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A decade after national independence it is apparent that the differing development strategies adopted by the ve new governments of Central Asia in the rst years of independenc e led to signi cantly different policy outcomes. How have these economic development strategies affected the capacity of the states to manage the transition to post-communist governance? What relationship exists between the foreign development strategy adopted and domestic democratization? The present article addresses these questions by surveying development strategies of the ve Central Asian countries during the rst decade of independence with a focus on the contribution of each country's development strategy to the promotion of domestic reform.Wide agreement exists on the necessity of post-communist governments to undertake domestic structural reform and trade liberalization measures as key elements in the transition to internationa l standards. But not all analysts agree on the best mix of foreign and domestic policies for attaining these objectives. Two contrasting approaches dominate the debate. 1 The 'neo-liberal' approach argues that the rapid shift to privately owned assets, monetarization of the economy, trade liberalization , currency convertibility , and government structural reforms are necessary precondition s to establishing rational market incentives and a modern polity. The set of policies associated with this approach typically involves cutting government budgets and subsidies, privatizing some previously public operations, raising interest rates, opening national economies to foreign imports, corporations and capital, and increasing exports of raw materials or goods made with labour made relatively cheap by these policies.A contrasting 'structuralist' approach differs in maintaining that incremental reform measures are more likely to lead to industrial and agricultural restructuring than would an allocation of resources that is structured by existing imperfect markets. The structuralist approach argues in favour of a phased and gradual introduction of reform-oriented measures, emphasizing incentive selectivity, dynamic technical ef ciency and government guidance throughout the process of change. In many respects, the neo-liberal and structuralist prescriptions seek to arrive at the same destination. Both approaches ultimately seek to develop government scal responsibility and encourage disin ationary policies, price

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