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What impact has the 'Arab Spring' had upon Kazakhstan's approach to regime security? Short of the possibility of a 'Central Asian Spring', if and how the Arab Spring reshaped this authoritarian regime has not been addressed. A longitudinal narrative analysis of Kazakhstan's presidential rhetoric from 2005 to 2015 and fieldwork interviews indicated that the Arab Spring uprisings brought about an elite-level demonstration effect. That is, the regime perceived a heightened threat to its security as a result of instability and regime responses elsewhere, and it sought to shore-up its position and forestall the emergence of local challenges as a consequence of this, whether through discourse, behaviour or policy. This suggests that uprisings elsewhere, including those outside of a state's immediate region, can affect perceptions of regime security in the medium term, despite the absence of domestic unrest at home and a lack of close social and cultural ties between regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the critical role of educational institutions in disseminating a sophisticating and historically grounded understanding religion among young people of post-Soviet Kazakhstan. In the context of plurality of opinions, worldviews as well as of cultural and religious products available on the today's global market-place, one can hardly expect any restrictive measures and bans imposed by the government to prevent Kazakh youth from getting exposed to non-systemic and alternative religious movements, including those with militant agendas. The rapid development of modern communication technologies today renders all kind of information readily available to the young generation of Kazakhs through virtual forums, blogs and chatrooms. Invisible and anonymous recruiters for various religious-political causes and religious cults exploit this fact to their advantage, using the legitimate grievances of young people that the state is unwilling or unable to address. The situation in Kazakhstan is further aggravated by the fact that the majority of the population, especially its youth, has a very vague knowledge of their own religion, not to mention the religions that are not part of their personal background or family tradition. Under these circumstances, the issue of religious education requires close attention on behalf of both researchers and policy- makers. The authors see education as the key factor in immunizing young Kazakhs against religious extremism, close-mindedness, and religion- and ethnic-based intolerance and hatred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norm contestation by local actors has emerged in recent years as an explanation for the failure of norm diffusion. This article contributes to the literature on norm contestation by analysing how norms diffused by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pertaining to election observation and free and fair voting are re-constituted and contested by domestic actors in Kazakhstan. The study contributes to the idea of 'constitutive localisation' by emphasising a more fundamental level of disagreement beyond just congruence between the diffused norm and local beliefs; by demonstrating contestation can occur in the later stages in the norm diffusion cycle; by focusing on the micro-politics of contestation by local actors involved in the implementation of diffused norms; and by revealing how norm contestation is not necessarily a process of emancipatory politics, but a strategic act to serve authoritarian consolidation. Utilising a four-fold framework, the analysis illustrates how norms, while initially accepted by Kazakhstani authorities, are reconstituted through political discourse and/or practice, creating the moment of contestation. While this contestation is instrumentalised by political elites for their own advantage, it also remains an important element of agency within a normative order which they had little previous control over. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the main features of social, political and legal status of religious associations in contemporary Kazakhstan. The data of sociological studies and the analysis of state policy and legislation allow drawing the conclusion that the ongoing religious revival and an increase in the number of religious associations in the post-Soviet period have not led to a signifi- cant growth in religiosity of the Kazakhstani society and dramatic change in the role of religion and religious associations in the political and public life. Nevertheless, after a certain period of liberalization (1991-2004), the state resumed tough control of the religious sphere and re-installed constraints on public activity of religious structures. This change was triggered, among other things, by processes of politicization of religion, mainly associated with Islamic associations or movements that are unrecognized or banned in Kazakhstan. Despite the principle of separation of religion from the state, stipulated in the legislation, the state develops its own policy in the religious sphere aimed at the consolidation of secularity of the Kazakhstani society. However, such consolidation-- in the way it takes place in Kazakhstan-- is accompanied by exerting pressure on believers and religious associations, the majority of which distance themselves from any political activity. The state also creates unequal opportunities for religious associations, cultivating the privileged status of the Spiritual Board of the Muslims of Kazakhstan and the Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan to gain more legitimation of the system both in its domestic and foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the factors that shape the establishment of transparent institutions in resource-rich countries with a specific focus on Kazakhstan. Specifically, it draws upon in-depth interviews and analysis of key institutions to understand the pace and intensity of transparency reforms in the Central Asian state. It argues that external transparency promotion can lead to institutional reform only when it is matched with strong elite incentives in favor of reforms. Kazakhstan has had few incentives to comply with Western-initiated norms before 2014, an era of relative economic security. As a consequence, the political elite often stalled the successful implementation of reforms. However, the economic turbulence following the fall of oil prices and Russia's annexation of Crimea have motivated the Kazakh government to embrace the norm of transparency in order to attract foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the