Abstract

In Kazakhstan over couple decades the government put massive efforts to save saiga antelope from extinction. This work paid off, today millions of saiga roam western and central parts of Kazakh steppe. Alas, this conservation success brought a human-wildlife conflict (HWC), as growing saiga population damaged pastures and crops to farmers’ disappointment. While some humans wanted to protect wildlife, and others tried to protect themselves from negative consequences of wildlife proliferation, the saiga policy agenda in Kazakhstan became a field of struggle between various stakeholder attempting to influence public policy. In the last decade Kazakhstan’s saiga protection and management policies experienced several swings from strengthening protection in response to focusing events (like mass die-offs in 2015 or killing of protection inspectors in 2019) to proposals to regulate population by hunting, which prevailed in 2023 and again in 2025.

How could conservation success turn into a challenge for the government? Why do some conservation policies become politically contested after their success, and how does policy change happen in a centralized political system? This study explores the agenda-setting dynamics and coalition strategies surrounding saiga antelope management in Kazakhstan, as strict protection led to rapid population recovery but intensified conflict with agricultural land use. The central puzzle motivating this study is how and why saiga issues advanced to the policy agenda and what were the forces that influenced the change in saiga policy in a semi-authoritarian governance context. In this research we apply Advocacy Coalitions Framework (ACF) that suggests competition of coalitions for agenda access and policy venues to achieve their policy goals.

Drawing on qualitative analysis of more than 700 news media items published over 2018-2025 supplemented by policy documents and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, the study reconstructs the timeline of saiga policy debate using process tracing and media based qualitative coding. The findings showed that policy change on saiga was shaped by interaction of three advocacy coalitions – conservationist, agricultural and hunting. Conservation coalition with long history roots in Kazakhstan’s conservation grounded in scientific authority and international norms was challenged by agricultural coalition which emphasized economic losses and justice. Hunting coalition entered saiga policy system late to advocate for sustainable use. Agenda setting depended heavily on focusing events and presidential signaling, while the government actors responded cautiously operating within hierarchical authority structures and stakeholder pressures.