Sievers draws on his experience of Central Asia to take on the task of explaining the remarkable economic declines of the post-Soviet Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) in the past decade, and the turn of these states towards despotism. Dismissing explanations of the decline as the result of Asian' or nomadic' values as simplistic and opportunistic, the author makes use of extensive fieldwork to explain this decline as the result of the region's unbalanced stocks of natural, physical, human, financial, organizational, and social capital ("comprehensive capital"), exacerbated by the influences of development agencies, environmental NGOs, scientists, corrupt local politicians, and the inequitable downside of globalization symbolized by the WTO. There has been a continued worsening of the serious environmental problems of the Soviet era. The region's track record on respect for civil, political, and human rights is no better than, and in some cases worse than, the record of the Soviet Union in its last decades. Drawing on recent developments in economics, law and political science, as well as a wealth of local sources, this book presents a compelling and unorthodox challenge to development agencies, scholars and human rights organizations to realize the implications of globalization and the challenges of sustainable development.