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Rather than interpreting President Nursultan Nazarbayev's nation-building model of Kazakhstani-ness as a balance between civic and ethnic forms of nation-building, we show that Kazakhstani-ness was styled on Leonid Brezhnev's supranational modern identity of the Soviet People. We explore three similarities by comparing rulers' discursive aspirational statements (rather than historical policy trajectories) in a single case study of Kazakhstan. Both discursive models were based on teleological supranational state ideology, both were depicted as modern and advanced, and both modelled the new identity on the language and culture of ethnic majority. We used thematic discourse analysis in over 50 government documents and speeches of leaders to illustrate our argument. This case presents bigger lessons for regime's power of defining the national membership in post-Soviet Kazakhstan and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This article investigates a series of events that occurred in Quaragandy, a postindustrial city in northern Kazakhstan in the mid-2010s. These events led to Evgenii Tankov, an established lawyer, hitting a judge, Arai Alshynbekov, with a fly swatter during a routine court session. This research demonstrates that Tankov's act was not a flash of rage or a real attempt to harm the judge. It was, instead, a calculated strategy in which a political statement was concealed if not sheathed within the form of a grotesque performance. Tankov knew he would be judged for disrespect towards the court: and yet he used his subsequent trial to demonstrate the moral and intellectual impasse of Kazakhstan's judicial system. This article claims that as a performance, Tankov's case is useful because it allows one to re-think the genre itself. Moreover, it argues that the form of the trial per se became a genre of political agency in contemporary Kazakhstan. As an example of political praxis, this case allows one to question the ways in which non-political actors produce and affirm their identities and create new forms of political agency in a reality in which political behavior is bounded by a postsocialist authoritarian state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kazakhstan has followed a foreign policy of multivector diplomacy since its independence from the former Soviet Union. While multivectorism was a strategy of necessity in its early years, it has evolved to empower Kazakhstan to effectively protect its independence and negotiate its relationship with the great powers on its borders and further afield. After the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea it is noteworthy that Kazakhstan has maintained positive relations with Russia while asserting its sovereignty and independent foreign policy. In this article we investigate how Kazakhstan has negotiated the rise of China, taking advantage of the economic opportunities it presents. We trace the foreign policy of Kazakhstan from independence forward, examining its relationships with its Great Power neighbours and its role in international organizations and negotiations. We posit that multivectorism is similar to the strategy of omni-enmeshment and complex balancing seen in south-east Asia. Both are effective methods for secondary powers to protect their sovereignty and to coexist with Great Powers without becoming their client states. Kazakhstan's approach to foreign policy is an exemplar for secondary states. This article contributes to the literature on the strategic decision-making of secondary powers and to the theoretical analysis of the foreign policy of Kazakhstan during a critical moment of transition from the long-time rule of Nursultan Nazarbayev to the presidency of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses challenges facing Kazakhstan's transitioning society after its independence from the collapsed Soviet Union. Topics discussed include the emergence of big metropolitan areas as a result of large population movements, the country's post-Soviet urbanization which decoupled from industrialization, and the rise of Islamization. Also discussed are the continuing influence of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev and the resistance to globalization and foreign investment.

The article discusses contemporary tendencies in the export of labor resources from Kyrgyzstan. The issue of seeking employment abroad remains topical for a significant share of the country's population due to the complicated socio-economic situation and high levels of unemployment and poverty. The major vectors of labor resources' export are researched--in the recent years, citizens of Kyrgyzstan have been seeking employment in Kazakhstan, Turkey, Rumania and South Korea increasingly more often. An assessment of factors that define Russian Federation as the key receiving country is provided. Most of those working abroad continue to choose Russia, despite the increase in the share of the younger generation that often considers other countries. Young men aged 20-29 with a completed high school education are currently predominant in the labor migrant flow. The presence of cultural and historic ties, along with the tight proximate transport connectivity has established the framework for the development of close economic relations, including the issues related to the export and import of labor resources. The widespread use of the Russian language in the Kyrgyz Republic allows to obtain significant competitive advantages when obtaining employment in various spheres of the Russian economy. An analysis of the structure and number of workers, their distribution over Russian regions and employment spheres is conducted. A clear eastern vector is apparent in the migration of Kyrgyz citizens to Siberia, the Urals and the Russian Far East, despite the fact that a significant share of workers is still concentrated in the major cities of the European part of Russia. The share of migrants from the Kyrgyz Republic among the working population is currently higher beyond the Ural Mountains-- Kyrgyz labor force is becoming increasingly more needed specifically in the Eastern part of Russia. The contribution of labor migration to the economy of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation at the national and regional levels is studied. Employment opportunities available to Kyrgyz Republic citizens are described. The process of establishment of ethnic Kyrgyz community organizations and their influence on the quality of life and labor conditions, as well as on the growth of the number of migrant workers from the Kyrgyz Republic are discussed. The Kyrgyz Republic's problems related to the labor resource export are analyzed. The outflow of able-bodied population with an active life potential leads to noticeable degradation of the country's social system. Opportunities for subsequent development of the Kyrgyz Republic's economy are brought to light. [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]

The authors have analyzed the Arab Spring, which caused an outburst of radical Islamism and echoed in the sociopolitical and economic context of Central Asia. The subject has gathered a lot of importance because of rising extremism that threatens national security of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The authors have posed themselves with the task of delineating the general provisions and specific situations related to the problem of extremism in Kazakhstan, as well as the measures needed to lower the level of radicalization of different population groups, first and foremost, the younger generations, and prevent their involvement in terrorist activities. This is achieved by accomplishing three tasks: to explain in which way the Arab Spring affected Central Asia, first and foremost, in the form of terrorist activities; to reveal the global nature of the problem of religious extremism, the measures needed to prevent its spread among the younger generation and the mechanisms of protecting our country against the ideas of terrorism; to create and improve the legal, normative, organizational and other mechanisms of power of the Republic of Kazakhstan designed to oppose the ideology of terrorism. We have concentrated on the driving forces, impacts of the Arab Spring, its role in the contemporary history of the Republic of Kazakhstan and deemed it absolutely necessary to pay particular attention to the place Kazakhstan occupies in the processes that are pushing the world towards a new world order. The type of radical activities in Kazakhstan, and in the Central Asian region for that matter, changed significantly under the pressure of the Middle Eastern crisis, which has been unfolding since 2011. Today, Syria and Iraq attract mercenaries from all corners of the world. The events in the Middle East forced many people to ask themselves whether the Arab Spring can be repeated in Central Asia; whether Arab revolutions can be continued there, how these processes might affect the region and, last but not least, how the Arab Spring echoed in other regions, what place Kazakhstan occupies and will occupy in the near future in the international balance of power and how this will affect the region's security. The impact of the Arab Spring, which is a multidimensional phenomenon, has spread far and wide outside the Middle East. This means that what happened and is happening there had already affected the interests of the United States, Russia, the European Union, Turkey, Iran, China and other countries which share Kazakhstan's international and geopolitical interests. Authors of hundreds of books, thousands of articles, monographs, academic papers and collections of articles published in different countries around the world have already discussed the economic and political impacts of the Arab Spring on Central Asia as a whole, and on Kazakhstan in particular. This is a topical subject that attracts attention of politicians and analysts of many countries. This article is our contribution to the common effort. We have posed ourselves with the task of examining the lessons of the Arab Spring from a different angle: having analyzed the lessons of the Arab Spring, we should work hard to prevent all sorts of threats and the spread of extremism and terror as the main challenges created by the Arab Spring. [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]

A quarter-century of independence has transformed Kazakhstan into a leading Central Asian economy and consolidated authoritarian regime. The political systems of Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan were very similar to that of Kazakhstan until they were hit by a "color revolution virus" that dismantled authoritarian institutions and initiated democratic reforms. How, then, has Kazakhstan--like other Central Asian autocracies-- remained somewhat immune to these bottom-up revolutions? This paper adopts a social movement perspective to explain how such factors as resource mobilization, political opportunities, and protest framing strategies have shaped protest mobilization dynamics in Kazakhstan, a variable that was crucial to the success of color revolutions. Through elite interviews and newspaper content analysis of protest events in Kazakhstan between 1992 and 2009, the article suggests that the Kazakh government has erected numerous anti-democratic barriers, illustrating how autocracies have learned from the successes and failures of color revolutions to remain in power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on recent scholarship, this essay contributes to further developing a conceptual understanding of multivector foreign policy, a term that, despite its frequent use, is still in need of additional refinement. I use the two-pronged concept of diversification as hinging, first, on simultaneous co-alignment with multiple major power providers and, second, as resulting from the interaction of variables at both system and unit levels. The essay then models a causal mechanism to explain Kazakhstan's approach to international infrastructure connectivity, an oft neglected issue-area of interstate collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article compares the legal norms of civil law of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Romania. The basic concepts, principles of organization of the civil law branch are investigated. Similarities and differences of legal norms are considered, proceeding from the methodology of comparative jurisprudence. As a result of the analysis, conclusions are drawn concerning the possibility of using progressive norms in the field of the investigated branch of law in the modern national legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores issues of citizenship and belonging associated with post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s repatriation programme. Beginning in 1991, Kazakhstan financed the resettlement of over 944,000 diasporic Kazakhs from nearly a dozen countries, including Mongolia, and encouraged repatriates to become naturalised citizens. Using the concept of ‘privileged exclusion’, this article argues that repatriated Kazakhs from Mongolia belong due to their knowledge of Kazakh language and traditions yet, at the same time, do not belong due to their lack of linguistic fluency in Russian, the absence of a shared Soviet experience, and limited comfort with the ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle that characterises the new elite in this post-Soviet context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

