In his work—on Central Asia and recently on Ukraine—Jesse Driscoll focuses on war and post-war. The conflicts of the 1990s in Georgia and Tajikistan and the conflict in Donbas that preceded the war in Ukraine can be analyzed from domestic and outside angles and Driscoll has studied both.

Interview with

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Jesse Driscoll

 https://gps.ucsd.edu/faculty-directory/jesse-driscoll.html 

Jesse Driscoll is an area specialist in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Russian-speaking world. He is an associate professor of political science and serves as chair of the Global Leadership Institute at UC San Diego. In his first book, Warlords and Coalition Politics in Post-Soviet States (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Driscoll shows how, after relatively brief periods of anarchic violence in Georgia and Tajikistan, well-functioning internal hierarchies emerged. His more recent book, co-authored with Dominique Arel, Ukraine’s Unnamed War: Before the Russian Invasion of 2022 (Cambridge University Press, 2023), was published shortly after the war between Ukraine and Russia began.

Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022, did not come out of nowhere, and as it continues to destabilize the regional order, it raises many questions pertaining to Central Asia: How stable are the Central Asian countries and their elites? Could a Donbas scenario take place in Kazakhstan? Are Central Asians susceptible to Russian narratives? Do they need their own security arrangement?

Your first book, Warlords and Coalition Politics in Post-Soviet States (Cambridge University Press, 2015), focused on the processes of state-building after war. Your case studies were Georgia and Tajikistan. Today, a larger war is going on in Eurasia. How do you envision that this will affect the regional order? Some regionalization occurred after the initial post-Soviet breakup—are we now witnessing a complete breakdown of the order centered on Russia?

Obviously, that’s a very big question, and it requires speculating about the future, which is a little irresponsible. As social scientists, we should all begin our answers to questions like this by saying “I don’t know” or “It’s far too early to tell.”

My first book really focuses on the 1990s, as you know. During that time, I think it’s very safe to say that the model of order with Moscow at the center was hegemonic. Hub-and-spoke was a familiar way of thinking. It was how you would naturally want to organize things in terms of an imperial metropolis, and from a practical perspective, it was also necessary. Russia was volatile at the time and keeping good relations with Yeltsin was much more important than, frankly, anything going on in the periphery. For arms control, and for predictability (not having him replaced and having to deal with whoever came after him, which might have been the Communists again in the mid-1990s), this was a major priority—more major than much else. It also deserves to be said that we figured out quickly that something transactional would have to happen with Russia when it came to managing the UN Security Council. I believe that it was in 1994 over Haiti that U.S. and Russian diplomats first had a friendly, but adversarial, conversation about trading votes in the UN Security Council on leadership in UN peacekeeping operations. The US wants Haiti to be led by the United States? “OK, you need to stop talking about Chechnya so much. We, Russia, will be doing our peacekeeping in Tajikistan and Georgia, and you, the US, you’ll be doing your peacekeeping over there in the Caribbean.”

So the language of “spheres of influence” is, of course, nineteenth-century language, and I’m not trying to employ it to offend anyone, but I think that there was a way in which the UN Security Council meshed with the rise of UN peacekeeping operations in the 1990s, and it did, kind of, softly re-enter that, “creeping in” on a spheres-of-influence mode of thinking. And that’s what my first book is about: what happens when the UN is Russia-led. And so when you compare Tajikistan to Georgia, you hold the Russian presence constant but compare Tajik adaptations to Georgian adaptations. It was taken for granted, however, that the UN as a peacekeeping, war-termination machine would be a Russian-led enterprise in the territory that had recently been the Soviet Union. I think most people would remember that they saw that as natural. If there’s one thing that’s clear about the Ukraine war, it’s that a lot of Ukrainians don’t see that as natural.

I guess the other thing that I would say that’s relevant on this point is that in the early and mid-1990s, the period that is the primary focus of my first book, no one was really talking about NATO expansion in the Caucasus or Central Eurasia. Part of why there was such an easy complementarity of interests between the United States and Russia in the -stans was that Russia knew that the United States, after Tajikistan was rebuilt, was never going to try to kick Russia out and invite the Tajiks to join NATO. In Georgia, the competition between the West and Russia was a bit more obvious from the get-go, I think, so the shared interest in just putting anarchy to bed was less clear. Anyway, that was my first book.

Speculating about the future, another important moving part is that in this language about decolonization—which is really at the heart of what you’re asking about with a Russia-centric Eurasia—there are a lot of things that are still very much in flux about how this war is going to be rendered in the historical memory of people who are not Americans, not Russians, and also not Ukrainians. The third parties—those states that are on the, let’s call it the periphery, to use a bit of a loaded term—how are those people going to end up interpreting this? If you get all your news from Al Jazeera, or you live in Mumbai or Lima or Lagos, what are you thinking? What are you going to think happened in this war 10 years from now? This is not something that we can easily see, not yet.

So I’ll give you two examples of how big the split could be. On the one hand, if you are confident that what is going on in Ukraine should be framed as essentially a colonial war and a genocidal war, then you might actually have a moral and legal obligation to do certain things, starting with kicking Russia off the UN Security Council. You might need to get into certain parts of the international law architecture. If you really believe that this is a genocide, and some people really do, then it’s clear what we should be doing. There’s law there. That gives you one toolkit. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who remain very open to the idea that NATO somehow ginned this whole war up and poor little Russia just wants to be left alone. I think both of those narratives are going to stay in circulation. It’s not clear to me how we keep score in the game or how this gets rendered in historical memory. We in the West are sometimes tempted to declare victory early just because we think we know how the story ends.

I doubt Russia is going to disappear. Maybe it doesn’t disappear, but this is how Russia makes a radical break with the unattractive parts of its Putinist past and becomes a more attractive, affluent state. Maybe Russia becomes a better state, and then time passes, and people in Ukraine actually want to be part of a cooperative sphere of influence with a new Russian state voluntarily. I mean, again, I’m just making stuff up here, but the US and Vietnam are actually pretty good allies right now. Now that’s a long way off for Ukraine and Russia, but it’s something that’s dimly visible if you look at certain historical analogies. Decolonization is funny. It’s very violent while it happens, but then once it happens, sometimes you get a feeling of kinship from the violence where we actually have something in common, which is that we both respect each other militarily and we both know that we are worthy of that respect. That doesn’t happen all at once, and sometimes you just end up angry for decades that turn into centuries. Both can happen. There’s a lot of contingency there. Both can even happen at the same time, because those kinds of processes of reconciliation might take a really, really long time—if they occur at all.

Going back to your focus on civil conflicts, do you notice anything troubling in recent conflicts in Kazakhstan, in Uzbekistan or between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan? Could these internal conflicts be ignited just because there is general disorder on a larger scale?

Of course, I’m troubled by the violence. I’m especially troubled by what happened in Kazakhstan. That’s the first thing to say. It’s scary and unsettling.

That said, I don’t actually think that this is because of general disorder on a larger scale. I think that this is actually just the natural friction of complicated countries in a difficult neighborhood. And while every death is a tragedy, the truth is that a hundred people can die for more or less no reason in a messy conflict in a part of the world where angry people are interspersed, state borders are not well demarcated, and social/economic shocks are going to continue. So compared to those shocks, I don’t think it’s useful to talk about Tajikistan invading Kyrgyzstan. There are much bigger problems in Central Asia, potentially. I think the most dangerous, the most likely to lead to mass killing, are problems of an intrastate nature. I don’t know enough about what happened in Kazakhstan to say for sure, but it could have been much worse, I think. I worry about state breakdown in Central Asia, as much as anything else.

I have to say that I’m fairly bullish on the ability of Central Asian countries, at least at the level of their governments, when they have to overcome personal and ethnic differences. Even when the leaders clearly hate each other and their peoples are nationalistic, they can still basically shake hands and make problems go away because of their neighborhood problems. They all understand that the problems that would come from the spillover of a refugee crisis would threaten everybody’s political stability in ways that are not necessarily predictable, and certainly make everyone worse off.

There are many debates about the role of the CSTO. Does the region need a more robust security arrangement?

When it comes to security arrangements, they are all cooperative—that’s what is baked into the language of arrangements in international relations (IR). So let’s talk about demand and supply.

