A Conflict of State-led Initiative and Economic Rationality: Focusing on the State Language and Lingua Franca in Uzbekistan

Abstract

To untangle the root of contradictions across linguistic development in post-Soviet Uzbekistan, we explicitly introduce linguistic factors into the transaction cost theory of new institutional economics and the concepts of institutional connectivity and complementarity proposed by comparative institutional analysis in an attempt to construct a theoretical framework for comprehending the dilemma between the state-led initiative and economic rationality regarding linguistic issues in the post-Soviet space. In light of these theoretical considerations, we propose three types of conceptual institutional settings and examine a case study of Uzbekistan that lacks robustness of institutional complementarity for implementing the effective language policies.