According to the relative income hypothesis, the health status of a population is determined by its horizontal social and financial conditions, both mutually interrelated factors. As a former republic of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan is a particularly interesting case in which to explore the impact of health-related inequalities due to economic, sociodemographic, and institutional changes experienced as the country transitioned to independent status. The goal of this article is to examine the degree to which commonly-used socioeconomic determinants (education, income, living conditions, marital status, occupation) are associated with health inequalities in Kazakhstan. We found significant differences in the health status characteristics among the population. Poor health was found to be significantly associated with living conditions and income level. This article will assist policy makers in developing and improving existing social and health policies to address the apparent lack of health-related equity in Kazakhstan.

What are the mechanisms of legitimation in non-democratic and linguistically divided states? How do regimes in these states use and manipulate the ideology and nation-building for the purposes of regime legitimation? The article focuses on the concept of compartmentalized ideology in non-democratic regimes with substantial divisions in the so-called titular and minority group where socio-linguistic divide allows regimes to construct diverse audiences and even political communities with their own distinct narratives and discourses about the nation, state and the regime. The compartmentalized ideology is only sustainable under the conditions of the regime's power to control and facilitate these discourses through the system of authoritative presidential addresses to the nation and/or other forms of regime's communication with the polity. The shifting of these discourses and themes contribute to the regime stability but also may constitute its re-legitimation.

This paper evaluates the factors that shape the establishment of transparent institutions in resource-rich countries with a specific focus on Kazakhstan. Specifically, it draws upon indepth interviews and analysis of key institutions to understand the pace and intensity of transparency reforms in the Central Asian state. It argues that external transparency promotion can lead to institutional reform only when it is matched with strong elite incentives in favor of reforms. Kazakhstan has had few incentives to comply with Western-initiated norms before 2014, an era of relative economic security. As a consequence, the political elite often stalled the successful implementation of reforms. However, the economic turbulence following the fall of oil prices and Russia’s annexation of Crimea have motivated the Kazakh government to embrace the norm of transparency in order to attract foreign investment.

Recent research on the international diffusion of democracy has focused on demonstrating how diffusion can change regime outcomes. Although there is still debate within the field of democratization over how important democratic diffusion is relative to domestic factors, autocratic leaders believe that democratic diffusion can be a threat to their rule. It is clear that some countries, such as North Korea, prevent diffusion by severely restricting interactions with foreigners and forbidding access to external sources of information. The more intriguing question is how the states that have economic, diplomatic, and social linkages with democratic states prevent democratic diffusion. In other words, what methods do globally-engaged, autocratic governments use to limit exposure to and reduce receptivity to democratic diffusion? In addition to using coercion and economic patronage, autocratic states utilize two nonmaterial mechanisms to prevent democratic diffusion: 1) restricting exposure to democratic ideas and 2) developing alternative narratives about democracy to reduce local receptivity to democratic diffusion. Sophisticated autocratic leaders can limit receptivity to democratic diffusion if they convince citizens that those ideas are “foreign,” will cause “chaos,” or if they believe they already have their own form of democracy. I explore these methods of establishing firewalls to prevent diffusion by examining the cases of China and Kazakhstan, two countries where a high level of economic linkage coincides with a successful continuation of autocratic rule, despite the global spread of democratic norms. China has developed extensive methods to restrict access to foreign ideas about democracy while Kazakhstan has mainly focused on developing an alternative narrative about democracy. This article contributes to the literature on authoritarian persistence and democratic diffusion by investigating the internal methods autocratic leaders adopt to ensure that democratic diffusion does not threaten their rule.

Kazakhstan became a petro-state in the 1990s, after signing important oil production agreements with several transnational companies. In recent years, Kazakhstan’s government has imposed the revision of former agreements on these corporations. This article contends that said revision has allowed the national players, government and the state oil company, to extend rent-seeking, but that the changes have not been deep enough to attain national oil empowerment. This means that national players do not control the oil cycle – from upstream to export trade – and are unable to secure continued expansion in the oil sector. Both key issues remain in the hands of the foreign companies, although their prominence has diversified following the entry of large Chinese and Russian companies.

Hegemonic parties in authoritarian regimes can fulfill important purposes for those regimes and thereby contribute to their survival. Along with the consolidation of authoritarian regimes, hegemonic political parties have emerged in some post-Soviet states, raising questions about the role that these parties play in the survival of the regimes. This article asks which of the purposes that are frequently ascribed to ruling authoritarian parties are fulfilled by United Russia, the Yeni Azerbaijan Party, and Nur Otan of Kazakhstan, the hegemonic parties of the three strongest consolidated authoritarian regimes with a hegemonic party in the former Soviet Union. It is argued that despite the increasing prominence of the hegemonic parties, full-fledged party-based authoritarianism has not yet been established in Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.

In the twentieth century the identity of Kazakhstan and the Kazakh people has been closely intertwined with the identity of Russia and the Russian people. Since Kazakhstan began to move toward sovereignty in the late 1980s, official republic documents relevant to language have reflected attempts to redefine republic and ethnic identity. This study traces the evolution of images of identity through examination of the title of language laws, legally declared status for Kazakh, Russian, and other languages, linguistic requirements for employment, and differential treatment of Kazakhs and non-Kazakhs. The continuing debate on language demonstrates that even though Kazakhstan is now an independent country, fundamental questions remain about its identity.