Monotonous motorscapes: Uzbekistan’s car industry and the consolidation of a post-socialist shortage economy

ABSTRACT

In Uzbekistan, the pure monopoly enjoyed by the state-owned car manufacturer UzAvtosanoat has resulted in domestic car shortages and long waiting periods. This article examines the politico-economic mechanisms behind these shortages, as well as the ways in which the latter affect – and are curtailed by – aspirant car owners. It argues that shortages are a consequence of the Karimov-era policy of ‘self-reliance’ and in particular of the goal of attaining a positive trade balance by means of export prioritization and import substitution. The article juxtaposes the workings of Uzbekistan’s car industry and market with the Soviet era and suggests that they lead to the consolidation of a post-socialist shortage economy. Inevitably, similarly to their Soviet-era counterparts, local consumers face often insurmountable obstacles in their attempts to purchase a car and are exposed to access inequalities, debt, corruption, speculation, and the rent-seeking practices of local patronage networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Uzbekistan
• cars
• shortages
• post-socialist shortage economy
• state monopoly
• self-reliance

Acknowledgements

The bulk of this article was written when the author was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale), Germany. The article greatly benefited from valuable feedback at the weekly seminar of the Institute's Department ‘Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia’, in February 2020. The author would further like to thank Ildikó Bellér-Hann and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Rather than a car manufacturer in its own right, UzAvtosanoat was the main shareholder in two joint ventures with foreign strategic partners – Daewoo Motors in Uz-DaewooAuto and GM in GM Uzbekistan – before GM exited Uzbekistan in 2019, leaving UzAvtosanoat the only shareholder of UzAuto. Yet, in this article, I have chosen to equate all these joint ventures with the majority shareholder, which implemented the policies that have consolidated car shortages in Uzbekistan.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was supported by the Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI) and the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen.