It seems that Western businessmen in Kazakhstan are experiencing the same, somewhat embarrassing, self-realization that they faced in Russia two years ago. Asked to choose between reformist autocracy and obstreperous democracy, they pick the strong hand every time.


President Nursultan Nazarbayev has dissolved parliament and set a referendum on a new constitution that favors a strong presidency, with elections to a new, smaller, legislature to come. Meanwhile, he is racing through decrees to make his country look as attractive as possible to foreign investors.


Sound familiar? President Boris Yeltsin did the same two years ago, although his rule by decree was a little more haphazard than Nazarbayev's, and his grip on the institutions of power was rather weaker. President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine is going through a similar process.


And every time, the Western advisers, diplomats and businessmen buzzing on the sidelines of the former Soviet bloc's transformation find themselves applauding the humiliation of basic democratic institutions. After so many years of cheerleading for parliamentary democracy, they are cheering autocrats instead.


Of course there are always good reasons. In Russia, one could justifiably point to the fact that the former Supreme Soviet was neither freely elected nor representative, and that its ambition was to keep the letter and spirit of that terrible slogan "All power to the Soviets" alive in the constitution. These were no democrats.


One can also argue that a temporary strong hand is beneficial, if it means that a more professional and therefore more effective legislature will result. But the dilemma remains. Is it wise or safe to encourage the creation of democratic institutions by supporting their destruction when they are not to our tastes?


This a hard question. Having once been granted support to rule by decree, for example, it is proving difficult for Yeltsin to drop the habit. The current State Duma is passing laws now, not always well or quickly, but the Kremlin carries on with parallel decrees that are often in direct conflict.


At what point does one decide it is the benign autocrat who is holding up progress, due either to a change of policy or the desire to keep control? Yeltsin's efforts to maintain the Federation Council as an amateur and manageable body of automatic appointees offers a fair example of the latter.


And how should we react when the president uses his extraordinary powers for repressive ends, or when, as in Kazakhstan recently, the president encourages an execution to be aired on national television? These, surely, are the excesses that the separation of powers was designed to prevent.