There are several questions here. Armenia flat out refused to host the CSTO just a couple of weeks ago. Kyrgyzstan canceled training drills in October, I believe. Superficially, the issue was Kyrgyzstan using the CSTO as a platform to amplify how mad they were about the Kyrgyz-Tajik border dispute. But it’s fairly clear to me that part of what’s going on is also Kyrgyzstan signaling to the West that “we’re not crazy about the CSTO at all.” Everyone is watching Ukraine very carefully. because it matters what Russia’s capability is going to be, how isolated Russia is going to be, what kind of ally or adversary Russia is going to be. The future of Russian power is being decided on the battlefield in Ukraine. That’s the demand side.

On the supply side, I think that the CSTO or something like it is probably never going to disappear. That’s because Russia is obsessed, and perhaps reasonably so, with its status in the world. That means that if there’s going to be a security-providing alliance that it will never be invited to join—and I’m talking about NATO—then Russia has to have its own security-providing alliance, which it can, in its national narrative, explain as its answer to NATO. Russians really imagine their great-power status as a vital part of their national identity. I’ve heard it said that “If the United States can break international law and invade Iraq, then we Russians should get to break international law and invade Ukraine.” And I think that argument really convinces a lot of Russians who really believe that, or something like it, deep in their spirits. It really convinces people. The best academic work I’ve read on this is Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko—they’ve got a set of articles that came together in a very good book called Quest for Status.

The United States, to be honest with you, has benefitted, at times, quite a bit from Russia having its own network. Sometimes we use that network, like when we needed to get a whole bunch of material out of Afghanistan quickly and couldn’t ask Pakistan, it was done with the cooperation of all the frontline states that are CSTO members. Sometimes multilateral organizations are just the best way to coordinate to get things done. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the US was using the CSTO for logistics, not exactly, but there is some kind of realist argument for cooperation on large problems. Again, to use the jargon of international relations theory, we sometimes talk about solving market failures with cooperation. These market failures are potentially related to some really big stuff that can have really bad implications if we get it wrong: arms control, intelligence-sharing for dark networks in the global war on terror; the nuclear non-proliferation regime; eco-refugees. The last one is especially scary to me with climate change. If there was a sudden shortage of fresh water in Central Asia and people started moving very quickly—10,000 people at a time—you would need to have some sort of transnational framework to stop people from getting crushed to death or dying from exposure. Militaries are the state capacity of last resort in such crises.

Now, does that have to be organized through the CSTO? No. You could imagine a new organization, but imagining it without Russia being a part of it raises the question of who is going to lead it. Is it going to be China? I mean, maybe—it’s not a rhetorical question—maybe it will be China. Will it be the United States? Probably not, actually. We are kind of a long way away. That doesn’t mean that we won’t want to help, but we are a long way away.

Central Asian elites have evolved from the openly criminal or corrupt individuals who captured those states in the early 1990s. At the very least, there has been a transition in almost all countries toward more national and rational state-makers. Do you see it this way? What do you think about the changes in the elites in Central Asia?

I do see it that way. I think you said it pretty well. I should also admit, since we were just talking about admitting uncertainty, I’m not someone who has studied elites in depth, not systematically. I would like to. I think it’s an accessible sample. I’m surprised that there’s not more descriptive work done on elites in Central Asia cross-nationally. It’s a good dissertation topic for someone.

That said, my basic observation in general is that you certainly have broad, sweeping sociological characteristics—more professional, much more likely to have attended schools like Georgetown, Columbia SIPA, Johns Hopkins SAIS, or the Harvard Kennedy School, or be advised by people who are, or have a resume leading to an OSCE Academy, or something like that. I think that they are probably less likely, though I’d need to check this, to have bank accounts in Russia; less likely to have multiple bank accounts in Russia. We could probably make some other sociological generalizations, too.

I will just make two points. First, in all of these societies, there is a great deal of authority that is what Samuel P. Huntington would have called an overlay of “traditional” patrimonial authority over the institutional power of the presidency.

The presidents of the -stans, with no exception I can think of, have a lot of power. It’s not always a cult of personality, but families matter a great deal. And we are talking about a lot of power. The sweeping claims about sociological characteristics of elites that I just gave a couple of moments ago, I don’t think they apply very well to Rustam Emomali in Tajikistan. Rustam is who he is: a 34-year-old bro who is the mayor of Dushanbe. He apparently likes soccer. He’s clearly being groomed for the big chair. And everybody kind of just takes for granted that he is going to end up with a lot of power in Tajikistan, and the reason that he’s going to end up with a lot of power in Tajikistan is that no one is entirely sure who else they are supposed to put in charge.

I’m not trying to trivialize it. That is a real problem that was worth writing a whole book about. Actually, it might be kind of arbitrary who ends up being the face of the franchise, because what you really want is for there to be a face of the franchise. Because the tournament of deciding who gets to be the face of the franchise is more violent than most people can easily imagine. It’s easy to caricature these regimes from a distance as neo-sultanist, and I never liked that. I think that doesn’t give enough dignity to the actual people who lived through some horrible circumstances before realizing that, yes, we don’t actually have a good alternative to letting it be Emomali’s son, because it’s better than nothing. Or consider Turkmenistan, which seems to just default to sultanism. Getting rid of Turkmenbashi when he passes, in favor of some uncharismatic technocrat caretaker? Pick anyone, and make sure it’s clear the process was arbitrary. Literally anyone is better. But then when it comes time for him to move on, it turns out they just pass power on to his son. I’ll admit that was strange to me, but nonetheless it solved a problem I’ll bet Hobbes would have recognized.

Maybe people at the tippy-top of the pyramid play by different rules than the elites you are asking about. They control huge assets. The enforcement of property rights is controlled by certain families, not others, and this is an interesting and noticeable trend in Central Asia.

I think the other thing I will say about elites in Central Asia is that they are increasingly networked into the diaspora outside of their states. The best thing you can do—and this isn’t just in Central Asia! —is get out. There is a huge sociological gap between the people who make it to a point in their lives where they begin to have life opportunities that actually eject them from Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan and let them join a roving cosmopolitan elite. That is what separates the 2% from the 98%. Most people never come close to getting a visa that might turn into a green card.

This is the politics of resentment within the societies on the part of the 98% of people who are left behind and do not have that mobility, and probably the resentment that cuts across the elites. So all of them are elite, but only some family members have that real transnational, cosmopolitan mobility that (I suspect) is one of the most interesting questions in these societies—and one that, frankly, outsiders can’t see or study as well as insiders because outsiders, almost by definition, never know exactly what the markers are that families are selecting for that maximize the probability of some kids being able to actually get out and other kids probably not doing, even though they are all elites. That’s all very interesting to me. I haven’t read a good book about that or seen a good paper about that.

What of the role of Russian diasporas in post-Soviet space? They have grown recently because of the new migration, but they also represent a risk, particularly in Kazakhstan: even though the Kazakhs and the Russians seem to be at peace, there are constant calls in Russia to check on the welfare of their fellow Russians in Kazakhstan. Could there be a similar scenario to Donbas in Kazakhstan?

I would honestly be surprised—for a couple of different reasons.

The first is that if there’s one thing I got out of writing this book about Ukraine, it’s that the Donbas problem did not spring into existence overnight. People sometimes forget that the Donbas, on the eve of the Maidan events, had peacefully captured control of the whole state. There were elections that were non-violent—and were basically okay. What happened was that people in the Donbas party were just totally ruthless about power-seeking, and they had, over the course of many years, methodically taken over the Ukrainian state. And then they pushed it a little too hard with the Eurasian Economic Union and you got Maidan—we know how the story ends. But that does not spring into existence. There’s no reason I can see why Kazakhs would be threatened by “their” Russians, and the threat of Russian influence is what got Maidan started in an existential way.

Second, the people I know who are serious observers of Kazakh politics, such as Caress Schenk—I spoke with her just in December, and that conversation is in my mind—what Caress said is that when she talks to her students, she finds a whole bunch of people who are fairly inoculated against the Russian narrative. And this is heartening.

Third, another thing that I will mention is the work of David Laitin from the 1990s. He wrote a book called Identity in Formation that was very influential for me. (What can I say? He was my advisor.) His work on Kazakhstan emphasizes that the choice set for self-identified Russians in Western Kazakhstan is not just whether or not to fight the state to secede, with help from Russia. Often, the choice set is whether or not to exit: “I don’t want to assimilate into Kazakh culture because I’m a Russian and I think being a Russian is cooler than being a Kazakh, and I’m not going to become a Kazakh anyway. They have their Kazakh stuff—it’s cool, they like Genghis Khan. But I’m not someone who likes Genghis Khan. I’m a Russian, so I’m not going to assimilate into that. I’m trying to decide whether I should buy a house in the suburbs of St. Petersburg and leave.”

It’s the exit, or assimilate, or stick around and bargain choice set that is Laitin’s major contribution. He says, look, you’ve got all these Russians. It’s a beached diaspora—the borders of the Soviet Union shrink, and you’ve got all these little tide pools, funny little Russian-speaking, Russian-identifying political ecosystems. In Kazakhstan I think the puzzle is why there are so many who are still there. To the extent that it’s a puzzle at all, from a great distance (and respectfully recognizing that the distance is great), that’s the puzzle for me. I’m a little surprised that the demographics are so resilient that so many people have not voted with their feet and just left. I speculate the reason they have stayed may be straightforward, namely that Putinism is just so unattractive that no one wants to live in Russia! They would much rather be proud Russians who get to live in a place where the taxes are not as extractive and their phones are probably not tapped. They live in a place where they have the least possible amount of government and they also get to act proud to be Russian.

How about your new book, Ukraine’s Unnamed War: Before the Russian Invasion of 2022? Could you tell us what it is about? Is there anything in this war that surprised you or, on the contrary, bore out your earlier thoughts?

The first thing to say is that we did not write it after the invasion. My co-author, Dominique Arel, and I had been writing it for a really long time, and at the very last minute we actually had to make some changes to it because of the invasion. But the book is essentially about the roots of this war.

One of the things we have become accustomed to is that Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022, was actually not the beginning of this war. War didn’t spring into existence out of nowhere—it emerged from intra-Ukrainian bargaining processes that have been going on for a long time, and into which Russia has often tried to insert itself. So that’s the first thing.

It’s a book that gives an account of the war arguing that the geopolitical crisis emerged, essentially, from the regime change in Maidan in 2013-2014. Then the book is kind of about how people responded to Maidan, and how they responded differently in Crimea, in the DNR and LNR areas (Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic) of the Eastern Donbas. Critically, the rest of the East and the South could have, but did not, tip into violence, so today it looks less like the DNR and LNR than it otherwise would have. That, in a nutshell, is what our book is about. We wanted to write about all the places in Ukraine where you have a lot of people who, on paper, would declare that they were Russian. Even more people in these places speak Russian at home than Ukrainian (or used to, before 2022). So Putin himself, and a lot of people surrounding Putin, see these people as a resource. Putin specifically (who has been clear, in his sinister way, that he views those people as Russian) thinks they should want to be part of his project.

But people are complicated, and they don’t necessarily want what Putin wants them to want. They have strategic abilities to not take part. That’s what the book describes. It gives a lot of agency to Russian-speakers in Ukraine in making a decision about whether they want to define themselves politically as Russians.

Sometimes they want to do this theatrically in order to bargain; sometimes they really want to join Russia and form militias and ask for Russian military help. But often, this can be resolved with institutional compromises that fall short of violence. The puzzle becomes why there’s violence and why there’s not.

Where the book ends up is the end result of a military stalemate and a state that has different de facto borders with Russia. The state of Ukraine has the same de jure borders according to most people’s interpretation of International Law, but different de facto borders. Once Ukrainians actually adapted institutionally to that new demographic reality, supercharged by war, what you ended up with was a state that was more Ukrainian. It was more Ukrainian culturally, linguistically, more Ukrainian in terms of how history is taught, perhaps spiritually, more Ukrainian in various ways. And all of this was a strategic institutional adaptation to choices that Russia made. Then Putin (and this is bizarre to us, but I guess it only matters that it makes sense to him) called those adaptations a genocide and said, “I have to invade Ukraine in order to protect my people.” That’s the move that has justified this entire war.

I guess I’ll just say it’s not a story many people know. In fact, the more of a Ukraine expert you are, the more likely you are to think legitimate Ukrainian history started in February 2014, with the Revolution of Dignity. To understand what people in the Kremlin think they are giving up if they stop fighting, you may have to wind the clock back further. A lot of people don’t, and won’t, because they don’t want to undercut Ukraine’s heroic war effort by trying to give equal time to the Russian position—and I understand that. The goal of our book is not to explain things from Russia’s point of view (pick it up; you’ll see).

Let me answer the questions about what did and did not surprise me about the war.

It didn’t surprise me that Zelensky was unwilling to budge at the last minute, even when the Germans and others were pushing very hard for Ukraine to just implement Minsk in order to try to make the problem go away and let the world move on. Because by that point he understood that Minsk was not really going to provide security guarantees for his country. It has also not surprised me one little bit how hard the Ukrainians have fought or, given all the assistance that they have received, how capable they have been in broad brushstrokes. They do know what to do with the assistance they have received. They are capable, as a society, of making huge sacrifices to protect their sovereignty. And frankly I’d be lying if I said any of that surprised me.

What surprised me? Like most military experts—like Michael Kofman, like Dara Massicot, like a lot of other people—I was caught completely flatfooted by the lack of Russian capability. Russian military ineptitude was revealed in different ways in the opening days, weeks, and months of the war.

Second, relatedly, I was surprised by Russian intelligence failures, their failure to really assess their own capability, and especially Ukraine’s will to fight—what I talked about above. Political scientists and economists have written important books on the dictator’s dilemma, like an important book by Ronald Wintrobe and another by Caitlin Talmadge of Georgetown, formerly of GW. It’s just really hard, when you’ve got a personalist dictator, to get the incentives right for intelligence collection, for giving straight answers to the boss, and so on. I can’t really describe the magnitude of this intelligence failure. It’s one thing for the United States to think we are going to be greeted as liberators in Iraq, but Iraq is kind of far away and we don’t speak Arabic. I don’t really know how Russia got Ukraine so wrong. Every time I think about it, it’s still a surprise to me. But if they knew they were not going to be greeted as liberators, Russian military planners could have done different things in the opening stages of the war. Ukraine hasn’t done everything right, but I’m glad, as a friend of Ukraine and as an American, that Russia did so much wrong.

I have been very surprised—pleasantly surprised—by the U.S. response, which in turn galvanized the European response and the NATO alliance. The United States really does seem to be in this for the long game. The Ukraine war, as an empirical fact, has just stayed in the public eye much longer than I expected it to. I get my news from the New York Times online, and there has not been a single day since the war started in February that it has not been on the front page. We are coming up on the one-year anniversary, and I think we will be able to say that it has been literally on the front page every single day.

On a personal note, for me, as someone who has devoted my adult professional life to writing about places such as Tajikistan, that’s extraordinary. Deeply unexpected. I’m used to thinking of the United States as a very distractible empire. I remember very vividly the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, where there were people in Tehran holding up signs in English, trying to get people on CNN to pay attention to what was going on in Iran, and then what happened? Americans changed the channel. Michael Jackson died. Everyone switched to watching Neverland Ranch. I remember just having that experience really take the wind out of the sails of my younger self. I had devoted so much of my life, and so much of my energy, to Persian-speaking people in Central Asia. And I kept telling Tajiks’ stories, trying to get it right.

This 2022 war has been horrible in some ways, but it has had the opposite effect on me, and in a surprising way. It has given me a sense that I am part of a country that sometimes can get it right and cares to educate itself for the right reasons.

The process of leadership change in Kazakhstan has unexpectedly accelerated. With a presidential election scheduled for June 9, 2019, there are less than 3 weeks for candidates to be nominated. What do these rapid changes signify: a reversal in the name of stability (a.k.a zastoi) or progress toward development? In an interview with VoCA, Dossym Satpayev, a prominent political analyst in Kazakhstan, provides his assessment of the current situation and the associated risks: are they in fact increasing?

Dosym Satpayev

Dosym Satpayev, Ph.D, is the Director of Kazakhstan Risk Assessment Group and a member of the presidium of the Kazakhstan Council on International Relations. Co-founder of the Alliance of Analytical Organizations of Kazakhstan. Founder of the private cultural and educational fund and literary project “СӨЗ”. Co-founder of the literary contest “Altyn Kalam”.

Author of the following books: «Лоббизм: тайные рычаги власти» (Lobbyism: the secret levers of power), 2000; «Политическая наука в Казахстане. Состояние дисциплины» (Political science in Kazakhstan. The state of discipline), 2002;  «Деформация вертикали. От анонимных империй к антилобби. Черная папка коммуникационного и политического апгрейда в условиях транзита власти» (Vertical deformation. From anonymous empires to anti-lobby ones. Black folder of communication and political upgrade in conditions of power transit”, 2019.

Some of the edited volumes include: «Нелегальный рынок Центральной Азии» (The Illegal Market of Central Asia), 2005; “Kooperation mit Zentralasien. Was will und kann die EU leisten? ”, 2009; “Challenges of the Caspian resource boom. Domestic Elites and Policy-making, 2012; «Сумеречная зона или «ловушки» переходного периода» (“Twilight zone or traps of the transition period”), 2013; «Коктейль Молотова. Анатомия казахстанской молодежи» (Molotov cocktail. Anatomy of Kazakhstani youth), 2014; “Kazachstan. Tauelsiz memleket znaczy niepodlegle panstwo ”(Warsaw, 2017). Co-author of the satirical novel «Легенда о Nomenclatura» (The Legend of Nomenclatura), 2009. He has authored several documentaries, inlcuding «Откочевники мертвой степи» (Nomads of the Dead Steppe), 2019. Awarded by Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly Prize for 2008-2009: “For achievement in the field of journalism and political journalism”.

 Justifying the urgency of holding elections, both the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the second, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev, pointed to a difficult political situation. “The situation in the world is changing rapidly and far from the best for us. We have to confirm the continuity, predictability, and stability of our domestic and foreign policy,” said Tokayev. What are the complexities of the current situation for Kazakhstan? How do the authorities interpret continuity: no change and no reform? The continuation of the multi-vector policy?

It is interesting to note that the thesis of a complex external situation has been used to justify conducting other presidential elections early: once, this referred to the financial and economic crisis; on another occasion, it referred to geopolitical tensions. Tokayev’s rhetoric is therefore nothing new. Of course, the Kazakh economy depends on a large number of external factors. For example, as the former chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, Daniyar Akishev, has stated, in 2019-2020 inflation may exceed a given range as a result of the sanctions against Russia combined with the weakening of the national currency, the decline in the oil prices, and rising social spending and loans. Of these four factors, there are two (anti-Russian sanctions and the price of oil) that Kazakhstan cannot influence at all. The same applies to the growth of international tensions due to Russia.

At the same time, Kazakhstan’s main problems are not so much external as they are internal. We need to focus not on the continuity of power but on the continuity of problems that were not solved effectively by the first president and are brewing in a “steam boiler.” These problems and their resolution will shape stability in the country and the future political prospects of all those who come after the first president. It is clear that with Nursultan Nazarbayev as a suprasystem actor, one should not expect any cardinal changes in the domestic and foreign policy of Kazakhstan. The status quo will remain. Thus, as long as he lives, the ex-president will continue to personally embody the center of governance of the country. But there is a risk that those who come after him will want to draw out this status quo as long as possible under the pretext of the “stability for stagnation” formula, although many citizens of the country, if they want to maintain stability, long for development and not stagnation.

Following up on the complex situation, how would you assess the domestic situation? If the online activity of Kazakhs is quite remarkable and people talk about the need for change, it is unclear how people feel offline. Will the further investment in the social sphere that the state envisages help to temper protest sentiments?

Protest sentiments are on display in many segments of Kazakh society. This was clearly seen during the events in Zhanaozen, after the land rallies, or even after the decision to rename the capital. So far, the emerging social explosions are local in nature, since in Kazakhstan there is still no political force capable of mobilizing the protest moods that exist in the country. On what political values are Kazakhstanis’ protest sentiments based? There is a lot of criticism, aggression, and political apathy, but there are no clear ideological niches. They are too vague.

It would also be a mistake to see these protest moods only in protest activity and not to notice protest passivity: many people are dissatisfied with the government and do not trust it, but are not yet ready to go to the streets and squares to express their discontent. For their part, the authorities confuse this passivity with loyalty. But it is not. The danger for the ruling elite is that this protest passivity will be directed against it at the very moment that the elite needs public support to protect the existing political regime: instead of mobilizing, a passive protester will resort to ignoring calls to mobilization, as he/she has done for a long time. This is already happening—we can observe a growing crisis of confidence among the Kazakh authorities in a significant part of society. Injections of cash will not be enough to reduce this protest potential, since the cash would be distributed by an inefficient and corrupt bureaucratic apparatus, which a priori is not able to work to produce a specific result. It works only to process the money.

On the other hand, the evolution from a proto-civil society to a full-fledged civil society cannot happen on social networks alone. A very powerful socio-economic revolution must also occur offline as the middle class emerges. But if a prerequisite for civil society development is the economic independence of a citizen on the basis of private property, the protection of which is guaranteed by the state, then in Kazakhstan there is actually no social basis for the development of such a civil society. And we now see a certain imbalance. There is an active part of the population that, using social networks, is trying to change something in the economic, financial, social, and environmental spheres. And there is an offline audience that has not yet matured enough to be ready for this, mainly for financial and economic reasons. Many are simply not up to it. After all, you just need to survive. And who represents proto-civil society on social networks today? Basically, again, people from the middle class who have a certain income and time. But they are a minority. And these shoots of civil society will never grow into a tree unless major changes take place in society itself. And the authorities create obstacles to this by postponing effective socio-economic reforms, and the middle class cannot grow.

There is a lot of discussion of the younger generation of Kazakhs. Are the authorities generally aware of youth sentiment? What has been the most remarkable about the recently adopted youth policy?

Kazakhstan has declared this year to be the “year of youth,” but it may pass without any concrete results. The reason for this is the lack of clear indicators in the implementation of youth policy in Kazakhstan. Also, the youth is diverse: there are different groups of young people in the country, with different levels of education and motivation, with different goals, opportunities, and dreams. After all, our young people are not monolithic. They reflect the social pyramid that exists in Kazakhstan. Ultimately, we have both “golden youth” and “outsiders.” There are urban and rural youth, politically active and passive youth, cosmopolitan and conservative youth, secular and religious youth. But no one seems to know what is going on in the minds of those whom our statistics describe as young people.

Moreover, disputes are still ongoing about what should be the basis of Kazakhstan’s statehood: ethnic, religious, or civic identity. These disputes have been going on for almost thirty years, with the potential to create the foundation for serious conflict in the future. From the authorities’ point of view, this identity should be built on civic self-identification, like in the United States, where people, regardless of their ethnicity, identify themselves as citizens of the United States. From the point of view of national-patriotic groups, there is no Kazakhstani identity, but there is an ethnic Kazakh identity. Here, the emphasis is on the primacy of the titular nation. Others, while living in Kazakhstan, sympathize with Russia—its political, ideological, and also informational field. There are those who still believe that tribal identity should be primary. For followers of religious movements, a person must identify first of all with the religion to which he or she belongs, and then with his or her ethnic group. There is a certain transformation going on in the religious field that may cause a collision with the secular part of society. The secular group is backed by the state but there is also a sizable societal group that puts religious identity above national or civic identity.

Obviously, in the future, if the competition between internal and external players to influence the religious consciousness of Kazakhstan intensifies, it will also hamper long-term political stability in the country, especially during the so-called transition period. In this period, the activists of various religious and pseudo-religious groups could become more vocal in the struggle for power not only with their opponents from the secular camp, but also with each other and with representatives of various national-patriotic movements. And here youth will matter, as all groups will compete for the minds of young people.

Read more: Nazarbayev Generation. Kazakhstan’s Youth, National Identity Transformations and their Political Consequences

As the Nur Otan party will nominate a candidate (who will be a frontrunner), it seems that the party, whose main task is to support the regime, remains the leading political actor—albeit an amorphous one. Do you envisage parliamentary elections after the presidential ones? Is there a demand for a new party?

It does not matter when the parliamentary elections are held, since without structural changes to the parliament, it will resemble political theater. There has long been a need for new party actors. But first we need to make serious changes to the legislative framework regarding the conduct of elections and the creation of political parties and social movements. The presence of fake political institutions, including parties, further widens the communication gap between society and the government. As for new players, in the Kazakh context, where protest actors are fragmented and atomized, we may see that the time is ripe for the emergence of several opposition parties and movements that could translate existing protest sentiments to the legal field.

But it will be rather difficult to envisage a single national opposition party, since it will have to rely on some universal political values in society, which are not yet developed. Pragmatically, there could be a demand for a national-patriotic or center-left party operating under a banner of social justice. This is a rather amorphous but sought-after concept that could bring together very diverse protest groups.

But ideally, I am a supporter of balance on the party field. In order for the country not to slip towards political extremes, and in a context where democratic values are beginning to lose popularity among society, we need a political party that would support these values, especially among young people. In essence, this would be a liberal party, the electoral core of which should be the middle class. It is now small, but it is this class that is the guarantor of the country’s economic development and political stability. It is clear that this party will face serious opposition from more radical or populist party structures that could emerge in the future. But radicalism and populism in any ideological form have never led to anything good. By the way, here it is worth remembering the well-known “Downs model,” the essence of which is that the politician who finds the “middle ground” in the political preferences of citizens often claims the victory—although this is more applicable to more or less politically structured societies where the center is clearly defined, as are the left and right political flanks. Ideally, we should have the same political structure.

In your opinion, if the transition has been designed to strengthen the status quo, has this goal been achieved? You communicate a lot with investors, financiers, and the public. What is their risk assessment?

In Kazakhstan’s political system, the “bifurcation point” is not the departure of Nazarbayev from the presidency, but the change in his system, which begins with the real transfer of power. It does not matter how and to whom the transfer of power will take place. After the death of the first president, any political force will sooner or later modify the political and economic system to suit itself, even if it declares the continuity of its policies with those of the previous regime. We can observe this situation in neighboring Uzbekistan now.

As for investors, I would like to mention here an interesting report by the Boston Consulting Group, entitled “Investing in Central Asia: One Region, Many Opportunities,” which stated that the potential of Central Asia as a whole for attracting foreign direct investment is $170 billion—of which the investment potential of Kazakhstan alone is up to $100 billion. But, most likely, these optimistic figures will have to be revised, since despite statements about the continuity of Nazarbayev’s policy, his resignation may have reduced the number of investors willing to invest in the country. Some of them will wait for a clearer political situation after the presidential election to make a final decision about investing. By the way, one of the reasons for holding early presidential elections in Kazakhstan is that the events of March 19, 2019, not only alarmed business, but also reduced the efficiency of the entire bureaucracy, which did not demonstrate great efficiency under the first president, but during the interregnum has virtually gone into hibernation, imitating work in anticipation of further clarification of their own perspectives.

Another group of investors may shift its attention toward Uzbekistan, which is increasingly becoming a magnet for foreign investment, thanks both to reaching long-term political stability and to the start of economic reforms, which target improving the investment climate. In 2017, the then-Minister of National Economy of Kazakhstan, Timur Suleimenov (recently appointed advisor to Tokayev), said that one of the external factors that he sees as having the potential to affect Kazakhstan’s economic development trajectory is “awakening” Uzbekistan, which may become an economic and political competitor of Kazakhstan in the region.

The existing big foreign companies, mainly in the mining field, are hostages of the current political situation.

They have already invested in expensive oil and gas projects in Kazakhstan and cannot quickly get off the “submarine.” They can only be reassured that since the ex-president is still alive, the investment status quo will be respected; many of these investors came in the early ’90s under his personal guarantees. This status quo may continue under any successor to the ex-president who comes from his inner circle or family. But sooner or later, the time will come to question those contracts that were signed on large oil and gas fields in the ’90s in the form of obscure PSAs. And all this may happen in the transition period, when the new actors may challenge the rules of the game with these companies and play them in their favor.

And finally, a question on the dynastic transfer of power. No matter how radical it sounds, this scenario seems to have succeeded in Azerbaijan, which appears to be continuing on its trajectory toward modernization with the ruling family in power. If Dariga Nazarbayeva comes to power, will this ensure continuity and stability?

I cannot say that serious economic and political modernization is taking place in Azerbaijan under Ilham Aliyev. It may have seen some progress in the last year, but, like Kazakhstan, this Caspian state still depends on the export of commodities, has a corrupt state apparatus, and has a not-very-wealthy population. Yes, political stability was maintained during the dynastic change of power—but as I mentioned above, stability for stagnation is not the best option for the country.

In the case of Kazakhstan, there is a feeling that the first president, Nazarbayev, decided to leave his post ahead of schedule because he was concerned about repeating the fate of Islam Karimov, who was unable to control the continuity of power, which led to the defeat of his close circle and weakened the position of his family members. There is also a sense that Nazarbayev has tried to avoid the fate of ex-Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev—whose desired successor, Sooronbay Zheenbekov, became a political opponent—by appointing his daughter to the post of Speaker of the Senate, the second-in-command according to the Constitution. Dariga Nazarbayeva oversees Tokayev, who is further checked (controlled) by the National Security Committee in the persons of its head, Karim Massimov, and first deputy, Nazarbayev’s nephew Samat Abish.

At the same time, the first president of Kazakhstan may want to emulate the model of Azerbaijan, although for posterity he wants to be remembered as Lee Kuan Yew. Perhaps the president wants to maintain a political configuration that would keep Tokayev as a controllable head of state, which suits many in the elite and in the international community. But even hypothetically, if one of the members of the presidential family were to take part in this or the next presidential election as a favored candidate who enjoyed the support of the entire current administration as well as that of the ex-president, then his/her chances of becoming the next president would be quite high. Naturally, with a living first president, a member of his family would only be a political tool. But after the ex-president’s final departure, the challenges for the successor will increase, within both the elite and society.

Main Photo by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA/REX/Shutterstock (8429991b) A Kazakh Soldier Casts His Vote at the Polling Station During Parliamentary Elections in Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, 20 March 2016

The growing popularity of the content created by young bloggers in Kazakhstan implies that coverage of political and socio-economic issues is beginning to sell.

Social media platforms act as safe spaces with less censorship and government control, giving young activists a unique opportunity to share their political views and interact with their audiences without any mediators. The topics they cover, ranging from urban transportation to corruption and environment, show that creators and audience alike are concerned with national and city-level problems.

Daniyar Kosnazarov

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Daniyar Kosnazarov was a visiting fellow at The George Washington University. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Steppe, an independent digital media outlet in Kazakhstan. He has experience both in the government and in private think tanks in Kazakhstan, and previously worked as Chair of the Department of Strategic Analysis at Narxoz University, evaluating strategy implementation.

Read full paper

Youth and Social Media

According to 2018 figures, citizens aged 14-29 comprise one-fifth of Kazakhstan’s population (21.5 percent or 3.9 million people).[i] While 43 percent of youth live in rural areas, there is continuous migration to cities, stimulated by the desire to find a decent job and take advantage of urban leisure and consumption infrastructure.[ii] Socio-economic problems as the low quality of local education, expensive housing, and unemployment push youth to migrate and seek better opportunities.[iii]

These problems, according to the director of the Youth Information Service of Kazakhstan, Irina Mednikova, translate into a lack of motivation, political passivity, and paternalism.[iv] Millennials and post-millennials can hardly name any official and civic initiatives that target youth. Even if they have learned about key government strategies, such as “Kazakhstan-2030,” in school or university, they do not consider politicians “role models.”[v] High-ranking officials, in particular, are widely perceived to be corrupt. Although young people are much happier and more optimistic than adults, they are also concerned with rising food prices, university fees, expensive rent prices, and low salaries. These issues might push young men and women in big cities, particularly in the capital, Astana, to participate in mass protests once they become adults and have more responsibilities. Nevertheless, the nationwide results of a Public Opinion Institute and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung survey shows that so far young Kazakh citizens are not interested in taking part in civic initiatives or engaging in politics.[vi]

But, compared to their parents, who were born and socialized during the Soviet Union, Kazakh millennials and post-millennials[vii] have had greater opportunities to study, travel, and express themselves on social media through art, fiction, or music. Although the state and elites continue to exert strong power over many economic sectors, the younger generations are being raised in a comparatively free country. The high level of Internet penetration, availability of inexpensive smartphones and PCs, and wide variety of social media platforms present vast opportunities to consume global content and interact with locals and foreigners alike.

Kazakh millennials and post-millennials spend a great deal of time online. In this, they are not entirely different from older generations: all in all, 70 percent of the population is now using various social media platforms to chat, share opinions, post photos, or watch videos.[viii] The difference is which social media these different generations use: young people aged 18-29 are much more active on vKontakte and Instagram, while their elders prefer MoiMir, Odnoklassniki, and Facebook.[ix]

Social media provides one of the few social mobility opportunities available to young people. Given that these creative men and women became popular for their entertaining videos, one might assume that young followers are not interested in consuming political content, but they are in fact not apathetic about what is going on in Kazakhstan.

Young Activists on Social Media

In this article, I look at young activists that use different social media platforms to practice civic activism and increase their followers’ awareness of many political issues in Kazakhstan. Although these content creators and influencers are millennials, a substantial share of their subscribers are post-millennials.

Za Nami Uzhe Vyekhali

Two former journalists, Dmitry Dubovitsky (age 29) and Dmitry Khegai (age 30), decided to launch this YouTube channel in August 2017. Although the first six months were in beta testing mode, their vlogs on contemporary political issues have started to attract the attention of adult viewers, turning these ex-journalists into one of the most popular content-creators in the Kazakhstani blogosphere. Today, they have more than 104,000 subscribers, the vast majority of whom are 18 or older.

The topics of the most popular videos are the possibility of early presidential elections, the bankruptcy of local banks, the illegal behavior of rich kids, the resignation of Nazarbayev’s closest affiliates, the tragic killing of figure skater Denis Ten, security sector reforms, the scenario of Russian secession, etc. By talking about these critical issues, they hope to awaken civic consciousness.

While declining to frame themselves as political activists, the founders of the channel embrace civic activism. They want ordinary citizens to understand that each political development, from an increase in gasoline prices to the ratification of the Caspian Sea agreement, directly affects their lives. In this respect, the project is driven by a desire to foster individuals’ involvement and interest in political issues. However, they do not agitate people to go into the streets and organize mass demonstrations. The founders affirm that they are not going to join any oppositional forces and do not see any of them as constructive movements.

“Jurttyn Balasy”

Murat Daniyar, a 22-year-old Russian-speaking blogger from Almaty, uploaded his first video to YouTube in September 2017. Since then, he has produced 37 videos, prompting 20,925 users to subscribe to his channel, “Jurttyn Balasy” (Other People’s Child).[x] Eighty percent of subscribers are men aged 18-34, mostly from Almaty. Murat does everything alone: he writes scenarios, films footage, and edits.

Murat prioritizes YouTube over other platforms because Instagram is full of “Viners,”[xi] people who produce short, fun videos and do not push people to think about social problems. According to him, if one can generate interesting content on YouTube, one easily increases one’s number of followers. Murat describes Kazakhstan’s blogging sphere as sterile and argues that many public figures, particularly famous Viners, are deliberately staying silent on social and political problems. He urges these celebrities to publicly voice political opinions, since millions of young citizens are paying close attention to what they do. He says that it is not a crime to be civically engaged and explicitly opine about the wrongdoings of national or local governing bodies.[xii]

In his 5-10-minute-long blogs Murat talks about controversial issues and critically examines many sins of contemporary Kazakh society.

His videos are dedicated to the hottest issues, including the renaming of one of the central streets of Almaty to Nazarbayev Avenue, the latinization of the Kazakh alphabet, and public hearings on the construction of a new ski resort in the Kok Zhailau valley. Murat is also critical of some Soviet-style practices that persist in today’s Kazakhstan. Many university students are, for instance, forced to attend official political celebrations as “extras.” The blogger blames city administrations for this and treats the Kok Zhailau case as evidence of a confrontation between civil society and the authorities. He thinks officials should stop treating citizens as mindless “sheeple,” since times have changed and the Soviet Union no longer exists.

Accordingly, the main goal of “Jurttyn balasy” is to raise awareness among young citizens and increase their interest in politics. Although Murat hesitates to call himself a political blogger, he acknowledges that with each passing day the number of videos on his channel about political issues increases.

Le Shapalaque Comics[xiii]

Launched in March 2017 by several enthusiasts from Astana in their early twenties, Le Shapalaque produces comics and satirical illustrations. Its popular topics include corruption, power relations between the younger generation and their elders in the family and work, the differences between the former capital (Almaty) and the current one (Astana), traditions, popular culture, and everyday practices of ordinary citizens.

With 20,700 followers on Instagram, the Le Shapalaque team argues that social media helps them communicate directly with readers and reach them faster than classical media outlets, including newspapers and television. It is less visible on other social media, with only 1,486 followers on VKontakte, and even fewer on Facebook and Telegram. Half of consumers of Le Shapalaque comics are aged 18-24; they are university students or recent graduates from Almaty, Astana, Shymkent and Karaganda. Just over half are women. According to the creators of the comics, this particular audience prefers Instagram because it is old enough to have left vKontakte, but still too young to be active on Facebook.

While regarding themselves as artists, the goal of the creators of Le Shapalaque is to push people to think critically. For them, it is a political project, but they are hesitant to consider it a form of political activism. When asked about means of engaging in politics, they somewhat sarcastically responded that one needs to be a member of the ruling political party, Nur Otan, hinting that opportunities are scarce for young creative people like them. They have never participated in any political campaigns and contend that politics needs to be fixed.[xiv]

The authorities turn a blind eye to many socio-economic and political problems. Le Shapalaque comics try to create a bond with ordinary citizens by demonstrating that someone else does care about these issues. According to Le Shapalaque founder Adil Zakenov, humor is often the only tool that can help people tackle the world’s toughest challenges.[xv] One of their comics, for instance, describes the career ladder of state employees: first give bribes to access power, then take bribes once in power (see Figure 7). Aware of the legal risks in a country like Kazakhstan, the team members consult with lawyers before publishing some of their works on social media.

#SaveKokZhailau

Environmental issues are becoming a crucial element of youth mobilization. The new generation of activists and influencers is, for instance, calling on social media users to sign a petition against the construction of a ski resort in the mountainous Kok Zhailau area of Almaty that has been lobbied for by local authorities. While activists of different ages and backgrounds are united against this expensive initiative, the engagement of the #SaveKokZhailau team could be seen as a turning point. Their publications on Instagram helped to collect over 33,000 signatures after the online petition was launched at the beginning of November 2018. Although the final decision has not yet been made, local authorities have been forced to use different tactics to accommodate these protests. In early December, Almaty mayor Baurzhan Baybek said that the authorities had taken into consideration all critical remarks and suggestions coming from civil society and had decided to make certain changes, such as decreasing the area of deforestation.[xvi]

Responding to some of the skeptics, art-activist Suinbike Suleimenova (age 25) argues that the Instagram hype around Kok Zhailau is “returning voices, rights, and freedom to the people,” as many citizens are fed up with being silent. Instagram is a “virtual square” that allows people to gather, rise up, and talk about important things.[xvii]

Madina Mussina, an Instagram influencer, invites her 72,100 followers to share posts about “Save Kok Zhailau.” According to Mussina, times have changed: applying Soviet-era style methods of scaremongering and treating people as a “herd of sheep” no longer works. In the era of digital technology, social media, and a diversity of information sources, there is a need for an open and sincere dialogue between society and rulers.

Mussina calls herself a citizen with soul, feeling, and opinion. She does not want to be afraid of sharing her point of view, since she is “not agitating for violence, drug abuse and murder, but for preserving nature.”[xviii] What she cares about is protecting the environment and preventing the implementation of the “crazy ideas of fat men with a lot of money.” She criticizes celebrities and so-called “opinion leaders” for abstaining from sharing their own views on Kok Zhailau. Mussina argues that there is no need to organize or attend street protests, since social media can help pressure the authorities with no more than a click.

Following Madina Mussina, 30-year-old actress and Instagram influencer Aisulu Azimbayeva (96,600 subscribers) has at least once urged her followers to assert themselves and defend Kok Zhailau against “rich men who do not care about the people.”[xix]

To complement this Instagram activism, young artists Anvar Musrepov and Nazira Karimova staged a performance near the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Vienna at the beginning of November 2018. They protested against the ski resort by organizing a “luminiscent picket.”

On his Instagram account, Musrepov explained that the government of Kazakhstan has never considered the opinion of ordinary citizens and only cares about its international image.

In November 2018, a group of Kazakh students gathered in Times Square to raise global awareness about Kok Zhailau and show solidarity with their fellows in Kazakhstan. To be heard and to avoid being sentenced for protesting by Kazakhstan’s law enforcement agencies, young activists choose foreign cities, such as Vienna or New York, for their street actions.

Conclusion

Even as the Kazakh authorities are refashioning the content of state-owned TV channels, using social media, and appointing younger bureaucrats to the ministries and agencies that curate so-called “ideological work,” millennials’ and post-millennials’ lack of trust in official institutions persists. The political indifference of young citizens is driven by fear of organizing and attending mass demonstrations, as well as by a lack of faith that the government will listen to their claims.

Even if the Kazakhstani youth is largely apolitical, their very ignorance and lack of respect for the authorities is, in essence, an unconscious political attitude that limits the impact of state propaganda. On the eve of a presidential transition, Akorda authorities are faced with the serious challenge of finding a common language with the country’s youth, which seems to be slowly entering a new era of at least partial civic activism.

[i] Youth Scientific Research Center, “The Youth of Kazakhstan 2017 National Report,” May 10, 2017, http://eljastary.kz/articles/14/2.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Youth Scientific Research Center, “The Youth of Kazakhstan 2017.”

[iv] Akayeva and Mednikova, “Apatichnaia i ishushaia motivatsiiu.”

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, “Molodezh Tsentral’noi Azii. Kazahstan,” 2016, http://www.fes-centralasia.org/ru/statja/v-svet-vyshel-perevod-publikacii-molodezh-centralnoj-azii-kazaxstan.html.

[vii] Here I employ Pew Research Center’s generation scheme. Whereas millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, post-millennials are the generation born after 1996 until 2012. See Michael Dimock, “Defining Generations: Where Millennials End and Generation Z Begins,” Pew Research Center, January 17, 2019, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/.

[viii] Sholpan Zhabayeva, “Itogi oprosa: socsetiami pol’zuiutsia 70% kazakhstantsev,” Informburo, April 21, 2017, https://informburo.kz/novosti/itogi-oprosa-socsetyami-polzuyutsya-70-kazahstancev.html.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] His channel is available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClmqO1ELiMtzP2YGXhWE_lw.

[xi] Kristina Nikulina, “Vainer—kleimo ili blagoslovenie? Skol’ko zarabatyvaiut na Instagram v Kazahstane,” The Steppe, August 15, 2016, https://the-steppe.com/news/business/2016-08-15/vaynery.

[xii] Personal written interview with Murat Daniyar, November 24, 2018.

[xiii] Le Shapalaque is a Francization of the Kazakh “Шапалақ” (slap).

[xiv] Personal written interview with Adil Zakenov, November 25, 2018.

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Mariya Dubovaya and Zhadra Zhulmuhametova, “Baybek o Kok Zhailau: nam piatatiutsia naviazyvat’ zabluzhdenie, chto kurort—eto vredno,” Informburo, December 7, 2018, https://informburo.kz/novosti/baybek-o-kok-zhaylyau-nam-pytayutsya-navyazyvat-zabluzhdenie-chto-kurort-eto-vredno.html.

[xvii] Oksana Tarnetskaya, “Haip ili sovremennoe vyrazhenie grazhdanskoi Positsii,” Living Asia, November 13, 2018, http://livingasia.online/2018/11/13/haip-ili-sovremennoe-vyrazhenie-grazhdanskoi-pozicii/.

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Aisulu Azimbayeva [@strangeice], “Sokhranim Kok Zhailau,” Instagram, November 8, 2018, https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp5By89lDme/.

Askar Nursha, a Kazakh political analyst and dean of the ALMA University School of Public Policy and Law, has published a book, Putinskaia Rossiia: geopoliticheskii revansh ili agressivnaia oborona? (Putin’s Russia: Geopolitical Revenge or Aggressive Defense?)

The book traces the evolution of relations between Russia and the West and Russia’s strategic policies in the post-Soviet space from the 1990s to the end of Putin’s third presidential term.

Dr. Askar NURSHA

Dr. Askar Nursha is Dean of the Public Policy and Law School of Almaty Management University. His research interests include political processes in CIS countries and security issues in the Caspian region and Central Asia. Between 2012 and 2018, he worked as a Research Fellow, project coordinator for foreign policy issues, and head of the Almaty office of the Institute of World Economy and Politics at the First President Foundation of the Republic of Kazakhstan-Elbasy. In 2011-2012, he was a Secretary of the Scientific Council at Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In 2009-2010, he held posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Security Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Dr. Nursha holds a candidate’s degree (equivalent to a PhD) in Historical Sciences (History of International Relations and Foreign Policy).

In this interview, Askar Nursha talks about relations between Putin’s Russia’s and Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan, relations that were very warm from the very beginning, but today raise alarming questions—what will happen next?

Why did you start working on this book about Russian domestic and foreign policies? How different is your perspective—or Kazakhstan’s perspective—on Russian-Kazakhstani relations from the perspective of Russian or international scholars?

I have been preparing to write this book for several years. On the one hand, I have written about fifty scholarly articles on the post-Soviet space. Thanks to the support of the institute where I worked, I have been able to systemically study post-Soviet countries for the past four years. On the other hand, I needed to become more mature and prepare myself to write the book. That is why, before starting the book, I authored seven open-access policy papers, in which I analyzed various aspects of the domestic and foreign policies of countries like Kazakhstan, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova.

This book is not only about Russia. It is essentially about the whole post-Soviet space: how it has developed since the collapse of the USSR; which paths former Soviet countries took; what strategies they adopted in their relationships with Russia, the West, and China. The focus is on Russia during the latter years of the Yeltsin presidency, Putin’s three terms, and Medvedev’s term. In Russia, there is lively discussion of happenings in the “near abroad.” I think it will also be good for Russia to learn about how its policies are seen in Kazakhstan.

How does my perspective stand out? I have worked in state and quasi-state think tanks for many years, and I also have experience in the analytical institutions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Security Council of Kazakhstan. At the same time, I am familiar with how academics and independent experts assess Russian politics—I taught international relations at a university. All this experience has enabled me to compare various perspectives on the politics of Russia and Kazakhstan.

Today, it is common to see relations between the West and Russia in black and white. My task was to show that not everything is so unambiguous. There are many shades in world and regional politics. Many things happen in gray areas, where each country is right in its own way, or often both are wrong. In the book, I tried to demonstrate how different actors—Russia and the West, Russia and post-Soviet countries, different political forces within Russia—perceive and evaluate each other’s policies. In terms of political interactions between various actors, I also wanted to differentiate between the outcomes of deliberate strategies and the consequences of one side’s response to the actions of the other side.

You write about Kazakhstan’s consistent interest in Russia and especially its foreign and even domestic policies. Is this typical of all post-Soviet countries or is there something peculiar about Kazakhstan’s interest?

First, unlike many post-Soviet countries, Kazakhstan has the longest border with Russia. Therefore, in terms of national and regional security, both sides are highly interdependent and there are multiple areas of vulnerability. Second, of all the former Soviet republics that border Russia, only Belarus and Kazakhstan participate in Eurasian integration and have a common customs and economic space with Russia. Third, Kazakhstan’s population contains a large share of people who consider the Russian socio-cultural space their own—or, in other words, native to them. Fourth, the leaders of Kazakhstan and Russia call each other allies. This alone says that Kazakhstan cares about what happens in Russian political life and what relationships Russia builds with the broader world and the world’s leading powers, some of which are our country’s partners.

Is there similar interest on the other side—within Russian society toward Kazakhstan? Excluding expert communities, is the broader population of Russia interested in Kazakhstan? How is Kazakhstan portrayed in Russia?

The Russian information space is trans-border. It is accessible in Kazakhstan and is part of the Kazakhstani information space. However, it only works one way. In Kazakhstan, people are well informed about Russia, but in Russia there is low awareness of the reality of Kazakhstan. Other than in Moscow and in regions bordering Kazakhstan, the Russian population has very limited awareness about Kazakhstan.

