interview, ex-advisor to Kyrgyz Prime Minister.

122 Interview, Iskhak Masaliev.

123 Interview, Ainura Altybayeva.

124 Interview, Aida Kasymalieva.

125 Interview, Almabet Shykmambetov.

126 Interview, Zainidin Kurmanov.

127 Coalition for Democracy and Society, “Mnenie grazhdan Kyrgyzstana.”

128 Coalition for Democracy and Society, “Mnenie grazhdan Kyrgyzstana.”

129 Interview, Elvira Surabaldieava.

130 Interview, ex-advisor to Kyrgyz Prime Minister.