After Karimov and Nazarbayev: change in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan?

ABSTRACT

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have new leaders for the first time since 1989: Shavkat Mirziyoyev as Uzbek president and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as Kazakh president. This article uses a theoretical framework based on the literatures of leadership change and political succession while overlaying this literature with the type of economic policies followed by each former leader to analyse the political and economic transitions in these countries. Mirziyoyev has legitimized his authority, even though he was not part of the elite, through reforms designed to help the people (as Karimov had envisioned in the ‘Uzbek way’). In contrast, Nazarbayev’s policies were centred around the state as a facilitator of economic development, a problem for citizens in an economic downturn. While Tokayev transitioned through a formal electoral process, his was a ‘managed’ designation, with the charismatic leader still in a formal position of power, leaving Tokayev without a separate base of legitimacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Kazakhstan
• Uzbekistan
• political and economic transition
• leadership change
• political succession

Acknowledgments

I would like the thank the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Roger Kanet for helpful recommendations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In fact, Weber (1978, 254) emphasized the relationship to the economic order: ‘The process of routinization of charisma is in very important respects identical with adaptation to the conditions of the economy, since this is the principal continually operating force in everyday life.’

2 Symbols and symbolization, as a way of legitimizing authoritarian states, was also a focus of Matveeva (2009, 1099).

3 This action did not go unnoticed by some Kazakhs. Around 500 protesters called the election undemocratic, since the outcome was already clear (‘500 Protesters of Kazakhstan Election are Detained’, New York Times, June 10, 2019, A6).

4 Even though she was removed by Tokayev on 2 May 2020, likely due to continuing economic problems as a result of declines in the price of oil (and almost assuredly with the approval of Nazarbayev), her replacement, Maulen Ashembayev, Tokayev’s chief of staff, was also from the Nur Otan party (Pannier 2020).

5 He was appointed prime minister in 2003 (Pomfret 2019, 115). I did not see him listed in previous sources on Soviet-era governmental positions.

6 Niyazbekov’s article is aptly titled ‘Democracy, the Tokayev Way’.