They know our country’s president. Owing to Nazarbayev’s policies and Kazakhstan’s participation in integration processes, attitudes toward Kazakhstan have been improving. But the population has little interest in Kazakhstan. Except for political decision-makers, who develop policies regarding Kazakhstan, and representatives of Russian business, who have commercial interests in Kazakhstan, expert communities and people in political circles are largely not very interested in the country. They are more occupied by affairs with the United States and Europe. Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, is the periphery to them.

Many processes in Russia and Kazakhstan follow similar scripts. Some even think that at times Russia and Kazakhstan copy each other’s policies and tactics. What positive and negative elements do you notice about this?

It is not easy to invent new things. When political and social systems are related and of a similar type, copying is quite common. The things that get copied range from selected documents to specific practices and experiences in different spheres. This actually works both ways. If Kazakhstan comes up with an innovation in some area and it is acceptable to Russia, then Russia may well adopt Kazakhstan’s example. Such processes happen. If one state moves forward and the other copies its practices, then in general it is a positive trend. However, when it is restrictive measures that get copied and adapted—let’s say, to control the Internet and mobile networks—then surely people are not happy about this. For example, it seems like the “Yarovaya Law” has affected Kazakhstan as well.

In your book, you discuss Russia’s post-Soviet policies in detail. What are its general policies toward Central Asia, and how do they differ from country to country?

Tensions in Afghanistan benefit Russian policies in Central Asia. Owing to this, Russia’s services in the sphere of collective regional security are always in demand. Another equally important factor is weak political institutions and challenging economic and social conditions in the countries of the region. Central Asian countries see Russia as a donor and expect it to invest and open its markets to their goods and labor migrants. Even with all the complexities and anti-migrant sentiments in Russia, the situation serves Russia’s purposes for now.

Another issue is that Eurasian integration in Central Asia has paused, as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are not rushing to join the Eurasian Economic Union. Moreover, China is actively expanding its presence in regional economies. What used to seem like a niche for China in the energy sector is turning into a full-scale presence and leadership in certain segments of the economy. This is what Russia will now have to work with. It would be an oversimplification to accuse Russia of imperial and re-integrationist motives. In my book, I call relationships between Central Asian states and Russia “symbiotic connection between the Russian economy and even less successful post-Soviet economic and governmental models.” On the one side, there is the Kremlin’s desire to retain Russian power in the Central Asian region, and on the other, the countries’ problems with good governance and attempts to solve some of their problems at the expense of Russia and “friendship” with the Kremlin.

Turning to Russia’s internal politics, do you expect its regional affairs to change if, let’s say, liberals like Navalny come to power? What role does Kazakhstan play in their agenda?

At this stage, the foreign policy agenda of Russian liberals is more attractive for Kazakhstan than are those of leftists, imperial patriots, and Russian nationalists. Oriented toward the West and human rights, they try to follow a certain liberal code of conduct and condemn geopolitical expansionism, which is generally beneficial for our country.

Nonetheless, imperial sentiments are not foreign to Russian liberals, and this must be understood. There are those who are willing to build Chubais’ “liberal empire” or carry Kipling’s “white man’s burden” to our region. It is, of course, arguable if all those who label themselves liberal in Russia are truly liberal. Another example is the mix of liberalism and nationalism in Navalny’s rhetoric. Whether such politicians can be trusted if they come to power, and what kind of agenda they will have regarding the Caucasus and Central Asia, is an open issue.

Kazakhstan is a friendly country, but Russia pays close attention to our Russian diaspora. They cannot ignore the fact that the number of ethnic Russians willing to leave Kazakhstan remains high. Kazakhstan is also perceived as a buffer zone from migrants, criminality, illegal substances, and potentially terrorists and extremists. In Russia, they worry that Kazakhstan can turn from a buffer into a source of security problems for the southern and Siberian regions of Russia. In recent years, this fear has been exacerbated by concerns that after Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan will become less stable internally and less friendly toward Russia and will stop supporting integration initiatives.

How did economic and trade relations between Kazakhstan and Russia change after the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union? How are business ties being built? Are they becoming closer? Why does Russia not invest more actively in Kazakhstan as its closest neighbor?

Relations between the countries are getting closer year by year. Both sides are working to simplify the movement of goods, services, people, and capital. We cannot say that Russia does not invest in Kazakhstan. It is just that some of the trade turnover and investment are in the shadow, and businesses in both countries use “gray schemes” that do not report actual volumes. Large amounts of Russian capital are now directed to Kazakhstan: it is nearby, there are no language barriers, and its post-Soviet reality is similar. Moreover, after the events in Ukraine, followed by the West’s sanctions, Russian capital is being pushed out of a number of countries. In addition, Kazakhstani citizens can get some financial resources and services directly from various Russian organizations while bypassing Kazakhstani authorities. Real figures here are hard to calculate.

Nevertheless, on a national level the volume of Russian investment is much smaller than it could be. There are objective reasons for this: the small size of Kazakhstan’s market, significant competition from other countries’ businesses, the challenging economic and logistical circumstances of the Central Asian region, and Russia’s reluctance (for internal economic reasons) to commit larger amounts of resources.

Today, nationalism and various “phobias” are blooming all over the world, including Russia and Kazakhstan. These latent obstacles are discussed a lot. What is missed or not considered in these discussions, in your opinion? Can nationalistic sentiments supersede “technocratic” ideology or, on the contrary, join forces with it? Should this factor be considered in the two countries’ affairs after the transfer of power in Kazakhstan?

In Kazakhstan, nationalist discourse is called “national-patriotic.” The two notions, which are close but still different in meaning, are mistakenly understood and combined into one. The former is actually ethno-nationalism. But if we compare the situation to Russia, China, or even European countries that are part of the European Union, in Kazakhstan its expression is much weaker. Major discussions unfold around language issues because the role of Kazakh language is rising while support for Russian language is not the government’s main priority, as it was in the Soviet era. The rearrangement of the languages’ roles, which is being reinforced by demographic trends, distresses part of society and pushes the local ethnic Russian population to emigrate to Russia.

The second notion, also taken for nationalism, is not ethno-nationalism per se. Here I see the competition and discourse between two forms of “civic nationalism.” The pro-Russian part of society, joined by those inclined toward cosmopolitanism, accuses state “nativist-patriots” of nationalism in the Westphalian sense of the term.

I do not think that technocratic ideology is threatened by anything in Kazakhstan. The high speed of urbanization has a strong effect here and, compared to other Central Asian republics, Kazakhstan is facing a more intense rural crisis. All spheres of life are undergoing expedited modernization. The issue is that these processes are not deep enough in the political sphere. Technocracy among political elites will remain. However, the government will have to consider and reckon with the national-patriotic agenda and find ground for political compromises. With all these processes, Russian emigration from Kazakhstan will remain high. The Kazakhstani authorities, in turn, will have to keep in mind the lessons of Ukraine and prevent the emergence of radicals from a nationalist environment.

In a generation, the “Russian issue” will not be as critical as it is now, due to the dwindling ethnic Russian population in Kazakhstan. Those who stay here will adapt and feel less restricted, because by that time Kazakhstan will have become a more open society—unless we backslide due to the risks of instability and religious extremism.

Kazakhstan and Russia are neighbors and are “doomed” to close friendship. How would you characterize the prospects for relations in the near future?

Relations between the two countries will depend, first of all, on what kind of forces come to power after Nazarbayev and Putin. If there are no destructive policies and ideologies on either side, then maintaining good-neighborly relations is beneficial for Russia as well as for Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s goal in the clash of Russia and the West is not to get involved and to stay at a reasonable distance from geopolitical games.

Another factor is how the things in Afghanistan develop and what China’s strategy toward Kazakhstan will be. If China looms over Kazakhstan too aggressively, this may reinforce people’s Sinophobia, swinging the pendulum toward deepening relations with Russia.

In the near future, Kazakhstan will see a transfer of power, due to the age factor if nothing else. It is therefore important for Russia to take a balanced and constructive position in the process. The attitude of the new leadership and of the population at large toward Russia will depend on this.

Main photo: Vladimir Putin and President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev sign agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan on the state border, January 2005, Kremlin.ru