As the seat of the Kazakh government and a booming city since 1998, Astana has attracted hundreds of thousands of migrants. As a cultural and financial capital, Almaty has also continued to boom, drawing comparable numbers of migrants from different regions of Kazakhstan. However, varying historical trajectories and historically constructed notions of the urban and rural, as articulated by the cultural elites and policy-makers, as well as different preparedness of the government for migration flows in the 1990s and the 2000s in Almaty and Astana respectively, have resulted in quite diverse attitudes toward mobility and different perceptions about how urban order should be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including the late sociologist James D. Thompson's contribution to administrative theory, organizational processes, and governance in the post-Soviet Union republic of Kazakhstan.

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]

The article explores the concept of political postcolonialism and how political groups appropriate and contest this discourse. Elites and contesting political groups utilise postcolonial rhetoric to legitimate their political goals by projecting that their country, in this case Kazakhstan, was colonised by the Tsarist Russia and then by the Soviet Union. For President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev's nationalising regime the status of Kazakhstan as a colony represented a vital item in post-1991 nation-building projects. Political opposition and Kazakh national- patriots contested this official discourse, blaming the regime for scarce efforts towards 'full decolonisation'. The absence of major intellectual discussion allowed these elites and political players to reappropriate these discourses in the political rather than critical intellectual domain. [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 article presents an order from K. Kasymov Minister Lieutenant General in the Police and Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the approval of rules governing the implementation of the state protection of persons involved in crimincal proceedings. The order is in accordance with the Chapter 12 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the country, with information on the general provisions, security measures, and obligations of the protected person.

The article presents the instruction on organizing the oversight of the legality of the pretrial stage of criminal proceedings, which was approved by Order of the Procurator General of the Republic of Kazakhstan on March 30, 2015. Information is provided on the provisions of the oversight, the division of powers during the practice of oversight, and the oversight of statutory procedure compliance in making decision on statements and reports on crimes.

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]

In the article, I try to analyze the role and importance of the oligarchs and business class at the formation of oppositional movements in Kazakhstan. Firstly, I focus on early opposition movements until the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan and their characteristic features, secondly the emergence of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan and then the emergence of For a Just Kazakhstan. Lastly I touch upon the characteristics and features of opposition movements in other post-Soviet countries and their comparison with Kazakh opposition. While focusing on these issues, I try to analyze the intervening variables which produced the emergence of Kazakh opposition, the relations and cleavages among the country's elite and reasons and results of the split inside the regime's elite. At conclusion, I try to overview Kazakhstan's role model in Central Asia for the development of opposition, and through that way, the democracy in the neighboring countries, which look like Kazakhstan characteristically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Beginning in 1992, the newly independent government of Kazakhstan has facilitated the in-migration of 944,000 Kazakhs from neighboring countries, with the majority migrating as family units. Using the post-Soviet repatriation of Kazakhs as an example, we illustrate in this article how socially constituted notions about gender and kinship help reinforce institutional and informal power structures that favor men at three different points in the migration process: in making the decision to migrate, in dealing with the bureaucratic aspects of migration, and in facing the consequences of migration. First, patriarchal power dynamics often mean that women have less influence than men on the decision to migrate. Second, the legal framework for repatriation is based on an implicit assumption that Kazakh households correspond to a patriarchal model, and this has financial consequences for women. Third, transnational migration widens the physical separations from natal kin that women already experience due to Kazakh kinship practices that emphasize patrilineal descent, clan-based exogamy, and patrilocal marriage. [ gender, migration, kinship, transnational, Central Asia] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates Kazakhstan's natural resource policies and their impact on the standard of living of the Kazakhstan population within the framework of three determinative factors: globalization and international markets; Soviet legacy and ‘resource nationalism’; and Nursultan Nazarbayev and his authoritarian leadership. It argues that natural resource policies of Kazakhstan failed to improve the living standards of the majority of people in Kazakhstan, especially the poor and those living in oil-producing and rural areas, despite increasing oil prices and revenues. The argument will be supported with an analysis of Kazakhstan's oil wealth distribution in light of global initiatives as well as with evidence derived from official reports and statistical data to find out whether Nazarbayev's widely discussed ‘resource nationalism’ is ‘nationalistic’ enough to favour the whole nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

The article discusses the reform of Kazakhstan's cultural policies under President Nursultan Nazarbayev, commenting on his implementation of the Concept of Cultural Policy, a program designed to strengthen the country's culture by streamlining policies on cultural education and the arts.

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]