Log in to star items.
- Format:
- Panel
- Theme:
- Public Administration & Public Policy
Accepted papers
Abstract
Observing public sentiment is one of the critical instruments for public officials and decision-makers in determining the acceptability of governmental initiatives and directions of the policy agenda. Traditionally, different mechanisms for measuring public opinion have evolved alongside democratic regimes. With the growing dominance of digital technologies, platforms such as social media now play an important role in supporting democratic discourse, shaping political identities, and expressing public concerns.
However, in countries of limited liberal traditions or politically constrained environments like Kazakhstan, civic discourse is generally redirected to digital platforms, and in the absence of accessible and safe mechanisms of political participation, these online spaces emerged as primary settings for public discourse, political expression and civic engagement. The “double shock” of 2022, involving large-scale anti-government protests named "Bloody January", and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, triggered a series of complex political, social and economic changes in Kazakhstan that significantly shaped public sentiment. Although Kazakhstan’s official neutral stance on the war can be understood from the standpoint of international diplomacy, security priorities, and economic interests, the sentiments of its population regarding the socioeconomic transformations brought by the conflict have been given far less attention. While economic indicators may suggest progress, the broader and widespread impact, particularly how citizens react and experience these changes, is often overlooked in political discourse and official narratives. Public perceptions are clouded by contradictory narratives, and the full extent and nature of these consequences remain unclear. The public discourse over the spillover effects of the war emphasises the need to consider public sentiment more seriously to gain a more accurate picture of the true nature of socio-economic transformations. This includes understanding how these effects are perceived in a society marked by a long and complex political relationship with Russia.
Therefore, the paper examines the concept of infrapolitics in Kazakhstan, the subtle, everyday and hidden forms of political engagement by netizens within Kazakhstan’s digital space. By bringing to light this often overlooked sphere of political life that exists beneath formal institutions, the paper explores citizens’ sentiments about the socio-economic consequences of the war in Kazakhstan by using a novel multidisciplinary methodology that integrates political science and data mining. The approach also offers a transferable framework for understanding political expression in other conflict-affected hybrid regions, where conventional forms of participation are often limited or suppressed.
Abstract
Migration from Central Asian countries to Russia is most often considered as temporary and for the purpose of employment. But many migrants eventually decide to move to a permanent place of residence and subsequently become Russian citizens. Based on the analysis of official administrative statistics, we would like to present some of the results of a study that shows which channels of immigration and naturalization are used by migrants from different countries – with a focus on citizens of Central Asian states – to obtain residence permits and Russian citizenship. The study allowed to propose an approach how to aggregate detailed statistics on the issuance of residence permits and the acquisition of citizenship (broken down by numerous individual provisions of the laws On the status of foreigners in Russia and On the citizenship of the Russian Federation) into enlarged classes of admission to permanent residency and naturalization. It also made it possible to show what percentage of migrants come for family reunification through the channel of ethno cultural migration - as compatriots and native speakers of the Russian language, or as carriers of in demand professions and competencies, etc. The pilot study demonstrated significant differences in the composition of immigrants arriving from different countries by the major classes of admission and also to better understand the peculiarities of Russia's migration policy.
The research is supported by the Russian Science Foundation.
Abstract
This paper examines the transformation of women’s complaint mechanisms in Punjab, Pakistan, from physical Women Police Stations (WPS) to Virtual Women Police Stations (VWPS). It asks to what extent this shift from “bricks to clicks” has substantively improved women’s access to justice and whether digital expansion has translated into meaningful accountability. I argue that while the virtual model has dramatically increased accessibility and reporting, it has not proportionately strengthened investigative capacity or judicial outcomes, resulting in a hybrid system marked by an accessibility–accountability gap.
This paper is based on a mixed-method research design combining three sources: (1) official Punjab Police administrative data from 2021–2025, including district-level statistics on case registration, resolution rates, FIRs, and arrest rates; (2) qualitative interviews with police officials and stakeholders and (3) analysis of existing scholarship on gender-sensitive policing and institutional reform in Pakistan. A comparative analytical framework distinguishes between administrative case disposal and formal judicial outcomes.
The findings demonstrate an unprecedented expansion in reporting through VWPS. In Lahore, for example, the virtual platform processed over 106,000 complaints compared to 322 cases registered at the physical WPS during a comparable period. Province-wide, virtual stations handled multiple times the caseload of physical stations combined. However, only a small proportion of virtual complaints resulted in FIR registration or arrest in serious crimes such as rape, honor killings, and acid attacks. Interviews reveal that VWPS function primarily as high-volume intake and grievance-filtering systems, while investigation, evidence collection, and prosecution remain dependent on traditional police units. Weak integration between digital and physical systems, limited investigative autonomy, patriarchal institutional cultures, and resource and digital literacy gaps constrain substantive justice outcomes.
By situating these findings within broader debates on digital governance, gender-responsive policing, and institutional reform, this paper contributes empirical evidence on the limits of digital interventions in enhancing substantive justice outcomes. It demonstrates that while technological platforms can increase accessibility, they do not automatically ensure accountability, highlighting for integrated legal reforms, unified case-management systems, and capacity-building measures to bridge the gap between expanded access and effective accountability. Although based on Punjab, the study has broader implications for South Asia, offering insights into how digital policing initiatives intersect with socio-cultural constraints, bureaucratic structures, and gendered access to justice.
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.
Abstract
Although digitalization is conceptualized as a potent tool for fostering transparency and tackling corruption, there are conflicting views about its role and efficacy in developing countries. Existing research has focused on various aspects of digitalization, but few studies have examined it as a tool for transparency and anti-corruption in authoritarian states. The present study addresses this gap: it explores the extent to which digitalization has helped advance transparency in public governance and whether enhanced transparency has resulted in reduced corruption in Central Asia’s authoritarian states. To test the hypotheses, we set up a balanced panel data biennially from 2008 to 2022 for the 15 post-Soviet countries and applied hierarchical panel regression models with a moderation effect of democracy level. The findings show that digitalization has in general positive effect on government transparency and that it can effectively lower the level of corruption even in authoritarian contexts. We also find that while digitalization serves as an important strategy in promoting transparency and curbing corruption, the present development in Central Asia remains inadequate which demands robust and sustained attempts towards digitalization and strengthening governance in the region. The paper contributes to the field in several ways. Theoretically, it adds to the limited knowledge about digitalization and its efficacy in the region from a comparative perspective. Practically, the insights of the study especially those pertaining to the limitations and pitfalls of the current approach can inform policies and actions towards bolstering transparency and tackling public sector corruption in the region.
Abstract
Despite being geographically located in the Northern Hemisphere, Central Asia countries share structural similarities with Global South research systems, which remain peripheral in global knowledge production and whose scientific achievements rarely attract wide international attention. Yet between 2000 and 2025, Scopus-indexed social science publications from the region experienced rapid growth from 19 to 2,605 respectively. This expansion raises a key question: does increased output signal substantive integration into global scholarly networks, or does it primarily reflect metric-driven policy incentives within structurally underfunded research systems? While existing bibliometric studies tend to aggregate Central Asia within broader post-Soviet analyses, or focus narrowly on individual countries or specific disciplinary fields - typically in natural and hard sciences - the social sciences, historically ideologized and institutionally marginalized during the Soviet period -remain underexamined as a distinct regional field.
This study approaches Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) as a distinct regional research system shaped by the Soviet-era legacies of academic dependency, low R&D investment, and the consequences of metric-based governance for knowledge production in emerging systems. It investigates how authorship and collaboration patterns in internationally visible social science research have evolved over the past 25 years, and how different forms of collaboration relate to publication quality and citation impact.
The analysis draws on a longitudinal dataset of 13,457 Scopus-indexed social science articles with at least one Central Asian affiliation. These publications are treated not as a comprehensive measure of regional scholarship, but as an indicator of internationally visible research activity. The study examines three levels of analysis: single-authored publications, author-level co-authorship, and national, regional, and international collaboration. It evaluates collaboration intensity, team size, citation impact, and journal quality.
Preliminary findings suggest that international collaboration is associated with higher citation impact and publication in higher-ranked journals; however, this advantage appears unevenly distributed across countries and collaboration structures, and may reflect asymmetric integration into global knowledge networks, reinforcing existing hierarchies of knowledge production. The findings have direct policy relevance for higher education systems in Central Asia. They suggest that policies focused narrowly on publication counts risk reinforcing dependence on external collaboration and may not lead to sustainable improvements in research quality. Instead, strengthening domestic capacity, supporting balanced partnerships, and prioritizing quality-based evaluation may offer more sustainable alternatives.
Abstract
Many post-Soviet countries exhibit a distinctive sociolinguistic configuration in which Russian retains a dominant functional role, often at the expense of indigenous languages. This paper develops an integrated theoretical framework linking language use, cultural structure, and long-run linguistic dynamics.
