Send message to Author

Paper abstract:

Grassroots in Central Asian cities are on the move. Neoliberal urbanization taking place under authoritarian regimes has brought forward grievances related to numerous flaws in urban planning, specifically, in the field of housing and infill construction. On the one hand, demographic growth and economic opportunities cause states to encourage construction projects, on the other - developers, who pursue swift financial return, embark on the task with too much enthusiasm, securing the support of the authorities. As a result of the collusion between, broadly speaking, business and the state, many construction norms go violated and city residents' interests ignored. While political conditions make it impossible for the society to form independent political organizations, urban activism seems to be a channel for citizens to voice their grieavances and fight for what has been conceptualized (Lefebvre, Harvey) as the 'right to the city'.

This paper seeks to describe the forms, main participants, and structure of grassroot mobilizations responding to urban planning policies in Almaty, the largest and wealthiest city of Kazakhstan. It presents the current results of the ongoing qualitative research which has involved content analysis of mass media stories on city residents' protesting activities, 8 particiant observations, 13 interviews, 3 focus groups done within a year. We also participate in 4 activist messenger chats in order to observe the mobilization processes.

The actors involved in urban grassroot activism include residents, whereby they may be in favor or against infill construction projects, activists and leaders who organize the communication with the state authorities and business structures. While we initially hypothesized that these mobilizations were self-organized, chaotic, and leaderless, the research reveals that, firstly, through the last ten years, activist leaders have evolved; secondly, some activists, while representing government structures, even at the national level, prefer to remain 'under cover', offering their expertize to be publicized through more open colleagues; thirdly, the activist groups may strongly disagree on different issues, which so far makes any sort of unity and networking in the activist camp next to impossible. Forms of activism include street protests, petitioning, advocacy. An important current observation shows the beginnings of political becoming in 2023, since some activist leaders participate in local elections in order to take an active part in urban planning policies. Further research should show whether we will witness co-optation of civic activists.

Send message to Author

Paper abstract:

This paper argues that understanding the grounds and aftermath of “Bloody January” 2022 (it is still poorly known why mass protests turned into the biggest violence Kazakhstan experienced since its independence) necessities the analysis of Kazakhstan’s political economy. This kind of analysis implies that the emergence of structural and class inequality resulting from the neoliberalization of 1990, which this paper depicts as structural injustice, can be seen as the main reason for protests and political violence in Kazakhstan. Neoliberal reforms, contrary to the expectations to build a democratic and prosperous Kazakhstan after the Soviet period of the totalitarian system and Soviet model of colonial development, laid the grounds for building another version of a fundamentally unequal society and continuation of coloniality — the oligarchic rentier capitalistic system, which was in symbiotic relations with a politically authoritarian regime. Neoliberal capitalism facilitated the emergence and provided the grounds for developing the plutocratic authoritarian regime since the marketization reforms, foremost privatization, led to the emergence of the immense political capital of the rich and created plutocracy in place of democracy.

Hydrocarbon-rich Kazakhstan is an excellent case to understand how neoliberal capitalism and its accompanying inequality have trapped former socialist countries in lopsided development, coloniality of the global economic and financial system, job division, chronic social injustice, and political authoritarianism.

There is a need to question the mono-disciplinarity of today’s social sciences, the positivistic approaches of economics, political science, and political economy to poverty and inequality. In line with the critical theory’s approach, this paper argues that poverty and inequality are political and socially determined phenomena (conditioned not only by economic but also by historical, political, racial, and gender-related factors), which cannot be measured quantitatively. The January 2022 protests show that the Kazakhstanis want not only a democratic state but also a social state. These are indispensable factors in building a strong Kazakhstan in the face of multiple challenges, especially those coming from the north and east of the country.

Send message to Author

Paper abstract:

Central Asia was detached from South and East Asia regions for decades. Based on the regional security complex theory, I argue for the formation of a new independent RSC in Central Asia during the last 30 years after the acquisition of sovereignty by regional countries. The main research question is how the developing relations with South and East Asia are changing the Central Asian regional security complex.

There are two hypotheses of the article. First, considering the increasing interests of China, Pakistan and India in Central Asia, the impact of the situation in Afghanistan and the development of the BRI regional security complexes of Central, South and East Asia are becoming more interdependent and penetrating. I argue that in this situation the role of geographically distant Central Asia in the stability and sustainable development of the Indo-Pacific region is significant. Second, Central Asia is not any more dominated by the post-Soviet regional security complex and it is becoming more reliant on the security of South and East Asian regions due to the substantial variety of links with them.

Send message to Author

Paper abstract:

This paper applies a constructivist approach to the foreign policy analysis (FPA) of Kazakhstan, examining it as an emerging middle power. It attempts to thereby elucidate the role of middle powers in present-day international relations (IR) in the context of the ongoing debate on whether they tend to be drivers for change towards multipolarity or stabilizers of the existing system due to their preference for a greater degree of normativity in the IR anarchical environment. Furthermore, the natural inclination of these actors in favor of enhanced regionalism does not preclude, but rather complements their evolution towards becoming pillars of international community since the Kantian IR system best serves their national interests.

Kazakhstan has a long record of advancing constructive international initiatives, trying to serve as a bridge between East and West. The list of examples comprises activities in favor of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, facilitating international negotiations on Iran and on Syria, the creation of inter-government organizations (e.g. the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia), and associations of non-government actors (the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions), etc. This policy has resiliently persisted, despite the war in Ukraine, multiple trade and financial sanctions, and unprecedented tensions among the major global powers. Under these challenging circumstances Kazakhstan initiated the Astana International Forum, a new international conference of global middle powers, intended as means to amplify their voices and to propose solutions to issues ranging from foreign policy, security and sustainability to energy, climate change and the global economic downturn.

To compensate for the lack of transparency of the FP decision-making process in countries like Kazakhstan, the paper uses constructivist indicators, suggested by Walter Carlsnaes, and further developed by Christopher Hill and others, focusing on foreign policy actions, and on their three phases: intentional, pre-depositional, and reaction of the environment. The supporting data comes from open sources, including but not limited to publications by the Central Asia Barometer Survey.

The paper outlines the similarities and differences between previous foreign policy acts of Kazakhstan and its latest initiative and provides an assessment of latter’s impact. The conclusions may benefit practitioners in the field and IR scholars alike.