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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]

In December 1997, the Republic of Kazakhstan officially proclaimed that the city of Astana would be its new capital. The decision to transfer the seat of government from the city of Almaty in the south to the more centrally located Astana was connected to the process of nation building in a multi-ethnic society where the titular nation represents little more than half of the population. Efforts to transform the rather remote regional center, Akmola (later renamed Astana) into a modern capital city have been underway since the late 1990s. One important component of this transformation is the idea of building a “metabolic” and sustainable “Eurasian” city. As the symbolic center of the whole country, this new capital would function as a showpiece of Kazakh culture and identity. The city would also become a symbol of economic prosperity and the regime's geopolitical vision. While the government's intensions are expressed rather openly, it remains unclear to what extent these politically verbalized leitmotivs are actually being realized through contemporary architecture and structure. This article offers a critical assessment of what has been achieved to date and argues that the production of the new Kazakhstani capital has often failed to translate rhetoric into reality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores democracy development efforts in the former Soviet Union as a cultural encounter between the producers and consumers of development assistance. Drawing on literature in both anthropology and development studies, Sean R. Roberts suggests that the divergent worldviews of these different actors in the development process problematizes their interaction, often leading to unintended results. Highlighting a case study of U.S. assistance to Kazakhstan's 2004 parliamentary elections, Roberts also suggests that, although democracy assistance does foster change, this change is both gradual and unpredictable. More generally, Roberts argues that the challenges of democracy development are less related to technical issues than to cultural factors. Furthermore, democracy development efforts in the long term are likely to produce a contested arena in which to negotiate the meaning of "democracy" or acceptable "good governance" in the context of globalization and today's increasingly multipolar geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]