Political-Anthropological Approach to Explaining Political Processes in Modern Kyrgyz Society

The aim of the article is to demonstrate the possibilities of the political-anthropological approach in explaining political processes of the “non-Western type”, including its conceptual apparatus and methods in the arsenal of analysis of political processes in modern Kyrgyz society. The research problem is that various interpretative models for explaining the phenomenon of chronic political instability in the Kyrgyz Republic, expressed in the coups d’état of 2005, 2010 and 2020, early changes of presidents and parliament, repeated changes in the constitution and principles of organizing the state structure, are based on theories and concepts (for example, the theory of democratic transit, the concept of “color revolutions”), which, in the author’s opinion, are not applicable to a society with pronounced features of a nomadic civilization. In the article, within the framework of the political-anthropological approach, using the example of the Kyrgyz Republic, the conditions for the legitimacy of power in traditional societies are highlighted; The transformation of traditional institutions of the nomadic civilization is analyzed; the main components of the charismatic leadership of the current president of the republic are shown; the conclusion is made that the chain of unsuccessful attempts to modernize Kyrgyz society, carried out on the basis of borrowed Western political institutions and norms, was replaced by the creation of a conceptual and normative-legal basis for neotraditionalism.