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‘Papa’– Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Discourse of Charismatic Leadership and Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
Abstract
Abstract Taking a critical perspective on the Weberian concept of charisma this article examines elite and citizen discourse regarding the perceived charismatic leadership and nation-building achievements of the post-Soviet president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Using a number of ideal type features of charismatic leadership based on the typology developed by Roger Eatwell, the article argues that Nazarbayev's leadership does not fit neatly the concept of charisma. Rather, in this instance, Nazarbayev's perceived charismatic leadership as the father of the Kazakhstani nation, and the single politician capable of meeting the challenges of post-Soviet nation-building, is a constructed discursive force projected from above at the elite level, which resonates with public attitudes towards him at the societal level. Charisma represents a discursive mechanism that emphasises President Nazarbayev's centrality to the unity, prosperity, and stability of the nation. This charismatic discourse has aided Nazarbayev in consolidating his authoritarian regime and illustrates the existence of a distinct form of post-Soviet charisma.
... To a certain extent, the results of the study are consistent with those from earlier research on the effectiveness of leadership in the context of former USSR transition economies (Ismail and Ford, 2010). As the findings reveal, Kazakhstani employees see the effectiveness of PL, which confirms the findings of a previous study on PL and its acceptance in the context of Kazakhstan (Low, 2007;Isaacs, 2010;Ismail and Ford, 2010). PL in this study was defined as a caring and directive type of leadership. ...
... This paternalistic approach may stem from years of Tsarism and a long tradition of Kazakh society (Low, 2007). Similarly, research on political leadership in Kazakhstan and other former USSR countries suggests that paternalistic leadership is effective in this region (Isaacs, 2010). The influence of TML on employee performance could also be consistent with those earlier studies, as it shares common features with charismatic leadership (Isaacs, 2010). ...
... Similarly, research on political leadership in Kazakhstan and other former USSR countries suggests that paternalistic leadership is effective in this region (Isaacs, 2010). The influence of TML on employee performance could also be consistent with those earlier studies, as it shares common features with charismatic leadership (Isaacs, 2010). Although charismatic leadership in earlier research was defined as 'post-Soviet charisma', it clearly indicates that the correct actions, magnetism and drive of the leader make people support and admire the leader in his endeavours (Isaacs, 2010). ...
Abstract
Purpose: Based on the tenets of the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study investigated the influence of different leadership styles on organizational performance in the context of a Eurasian country (i.e., Kazakhstan). It further examined the moderating role of corporate culture in the leadership-organizational performance relationship.
Design/methodology/approach: Using the quantitative survey method, the study collected data from 321 managerial employees working in local and multinational corporations in Kazakhstan. The collected data were analysed using SPSS software, and factor analysis, path analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis were conducted to validate the hypotheses. Furthermore, structural equation modelling was developed to assess the moderating effects of the variables.
Findings: The findings reveal that among different leadership styles, transformational, transactional, and paternal leadership have higher influences on organizational performance. Among different corporate cultures, clan culture appears to have higher moderating effects on the leadership-organizational performance relationship. The moderating role of corporate culture on the leadership influence-organizational performance relationship supports the ‘resource caravan’ effects of the composition model theory.
Research implications: Based on the premises of the COR theory, this study suggests developing multiple leadership competencies among managerial employees to be more effective in any given organizational or country context. As a result of the inclusiveness of multiple competencies, the study further suggests the consideration of an ‘integrated leadership approach’ in the Eurasian context. Consistent with the national cultural syndrome, and as preferred by employees, managers could focus on developing a clan or group culture to strengthen their influencing power on employees.
Originality: The study adopts the COR theory by considering leadership competencies as unique resources of individual managers, which suggests the development of an ‘integrated leadership approach’ for better management development and improved organizational performance. Furthermore, the study contributes by validating the applicability of the ‘conservation of resources’ and the ‘composition model’ theories in leadership studies.
Keywords: Leadership effectiveness, organizational performance, corporate culture, Kazakhstan.
... Isaac (2010) This has direct implications on students and their performance in a class engaged in criticality. As Weber (1947) notes and Isaac (2010) concurs in the case of Kazakhstan, charismatic authority can lead to an unwillingness of citizens to question authority in general. This means that critique may be viewed as unwelcome in the classroom. ...
... Alibek, an ethnic Kazakh student who began the year wanting to act as ambassador to (Isaac, 2010) that is both good and unquestionable -therefore, anything that might contradict views that Nazarbayev holds, is to be questioned. However, for Askhat, the government (and by extension, Nazarbayev) represents structural power (Foucault, 1980) where he is constructed as being Chechen first and Kazakhstani second. ...
... National identity and ethnic identity are commonly interchanged in Kazakhstan as it attempts to create a strong nation to legitimize the state (Dave, 2007;Feirman, 2000;Surucu, 2002). While focused on postindependent Kazakhstan, I also consider the role that President Nazarbayev, first and sole president of Kazakhstan, plays in this socio-political context (Isaac, 2010 Having attempted to engage Kazakhstan's socio-political context in terms of ethnicity, national identity and gender, I developed my CAR (Schon, 1987;Kemmis, 1997;Kincheloe, 2008) to best understand how criticality might be fostered in my practice. I developed the use of the student self-evaluation, a narrative essay written and re-written throughout a year-long module where students continually reflect on their learning, themselves, and their contexts. ...
... Widely regarded by outsiders as an authoritarian leader, Nazarbayev nonetheless stands out in the region for the political stability and economic growth that citizens credit him with providing. Insiders and outsiders alike have classified him as offering a more moderate form of authoritarian rule, compared to neighboring Central Asian countries (Isaacs 2010). Other scholars have noted how crucial Nazarbayev's discourses highlighting the nation's economic growth have been to his maintaining legitimacy among Kazakhstani citizens, which has suffered during times of economic crisis (Omelicheva 2016). ...
... Themes of development, modernity, and futurity play a key role in these narratives that Nazarbayev and his elite supporters emphasize in their narratives of Kazakhstan as a post-Soviet success story (Kudaibergenova 2015). Widely known as "Papa" in Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev offers a patriarchal rule that promises continual growth of the nation (Isaacs 2010). The precarity Kazakhstan faced at its independence has not retreated, however, as political scientists and local informants alike express concern over what a post-Nazarbayev Kazakhstan will bring, a concern that grows more urgent as the leader continues to rule well into his 70s, with no named successor (Beacháin and Kevlihan 2013). ...
Framing the Fantastic examines the social and material processes of imagination, co-constructed by children and adults in institutions of childhood in the city of Almaty. This dissertation shows how make-believe endeavors create and maintain relations with present and absent others, these creative processes nonetheless part of the sensory, material worlds in which people live. This project examines how people animate objects and humans – bringing them to life or compelling them into action, revealing the ways citizens – including children – become involved in shaping and creating ideologies of childhood and futurity. In Almaty, the former capital and largest city of Kazakhstan, children appear in public life, adults valuing child performance as a source of entertainment and as a pedagogical method. Meanwhile, adult artists use puppetry to socialize young children, a form of entertainment that became institutionalized under Soviet times in urban centers around the USSR. According to local puppet artists, the medium of puppetry offers a material instantiation of essential qualities that make these animated objects ideal forms for children to understand abstract qualities, such as good and evil. Based on participant observation and the analysis of video collected over the course of 24 months of fieldwork, Framing the Fantastic examines the rehearsals and performances of a government-run puppet theater alongside the daily activities of a temporary, state-sponsored home for preschool-aged children, called Hope House. Parents placed children at Hope House with the promise of resuming care for them when the children were old enough to begin school. Fantasy played an important role at Hope House in two ways: First, children and teachers, in play and in daily lessons, imagined and anticipated life outside Hope House, these fantasies often centered around the children’s family homes, to which they would return. Second, due to the complex network of state, corporate, and nongovernment sponsors providing material support for the home’s functioning, a regular influx of visitors meant that children became adept at singing and dancing for visiting adults. These performances offered outsiders evidence of the children’s abilities in a context of frequent stigmatization of institutionalized children. At the puppet theatre, a massive renovation of the theatre’s building prompted an overhaul of the troupe’s repertoire. An influx of new directors gave rise to new techniques of animation, which they linked to larger-scale questions of the theater’s role in reaching audiences in twenty-first century Kazakhstan. Attempts to change modes of artistic production highlighted tensions within ideologies of performance as both work and play. The processes and discussions surrounding animation and de-animation, moreover, reveal these endeavors as both intimate and hierarchical, as actors move through other bodies or treat their own bodies as instruments of manipulation. This dissertation reveals the intersensory and intersubjective processes through which children and adults give life to characters and to stories, and the ways these processes create, alter, or maintain social relations. It examines slippery relationships between humans and nonhumans, and between “play” and “real,” as actors distribute and accept agency, responsibility, and sentimental attachments. It rejects common separation of childhood and children — or of ideology versus lived experience — to show how these projects of animating childhood shape children’s experiences and their relationships with adults. In contemporary Kazakhstan, children become symbols of futurity, offering the possibility of social transformation, while also anchoring nostalgia for adults’ own pasts.
... Such fragmentation has been created by the "elite" intentionally to tighten the grip on power and personal enrichment. Finally, along with the charismatic discourse of the leader of the nation projected from the "elite" [165], it guaranteed political longevity to Nazarbayev. ...
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the idea of a “model of development” was popular among politicians and economists in Kazakhstan. As a result, the country was the first in Central Asia to outline “Asian Tiger” economies as its development “role model” in its development strategy. Among the “Asian Tigers,” the case of South Korea is of particular interest as the per capita Purchasing Power Parity-adjusted Gross Domestic Product (PPP-adjusted GDP per capita) in both countries was almost similar in 1990. However, the Korean economy is currently almost twice larger than the Kazakh. Furthermore, in general, the economic and political institutions are far more advanced in South Korea than in Kazakhstan. This research aims to carry out the comparative analysis of economic systems, socio-economic indicators, and governance indicators and political institutions to understand the reasons for convergence and divergence between Kazakhstan and South Korea.
... In Kazakhstan, the President was credited with planning the city, from the general idea of the capital relocation down to the designs of particular buildings -such as the prominent Bayterek monument, allegedly outlined by Nazarbayev's hand on a handkerchief. He was frequently depicted literally as Astana's architect, and a national holiday -Astana Day -was celebrated on his birthday (see also Isaacs 2010) (Figure 11.1). ...
... According to the official nation-building discourses of Nazarbayev's regime, the major political project for Kazakhstan is to create the Kazakhstani nation, perceived not as an ethnic category but as one of civil collective solidarity (Isaacs 2010;Laruelle 2014;Omelicheva 2015). In this framework, Islam becomes one of many symbols of the local culture, whereas Nazarbayev's petrostate wants very strongly to remain secular. ...
... Such fragmentation has been created by the "elite" intentionally to tighten the grip on power and personal enrichment. Finally, along with the charismatic discourse of the leader of the nation projected from the "elite" [165], it guaranteed political longevity to Nazarbayev. ...
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the idea of a "model of development" was popular among politicians and economists in Kazakhstan. As a result, the country was the first in Central Asia to outline "Asian Tiger" economies as its development "role model" in its development strategy. Among the "Asian Tigers," the case of South Korea is of particular interest as the per capita Purchasing Power Parity-adjusted Gross Domestic Product (PPP-adjusted GDP per capita) in both countries was almost similar in 1990. However, the Korean economy is currently almost twice larger than the Kazakh. Furthermore, in general, the economic and political institutions are far more advanced in South Korea than in Kazakhstan. This research aims to carry out a comparative analysis of economic systems, socioeconomic indicators, and governance indicators, and political institutions to understand the reasons for convergence and divergence between Kazakhstan and South Korea.
... At the same time, Nazarbayev still holds the title of "Leader of the Nation" (Elbasy), which was granted to him by parliamentary decree in 2010. It is worth stating here that Nazarbayev has been considered the source of Kazakhstan's economic prosperity, political stability, and ethnic balance and has been enjoying a high level of popularity throughout his rule (Peyrouse 2012, 347;Isaacs 2010). ...
Turkmenistan belongs to the countries where the democratisation (Huntington in The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Oklahoma University Press, Oklahoma, 1991) and transition have led to the conservation of a Soviet system (McFaul in World Politics, 54: 212–244, 2002). The case of Turkmenistan showed that the discourse of transitology (popular in the 1990s and 2000s) could move in the reverse direction, i.e. towards a more authoritarian government (Carothers in Journal of Democracy, 13: 5–21, 2002).
... Moreover, given the Kremlin's massive crackdown on political freedoms and civil liberties some observers and human right watchdogs alarm that today Russia is more repressive than it has ever been in the post-Soviet era (Human Rights Watch, 2019). Similarly, Kazakhstan's political regime can be best described as a personalistic autocracy, with the 'father' of the Kazakhstani nation Nazarbayev being perceived as the single politician capable of meeting the challenges of post-Soviet nation-building (Isaacs, 2010). ...
According to widely held beliefs the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) inaugurated in 2015 is a new twenty first century version of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the EAEU member states are deemed bound to the Russian 'authoritarian resistance' and 'authoritarian' diffusion', with little to no chances for democracy promotion. This study focuses the state of human rights and political freedoms in EAEU member states Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. It represents an attempt to explore the relationship between the Eurasian integration and the state of democracy in EAEU member states. The findings of this study suggest that even the state of democracy has slightly deteriorated in Russia and Kazakhstan and by contrast improved in Armenia since the establishment of the EAEU, there have been no major shifts or considerable changes. That said, it is hard to contend that Eurasian integration has made the EAEU countries less democratic than they would have been otherwise.
... In the pursuit of domestic legitimation, authoritarian leaders in Central Asia aim to produce a powerful official discourse that connects Latinization efforts to their personal legacy. The sphere of authority in Central Asia is generally rooted in informal personal leadership based on charisma permeated through legal-rational procedures (Fauve 2015;Isaacs 2010). By examining post-Soviet Latinization discourses in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, it is possible to observe how presidential power operates in attempting to cement a personal presidential legacy. ...
Changing national alphabets is significant and controversial because of its connection to the legitimation of power in the past and present. Writing system revisions in Central Asia present intriguing variations. Latinization in Turkmenistan achieved the most notable recognition. In Uzbekistan, the government instituted some degree of Latinization, but the scope of the new alphabet remains limited. In Kazakhstan, the script change seems politically ambitious, but slow in its implementation. This article scrutinises how modern autocracies incorporate alphabetic alterations within their domestic and international legitimacy projects, places current Latinization efforts in historical context.
... Authoritarian rulers may also strive to justify their domination by referring to qualities inherent in their personhood. Scholars working in this vein draw on Weber's [(1922) 1978: 215-216] three types of legitimate authority-specifically, his traditional and charismatic types of authority-to focus on how a leaders' traits are portrayed to procure support for his or her regime [Brownlee 2007;Isaacs 2010]. For example, traditional authority is based on whether the leader can stake a claim to established customs, such as appointment by heredity, to justify her rule [Brownlee 2007]. ...
Research on authoritarian legitimation suggests that rulers seek support through ideological, personalistic, performance-based, and procedural strategies. Typically, however, this work only considers the dynamics of legitimation between rulers and civilians. In contrast, this paper suggests that meso-level actors play a critical role in shaping legitimation from both above and below. Through an historical analysis of the French episcopate’s support for the Vichy regime from 1940 to 1942, I identify four practices that bolstered Vichy’s attempts to accrue legitimacy and simultaneously identify the consequences of these practices for the Church’s relationship with Jews. Public endorsements by the religious authorities for Marshal Pétain, their cooperation with the Vichy administration, the expression of shared values, and common rhetoric all contributed to the regime’s legitimation process while leading to a concomitant decline in the hierarchy’s ties to the rabbinate. These results suggest that attention to meso-level actors brings into relief important dynamics about how legitimation processes unfold in authoritarian settings while simultaneously contributing to research on the Holocaust in France.
... President Nazarbayev has been repeatedly re-elected to his position, most recently in April 2015, and while there have been doubts about some aspects of these elections, it is clear that he remains immensely popular in the country -unlike the case in most of the other Central Asian republics. Nazarbayev has by most accounts played a central, and extremely positive, role in the history of postindependence Kazakhstan (see Aitken, 2009;Isaacs, 2010;Levitsky & Way, 2002). 2 Although the 'Great Game' was a 19th century phenomenon, following the collapse of the Soviet Union there has been considerable discussion of the development of a 'new Great Game' in Central Asia (see Atal, 2005;Edwards, 2003;Menon, 2003;Weitz, 2006). ...
This chapter provides an overview of past and current language education policies in Vietnam. Our reviews and critical discussions centre on state rules and regulations regarding the teaching and learning of Vietnamese, ethnic minority languages, and foreign languages. Historically speaking, language education policy in Vietnam has been largely contingent on the country’s changing political, social, and economic circumstances. Notably, current language education policy reflects the predominant status of Vietnamese as the medium of instruction across school levels. Ethnic minority language education has also received substantial policy attention, although its enactment leaves considerable room for improvement. Foreign language education policy prioritises English given its status as an international language, while also encouraging the teaching and learning of other languages. The chapter concludes with predictions and implications for future development with regard to the role and status of these relevant languages.
... 275-277) and as having traditional authority through hereditary succession (Brownlee, 2007;Herb, 1999). Personalism-based claims may also (1) Foundational myth (2) Ideology (3) Personalism (4) Procedures (5) Performance (6) International engagement represent a discursive mechanism that emphasizes the ruler's centrality to certain achievements such as the nation's unity, prosperity, and stability (Isaacs, 2010;Nelson, 1984). ...
... The underpinning aim is to integrate authoritarian states into the legal-rational order of modern nations. But such events also feed into grandiose discourses about the leadership and their success in terms of foreign policy, especially in the case of Nazarbayev and his narrative of success in deploying a multi-vector foreign policy (Isaacs 2010). Thus, demonstrating the international credentials of the regime for a domestic audience. ...
This chapter brings to bear what Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan can explain with regard to the concepts of legitimacy and legitimation in authoritarianism. It argues how legitimation should be understood as a series of claims by the regime regarding their appropriateness to rule which are then transformed through social action which then produces legitimacy. The chapter challenges contemporary theorisation of legitimation in the post-Soviet space, which disaggregates the process too far, failing to address the overlapping and interdependent nature of legitimising claims. Instead, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan demonstrate how authoritarian regimes can rely on a combination of charismatic, traditional and legal-rational claims to evoke legitimation, but that ultimately, we can never truly know the extent to which broader society believes in the legitimacy of these regimes.
... 275-277) and as having traditional authority through hereditary succession (Brownlee, 2007;Herb, 1999). Personalism-based claims may also (1) Foundational myth (2) Ideology (3) Personalism (4) Procedures (5) Performance (6) International engagement represent a discursive mechanism that emphasizes the ruler's centrality to certain achievements such as the nation's unity, prosperity, and stability (Isaacs, 2010;Nelson, 1984). ...
Constructing convincing legitimacy claims is important for securing the stability of authoritarian regimes. However, extant research has struggled to systematically analyse how authoritarians substantiate their right to rule. We analyse a novel data set on authoritarian regimes’ claims to legitimacy that is based on leading country experts’ assessments of 98 states for the period 1991–2010. This analysis provides key new insights into the inner workings and legitimation strategies of current non-democratic regimes. Closed authoritarian regimes predominately rely on identity-based legitimacy claims (foundational myth, ideology and personalism). In contrast, elections fundamentally change how authoritarian rulers relate to society. In their legitimacy claims, electoral authoritarian regimes focus on their ‘adequate’ procedures, thereby mimicking democracies. All regimes also stress their purported success in proving material welfare and security to their citizens.
... Charismatische Führer stellen sich selbst als "von oben" erwählt dar, um eine bestimmte, "heilige" Mission zu erfüllen (Fagen 1965, S. 275-277). Diese Legitimationsdimension umfasst aber auch Narrative, welche die Fähigkeiten der Herrschenden, Einheit, Wohlstand und Stabilität sicherzustellen, betonen (Isaacs 2010). Herrscherzentrierte Legitimationsansprüche stützen sich also sowohl auf das Charisma des Herrschers und dessen traditionelles Recht auf Machtausübung (Herb 1999) als auch auf dessen außergewöhnliche Führungsqualitäten und -expertise (Nelson 1984). ...
Zusammenfassung
Der Forschung zur Legitimität autoritärer Regime ist es bislang nur unzureichend gelungen, die Legitimationsstrategien autoritärer Regime systematisch zu erfassen und zu vergleichen. Im Gegensatz zu bestehenden Analysen, welche sich in erster Linie auf die Akzeptanz autoritärer Herrschaft konzentrieren, argumentieren wir, dass Legitimationsansprüche des Regimes maßgeblich auf Dominanz und Dissens innerhalb von Autokratien einwirken. Dabei lassen sich sechs Legitimationsdimensionen unterscheiden: (1) Gründungsmythos, (2) Ideologie, (3) Personalismus, (4) internationales Engagement, (5) Verfahren und (6) Performanz autoritärer Regime. Der Artikel präsentiert einen neuen Datensatz zu Legitimationsstrategien nicht-demokratischer Regime, dem die Befragung führender Länderexperten zu 98 Staaten im Zeitraum von 1991–2010 zugrunde liegt. Basierend auf den Experteneinschätzungen entwickeln wir vier Legitimationsprofile, welche neue systematische Erkenntnisse bezüglich der Kombination von Legitimationsdimensionen zur Rechtfertigung der Macht autoritärer Regime erbringen.
... Since 1991 Kazakhstan has functioned as an authoritarian political system, with no genuine elections and very limited freedom of expression and assembly. Former Communist Party leader Nursultan Nazarbaev has remained president since the founding of the state, and continues to exert close control over political and economic structures (Dave 2007;Isaacs 2011). In the absence of democratic processes to provide legitimacy, the regime invested heavily in symbolic and discursive activities, producing what Schatz (2008Schatz ( , 2009) terms a 'soft authoritarianism', in which 'discursive preemption' plays an important role. ...
Post-Soviet authoritarian regimes – particularly in Central Asia – have proved highly resilient since independence. Existing explanations for regime longevity should be augmented by consideration of non-material, discursive sources of political legitimacy. A robust authoritarian regime requires the production and circulation of a hegemonic discourse that is internalized by influential social groups. This type of dominant discourse has emerged in Kazakhstan, making it difficult for political opponents to promote alternative political imaginaries and mobilize popular support. State control over media is challenged by Internet-based platforms, but in Kazakhstan social media and blogging have also offered an opportunity for the regime to reproduce its own hegemonic discourse. This article uses a discourse analysis of posts by bloggers in the aftermath of a violent conflict in Zhanaozen in Kazakhstan in 2011 to demonstrate how central elements in the state discourse are reproduced online, even by independent bloggers, suggesting that an official discourse has the ability to maintain its hegemonic status despite widespread use of blogs and social media.
... After independence, Nursultan Nazarbayev, called Elbasy (father of the nation), :wrote a number of books to promote the national ideology (6 Beachain and Kevlihan, 2013). Even though his leadership style does not entirely fit the notion of charisma developed by Weber according to'some scholars (Isaacs, 2010), Nazarbayev is considered to have been a key factor in leading the country through the post-independence period toward stability and development. In a similar manner, the Turkmen nationalism is intimately related to the figure of the first post-independence president, Saparmurat Niyazov, also called Turkmenbashi ('Father of all Turkmen').; ...
Non‐democratic rulers in post‐Soviet countries use specific combinations of legitimating
claims to stay in power. Most notably, rulers claim to be the guardians of citizens’ socioeconomic
well‐being. Second, despite recurrent infringements on political and civil rights,
they maintain that their power is rule‐based and embodies the will of the people, as they
have been given popular electoral mandates. Third, they couple these elements with input-based
legitimation strategies that focus on nationalist ideologies, the personal capabilities
and charismatic aura of the rulers, and the regime’s foundational myth. Overall, the reliance
on these strategies is lower in the western post‐Soviet Eurasian countries
and very pronounced among the authoritarian rulers of Central Asia.
The present study investigates the landscapes of feminist and civil activist movements in Kazakhstan and how these movements further developed and interacted after 2019. Given Kazakhstan’s authoritarian system of governance, social media plays a crucial role in the development of activist movements as it allows for faster and effective community mobilisation. The paper employs “the logic of connective action” concept as a theoretical basis to explore how social media has impacted the activist movement growth. The study is divided into two analytical parts: inductive and deductive. Inductive analysis is based on qualitative interviews and dedicated to exploring the goals, strategies, and challenges of feminist and activist movements, identifying the main actors, and pinpointing the movements’ interactions. The inductive analysis concludes with the proposition of the hypothesis that local cyberfeminist activism increases women’s involvement in activities dedicated to causes other than feminist one. The deductive analysis attempts to test this hypothesis via a survey developed for the present study. The paper concludes with a discussion section that summarises how feminist activism strengthens other activist movements and how the present case study can be expanded to other Central Asian states.
In January 2022 mass protests spread quickly across the whole of Kazakhstan, becoming the largest mass mobilization in the country’s modern history. We analyze these mass protests through the framework of regime-society relations, arguing that a ey failure of the regime built by Nazarbayev is the inability to reconcile its neoliberal prosperity rhetoric with citizens’ calls for a welfare state. We then explore how a tradition of protests has been developing since 2011 and address the structural components of regime (in)stability and how they contributed to violence in the protests.
Drawing on the rigorous reading of Social Identity Theory (SIT), this paper reconstructs the ideational sources of Kazakhstan’s status seeking by identifying the Kazakhstani perception of the (un)fairness of the international system, and the nature of the existing hierarchies in world society. By using the fine-tuned ideal types of status enhancement strategies as the basis of the coding scheme, a qualitative content analysis of Kazakhstan’s first president’s speeches and texts reveals that Nursultan Nazarbayev adopted a social cooperation strategy. He perceived the international system as permeable, although rather unfair, but nevertheless open for improvement through multilateral cooperation. Nazarbayev accepted the negative results of comparison and responded with an adequate agency. He cultivated a special niche of foreign policy as a champion of nuclear non-proliferation, and a place for open and constructive dialogue. Therefore, Kazakhstan projected itself as a doctrineless good power, without an alignment to a particular great power.
This book examines the development of bilateral energy relations between China and the two oil-rich countries, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Challenging conventional assumptions about energy politics and China’s global quest for oil, this book examines the interplay of politics and sociocultural contexts. It shows how energy resources become ideas and how these ideas are mobilized in the realm of international relations. China’s relations with Kazakhstan and Russia are simultaneously enabled and constrained by the discursive politics of oil. It is argued that to build collaborative and constructive energy relations with China, its partners in Kazakhstan, Russia, and elsewhere must consider not only the material realities of China’s energy industry and the institutional settings of China’s energy policy but also the multiple symbolic meanings that energy resources and, particularly, oil acquire in China.
China’s Energy Security and Relations with Petrostates offers a nuanced understanding of China’s bilateral energy relations with Kazakhstan and Russia, raising essential questions about the social logic of international energy politics. It will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, energy security, Chinese and post-Soviet studies, along with researchers working in the fields of energy policy and environmental sustainability.
In 2019, Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev surprised the world by voluntarily stepping down after almost thirty years in power to leave space for “a new generation of leaders.” Kazakhstan has become the success story of post-communist development in the region. Investors, domestic elites, and foreign leaders have been praising the stability of Nazarbayev’s neopatrimonial regime. Nazarbayev, however, is the first Central Asian leader who chose to step down from the presidency through a political tandem with the chairman of the Senate and second in line for the presidency, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Despite the fact that Tokayev finds himself in a secondary role in Kazakhstan’s political system, he has taken some steps toward changing his image and has shown some controversial signs of liberalization. This chapter discusses the turbulent relationship between political elites and the opposition in Kazakhstan, following the analytical model of the Sociology of Power. It first presents the elites that control Kazakhstan, the competition that these elites face from abroad, and the most significant groups and leaders that can mobilize popular discontent. The focus then turns on the strategies that Kazakh elites used to maintain power and the prospects of Kazakhstan’s transition.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the legacy of the historian, ethnographer, and geographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912-1992) has attracted extraordinary interest in Russia and beyond. The son of two of modern Russia’s greatest poets, Nikolai Gumilev and Anna Akhmatova, Gumilev spent thirteen years in Stalinist prison camps, and after his release in 1956 remained officially outcast and professionally shunned. Out of the tumult of perestroika, however, his writings began to attract attention and he himself became a well-known and popular figure. Despite his highly controversial (and often contradictory) views about the meaning of Russian history, the nature of ethnicity, and the dynamics of interethnic relations, Gumilev now enjoys a degree of admiration and adulation matched by few if any other public intellectual figures in the former Soviet Union. He is freely compared to Albert Einstein and Karl Marx, and his works today sell millions of copies and have been adopted as official textbooks in Russian high schools. Universities and mountain peaks alike are named in his honor, and a statue of him adorns a prominent thoroughfare in a major city. Leading politicians, President Vladimir Putin very much included, are unstinting in their deep appreciation for his legacy, and one of the most important foreign-policy projects of the Russian government today is clearly inspired by his particular vision of how the Eurasian peoples formed a historical community. In The Gumilev Mystique, Mark Bassin presents an analysis of this remarkable phenomenon. He investigates the complex structure of Gumilev’s theories, revealing how they reflected and helped shape a variety of academic as well as political and social discourses in the USSR, and he traces how his authority has grown yet greater across the former Soviet Union. The themes he highlights while untangling Gumilev’s complicated web of influence are critical to understanding the political, intellectual, and ethno-national dynamics of Russian society from the age of Stalin to the present day.
Strategic narratives are increasingly considered important for domestic and international support for foreign policy. However, debate continues about why some strategic narratives successfully shape policy outcomes, while others are rejected. How states construct strategic narratives is well established. We know less about how states appropriate the strategic narratives of others, and the role this plays in policy adoption. Addressing this, we introduce a theoretical framework to trace the relationship between strategic narratives and policy adoption. Its central premise is that a state is more likely to adopt a new policy if it can strategically narrate about it in a way that promises material gain but without undermining its ontological security. We test our framework using states’ responses to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Examining the Second Belt and Road Forum in 2019, we trace how far China's strategic narratives are appropriated by multiple states – Kazakhstan, Italy, United Kingdom, Netherlands, United States, India, and Mexico. Countries appropriate China's narrative emphasis on connectivity, trade, and prosperity. However, they contest that China's intentions are benign, based on its human rights record, assertive foreign policy, and fears of indebtedness. Finally, we discuss our framework's utility in explaining what makes strategic narratives persuasive in International Relations.
This paper contributes to this special issue by studying power from the perspective of the ability of actors to induce compliance with international norms. Presenting a case study of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative implementation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the paper explores how states get involved with and comply with the initiative. This case study shows that Central Asian states are socialized through a multiplicity of actors. Also, the power of inducing compliance with a norm is attained by various actors throughout the norm-implementation process.
This is interest in the research of the leadership in business sector in Kazakhstan and in the responder’s attitude and preferences as to the leadership styles business executives employ, taking into consideration the developing stage of business activities in Kazakhstan. This study focus on the analysis of the leadership styles with employee performance and the survey research method was used. The questions were arranged according to six point Likert scale. Kazakhstan employees prefer such leadership styles as transformational, father, democratic, transactional and in some cases authoritative leadership styles. Kazakhstani employees prefer to be heard and supported, prefer to be a part of the organizational endeavors, contribute and add value to organizational development. Furthermore, as the study shows, Kazakhstani employees reject the coercive leadership style. They do not want to be a part of an organization, where force and ignorance of people’s values are considered to be as a normal attitudes. Nowadays within the development processes in Kazakhstan, leadership has big influence on organizational performance and company’s effectiveness.
This article questions conventional interpretations of the nature of power in authoritarian regimes that treat the political position of the ruler as hierarchical and top-down. Instead, it applies the principal–agent problem to information asymmetry in a single case study, Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan, to analyze the inability of the ruler to conduct effective oversight when officials engage in elaborate personality cults, depoliticization, and informal patronal practices that threaten the market and the legitimacy of the ruler. Data for this article came from local mass media and in-depth interviews with mid-level bureaucrats in Kazakhstan collected in 2011–2017 on a confidential basis.
The aim of this article is to conceptualize the way political power discourse is legitimized through everyday life and normalizing processes of accepting the truth about political regimes and the “way things ought to be” within the given political discourse. The article analyzes power from two positions—from the discursive approach of the political statements and images of the most authoritative political figures (presidents, local governors) in the community and from the individual approach of accepting these statements and authorities as truth. To paraphrase Michel Foucault’s famous statement, the article questions “what governs” the individual to accept a certain political statement, and how this normalization in turn “governs” the political statement. In doing so the article utilizes an ethnographic and discursive approach to the study of power and authority in non-democratic political regimes. The ultimate question is, What normalizes these discourses, which may be considered “illegitimate” or “authoritarian” from the outside but completely “acceptable” and “authoritative” from within the given political community? How does a specific community form the idea of the collective “normalization” of these diverse political discourses?
What are the mechanisms of legitimation in non-democratic and linguistically divided states? How do regimes in these states use and manipulate the ideology and nation-building for the purposes of regime legitimation? The article focuses on the concept of compartmentalized ideology in non-democratic regimes with substantial divisions in the so-called titular and minority group where socio-linguistic divide allows regimes to construct diverse audiences and even political communities with their own distinct narratives and discourses about the nation, state and the regime. The compartmentalized ideology is only sustainable under the conditions of the regime's power to control and facilitate these discourses through the system of authoritative presidential addresses to the nation and/or other forms of regime's communication with the polity. The shifting of these discourses and themes contribute to the regime stability but also may constitute its re-legitimation.
How does leadership succession influence the dynamics of electoral competition in authoritarian regimes? Previous studies suggest that leadership successions tend to result in more competitive elections, creating favorable conditions for political changes. The literature, however, has not examined how the electoral impact of succession depends on specific mechanisms of succession management. We argue that the outgoing leader’s clear designation of a successor plays an important role in neutralizing the electoral impact of succession. Clear designation, defined as the appointment of a “second-in-command,” prevents unbridled power struggle among ruling elites and grooms the successor for the leadership role. We support this argument by analyzing an original dataset covering over 400 elections in 60 authoritarian regimes. This article adds to the burgeoning literature regarding the effects of elections and institution-building on authoritarian resilience.
Independent states, in the Turkish World, have existed with an authoritarian political system. And, there has been an atmosphere in which for the institutionalization of democracy has not been fully met, especially for the Central Asian States. Notwithstanding, In the post-independence period, those who accepted to be democratic in order to adapt quickly to the New World system have put them in the field of application. Kazakhstan, officially, the Republic of Kazakhstan was one of them. However, the experience in the place is based on formal rituals rather than a consolidated democratic culture. For democracy to exist, some social and cultural conditions are necessary, in their absence democracy cannot settle in the society. All different views of democracy depending on the purpose of relations of subjects with the state institutionalization. Democracy, as a state management technique, exists with institutions such as parliament, law, constitution etc., also the organizations, associations, foundations, trade unions and NGO's create the conditions for the functioning of democracy. These civil society organizations, with their capacity, may support the functioning of democracy via using their position and relation against the state, the autonomy of their institutions and, establishing the confrontation culture in their mind.
Why do autocrats build spectacular new capital cities? In The Geopolitics of Spectacle, Natalie Koch considers how autocratic rulers use "spectacular" projects to shape state-society relations, but rather than focus on the standard approach—on the project itself—she considers the unspectacular "others." The contrasting views of those from the poorest regions toward these new national capitals help her develop a geographic approach to spectacle. Koch uses Astana in Kazakhstan to exemplify her argument, comparing that spectacular city with others from resource-rich, nondemocratic nations in central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southeast Asia. The Geopolitics of Spectacle draws new political-geographic lessons and shows that these spectacles can be understood only from multiple viewpoints, sites, and temporalities. Koch explicitly theorizes spectacle geographically and in so doing extends the analysis of governmentality into new empirical and theoretical terrain. With cases ranging from Azerbaijan to Qatar and Myanmar, and an intriguing account of reactions to the new capital of Astana from the poverty-stricken Aral Sea region of Kazakhstan, Koch’s book provides food for thought for readers in human geography, anthropology, sociology, urban studies, political science, international affairs, and post-Soviet and central Asian studies.
March 2018 – and then what? The issue of political succession in Putin’s Russia
As president of Russia and a prominent political leader, Vladimir Putin has consistently endeavored to legitimize his rule by appealing to central political myths and taken-for-granted truths in Russian society. In rhetoric and official communication, he emerges as the guarantor of domestic order and stability, the protector of traditional values, and a staunch advocate of Russia’s status and position as a great power in a world often depicted as hostile. What is being communicated here, and apparently finds resonance among broad segments of public opinion, is that on all these parameters Putin is uniquely qualified to lead Russia. Four times in the course of 18 years, Putin has been elected president in the first round of elections, and throughout this period he has received high rankings in regular monthly opinion polls. However, his legitimation strategies have been so firmly linked to the persona of Putin that we may speak of an emerging dilemma with his fourth presidency. Who could fill his shoes as his successor? The article analyzes this dilemma, taking its point of departure in Weber’s seminal theorizing on types of legitimate authority and the routinization of charisma. It discusses the evident dearth of credible successor candidates, and concludes by discussing possible actions for dealing with or postponing the issue of succession.
The chapter explores how non-democratic regimes sustain legitimacy and power through the use of ideological tools such as compartmentalized ideology. Compartmentalized ideology is defined as a set of rather conflicting discourses about nation-building guided by the socio-linguistic differences and interests of the domestic audiences. This ideology creates a system of discourses and experiences, ways of thinking and imagining oneself only within the framework provided by the non-democratic regime itself without allowing further alternatives. It becomes the dominant discursive system with which regime legitimates itself. The main mechanism of compartmentalized ideology is the shift of various different discourses that are all connected by the authority and power of the president N. A. Nazarbayev and that are mainly presented in his official public speeches.
Across Eurasia, authoritarian leaders have sought to justify their 'strong-hand' approach to government by framing instability as a security threat and the strong state as a guarantor of political stability. Such 'regimes of certainty' promote a modernist valorization of order, the flip side of which is a demonization of political disorder instability, or mere uncertainty. Examining the spatial and temporal imaginaries underpinning such narratives about in/stability in Central Asia, this paper compares official discourse in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where state-controlled media and official publications have stigmatized political instability in Kyrgyzstan as indicative of the dangers of political liberalization and a weak state. Ostensibly about the 'other', these narratives are also about scripting the 'self'. I argue that official interpretations of 'disorder over the border' in Kyrgyzstan are underpinned by a set of spatial and temporal imaginaries that do not merely reflect regional moral geographies, but actively construct them.
Since the 1990s, transboundary water management has come to play a key role both in global environmental politics debates and in the shaping of international development policies, specifically in the Global South. As a consequence, a growing body of literature in the framework of critical hydropolitics has emerged reflecting on the role that power, discourses, and strategies play in shaping transboundary water policies and in influencing riparian relations. The focus on a state-centric perspective, however, often has led to neglect of the role of international development actors in shaping these policies. Through a critical application of the Circle of Hydro-Hegemony (CHH) and ethnographic qualitative field research in borderlands, this contribution aims to analyse how the establishment of a development initiative known as the Chu-Talas Commission, supported by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and other donors, has influenced and shaped transboundary water politics in the Talas waterscape, which is shared by Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The evidence shows that despite the international narration of the Chu-Talas Commission as a success story for water cooperation in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, through the deployment of both material and bargaining power strategies, has been able to shape UNECE development policies in its favour, impose its agenda on Kyrgyzstan, and emerge as the basin hydro-hegemon.
Located in current debates on one party dictatorships and regime durability, this article explores continuity and disruptions within the Turkmen political elite in their transition from presidents Saparmurat Niyazov (1991–2006) to Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov (2007-). We are particularly interested in how the change from an idiosyncratic system, based mainly on president Niyazov's personality cult and visible repression of potential opponents, evolved into a more refined system under his successor, Berdymuhamedov. We will thus look at regime efforts to re-brand Turkmenistan without substantially changing the domestic political structures and dynamics. These include the manufacture of ‘opposition parties’ and holding of formal elections every five years while retaining absolute control over the most important political aspects of the country. We suggest the existence of a two-fold strategy to maintain the status quo based on authoritarian tendencies and learning. Whilst the shift from the first to the second president has brought significant changes, it also demonstrates essential continuities that helped the formation of an official domestic and international narrative proclaiming commitment to a number of international standards and national values; and strict control of most, if not all, aspects of national political life.
The goal of this volume is to shed light on the importance of legitimation for authoritarian-regime stability, focusing in particular on institutional legitimacy in post-Soviet Eurasia.1 The case of Kazakhstan is extremely relevant for this purpose: Governed by a soft authoritarian regime, the country is endowed with significant natural resources and yet deploys advanced forms of institutional legitimation, especially through its party of power. Moreover, the analysis of this case shows that modes of legitimation can vary over time, with shifts largely depending on the historical, economic and political conditions of the moment.
The largely authoritarian Central Asian area has been remarkably stable politically. This is despite its overwhelming dependence on resource income, not to mention the fact that there are extensive great power interests in the region. This chapter explores why this is the case. Here, one common argument is that an inside–outside dynamic has been produced within Central Asian states. In this context, norm cascades reinforce authoritarian politics, with embedded identities shaped by powerful pre-existing socio-historical forces in each particular society. However, I argue that the reverse is the case: in fact, it is regional power structures that have provided incentives for the emergence of stable Central Asian authoritarianism. This is partly because foreign policy decisiveness has enabled elites — and therefore states — to better manage the intense material pressures they have been subjected to. More broadly I argue that a neoclassical realist reading of the domestic-structural nexus is the most useful way of understanding these dynamics, and how they contribute to Central Asian stability. Crucially, it reveals how multi-vector foreign policies combine with resource incomes, which in turn complement domestic ideas about security.
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.
The paper analyses the multifaceted discourse of development and nation-building in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It addresses the regional clan–central elite relations and Nursultan Nazarbayev regime's legitimating agenda through the Kazakhstan 2030 Strategy for development. The economic developmental component in Nazarbayev's ideological discourses is primarily an exercise of control over regional economic and political elites and that helped building further legitimacy for the regime in various socio-ethnic constituencies on both the regional and central levels. Kazakhstan 2030 was deployed by the regime to substitute the Soviet version of ideology, legitimize the regime among various ethno-lingual audiences, and discipline the behaviour of regional elites. The paper shows how the study of elites’ interests can best explain the nature of national ideology and development projects.
The aim of the article is to look at two different examples of regimes in
Central Asia – Kazakhstan as an “island of stability” and Kyrgyzstan as an
“island of instability”. In order to explain (in)stability it is important to focus
on three dimensions – institutional; economic; and security performance.
Types idéaux ou types empiriques: la recherche empirique de Max Weber. Dans la discussion méthodologique, le concept de type idéal est associé de près avec le nom de Max Weber. Cet article présente le travail empirique de Max Weber au début du siècle et son utilisation du terme "type" dans cette recherche. Il semble que ses descriptions d'un type idéal comme "une construction du chercheur", comme une "utopie" construite en utilisant et amplifiant certains aspects de la réalité sociale, et comme une "construction artificielle" sont en effet opposées à celle d'un type empirique. Cet article montre que les articles de Weber écrits en relation étroite avec sa recherche empirique entre 1905 et 1912, montrent un usage différent du terme type.
Charisma is a concept with a peculiar history. It arose from theological obscurity through social science, from which it passed into popular culture. As a social science concept, its significance derives in large part from the fact that it captures a particular type of leadership. But it fits poorly with other concepts in social science, and is problematic as an explanatory concept. Even Weber himself was torn in his use of the concept between the individual type-concept and a broader use of it to characterize the sacral character of culture and institutions. Which use is fundamental? Neither use seems to be able to be extended to account for the other, and in practice the term serves as a heterogenous residual category. Shils’ argument that the charisma of central institutions was fundamental was an attempt to make sense of the examples of institutional charisma that fell into this residual category, such as the jury, and assimilated charisma to the idea of the holy. But this conflicts with Weber’s idea of the originary or creative character of individual charisma, which by definition cannot derive from preexisting sacral qualities. Weber’s account of individual charisma focuses on success, and this suggests the idea that the power of the charismatic leader arises from the ability to confound and surpass expectations - to be extraordinary. This allows us to reconsider ‘originary’ charisma, and assimilate it both to rational choice and to Steiner’s account of taboo. A leader who produces a change in our risk perceptions by proving our previous perceptions wrong by the success of the leader’s actions is providing a novel rational choice for us: a new option together with new estimates of the risk in a course of action. Weber explained the situation of primitive or magical morality in terms of magical charisma producing taboos that were then rationalized, leading to permanent norms - which relies on the notion of charisma without explaining it. But Steiner goes further, by suggesting that taboo represents the intellectual organization of danger through the act of interdiction. The power to interdict is not based on some other power, but rather the power to organize danger through interdiction is originary. Is there originary charisma today? Or is the commonplace use of the term ‘charisma’ a transformation of the concept into something else? In popular culture, the term refers to role-models who break new ground, and if we consider the ‘dangers’ that they appear to their audiences to overcome, the phenomenon is not so different. Charisma seems to collapse into personal style, but in a world in which the old interdicts have lost their power, style itself becomes a matter of experimental success in the face of social danger.
The birthplace of the nation-state and modern nationalism at the end of the eighteenth century, Europe was supposed to be their graveyard at the end of the twentieth. Yet, far from moving beyond the nation-state, fin-de-siècle Europe has been moving back to the nation-state, most spectacularly with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia into a score of nationally defined successor states. This massive reorganisation of political space along national lines has engendered distinctive, dynamically interlocking, and in some cases explosive forms of nationalism. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu and the 'new institutionalist' sociology, and comparing contemporary nationalisms with those of interwar Europe, Rogers Brubaker provides a theoretically sophisticated and historically rich account of one of the most important problems facing the 'New Europe'.
Unless prosperity eases tensions between Kazakhs and Russians, the outlook for long-term political stability in Kazakhstan is dim.
Kazakhstan is emerging as the most dynamic economic and political actor in Central Asia. It is the second largest country of the former Soviet Union, after the Russian Federation, and has rich natural resources, particularly oil, which is being exploited through massive US investment. Kazakhstan has an impressive record of economic growth under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbaev, and has ambitions to project itself as a modern, wealthy civic state, with a developed market economy. At the same time, Kazakhstan is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the region, with very substantial non-Kazakh and non-Muslim minorities. Its political regime has used elements of political clientelism and neo-traditional practices to bolster its rule. Drawing from extensive ethnographic research, interviews, and archival materials this book traces the development of national identity and statehood in Kazakhstan, focusing in particular on the attempts to build a national state. It argues that Russification and Sovietization were not simply 'top-down' processes, that they provide considerable scope for local initiatives, and that Soviet ethnically-based affirmative action policies have had a lasting impact on ethnic élite formation and the rise of a distinct brand of national consciousness.
Over the past century and a half ethnic and religious identities in Central Asia have undergone considerable change and modification. Under Tsarist, and then Soviet rule, the transition from one form of definition to another took place in a stable environment, within the framework of a larger polity. Regional hostilities and resentments could be held in check, and, if necessary, forcibly suppressed. Today, there is no superior power to intervene to resolve local conflicts. Meanwhile, economic pressures, exacerbated by high rates of demographic growth, are placing increasing strain on the resources of these new states. This in turn helps to foment social tensions. Nevertheless, with the exception of the war in Tadzhikistan, these first five years have been remarkably peaceful. Only time will tell, however, whether it will be possible to maintain this balance.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakstan, along with other 15 republics, appeared on the world stage as an independent sovereign state. As a post-Communist state, Kazakstan has started a simultaneous triple transition from a centralized economy to a market economy and from authoritarianism to democracy, as well as from a centralized federal state to a sovereign nation-state. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of contemporary Kazak nationalism in this transition process. This issue is interesting and important for students of international relations because of the role of nationalism in international politics. This paper will look particularly at the impact of nationalism on Kazak-Russian relations. On the other hand, the role of capitalism will be briefly mentioned because it is crucial in determining the substance of the present Kazak relationship with Russia. After the Communist totalitarianism, the relatively free expression of ideas has led to the revival of Kazak nationalism. Therefore, there is an interesting problem, from the perspective of international relations theory, to tackle: what is the major driving force-nationalism, capitalism or some combination of both-behind the contemporary Kazak relations with Russia? In general, we can ask: 'What regularities can be observed, what causes can be divined, what analytical categories can best explain such phenomena as inter-state conflict, the impact of nationalism, the role of the economic in international contexts? Certainly there is a variety of answers to this core question of international relations. Nevertheless, my theoretical approach to this research on contemporary Kazak nationalism will be based only on Anderson's concept of nationalism. Thus, this paper can serve as a starting point on the substance of contemporary Kazak nationalism for those who want to understand and explain the present Kazak-Russian relations. Hence, first, this paper will provide the theoretical analysis of contemporary Kazak nationalism based on Anderson's theoretical framework. Second, as empirical evidence, the author's survey of the Kazak national press will be presented. Finally, after analysing the official Kazak nationalism, some tentative conclusions on the substance and prospects of the Kazak-Russian relations will be drawn from the perspective of the role of Kazak nationalism and post-Communist capitalism.
Of all the former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan has what may well be the most untenable interethnic predicament ‐ an ethnic Russian population that is nearly as large as the ethnic Kazakh population. The Russians, moreover, constitute a majority of the population in the northern part of the country, which borders the Russian republic. Having the unenviable task of nation‐building in an increasingly fragmented multi‐ethnic environment, Nazarbaev has made his strategy clear: build a strong unitary Kazakh state by steadily increasing control over the Russian‐dominated provinces of the north. Kazakh action in the north, and Russian response, will determine whether there is a future for a multinational Kazakhstan.
Carl J. Friedrich is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University and a well-known authority on political theory and comparative government. Recently he has edited and contributed to volumes on Authority (1958), Community (1959) and Responsibility (1960). The article published here is a portion of a larger projected work to be entitled, The Government of Man—A Theory of Politics.
Economic ActionThe concept of economic actionReligious Ethics and Economic RationalityThe Market: Its Impersonality and EthicClass, Status, PartyEconomically Determined Power and the Status OrderDetermination of Class Situation by Market SituationStatus HonorParties
Some individuals may be predisposed to agree or acquiesce more than others. If the predisposition is cultural, then studies of public attitudes that rely on questions with agree-disagree response sets may mistake response effects for substantive differences among ethnic groups. In this study, I report the results of six experiments in question form conducted on a 1997 nationwide survey of 1,986 adult (age 18+) Kazakhstanis, 47 percent of whom are Kazakh and 34 percent of whom are Russian. Acquiescence bias is found among the entire sample, but it is stronger for ethnic Kazakhs than for ethnic Russians. Acquiescence bias is thus a problem of both question format and individual proclivities. Attitude statements with agree-disagree response sets are less valid measures of public attitudes than balanced questions with forced-choice response alternatives, and their use could cause erroneous inferences about ethnic differences in attitudes.
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