Paper long abstract:

Citizen Participation is a global phenomenon. Participation of citizens in political and administrative processes is propagated in new democracy and governance concepts and in global programs such as "e-participation", "Agenda 2030", or modern urbanity concepts. In these (mostly "Western" or cosmo¬po¬litan) accounts, participation is seen, explicitly or implicitly, as a complement to representation and to autonomous civil society participation. However, participation also plays a role in autocracies, such as Kazakhstan. Although the context differs from the assumptions underlying the global concepts of participation, external actors provide financial, technical and symbolic support to Kazakhstan's policy of "authoritarian participation". These joint efforts raise two questions: What are the common and diverging goals of the regime and the external actors? What is the outcome of these joint efforts to increase participation?

The paper has two sections: First, it examines the similarities and differences of concepts and goals of participation between Kazakhstan and the external actors. While external actors pursue a global agenda out of specific normative and bureaucratic interests, Kazakhstan's participation policy is part of the regime's ultimate goal to prevent regime change by improving economic performance and preventing protests. In this context, participation is supposed to fulfil three functions: Managing and individualizing participation, window dressing and, finally, mitigating structural problems of the authoritarian regime. External actors share some of these goals, while ignoring or accepting other goals of the authoritarian regime. Unintentionally, they support the "window dressing" goal. International organizations differ in how they deal with the authoritarian context. Secondly, the paper offers a first outlook on the extent to which the regime achieves its goals in terms of preventing protests and regime change.

Empirically, the paper is based on a number of interviews with political and societal actors in Astana and Almaty as well as official documents, media reports and social media artefacts. It speaks to the literature on the domestic and foreign policy of autocratic regimes, on the illiberal peace as well as to the global governance literature.