The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 marked a significant global political development, shining a spotlight on post-communist Eurasia. While this region rarely captured global news attention before, policymakers and scholars increasingly recognize Central Asia’s pivotal role in global affairs, recalling Brzezinski’s ‘The Grand Chessboard’ thesis. Analysts often focused on the impact of the war in Ukraine on Kazakhstan, Astana’s relations with Russia and the West, and foreign policy options available to Kazakhstan in the current geopolitical realities. While these are important matters, a comprehensive understanding of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy requires a deep dive into the corridors of the government’s decision-making. This paper sheds light on how foreign policy is formulated in Kazakhstan, focusing on key “influence groups” and the role of civil society and public opinion.

Soviet legacy: the centralized decision-making

The totalitarian nature of the Soviet regime, characterized by Kremlin-based central planning, a coercive apparatus, and top-down decision-making, significantly influenced the institutional designs of Central Asian states. Individual Soviet republics lacked the authority and capability to engage in independent policy-making across various public domains, with foreign policy falling under the purview of Moscow’s nomenklatura.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Central Asian leaders faced the challenge of building new states and establishing diplomatic relations with foreign countries. While they lacked the qualifications and experience for these tasks, they inherited from the Soviet era an authoritarian style of decision-making and management. This style extended to areas ranging from the recruitment of civil servants to the handling of government critics.

In line with the authoritarian context, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev held exclusive rights and responsibilities for formulating and implementing foreign policy. Similar to past Soviet leaders, Nazarbayev alone determined Kazakhstan’s international alliances, with his rulings receiving legitimization from the “rubber stamp” parliament. Kazakhstan’s constitution and legislation, reflecting a super-presidential and consolidated authoritarian regime, vested Nazarbayev with such powers.

Given the absence of a civil society in the Soviet Union, public opinion on foreign policy was often disregarded. Nazarbayev followed the decision-making pattern of Soviet leaders and did not find it necessary to consult the public on foreign policy matters. In fact, he was frequently quoted as saying that traditionally, Kazakhs entrusted the rights and responsibilities for their clan’s well-being to the tribe’s ‘aksakals’ or elders.

Furthermore, in the early years of Kazakhstan’s independence, when the country faced significant socio-economic and political crises, Nazarbayev frequently emphasized the importance of drawing lessons from the experiences of Asian tigers such as South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. These nations had achieved success through strong presidential leadership and central planning.

Influence groups: kinship, clans, and patronage networks

While the country’s president holds the central authority in shaping foreign policy, there exist two significant circles of influence on this policy. The first circle encompasses actors with informal status and influence. In 1991, when Kazakhstan… [download to read the full paper]

The post Foreign policy making in Kazakhstan: Soviet template, influence groups, and societal role first appeared on Crossroads Central Asia.

Having counted the Central Asian republics as an integral part of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for over 70 years, Russia has largely taken its bilateral and multilateral relationships with Central Asia for granted in the post-Soviet period. As Russia’s loyal allies, Central Asian states were expected to stay within the orbit of Russian political influence and show support for Russia’s regional and global initiatives. For most of the three decades of the post-Soviet period, Russia’s policy towards Central Asia revolved around regional security, post-Soviet border management, and issues related to labour migration from Central Asia to Russia. However, Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022 has shifted the dynamics of regional and international politics for all foreign policy actors in the region. Russia has increasingly become a pariah in international politics, and Russia’s list of friendly countries has shrunk to a small number of states scattered around the world, some of which are in Central Asia. 

This paper explores Russia’s policy towards Central Asia through an analysis of Russia-Central Asia relations, a mapping of Russian potential and actual foreign policy actors, and an overview of the factors which guide Russia’s policy towards Central Asia. The focus of this paper is on the current period (as of 2023), but some of its timeline covers the period before the war in Ukraine to better explain the peculiarities of Russian politics in general and foreign policy in particular. The term “Central Asia” is used to refer to the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

RUSSIA-CENTRAL ASIA RELATIONS: A BACKGROUNDER 

Russia’s bilateral relations with the independent republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan de jure started in 1992 when formal diplomatic relations with all five Central Asian republics were established. All parties found themselves in the same boat at the same time as they navigated formal and informal international politics in their capacity as newly established sovereign nations in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Russia, as the USSR’s successor, took over most of the USSR’s assets and liabilities. These assets included the well-established network of diplomatic missions, a seat at the United Nations Security Council, all of the Soviet nuclear weapon assets, the USSR’s advanced space programme, the Soviet soft power capacity, and an expansive network of political, economic, and intelligence networks around the world. Central Asia, on the other hand, faced the overwhelming task of building these virtually from scratch. 

Russia’s policy towards Central Asia in the first two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union largely followed a path dependence pattern. The Central Asian republics were perceived and treated as Russia’s “near abroad” (blizhnee zarubezh’ie), a natural sphere of Russia’s influence which, by the unfortunate accident of the Soviet Union’s collapse, just happened to be politically separate from Russia. Due to this, Russia’s relations with these countries were set somewhere in between the conventional domestic and conventional foreign politics domains: not quite a part of Russia anymore, but also hardly independent states warranting differential treatment. This situation seemed to accommodate all parties involved, but this has since changed due to a range of domestic and external factors. 

The post Understanding Russia’s Central Asia policy first appeared on Crossroads Central Asia.