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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]

This article discusses the process of adjustment for repatriates into their country of origin and considers their ethno-lingual identification. This article also presents the results of a sociolinguistic survey among Kazakh repatriates, in particular the questions connected with the influence of language on the process of ethno-lingual identification and the role of language competence in readapting to the country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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.

The authors reflect on the article "Megabits versus Wahhabits" which was published in the newspaper "Express-K in Kazakhstan," the use of Internet to explore various issues in Kazakhstan. Topics discussed include the growth of Islamic discourse and Islamic content, several groups of content providers, one, represents government-endorsed entities and government agencies that deal with religious issues, another represents religious establishment groups, and nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

The article reports on the threats posed by Islamic extremists and terrorists in Kazakhstan in 2014. Topics discussed include the activity of Islamic militants in Central Asia, the country's international allies against radicalism and terrorism, and its legal structures about terrorism. Also mentioned are the actions taken by the Kazakh government to address the said security issues.

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]

Each of the post-Soviet Central Asian states inherited both inefficient collectivized agricultural systems and an understanding of the nation rooted in categories defined by Soviet nationality policy. Despite the importance placed on territorial homelands in many contemporary understandings of nationalism, the divergent formal responses to these dual Soviet legacies have generally been studied in isolation from one another. However, there are conceptual reasons to expect more overlap in these responses than generally assumed; in this paper, we engage in a focused comparison of three post-Soviet Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) in order to investigate how nationalizing policies and discourse, land distribution, and ethnic tensions interact with each other over time. We reveal that the nationalizing discourses of the three states – despite promoting the titular groups vis-à-vis other groups – have had limited influence on the actual processes of land distribution. Furthermore, the Kyrgyzstani case challenges the assumption that the effect flows unidirectionally from nationalizing policies and discourse to land reform implementation; in this case, there is evidence that the disruption caused by farm reorganization generated grievances which were then articulated by some nationalistic political elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pragmatic interests of Kazakhstan and the European Union have profoundly influenced the relationship between them, preventing the establishment of successful cooperation in the human dimension. This article investigates these dynamics in detail, placing its spotlight on the role assigned to the relationship with the European Union in the most recent technologies of power devised by the Kazakhstani regime. Particular attention here will be devoted to the tension between the regime's search for international legitimacy and its efforts to insulate itself from EU pressures for political liberalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

As opposed to the current literature which argues that informal politics pervades formal institutions in Kazakhstan and Central Asia more widely, this article argues that Nur Otan, the political party of the President of Kazakhstan, acts as a formal institution to counter the instability generated by informal networks competing for access to political and economic resources. This is achieved by consolidating the political parties associated with these networks into Nur Otan and the synchronisation of the party and the state apparatus. However, the extent to which Nur Otan can provide this stabilising function in the long term is dependent upon regime dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Copyright of Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları is the property of Turk Dunyasi Arastirmalari Vakfi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

Copyright of Internal Security is the property of Police Academy in Szczytno and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Kazakhstan's regime functions through a neopatrimonial/patronal system, which is made up of several concentric circles. This article focuses on the first three circles: the family, the oligarchs, and the technocrats. It argues that patronal practices linking political elites and business interests are key to interpreting the functioning of the Kazakh political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

The article offers information on the political instability in Kazakhstan. It states that the major factor for the political stability of Kazakhstan is the personal authority of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. It says that Kazakhstan never had a leader who can capitalize on the discontent of Kazakhs and transforms discontent into political actions and expectations.

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]

The article offers a Russian perspective on cross-border cooperation with Kazakhstan as of January 2011. The Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum, held in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan on September 6 and 7, 2010, is described. It is noted that Russia and Kazakhstan share a border that is over four thousand miles long. The effects of the global financial crisis which began in 2008, and weather anomalies of 2010, on the economies of Russia and Kazakhstan are noted, and the promotion of sustainable development initiatives is described.

The article examines the development of the political Internet in Kazakhstan. The results of a Political, Economic, Social, and Technological (PEST) market analysis are presented to identify the factors affecting the potential of the Internet in Kazakhstan's public life. Its role in public politics is defined in terms of the news websites and political websites. The five stages of its life span are provided in order to identify the country's political expanse. The political influence of its Internet is discussed in the articulation of public interests.

The article examines public opinion polls conducted in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in 1993 and 2007, focusing on the implications of those polls for U.S. foreign relations. Changes in results of the two polls are discussed, including the relatively low support for a democratic system of government in both polls compared to a desire for an orderly society. It is noted that Kazakhstan saw a large increase in the number of respondents stating that economic conditions in their country were good from 1993-2007 while Uzbekistan did not. An increase in those expressing belief in Islam in both countries is considered. Implications for U.S. economic assistance to the two countries, much of which has gone to support democratic and economic reforms, are discussed.

Departing from some prominent scholarship on Kazakhstani politics, the author argues that competition between financial-industrial groups over scarce economic and political resources—rather than inter-clan or centre-periphery rivalries—largely determines who gets what, when and how. While clan politics and regional grievances may still influence struggles over the distribution of power and wealth, their importance has diminished in recent years. Instead, observable political conflict has centred around competing financial-industrial groups, which represent the diverse, and at times clashing, interests of Kazakhstan's business and political elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The article discusses the outlook for democracy and social modernization in Kazakhstan. Kazakh identity that is distinct from the former collective Soviet identity, ethnic relations between Kazakh tribes, and the development of a national identity are discussed. Opposition from traditionalists against the concepts of modernization, democratic liberalism, and a market economy is mentioned. The distinction between traditionalism and tradition is noted. Urbanization and paternalism in Kazakhstan during the Soviet era of colonization and agricultural de-collectivization in the country after the Soviet Union's collapse are discussed.

The article explores foreign policy and relations of Kazakhstan and its geo-strategic role in Central Asia. The author reflects on petroleum reserves and the location of the country as factors in Kazakhstan's geopolitical importance. A policy of multi-vector politics is related to the security relationships of the Kazakhstani government. The multi-ethnic character of Kazakhstani society and tensions with the Russian Federation are also noted. Other topics include oil pipeline routes, foreign investment in Kazakhstan, and authoritarian regimes.

The essay discusses public relations campaigns undertaken by the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan that aim to establish these countries' national identities among the international community. The political aspects of nation branding in these countries are discussed. Various slogans developed by these campaigns are analyzed.