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Abstract

Scholarship on the post-2022 government rhetoric and national identity discourse in Kazakhstan has been prolific, but has not analyzed the connection between the two. The former mostly argues that the rhetoric development occurred mostly as a response to the January events that took place in 2022, as the government vied for re-establishment of control and used securitization rhetoric to that end. The latter mostly concerns the societal response to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. What seems apparent is the fact that post-2022 securitization rhetoric of the Kazakh government is not limited to the fallout of the January events, but also reflects securitization with Kazakh national identity as the referent object. Utilizing securitization theory, this research uses the results of discourse analysis of speeches by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the second president of Kazakhstan, to demonstrate how the securitization rhetoric has developed throughout his presidency since 2019. Results allow us to consider refinements of securitization theory, since Kazakhstan provides an example of a case where the relationship between the securitizing actor and the referent subject forces the former to modify the securitizing speech act.