delegation of economic policy implementation in non-democratic settings. It draws on a dataset of statutory and administrative regulation created between 1991 and 2011 in Kazakhstan in order to investigate economic effects of bureaucratic discretion. The examination of regional and temporal variation in the number and detail of economic regulations shows that while regulatory intervention does not have a discernible effect on economic performance, statutory constraints on bureaucratic discretion have a positive effect. This finding supports the notion that in the absence of societal accountability, statutory constraint on the administrative apparatus leads to a more stable business climate and better economic performance. The paper explicates the ways in which theories of delegation apply to autocracies and broadens our understanding of political control over economic policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kazakhstan’s and Tajikistan’s governments were able to successfully strengthen their reach and their capacity to control the population in the wake of deadly violence against regime opponents. Yet the process of deepening authoritarianism was not a straightforward affair. Both countries expanded their coercive capabilities – they upgraded policing in rural areas to improve intelligence gathering on the local population and predict the rise of any anti-government activities. While doing so, however, leaders of both countries sought to frame their actions as an inclusive process that was sensitive to the grievances of the affected populations and the general public. This article adds to the growing body of literature on authoritarian state responses to insurgency by showing how authoritarian regimes create narratives, engage civil society and look for political advantage to expand the coercive apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the land border delimitation process of sovereign state of Kazakhstan during the disintegration of bipolar world. It analyses the main stages of the system of bilateral treaties and agreements between two neighboring states under international law and principles of nonmilitary resolution of the territorial disputes in a manner that safeguards the interests of all states and ensures security in the border region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author studies the circumstances in which the presidency was instituted in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan and the consolidation of this new institution in 1991 amid the structural and procedural changes. The historical version of neo-institutionalism is used as the methodological foundation of the analysis. This method is based on identifying the indices of the form of government and presidency competitiveness. The author probes deep into the structural and procedural splits, provides a detailed description of the circumstances in which the decision to institute the presidency was prepared and made, the role of the incumbent and his ability inability to become the president, the first presidential elections, and the positions of the central actors regarding the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) and the new Union Treaty. In the absence of considerable disagreements inside Kazakhstan's elites, legitimization of the First Secretary of the C.C. Communist Party of Kazakhstan as President of the Kazakh S.S.R. went smoothly. Amid the rising political rivalry and the emergence of the first nationalist movements, Nursultan Nazarbaev succeeded in becoming the leader of the struggle for the republic's sovereignty. In Tajikistan, the emergence of the national-democratic and, later, Islamic movement led to ethnic and religious splits. From the very beginning, the intention to set up the post of president with wide powers in a split society looked like a hazardous enterprise and made all the political processes very competitive. As a result, Kazakhstan acquired a noncompetitive presidency, while in Tajikistan the presidency was highly competitive. The Tajik model of presidency envisaged wider (compared with the Kazakhstan model) presidential powers, on the one hand, while it functioned in a much more competitive environment, on the other. From the very beginning, the Kazakhstan model proved to be fairly sustainable: it envisaged the Supreme Soviet's involvement in cabinet-making and fairly wide presidential powers, and it was realized through uncompetitive elections. This allowed President Nazarbaev to tighten his grip on power and later expand his powers at the expense of the parliament. The competitive model with wide presidential powers implemented in Tajikistan not only removed presidents K. Makhkamov, K. Aslonov, and R. Nabiev one after another, but also plunged the presidency and the republic's political system into a crisis that led to a civil war. In these conditions, the presidency weakened the political system--members of very different political forces and regional clans claimed political power, while the struggle for the post of the president developed into struggle among ethnoregional groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the study of the criteria that Kazakhstan’s government used for granting a public–private partnership (PPP) contract to a private investor for construction and operation of eleven kindergartens in the city of Karaganda during 14 years. From the perspective of value creation for critical stakeholders, there was often misalignment between bidders’ views of these criteria and the perceived value for citizens and the government. The latter may significantly enhance the creation of shared values in a PPP by actively engaging stakeholders in the design of the bids’ assessment criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent economic growth in Kazakhstan has been accompanied by slower improvements in population health and this has renewed impetus for health system reform. Strengthening strategic planning and policy-making capacity in the Ministry of Health has been identified as an important priority, particularly as the Ministry of Health is leading the health system reform process. Case description: The intervention was informed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) framework for capacity building which views capacity building as an ongoing process embedded in local institutions and practices. In response to local needs extra elements were included in the framework to tailor the capacity building programme according to the existing policy and budget cycles and respective competence requirements, and link it with transparent