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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how Kazakhstan navigates multipolar development competition involving China, Russia, and Türkiye. It argues that development outcomes are shaped by local agency and strategic coordination rather than by external power hierarchies alone.

Paper long abstract

Contemporary development processes increasingly unfold within a multipolar environment shaped by overlapping economic, political, and institutional influences. This paper examines how Kazakhstan navigates multipolar development competition among China, Russia, and Türkiye, focusing on the role of local agency in shaping development trajectories amid geopolitical uncertainty.

Drawing on a qualitative case study, the paper analyses Kazakhstan’s multi-vector development strategy as a framework for managing external engagement. China promotes infrastructure-led growth through large-scale investment and connectivity projects; Russia’s role is grounded in historically embedded economic ties and regional institutional arrangements; and Türkiye contributes through a more flexible development approach, emphasising institutional cooperation, education, and sector-specific assistance. These actors do not operate within a single hierarchy but represent distinct development logics that intersect within Kazakhstan’s domestic policy space.

Rather than portraying Kazakhstan as a passive arena of external competition, the paper argues that development outcomes are mediated through domestic priorities, institutional coordination, and selective partnership-building. Kazakhstan’s position as a connector state enables it to integrate elements of different development models while preserving policy autonomy and strategic flexibility.

By foregrounding multipolar development competition and local agency, the paper contributes to debates in development studies on how states in the global South navigate fragmented and increasingly politicised development landscapes.