LOW-LEVEL PROGRESS, HIGH-LEVEL FRAGILITY: THE SUSTAINABILITY GAP IN ANTI-CORRUPTION REFORM IN KYRGYZSTAN

Anti-corruption reform in Kyrgyzstan has generated measurable institutional and administrative outputs, yet its accountability function is less durable than formal institutionalization suggests. This article develops the concept of the sustainability gap, defined as the post-adoption erosion of a reform’s capacity to constrain power, and applies it to three reform domains: public procurement transparency, digital service delivery, and high-level anti-corruption enforcement. Using a qualitative case study design and a process-tracing-informed analysis, it draws on legal and policy documents, donor and institutional reports, governance indicators, investigative reporting, and publicly presented aggregate survey findings. The findings reveal differentiated trajectories. The public procurement portal generated open data that investigative journalists used to scrutinize politically connected contracts, but its accountability function weakened after it began to impose political costs. Digital service delivery proved more durable because it reduced routine bureaucratic discretion without directly threatening elite resource allocation. High-level enforcement remained visible but lacked consistent, transparent, and institutionally independent follow-up. The comparison shows that the sustainability gap is shaped by donor and project-cycle dependence, limited domestic ownership, and the narrowing of civic space, which weaken the actors able to convert formal transparency into accountability. The article argues that external governance support should be assessed not only by adoption and technical outputs, but also by whether reforms continue to enable scrutiny and constrain power after political costs emerge.