career development structures of the Ministry of Health. This aspect of the programme was informed by the institutional capability assessment model used by the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) which was adapted to examine the specific organizational and individual competences of the Ministry of Health in Kazakhstan. Discussion and evaluation: There were clear successes in building capacity for policy making and strategic planning within the Ministry of Health in Kazakhstan, including better planned, more timely and in-depth responses to policy assignments. Embedding career development as a part of this process was more challenging. This case study highlights the importance of strong political will and high level support for capacity building in ensuring the sustainability of programmes. It also shows that capacity-building programmes need to ensure full engagement with all local stakeholders, or where this is not possible, programmes need to be targeted narrowly to those stakeholders who will benefit most, for the greatest impact to be achieved. In sum, high quality tailor-made capacity development programmes should be based on thorough needs assessment of individual and organizational competences in a specific institutional setting. Conclusions: The experience showed that complementary approaches to human resource development worked effectively in the context of organizations and systems, where an enabling environment was present, and country ownership and political will was complemented by strong technical assistance to design and deliver high quality tailor-made capacity building initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Weber's concept of charismatic routinisation, this article analyses the dilemmas related to political succession and post-charismatic order in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. While the presidents of these three countries have drawn their authority from a combination of charismatic, legal-rational and traditional authority, they have relied most heavily on charisma in particular to sustain their rule. With the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan aging and facing the question of political succession, the article provides an analysis of the problems associated with potential for post-charismatic succession in these states. It does so by drawing on three of Weber's mechanisms for charismatic routinisation: designation, hereditary charisma, and charisma in office. The analysis demonstrates that in these three cases, despite charisma only having two routes available to it, traditional and legal-rational, the mixture of legal-rational, traditional and charismatic domination undermines the process of charismatic routinisation. Consequently, the article argues that political succession in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will most likely evolve into a reconstitution of charismatic leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the foreign policy of Kazakhstan as defined by geopolitics. It examines 18 presidential addresses by Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Topics discussed include emphasis placed by Nazarbayev on specific countries and regions, Kazakhstan's geopolitical position and foreign policy, its role in the international system and the need for Kazakhstan to be integrated into the global economy.

This article argues that, unlike other Central Asian states, the official response in Kazakhstan to its Islamic revival is distinctively ambivalent and even contradictory. The Nazarbayev government has rhetorically embraced the Kazakhqoja-centred Sufi heritage and the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam as the ‘traditional’ forms of Islam among Kazakh nomads and perceived them as constituent elements of the nation-building process. However, the representatives of the political elite have in reality unknowingly absorbed much of ‘untraditional’ Salafi Islam and ignored, marginalised or even suppressed the revival of Kazakh Sufism. This is in part because of their limited knowledge of the indigenous Kazakh Islamic tradition and in part due to the younger generation’s greater exposure to a range of Salafi-dominated influences emanating from abroad. The article begins with a brief historical perspective on the relationship betweenqoja-centred Sufism and ‘Kazakh-ness’ which is essential for establishing an analysis of the fissures in the current religious and political ideology pertaining to Kazakh nation-building. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the perspective of political opportunity structure, this qualitative survey of primary sources attempts to determine whether environmental NGOs (ENGOs) in Kazakhstan are achieving institutionalisation from the standpoint of representative democracy, or are being co-opted by a corporatist national government. Are ENGOs the harbingers of the democratisation of the country that many observers hope to see? Given increases in the nation’s budgets for the environment and easing of NGO/ENGO legislation, the institutionalising project would seem to have some prospects for success. Concomitantly, the participation of civic groups in the policy arena has contributed to better governance through experiments in new forms of state-society partnership. However, these partnerships have under-performed. Local governments face conflicting demands, while the insufficient administrative and technical capacity of state agencies highlights the need for capacity building. On the political level, authentic ENGOs must compete for policy inclusion with co-opted “front” organisations selectively favoured by the national government, at the same time that the government’s ambiguity towards ENGOs retards the latter’s institutionalisation. The immediate future of environmental civic society is uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is dedicated to developments related to integration processes between Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus, which have collective existence as the Customs Union and the Single Economic Space. If matters progress as projected, within two years they will form a Eurasian Union modeled on the EU. The integration in Eurasia is developing with remarkable speed and has several obstacles to overcome. The first of these difficulties centers on economic relations. The second is the fear that Kazakhstan and Belarus have concerns about a potential loss of sovereignty, including a reduction in their capability to manage their internal and external affairs independently. The third set of problems relates to the smaller countries' desire to avoid