Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia

Chapter 5. Kazakh Dynasty

147 5 Kazakh Dynasty The Kazakh case, similar to the Uzbek and Kyrgyz cases, closely conforms to what the perestroika legacy model predicts. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbaev , thanks to Gorbachev’s restoration of political order after the Almaty riots in December 1986, began the post-Soviet period with a united and executiveoriented political elite. The incentive structures characteristic of this inheritance, in contrast to the incentive structures that define Kyrgyzstan’s narrow and fragmented elite inheritance, heighten ruling coalition members’ loyalty to Nazarbaev . At the same time, they also reduce the payoffs Nazarbaev must extend to secure elite loyalty. The outcome of post-Soviet Kazakh politics is what we would expect, given an understanding of the perestroika legacy model: Kazakh politics remains stable and the Kazakh executive has become phenomenally wealthy. The Kazakh case, like the Uzbek and Kyrgyz cases, also presents challenges that the perestroika legacy model alone cannot fully answer. In the Kyrgyz example , although we indeed have seen the chaos the legacy model predicts, we nevertheless were confronted with the question of why President Askar Akaev was able to maintain power for fifteen years while President Kurmanbek Bakiev was ousted after only five. In Uzbekistan, although the elite stability the perestroika legacy model predicts has emerged, we are confronted with the vexing issue of bloody state-society relations. The challenges in Kazakhstan are twofold. The first relates to international relations—more specifically, to the question of why Kazakhstan’s partners (in particular, Kazakhstan’s Western partners) believe that McGlinch_pages.indd 147 8/2/11 3:45 PM 148 Kazakh Dynasty by engaging and rewarding Nazarbaev, they might compel the executive leader to abandon dynastic politics in favor of political reform. The answer, I suggest, rests in Western governments’ misinterpretation of Nazarbaev’s partial political reform, in their mistaking managed and often orchestrated conflict for real political contestation. The second dilemma is Kazakhstan’s future political stability. This future stability will depend on two dynamics, both of which Nazarbaev cannot control. First, Nazarbaev’s government, like all governments that depend on windfall revenues from natural resource extraction, remains vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices. An oil shock like the one that debilitated Soviet patronage politics in the 1980s could similarly undermine the stability of Nazarbaev ’s autocratic rule. Second, Nazarbaev is now in his seventies and, despite two decades of enjoying a united political elite, the president’s advancing age adds a new twist to how his supporters calculate returns to continued loyalty or future defection. Unless Nazarbaev establishes clear and effective rules of dynastic succession , two decades of political stability could quickly turn into a cascade of elite defection. Misreading the Politics of Partial Reform In January 2010 the Kazakh secretary of state, Kanat Saudabaev, was inaugurated as the chairperson-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In addition to working to enhance security, the OSCE is tasked with monitoring and evaluating the elections of its fifty-six member states. The OSCE’s election-monitoring arm, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, has yet to certify any Kazakh election as being in compliance with “OSCE commitments and other international standards.” Oddly, despite Kazakhstan ’s consistent failure to meet its elections commitments, the Nazarbaev government nevertheless was accorded the honor of leading the OSCE. When presented with this troubling divergence between Kazakhstan’s unmet OSCE commitments and Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of the OSCE at a May 2009 congressional hearing, Ambassador George Krol, the deputy assistant secretary of state, explained why the U.S. government supported Nazarbaev’s bid to lead this international organization : “Our broader vision is for a strong, independent and democratic Kazakhstan that is a leader and anchor of stability in the region. We believe Kazakhstan’s service as chairman in office for the OSCE will help serve that broader vision.”1 In fairness to Krol, the U.S. acquiescence to Kazakhstan’s becoming OSCE chair happened before his appointment as deputy assistant secretary. That said, one nevertheless wonders why the United States, along with fifty-four other OSCE members, agreed to putting Kazakhstan in charge of an organization that McGlinch_pages.indd 148 8/2/11 3:45 PM Kazakh Dynasty 149 has as one of its central tasks promoting “the principles of democracy by building , strengthening and protecting democratic institutions.”2 One answer to this question might be that member states simply do not see the...