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Abstract

This paper examines how state-linked think tanks in Russia and Kazakhstan contributed to the endorsement of government policies and state authority during the Covid-19 pandemic. While some post-Soviet states are assumed to exhibit institutional and policy convergence, we have yet to understand how they compare in terms of their use of policy expertise. Existing studies of policy advisory systems in selected post-Soviet countries emphasize their importance in legitimizing government policy choices. Yet it remains unclear whether and how expert bodies differ in the ways they construct legitimacy across otherwise similar institutional settings. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of publications from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS) and the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KazISS) between January 2020 and February 2022, this study identifies divergent discursive approaches underpinning each institution’s response to the crisis. RISS instrumentalized the pandemic as a geopolitical narrative, depicting it as evidence of Western decline while portraying Russia – and, by extension, other non-Western powers – as responsible and capable actors. Its discourse relied on dramatization and polarization strategies that reinforced long-standing themes of multipolarity and moral superiority. KazISS, by contrast, framed the pandemic as a domestic governance challenge, emphasizing technocratic management, social responsibility, and national unity. By endorsing and rationalizing the leadership’s response to the pandemic, it projected an image of effective and transparent state action while depoliticizing the crisis. The comparison reveals that institutional similarity does not automatically translate into discursive uniformity. While both think tanks served to legitimize state authority, they did so through distinct mechanisms: RISS through the geopoliticization of the pandemic and KazISS through its depoliticization.