Reminds me of my native Finland in the early 1980s after Urho Kekkonen retired from his 25-year presidency. The successor Mauno Kekkonen started a series of constitutional reforms that transferred much of the presidential power to the parliament. The general consensus seems to be that Finland is now much more democratic and less influenced by USSR/Russia.
(I don't know anything about Kazakhstan politics so the similarities may be superficial.)
They did the same after FDR in the USA to limit presidential term limits. It has become more and more clear that we need the same with more powerful federal positions like speaker of the house, leader of the senate, supreme court, etc. We need new blood every so often. I wish it was across the board but maybe we could start with these top positions and see how it goes. Clearly what we have is not working for the betterment of the general welfare, currently it's only for corporate welfare.
Finland, you had Kekkonen because he was seen as a safe and strong option for standing up to the USSR. Kaz had Nazarbayev for decades because he happened to be the Soviet in charge when the USSR collapsed, and never held a free or fair election. I guess there are similarities in terms of the backdrop against which change comes (the change in threat level presented by the USSR/Russia), but beyond that, I think it superficial.
> Finland, you had Kekkonen because he was seen as a safe and strong option for standing up to the USSR...That said, I know little about Finnish politics.
The last statement is correct. For the most part, Kekkonen did whatever the USSR wanted. He was the architect of Finlandization.
The USSR was in a totally different state in 1945 than during the Winter War. It could have rolled into Finland at the end of the Nazi funded Continuation War, reinstated as the government the losing side from among the worker parties of the Finnish Civil War, and Finland would have been another Warsaw Pact Comecon country. But the USSR did not. Because Germany and the buffer states between were seen as a possible threat but Finland was not. Finland had no means of standing up to the USSR, and Kekkonen did the opposite.
> Kazakhstan will not help Russia to evade Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, a top Kazakh official has said.
> Kazakhstan is not part of this conflict. Yes, we are part of the Eurasian Economic Union but we are an independent state with our own system, and we will abide by the restrictions imposed on Russia and Belarus. We don't want and will not risk being placed in the same basket.
> Kazakhstan respects the territorial integrity of Ukraine, did not recognize and will not recognize the Crimean annexation, nor the independence of the two separatist-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine.
While this is certainly nice to hear, I fear how we're going to pay for this. The border with Russia is quite long, and we've heard of lot of the same things they said about Ukraine, especially in the past couple of years. We have almost 10× less the population than Russia has, no borders with any of the Western countries, and I doubt they'd care much about us anyway.
China has a big stake in independent and stable Kazakhstan that will resist islamists and participate in the Silk Road initiatives, which should be your insurance policy against Russian invasion. There were rumors that it was reaction of China that forced Russian peacekeepers to go home on time after the recent coup attempt. Let’s hope that Tokaev will show the third way to former Soviet republics and will keep all the foreign powers away, while making necessary reforms.
I don’t know where this is going but I love that we have a comment from a native (or at least resident) of Kazakhstan here. All the best, and hope to visit your country some day.
Same reason I spend so much time on the internet. Where else would you get the chance of talking to someone from the other side of the planet?
If you ever do visit, please do it in late spring or early autumn. The climate here is a bit extreme, especially for someone from milder ones. (I've always lived here, and you don't pay much attention to -40°C winters and +35°C summers after living with it for a few decades.) It's not that bad all the time, but if you do happen to arrive in the middle of such an event, it's not a fun experience.
Nomads were doing the logical thing and moving around with seasons. We, not so much.
If India is any indication, you can be certain that Kazakhstan was heavily pressured as well. The statement about Russia definitely reads like someone got scared about something. (Of course everyone here will just say Putin spooked him, when in reality it's probably just one part of the equation).
If I have learned anything in the last couple weeks, it is that the former soviet republics are commodity powerhouses. Kazakhstan exports 50% of the worlds uranium exports. So some people definitely do care what's happening to them. But as always probably less about the population and more about what value it provides.
Putin and Tokayev talked just today. I'm pretty sure that all major Kazakhstani public announcements are coordinated with Putin. Putin helped Tokayev to keep his president chair just few months ago, it's not like Kazakhstan going to break up with Russia (and I really hope that will not happen, as it would be extremely stupid thing to do).
Ironically, this reform was started under the previous 30-year president, "father of nation" Nazarbayev in 2018 or '19, and was halted under Tokayev. Some signs in the streets were converted before the reform was finalized, but not all. And now if you deal with e-government website, everything is in Cyrillic. Kazakh UI of the website is still in Cyrillic too. I haven't seen a single Kazakh price tag in Latin yet.
Yup excellent if it pans out - although Kazakhs remain sceptical.
But it is quite extraordinary to see parts of the government lead by Tokayev, eject an autocrat (Nazarbayev) and begin the process of democratisation. And it does seem to stem from a lack of willingness to carry out a crackdown on the people.
It is not likely to become a liberal democracy soon if ever (not that is needs to be a goal at all). A hybrid regime is very likely though.
Many signs that they have good-will for democracy, but I don't think it's easy in their position ( member of the CSTO and in Russia's "sphere of influence").
I have seen signs that they aren't just a puppet of Russia for example and I wasn't sure what was going on. But the article somewhat explained it.
I think you're missing the critical step of "widespread rule of law". It leads to both democracy (because once people have rights, they exercise those rights to organize and demand more) and industrialization (because people will only build factories if they have confidence that their investments won't be stolen).
England had a head start thanks to the Magna Carta (which established the Parliament) and the Civil War (which gave it teeth); by the time the steam engine was invented, the rule of law was well established and industrialists didn't need to worry about having their work confiscated.
> The natural process of democracy seems to be: Dictatorship -> industrialisation -> democracy. Does any one knows any books talking about this?
Watch this video ("The Rules for Rulers" from CGP Grey)[0], it's a summary of a book from de Mesquita ("The Dictator's Handbook")[1]. The video explains this process very well, imo.
Usually the monarchy/dictatorship was overthrown to be replaced by a somewhat more democratic government (both peacefully or violently). Autocrats rarely were willing to give up any of their power voluntarily and paradoxically in the rare cases where they did it only hastened their downfall
e.g. I’m pretty sure Loui didn’t expect in his worst nightmares that his head will be chopped of a couple of years later).
The only successful exceptions I can think are is Spain after Franco died, Taiwan and South Korea but these are all rather modern.
Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but it tackles the somewhat bumpy transition from industrialization to democracy (or rather why it didn’t exactly work out that way)
Killing Louis didn't lead to less authoritarianism it led to Robespierre and eventually Napoleon. Most of today's liberal democracies didn't come from revolution or civil war but from foreign forces deposing tyrant or peaceful transition. This includes France which only became democratic after Prussia ended Napoleon III
Yes, the transition wasn’t very smooth though. In cases with little foreign interference, it was more like:
Absolutist monarchy -> violent jacobin style revolution -> ??? (a lot of war and dead people)-> reactionaries come back to power -> a more moderate revolution/coup which brings a more balanced regime which establishes some kind of a rule of law based constitutional order.
Britain only had a single cycle of this, while France needed 2/3.
It not like the goal of Prussia was to establish a democratic regime in France, that was just side effect and arguably Napolean brought that war on himself (just like his uncle did with Russia)
>Autocrats rarely were willing to give up any of their power voluntarily and paradoxically in the rare cases where they did it only hastened their downfall
Summary: The King gave half the population what they wanted and then he used good old military force to struck the rest down and then he regained all of his powers.
Louis gave up his power voluntarily (to an extent, the kingdom was bankrupt and he had to make concessions) by accepting a constitutional monarchy. He bumbled his way to the scaffold afterwards, and he only got there because he had already accepted sharing authority with an elected legislature.
Many other monarchs gave up their "divine" rights under pressure, but without being really overthrown.
> The only successful exceptions I can think are is Spain after Franco died, Taiwan and South Korea but these are all rather modern.
What about the UK?
Mexico is another modern example; it became democratic gradually and peacefully in the late 90s or early 2000s. There was no sudden regime change, and the formerly ruling PRI is still a major political party that runs in the (now fair) elections.
It hasn't ceased to amaze me to see how many people from the US think of their ideology as the end result of a process. As their ideology is the logical conclusion of it, and some countries are more mature than others along this line of development.
What really brought it home to me, was a podcast of two boardgame designers working on the "tech" trees of a Civilization type game. One was for religion, which had to start with mysticism, to move on to theology. When my offense about this line of thinking passed I had to wonder: since Judaism -> Christianity -> Islam, are they going to stop the monotheistic track at Christianity or Islam?
The cynic me thinks his Russian “advisers” told him that’s the correct way. Because the current situation is unsustainable and instead of chaos they can’t deal with right now, they both get to maintain their power and for the FSB dealing with a few more people with less power but more aspirations might be a better deal.
At the end of the day they are buying time and what is given by decree can also be taken way by decree either formally or in practical terms.
Let’s hope I’m wrong or they really get what they just pretended to want.
The FSB will not have any budget nor political stability in the next few years to handle anything more than their own internal power struggles, once out of Kazakhstan they'll stay out.
Does this make a material difference? Hypothetically, if Russia wanted an ally in good books woth the west to help with evading sanctions (or to jist cement Kazakh leadership) - wouldn't they advise Kazakhstan to say exactly this? They'd lose nothing, AFAICS
This recent interview of Sergey Guriev by Varlamov has an interesting analysis of the breakup of the USSR and how each Republic went about its subsequent business.
Post-soviet political systems do not seem to converge on anything stable. In this case a president may plan to become a prime minister and so he needs to limit presidential power - this was seen in Russia, Turkey, etc.
iirc Putin swapped and became a prime minister for a short period in between.
> As he was then constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms as president, Putin served as prime minister again from 2008 to 2012 under Dmitry Medvedev, and returned to the presidency in 2012 in an election marred by allegations of fraud and protests; he was reelected again in 2018. In April 2021, following a referendum, he signed into law constitutional amendments including one that would allow him to run for reelection twice more, potentially extending his presidency to 2036.
No, really? Putin literally killed, or tried, journalists and political competitors.
Medvedev was a puppet, on day one he appointed Putin as prime minister, how convenient.
I'm not sure that points highlighted in that article would happen if Putin was president (allowing U.S. forces fly over Russia, supporting Iran sanctions, reducing nuclear arsenals, U.S. dropping plan to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe).
Re US dropping the shield - AFAIK that was because of local population opposing it (here in Czechia the argument was that we'd become prime nuclear strike target), not because of anything with Russia or the US itself.
The other stuff - seems just like Putin thought "well let them think Russia has changed".
It’s a complex set of checks and balances in which Putin checks Putin’s puppets, who balance their ability to check Putin with their ability to survive polonium.
Can you be more specific? I'd like to learn in what measurable ways he limited presidential power - and how come he got back in power after that, and was able to continue to add more power to his later presidency?
AFAIK Medvedev was wholly controlled by Putin so why would he bother limiting presidential power?
They have refused to recognize Crimea and the Donbas as independent entities as requested by Russia. They are definitely moving away from being beholden to Russia.
>They are definitely moving away from being beholden to Russia.
That's one way to you find your post-soviet country attacked by Russia's army in order to "protect Russian minorities there" and "liberate your country from nazis".
Though Russia is currently too busy in the west right now to register Kazakhstan on the radar, so now is probably the golden opportunity to break your chains from them if you have any.
I think that this is the reason why many countries will use the spur of the moment. Russia falling apart that publicly with such a weak leadership, that will become a hot summer allover the border regions.
Attacked by what? Russia's army? What's left of it will be needed to keep Russia from imploding, there isn't going to be much spare capacity to go and prop up friendly dictators. Let's see what happens next time the Belarusians protest. One reason Lukashenko won't join the war is that he knows it will be the straw that breaks the camels back and there won't be enough Russian troops to prop him up.
Russia will think many times over before attacking another country now.
Everybody has seen how actually weak their army is. Before that, counties and people were afraid of them mostly because of soviet era fame. Now they've shown they are incapable on anything except missile hits with a great failure rate.
I understand they've likely failed at their military goals.
But they've succeeded in pummeling Ukraine into stone age. These "unsuccessful" strikes last I heard caused just over half a trillion of damage - so far :(. Ukraine economy is anticipated to be down 40% in 2022 - and that's an optimistic estimate. And 4-5mil of their own people have already fled the country.
I think it's one thing for us to speak how "weak Russian army is" from far away. Inefficient as it may be, it still makes your day pretty lousy. And your country. And the convenient thing about authoritarian regime and culture that's enjoyed sense of martyrdom for centuries is they can bear far far greater losses than most in the west.
I don't think people around Russia are drawing the same conclusions as "Russia will think twice". A different conclusion may be "Russia Will attack a country if it really wants ti, and pummel it to rubble, consequences be damned". If I were their neighbour, I would think of Russia as pissed, not weak, right now.
With what money? The west will hardly make any significant loans or investments to Ukraine, when Russia can always steamroll in, and shell everything to pieces whoever they feel like it. If Ukraine were under the NATO protection like the Baltic and EE states, then yeah, investors can expect their money is safe there. But until Ukraine gets any real protection against future Russian aggression, not much will change.
I wish I were that optimistic. I know we need to support and encourage the spirits of Ukrainians, but this is a phenomenal amount of damage caused. And not just infrastructure.
Rebuild and come back stronger is one possible path out of this. There are many others that are possible or likely.
Korea was sent into the Stone Age in the 50s when the US and Chinese armies plus the Korean ones chased each other South to North and back and back again. And it's the Korea that sells us smartphones and many other stuff now, at least the southern part of it.
Things are more complex than Ukraine == Korea. Namely, Korea had enjoyed being under the protection of the US against its aggressive northern neighbor. Will the US also ensure Ukraine's protection against its aggressive Eastern neighbor? I doubt it.
> Citing U.S. intelligence, three U.S. officials said the United States estimated that Russia's failure rate varied day-to-day, depended on the type of missile being launched, and could sometimes exceed 50%. Two of them said it reached as high as 60%.
but isn't 1/3rd of a country size of France is under their control now, and ruble trades higher than before sanctions?
Russia's performance was certainly underwhelming, especially their logistics and general appearance of disorganization, but weak might also be a bit of a stretch.
You can’t actually trade rubles anywhere. Russia has gone from a relatively liberal currency with normal interest rates to one of the strictest currency control regimes in the world and 20% interest rates.
Russia is bankrupting itself to prop that number up and if they let up for even a week the currency flight would crater the exchange rate.
The ruble interest rate was increased to 20%. You can make any currency go higher with a sufficiently high interest rate, but that interest hike has a huge impact on the economy.
They’ve also been working on building/fostering an innovation hub in the capital, Astana. A “free trade” zone, of sorts, where Western property and business law applies in order to attract talent & encourage investment. My understanding is they’re hoping to be a “market” for startups between East and West similar to Singapore or Hong Kong. They want to attract talent from China and Russia who can then fundraise from the West who will (presumably) be more interested in investing in a lower-risk jurisdiction that uses a familiar legal system.
