Sponsoring student mobility for development and authoritarian stability: Kazakhstan’s Bolashak programme

ABSTRACT

Soon after independence, Kazakhstan established the state-sponsored student mobility programme ‘Bolashak’, which has since provided almost 12,000 young people with full scholarships for their studies abroad. Bolashak is considered here as a multidimensional tool, promoting development and channelling authoritarian rule at the same time. Through a series of qualitative interviews with alumni of the programme, this paper investigates the authoritarian and paternalistic features in Bolashak-related policies and discourses, looking at how they contribute to the three ‘pillars’ of authoritarian stability: repression, co-optation and legitimation. The findings of this paper question the assumption that globalization is bringing only challenges to autocracies. Kazakhstan is an example of how contemporary authoritarian regimes may open up to the world in order to seek development as well as political stability.

KEYWORDS:

• State-sponsored student mobility
• development
• authoritarian stability
• Kazakhstan
• globalization

Introduction

In the fall of 2016, a controversial Facebook post sparked a wave of indignation in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. The message, harshly criticizing the Kazakhstani authoritarian regime and calling on the population to protest, appeared in the night of October 13th on the Facebook account of Erzhan Elikov, a young man who had left to study to the USA several years earlier and had gone missing in 2011, suddenly cutting all the connections with his family and home country (Tengrinews, 2016, October 17).¹ Elikov was a ‘Bolashaker’, that is a participant of the state-sponsored study-abroad programme ‘Bolashak’ (Kazakh for ‘future’), thanks to which he had received full funding to study at the University of Pennsylvania. The case raised an outcry, and many started speculating on the reasons of such a gesture. Many thought that the young man was looking for an easy way out of re-paying the government for his education. Before disappearing, in fact, Elikov was allegedly doing so badly in his studies that he was about to be expelled from the university and from the scholarship programme. At the time, the authorities confiscated the apartment where he had lived with his parents as a way of compensation, but that still left the very significant sum of 20 million tenge (about 60,000 USD) to be repaid (Inform.kz, 2016, October 7).

Suspended between reasonable concern for the significant economic investment made on Bolashakers, and the use of restrictive measures to make sure that the same investment pays off, Erzhan’s story is illustrative of the ambivalent nature of the Bolashak programme and of its management. The case brought back under the spotlight the always sore topic of Bolashak students performing badly or not returning at all from their studies, as well as the problem of keeping an eye on Kazakhstani students misbehaving abroad, who may reflect badly on Kazakhstan’s international image.²

This paper relies on interviews with returnees of the programme to analyse the methods and strategies that Kazakhstan’s authoritarian regime has enacted to control this very small and specific subset of its overseas student population, while abroad and after their return, as well as the functions that the programme itself performs in support of authoritarian stability. In the 1990s the Kazakhstani government established the programme to address the economic and state-building challenges that affected the country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, such as the crisis of educational sector and severe brain drain, as well as the need to put the newly independent state on the world map. The management of the programme, however, is likely to reveal some of the authoritarian and paternalistic aspects of the Kazakhstani regime. Therefore, the programme is considered here as a multidimensional tool, promoting development and channelling authoritarian rule. Authoritarianism becomes evident in the ways the regime controls young participants and returnees, narratively includes and excludes them, and uses the programme itself in support of its strategies of legitimation.

In this respect, this paper first of all contributes to the literature on authoritarian stabilization (Gerschewski, 2013), tracing methods of authoritarian control in the relationship of the regime with its young grantees and scrutinizing the possible contributions of the programme itself in terms of authoritarian stabilization. By focusing on a group of young people who live, at least temporarily, outside of the country’s physical borders, it also contributes to the growing debate on the authoritarian governance of populations abroad, of which this special issue gives an overview (Glasius & Del Sordi, 2018). Finally, as it tries to distinguish between authoritarian and non-authoritarian policies enacted by the same government (and actually within the same policy area), this paper also speaks to the emerging debate on authoritarian practices (Glasius, forthcoming).

The multiple dimensions of state-sponsored student mobility: development, paternalism and authoritarianism

Globalization, or the increase of the ‘extensity, intensity, velocity and impact’ of transnational flows of people, information and ideas (Held & McGrew, 2000, p. 55), has affected the way higher education is structured. Nation-states are no longer the sole providers of education for their citizens, and cross-border student mobility is becoming more and more common (Varghese, 2008). Less-developed countries have established programmes to finance the studies abroad of large numbers of their citizens (Perna, Orosz, & Jumakulov, 2015).³ There are many advantages to sending young people to seek degrees abroad: foreign education has a positive effect on the development of technical skills (Fry, 1984); and on national economic growth and productivity (Kim, 1998). This happens in particular through the import of human capital: returning students are assumed to be able to ‘contribute to faster creation of knowledge and help other people acquire skills without any direct costs’ (Kim, 1998, p. 338).

It is very likely that these benefits were in the minds of Bolashak’s creators. In the 1990s, newly independent Kazakhstan was trying to build its state after the demise of the Soviet Union. It was trying to recover its economy from a very serious economic crisis which put its education sector under a serious strain (Arabsheibani & Mussurov, 2007, p. 346). The 1990s also saw significant out-migration from the country, as almost two millions people left Kazakhstan. In particular, the departure of some communities (such as Russians, Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Jews) caused significant brain drain, because those individuals were part of the most educated and professionalized segments of society (Brill Olcott, 2010, p. 175). Designed to take ‘advantage of long-standing, high-quality educational offerings in other nations’ (Perna et al., 2015, p. 85), Bolashak was seen as a way to improve human capital and to build the country ‘on its people’ (Interview with Sayasat Nurbek, Former Director of the Centre for International Programs, London, 2016). In this, the leadership was also explicitly following the example of Singapore, which had a famous Public Service Division Scholarship (Interview with Sayasat Nurbek, Former Director of the Centre for International Programs, London, 2016).

A study-abroad programme is not the only thing that Kazakhstan has in common with Singapore. The authoritarian regime that emerged, and started consolidating in the mid-1990s in Kazakhstan, is also one which claims to privilege stability, security and economic development over democratization, postponing political liberalization to an indefinite future (Del Sordi, 2016). It has, moreover, a paternalistic attitude towards the citizenry, which is also common in Singapore (Rodan, 2006). Independent Kazakhstan established a social contract with its citizens, promoting the idea that individual freedom could be waved in favour of economic and social development (Davé, 2007; Del Sordi, 2016). This was of course also a renewal of the pre-existing social contract between the Soviet state and its citizens (Davé, 2007), and, it may be argued, perpetuated the Soviet vision of an all-knowing and all-providing state. Whatever its origin, in contemporary Kazakhstan the position that ‘economy should come first’, translates not only into general acceptance of limitations to individual rights in the name of other goods, but also in a paternalistic relationship between the state and the population, for instance with civil society organizations (Nezhina & Ibrayeva, 2013).

But could study-abroad programmes sponsored by authoritarian regimes be a space where the relationship between the authoritarian state and its population becomes apparent? And could a study-abroad programme, in itself, contribute to regime stability? The research on state-sponsored study-abroad programmes and even on student exchange schemes in general, has seldom looked at the political implications of such initiatives for the sending state. The most investigated question is the one of whether and how participating in a student exchange programme influences the political attitudes of participants (see for instance, Atkinson, 2010; Jones, 2014; Spilimbergo, 2009). Only sparse studies examine study-abroad programmes sponsored by authoritarian regimes (Abbasov, 2007; Ismayilov & Tkacik, 2009), and even fewer look at such study-abroad programmes in relation to political stability and instability (Charnysh, 2014, May 30; Fry, 1984). This relative scarcity of studies is barely surprising, considering that study-abroad programmes are primarily tools of economic development and not of political rule. China, in this respect, constitutes an exception, possibly for the long duration and large size of its programme, which generated a large literature on returnees and their potential for economic and political transformation (among others, see Li, 2006; Zweig & Wang, 2013). Looking at both the political and economic effects of studying abroad, students of the Chinese case demonstrated that student mobility may act as a safety valve for dissatisfied students (Zhao, 1996), and that students may support the regime from outside by being a force of cultural influence and international networking (To, 2014). It is noteworthy that the mentioned works on China present the issue from a blend of developmental and political perspectives. This paper proposes to make a direct connection between the two aspects, and apply the theoretical framework of authoritarian stability to the analysis of a study-abroad programme.

Study-abroad programmes and the pillars of authoritarian stability

The recent literature on authoritarian stability has mostly revolved around the idea of the ‘three pillars’ of stability, namely repression, co-optation and legitimation (Gerschewski, 2013). Rather than describing static situations, the pillars designate processes, subject to reinforcement both external, endogenous and reciprocal, and dynamically changing over time. Each pillar, moreover, encompasses an array of strategies and tools.

Repression, for instance, includes both ‘high’ and ‘low intensity’ repression (Levitsky & Way, 2002), where the first includes mostly violent visible acts, often directed at well-known opposition individuals or organizations. ‘Low intensity’ repression, on the other hand, is aimed at less visible groups, is more subtle, less violent or even non-violent at all (Levitsky & Way, 2002, p. 50). Low intensity repression is particularly relevant for Kazakhstan, which adopts a ‘soft’ approach to authoritarianism, by privileging subtle forms of repression to the high-intensity varieties (Del Sordi, 2017; Schatz & Maltseva, 2012). It could be argued that non-violent forms of repression may also extend beyond the targeting of opposition, and address the population as a whole, preventing the emerging of dissenting voices, or, more generally, constantly reaffirming the dominant position of the state. While refraining from defining such actions as ‘repression’, this paper evaluates the authoritarian and repressive features of a number of restrictive measures enacted by the Kazakhstani regime towards the participants and the alumni of the study-abroad programme Bolashak. As said before, the task of distinguishing the ‘hand’ of the authoritarian state is complicated by the fact that Bolashak is not a tool of political rule but a study-abroad programme, created to solve economic problems.

