None of the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) have fulfilled the democratic aspirations that were held by their citizens and U.S. policymakers upon their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Succession, the handover of power from one leader to another, is a moment of accountability for a political system. ‘The absence of a transparent, consistently implemented, non-arbitrary transfer of power mechanism means that power is transferred inevitably by coups, whether through covert opaque manipulations…or physical elimination (Ra’anan 2006).” This paper looks at Central Asia’s unpredictable leadership changes and the consequent crises that resulted from the absence of a mechanism for legitimate succession. Whether it is Kyrgyzstan’s “Tulip Revolution,” where within weeks of protests, the country’s authoritarian leader, Askar Akayev, fled the country, and Kyrgyzstan soon elected a new government or Turkmenistan, where the death of a long-ruling, bizarre autocrat, “Turkmenbashi,” in 2006 offered the chance for reform, only to have the country’s elites replace him with another palace insider--, hopes for more participatory societies met disillusionment. Kazakhstan, once a democratic hope, has descended into political ruthlessness, with opposition leaders brutally murdered and power concentrated in a tiny circle around President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In particular, this study will analyze ensuing power struggles, which have taken place over the last eighteen years, seeking to identify systemic patterns and generalizations relating to civic society, political opposition, and political stability, A key problem in all political orders is that of succession. The question of how to pass executive power to a new generation has been one of the central cruxes of political science, dating from the time of classical thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle.. Democracies provide a clear process of succession for who succeeds to power; and an answer to the succession problem has been one of constitutional government’s triumphs. Such succession becomes a dilemma in non-constitutional monarchies and autocracies. The current generation of Central Asian leaders has been socialized in the repressive collective memories of the Soviet state. However, the majority of the population in these countries has no memory of Soviet rule and is being socialized in very different political conditions. Data for my research is drawn from interviews with government officials, desk research using published material and unpublished reports, minutes of meetings and hearings, newspapers, and the extensive material provided through various list-serves.