How does the past account for the present: the case of clans in Kyrgyzstan
The design of development policies requires a precise understanding of the informal institutions regulating economic activities. A key – yet understudied – institution in many low- and middle-income countries is the clan. Catherine Guirkinger (University of Namur) discusses the economic role clans play today in Kyrgyzstan and looks at the mechanisms that caused clans to persist even during the Soviet era that was characterised by an active repression of clan identities:
