Kazakhstan on the edge

In Kazakhstan, for months there has been a growing sense of impending socio-economic crisis. The authorities’ concerns were the result of objective difficulties, which were mainly economic in nature; the rise in internal tensions; and the authorities’ oversensitive approach to the question of domestic stability. In fact, it was the scale of the government’s concern about the possible social responses, rather than the deteriorating socio-economic situation itself, which demonstrated the seriousness and scale of the problems it faced.

At the same time the country’s strategic challenges were increasing, namely its reduced room for manoeuvre in domestic and foreign policy; this was due on the one hand to the increasing role of the Russian factor in Kazakhstan’s politics, and the need to maintain internal stability on the other.