Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, there has been
remarkable enthusiasm for theorising how transitional processes have unfolded
in post-socialist cities. In seeking to extend literature that uses the post-
socialist condition as a tool for theory building, we draw attention to the
ongoing processes of institutional change in post-socialist cities. In doing
so, we reject a ‘top-down’ perspective and examine how these institutional
transitions are shaped through processes of ‘domestication’, negotiation and
contestation between different interest groups in the city. We develop our
argument, by drawing attention to the local political debates surrounding the
propiska in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The propiska developed throughout the Soviet
Union to control internal migration and is still used today in a less
restrictive form. By discussing our case study, we hope to foster attention
towards the ongoing contested processes of institutional transition in post-
socialist cities