I’m not sure it’s quite as easy to just “use” Western law as Kazakhstan seems to think. The black letter law doesn’t matter so much as how it’s interpreted and whether it’s consistently applied in court. It’s an interesting idea, though. And if they can get it off the ground it seems like a good strategy to take advantage of their unique geo-political position.
not OP, but in general in Central Asia, Russian influence pervades every aspect of life, especially in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - it feels like living in a Russian province... perhaps this is a bit less tue in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (at least culturally, but still very strong link economically).
There is a push of Central Asian people toward a form of de-colonial thinking and praxis, but in my humble opinion, it's another colonization with a different color - from the west.
From Polish perspective I'm extremely grateful to my parents generation for starting the collapse of the Soviet sphere and very quick and decisive pivot to the west. Especially, when compared to Ukraine. Poland and Ukraine had the same size economy in 1991. Last year Polish economy was 3 times bigger than Ukraine. Personally, I can travel, study and work wherever I want in EU with zero trouble. I was born in Poland, studied in Belgium and Netherlands, work in Belgium and live in Finland.
Russia is a terrible partner. Russia sympathizer in Ukraine brought destruction on that country from Russia. It's really tragic that Russia is obliterating people that considered themselves Russians living in Ukraine.
There is zero comparison between modern western projects and Russia imperialism that did not change in the last 300 years.
You mismatching 70 years of global efforts to destroy communist state that include giving “freedoms” and “foods” to former v4 to the actual freedom. As soon as, for some reason, Poland wont be on trade route with Russia, have no gas and oil from russia, no slave labor from Ukraine, no EU billions of aids for decades, the magic of capitalism became much weaker. An if your “elites” happen to “disagree” with EU on something more than gays and abortions, you will know what is real capitalism. And you have no jews to blame now, so you will blame Russians.
Post-soviet sphere has plenty of examples of former SU-aligned countries that have since pivoted towards EU and have built democratic, free, and prosperous independent states, or are well on their way of building one. Even Ukraine was a recent example of being on such path, if it wasn’t for the malign efforts of, you guessed it, Russia.
No state is perfect, and one can always find this or that to pick at, but most of democratic ones have not unleashed armies of state-employed goons on their own people to keep them from speaking up.
You should work on your boot-licking addiction (and I am telling you that as a Soviet-born russian-speaking citizen of one of the former republics).
I do not understand how it is "colonization" that free people choose a more democratic, freedom- and market based route for their country - as opposed to an autocratic, Soviet-inspired style of rule.
Large parts of Eastern Europe had a choice after the collapse of the Soviet Union and chose the way of the west/Europe, with all its challenges and shortcomings, because almost any system is better than living under the thumb of autocratic leadership.
I hope one day, not that many years from now, I can once again visit a prospering Ukraine, which will be a member of the EU. If that is what the Ukranian people want, that is.
> I do not understand how it is "colonization" that free people choose a more democratic, freedom- and market based route for their country - as opposed to an autocratic, Soviet-inspired style of rule.
Yeah but wait: Russia today is very capitalist and market based. Yet very autocratic. The two can well go together. And that is the case of Kazakhstan as well.
> Large parts of Eastern Europe had a choice after the collapse of the Soviet Union and chose the way of the west/Europe, with all its challenges and shortcomings, because almost any system is better than living under the thumb of autocratic leadership.
No, they had no choice, because there was no alternative, not even in Russia. And today we are dealing with this lack of alternative. I think you are prone to believe that Putin is the Soviet Union 2.0: that's far from reality. Putin is the product of this lack of alternatives of the 90s.
What is true is that democracy mostly exists in the west currently. But it's not colonisation if a country becomes a democracy. That could happen without "the west".
Ps. A sign of not a democracy is leaders in control for > 20 years.
Because Russian troops put down a violent revolt just couple few months ago. It’s not unlikely Tokayev would had lost power without the Russian intervention (I won’t pretend I understand what actually happened there, the whole chain of events seemed pretty confusing).
It seems everyone had already forgotten that, though.
(I don't know anything about Kazakhstan politics so the similarities may be superficial.)