Gauging the Implementation of Democratic norms for Nation-Building in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Being located in the center of Eurasia, Kazakhstan has long been at the intersection of ancient civilizations of world and at the crossroads of major transport arteries. Thus it has been a site for a negotiation of social and economic, cultural and ideological relations between East and West, North and South, between Europe and Asia. At different stages in history, Kazakhstan has been home to many nations with distinctive cultural histories which have, in turn, been absorbed into modern Kazakhstan. In the pre-1991 period, the first and foremost issue that the Central Asian countries confronted was the issue of nation-building. The experience was that the Central Asian elite belonged to the most conservative and hardline element of the Soviet political establishment, which strongly resisted Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of Glasnost (openness) and democratization. Even during the Perestroika period, the Central Asian leaders perceived the emergence of various opposition parties and groups in their Republics as a direct challenge to their position and power. They were preoccupied with the idea of preventing «unproductive and damaging reforms» and of consolidating their power without democratization and radical changes in political and state institutions. This, did not stop the discussion of possible «models of development» for the Central Asian Republics (CARs), which dominated the intellectual discourse in the region throughout the 1990s. It was especially intensive in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan on the eve of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and during the very first stage of independence. A number of developmental models were floated around – the Turkish secular political model versus the Iranian theocratic model, the Chinese model of gradual economic reform versus Russia’s shock therapy model etc- to mention a few. Let us consider how today is evaluated the implementation of the Democratic norms for Nation-Building in Kazakhstan
Key words: Central Asia, democracy, norms and values, national construction, models of the choice of development.