We conceptualize culture as a structured system of meanings and practices and introduce a novel distinction between linguistically expressed culture—domains whose transmission depends on language (e.g., literature, science, written history)—and linguistically unexpressed culture—domains that can persist independently of a specific linguistic medium (e.g., customs, social norms, ritual practices, and embodied traditions). This distinction allows us to formalize a language–culture mismatch, whereby the dominant language does not fully coincide with the core cultural system of a society.
Building on insights from linguistic relativity and evolutionary dynamics, we propose a stylized dynamic model of language competition with cultural feedback. The model generates multiple equilibria: a low-level equilibrium associated with language decline and a high-level equilibrium corresponding to language revitalization. Crucially, we show that linguistically unexpressed cultural domains act as a latent reservoir of identity, sustaining cultural cohesion even under partial language shift and thereby lowering the threshold for subsequent language recovery.
Within this framework, reciprocal bilingualism plays a non-trivial role: rather than accelerating assimilation, it may facilitate coordination across linguistic groups and support the expansion of the indigenous language, provided that cultural cohesion remains anchored in non-linguistic domains. This mechanism helps explain why linguistically heterogeneous populations may remain culturally cohesive and retain endogenous potential for language revival.
We illustrate the theoretical argument using the case of Kazakhstan, where strong bilingualism coexists with a robust indigenous cultural core and expanding domains of Kazakh-language use. The analysis suggests that such systems are inherently dynamic and may transition toward either linguistic convergence or sustained bilingual equilibrium with increasing prominence of the indigenous language.
The paper contributes to the literature by integrating cultural theory with dynamic models of language competition and by identifying a previously underexplored mechanism through which culture can outlive language and subsequently enable its revival.
Abstract
Who is willing to pay for the future without climate issues and why? Conventional wisdom states that younger generations tend to be more supportive of climate policies than older generations. This assumption has traditionally guided policymakers in developing targeted environmental policies to elicit greater positive public feedback. However, how do people's attitudes towards financial contributions to the environment change when questions of affordability and institutional trust arise? This paper examines public willingness to pay (WTP) for climate mitigation policies across 28 post-socialist countries using data from the second (2010) and fourth (2023) waves of the Life in Transition Survey (LITS). It reveals a picture that challenges prevailing knowledge. Findings suggest that belonging to a younger generation does not automatically lead to greater support for climate. Differences between cohorts emerge when the birth cohort interacts with income and disappear when it interacts with trust. The paper argues that willingness to pay for climate policies in post-socialist countries is shaped less by generational differences than by economic capacity, institutional trust, and political context, including EU membership and post-Soviet legacy.
Abstract
This study examines the extent to which local executive bodies in Kazakhstan comply with legal and normative requirements related to informing citizens about participatory mechanisms of local self-governance, and what explains variation in these practices across localities. It focuses on communication between local executive bodies (Akimats) and residents at the third sub-national administrative level, particularly in Cities of District Significance (CDS) and Settlements. In these types of localities, participatory mechanisms include local community gatherings and local community meetings, where Akimats are legally required to announce upcoming sessions in advance and provide follow-up information on decisions made. We evaluate these informing practices in accordance with both legal requirements and commonly recognized standards of public communication.
The scope of this study covers all CDS (48) and Settlements (69) across Kazakhstan, and is based on the originally collected dataset of announcement and follow-up posts published by Akimats in 2025, from across official government and social media platforms. Using text-to-code approach and double-blind coding, the study employs descriptive and exploratory quantitative analysis to identify patterns of legal compliance and variation in informing performance.
Our main findings reveal that (1) there is a substantial noncompliance with the legal requirements for timely notification (~44%) and informing residents of the decisions made (~45%), (2) there is geographical heterogeneity in activity of participatory mechanisms, with the highest levels observed in the North-East region, followed by Central and South-West regions, and (3) notably, there is a negative and significant association between higher per capita local budget levels and timely notification practice. By evaluating the alignment between de jure legal frameworks and de facto implementation, we observe that while formal requirements for public informing exist, their application is inconsistent across administrative units, pointing towards one of the core indicators of bad governance – the fragmented application of the Rule of Law.
This study contributes to the emerging literature on local self-governance in Kazakhstan by providing one of, if not, the first systematic assessment of how local executive bodies manage communication regarding participatory mechanisms. By providing a data-driven evaluation of local informing practices, it moves beyond theoretical discussions of decentralization and offers an empirical baseline for understanding the implementation of transparency and public informing practices at the sub-national level.