Public councils in Kazakhstan: a case of emergent participative democracy?

ABSTRACT

As Kazakhstan aims to become one of the top 30 developed countries by 2050, it is increasingly turning to ways which will improve its governance, one of which is greater participation by its citizens in the decision-making processes of state agencies. A new initiative aimed at doing just that, the establishment of public councils, received legal backing in January 2016. The aim of public councils is to ‘strengthen democracy and the quality and responsiveness of public polices’ through the ‘public expression of matters of concern to Kazakh citizens’. This article offers a formative evaluation of the role performed by public councils and questions the extent to which they have achieved this aim. It draws on primary data from public officials, non-governmental organizations, ministries, and non-participant observation of public councils in Kazakhstan. It finds limited evidence of their effectiveness to date.

KEYWORDS:

• Participative democracy
• public councils
• Kazakhstan
• citizen engagement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The 20 countries in the meta-analysis involved a sub-sample of 83 single-country case studies which spanned: tier one, rich Northern countries (9); tier two, mostly middle-income democracies in the South (50); and, tier three, countries which are considered fragile states (24).

2 The Freedom House Report 2017 lists the following indices of rights and freedom in Central Asia as follows: [Kazakhstan: 22 (not free); Kyrgyzstan: 37 (party free); Tajikistan: 11 (not free); Uzbekistan: 3 (not free); Turkmenistan: 3 (not free)].

3 In 1998 Kazakhstan introduced a funded pension scheme replacing the former Soviet Union’s system. Following the financial crisis in 2008, its performance significantly deteriorated, which raised questions about the ability of pension funds to provide adequate benefits in the future. The Single Accumulated Pension Fund was set up in 2013 as the only pension fund in Kazakhstan after all private funds were forcibly nationalized. Controversy has recently surrounded the fund’s acquisitions. In December 2016 two top fund managers and two entrepreneurs operating in the natural resources sector were arrested on suspicion of misusing pension fund assets (Zhandildin 2015).

4 The Kazakhstan government has provided generous funding to send their most talented students to the best universities in the world through the Bolashak programme (the name means ‘the future’).

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge and thank Gaukhar Maikenova for her assistance with the primary fieldwork and acknowledge travel cost funding from the British Academy (Grant PM150036).