dependence on one state, Russia, a situation which would lead to a rise in Russia's geopolitical role in the world. Also the Eurasian Union relates to counterbalance the strengthening of China's involvement in Central Asia policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There were several high-profile violent incidents in 2011 in Kazakhstan, including several bombings, shootings that targeted police, and a protest turned clash that resulted in a number of deaths. Some of the perpetrators reportedly had links with radical religious groups. An overlooked aspect of the violence is how it is reported in Kazakhstan. There are active, competent media in Kazakhstan, which are largely unknown in the West. An examination of these incidents using the media in Kazakhstan can provide a unique insight into what took place. While Western sources quickly blamed radical religious groups with international connections, media in Kazakhstan have found that there are other reasons for the violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a world still dominated by a geopolitical system of territorial states, one tool in the state- and nation-building repertoire is the strategy of moving a capital from one city to another, and to an ostensibly more 'central' location of a geometrically conceived territory. From Ankara to Brasília, the technique has been used in a variety of places around the world, and Kazakhstan's new capital since 1997, Astana, is one more recent iteration. Taking a Foucauldian approach to analysing political technologies of government, the author examines the strategy of the centrally located city and considers how it has been instrumental to simultaneously producing a 'state effect' and a 'territory effect' in newly independent Kazakhstan. Part of a larger mixed-methods study, this article draws on a diverse range of methods, including data from interviews, participant observation, textual analysis, focus groups and a country-wide survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the state-building project in Kazakhstan since independence in 1991. It argues that both civic and ethno-nationalistic tendencies in state-building can be identified but that it is not any particular trajectory of nationalism in Kazakhstan that is of significance so much as the tensions between two very different trajectories. We argue that, at least to date, the government has succeeded in managing these tensions quite effectively both at the policy level and in its relations with different ethnic groups and neighbouring states. Whether Kazakhstan can continue to manage these tensions in the post-Nazarbayev era is one of the most significant questions facing the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new political development that emerged after the disintegration of the Soviet Union was the adoption of ‘homeland stances’ by the newly independent states. Through the construction of the homeland image, the states of the region claimed responsibility not only for their own citizens, but also for a diaspora community of co-ethnics. Kazakhstan became one of these states and its leadership portrayed Kazakhstan as the homeland of the Kazakh diaspora. Furthermore, Kazakhstan's leadership developed far more active homeland rhetoric and initiated an ethnic return-migration policy as early as 1992. This paper will explore the discourse of Kazakhstan's leadership on the repatriation of its co-ethnics as well as the legal and political context that it created to achieve their smooth absorption into domestic society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the way the cultural revival in post-Soviet Kazakhstan is perceived by both the state and militants from non-titular nationalities. Based on ethnographic material, the author analyses state engineering of cultural diversity and the strategies elaborated by militants of Tatar cultural associations to manage the status quo, as well as the preservation of ‘cultural intimacy’. The study points to convergences between the state discourse about inter-ethnic concord and the practices of cultural national militants. It also shows that behind this apparent status quo, the cultural sphere has become the arena where the issue of the recognition of full-fledged citizenship and the legitimacy to reside in Kazakhstan is raised and disputed by non-Kazakh groups, albeit implicitly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses and reviews the progress made by Kazakhstan, a post-communist country in Central Asia, towards its journey to become a knowledge-based society. An attempt has been made to examine how and to what extent good governance plays a critical role in building a knowledge-based society. Available evidence suggests that Kazakhstan made considerable advancement, in the midst of profound transitional challenges, to move to transform itself into a knowledge society. The article argues that, while improving governmental quality, good governance will have a solid impact on transforming Kazakhstan to a knowledge-based society in order to achieve the ‘Kazakhstan 2030’ policy strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the genesis and influence of informal politics on non-democratic outcomes in Central Asia. As opposed to current scholarship which explains the emergence of informal politics as a result of kinship-based cultural legacies, this work uses the broader analytical framework of neopatrimonialism to understand informal political phenomena while emphasizing the role of uncertainty and contingent actor choice in explaining its appearance. The article also assesses how informal political behaviour (patronage and patron-client relations) was used to consolidate authoritarianism. Using Kazakhstan's (1990-95) early transition period as a case study this article notes how three processes central to transition (institutional conflict, emerging pluralism, and electoral competition) elicited a degree of uncertainty which destabilized prior institutional equilibrium. The president of Kazakhstan applied informal forms of politics to manage this uncertainty to re-assert his power and consolidate his personal authoritarian rule at the expense of emerging democratic institutions. The article illustrates how the uncertain and contingent process of transition is instrumental to the emergence of informal politics and the durability of authoritarianism in Kazakhstan, and that informal political relations and behaviour are important to understanding non-democratic and democratic paths in former Soviet states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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