The Paradox of Authoritarian Power: Bureaucratic Games and Information Asymmetry. The Case of Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

This article questions conventional interpretations of the nature of power in authoritarian regimes that treat the political position of the ruler as hierarchical and top-down. Instead, it applies the principal–agent problem to information asymmetry in a single case study, Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan, to analyze the inability of the ruler to conduct effective oversight when officials engage in elaborate personality cults, depoliticization, and informal patronal practices that threaten the market and the legitimacy of the ruler. Data for this article came from local mass media and in-depth interviews with mid-level bureaucrats in Kazakhstan collected in 2011–2017 on a confidential basis.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express deep gratitude to editors of this special issue, Filippo Costa Buranelli and Diana Kudaibergenova, two anonymous reviewers, participants of the Workshop on “Power in Central Asia,” KIMEP University’s Central Asian Studies Center, for providing valuable comments and the opportunity to improve initial drafts of the article.

Disclosure Statement

Both authors confirm that we do not have any financial interest or benefit in any way from the direct application of our research.

Notes

1. This is not a complete list of protests, but a survey of major events when the fire-alarm oversight mechanism no longer worked, and when the public was mobilized across the country against these subversive bureaucratic practices so that the ruler faced the necessity of acting in support of the population.