The following question is whether Bolashak is also an instrument of co-optation and legitimation, the other two ‘pillars’ of authoritarian stability. In its narrow definition, co-optation refers to ‘the capacity to tie strategically-relevant actors (or a group of actors) to the regime elite’ (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 22). Indeed, through Bolashak the regime might exercise its current co-optation mechanisms: more than 500 state functionaries were recruited among alumni of the programme (Kazinform, 2016, February 15) and some of them occupy important government posts (365.info.kz, 2016, May 12). With respect to recent returnees, I will argue, another mechanism is at work, a sort of rhetorical co-optation that shares similarities, and is partly overlapping, with the mechanism of legitimation.⁴ Elsewhere I have described this relationship in terms of ‘clientelism’: in it, the students’ fortune and destiny are rhetorically tied to the state, which has so generously provided them with a free top-class education and the possibility to thrive in the job market; in exchange, the state receives the loyalty of this young and educated elite (Dalmasso et al., 2017, p. 6).

Legitimation is the most important of the three pillars for Kazakhstan, which is known to use pro-active framing and persuasion to ensure the survival of its regime (Del Sordi, 2016; Schatz & Maltseva, 2012). Against the background of the social contract mentioned before, economic development, and output legitimacy in general, constitute one of the main regime’s claims to legitimation (Del Sordi, 2016; Kudaibergenova, 2015; von Soest & Grauvogel, 2016). Not only does the regime engage in promoting growth, development and general wellbeing; through its rhetoric, it tries to appropriate economic successes and reinforce the impression that the regime is the generous maker of such wonders (Del Sordi, 2016, pp. 76–78). Bolashak plays an active role in this respect, contributing to the regime’s discourse on performance. As Natalie Koch argues, the regime uses Bolashak to articulate ‘a norm in which citizens are expected to have gratitude for the state’s generous giving’ (Koch, 2015, p. 89). Through Bolashak, the regime may be further demonstrating, to participants, and possibly to the population in general, its commitment to development and its success in promoting education and creating opportunities for young citizens.

Another important legitimating claim for Kazakhstan is international recognition. In the 1990s, when it was a young country with a multi-ethnic population and a disastrous economy, Kazakhstan’s regime resorted to international recognition as a source of legitimacy (Schatz, 2008). This is a form of external legitimation, that is those ‘legitimation strategies vis-à-vis the domestic audience that pass through the international realm’ (Hoffmann, 2015, p. 569). In the 1990s, Kazakhstan’s recognition was derived from the country’s active engagement in diplomatic relations and international organizations. It was, in turn, used to promote consensus for the regime domestically, portraying ‘an image of a state elite which was engaged internationally and therefore deserving of support internally’ (Schatz, 2008, p. 27). The regime has continued using legitimation through international recognition after the end of this critical period (Del Sordi, 2017; Schatz & Maltseva, 2012). The Bolashak programme can be considered as a way to promote the country’s international image and ‘advance connections to the global world’ (Perna et al., 2015). Officials value Bolashak’s many ‘immaterial advantages’, such as contributing to ‘improve the image of Kazakhstan in the international arena’ and ‘becoming a symbol of the achievements and possibilities of [the] state’ (Respublica, 2013, April 16). It is, therefore, possible that some of the regime’s measures towards the population of students abroad have the goal to reinforce or to protect the country’s international image in function of international recognition.

The Bolashak scholarship programme

Only a fraction of the 45,813 students currently studying outside of Kazakhstan are recipients of a Bolashak grant (UNESCO, 2016). Bolashak, however, is the only programme where the state directly and generously supports foreign education for its young citizens and enjoys great popularity in the country (Bnews, 2016, February 15). Through the Bolashak International Scholarship Program, the government of Kazakhstan has provided, so far, full scholarships to 11,727 students pursuing a degree abroad (Kazinform, 2016, February 15). Scholarships cover university tuition fees, living expenses and, in some cases, preparatory language classes. When it was established, in 1993, Bolashak was covering graduate studies for a small number of excellent candidates, about 100 per year. Most of the initial participants were from the humanities and social sciences, where candidates already had a good knowledge of foreign languages (Dairova, Jumakulov, & Ashirbekov, 2013, p. 92; Perna et al., 2015, p. 91). Anxious to privilege areas more directly connected with the desired results in economic development, between 1997 and 2000 the government favoured candidates in sciences and engineering, lowered foreign language knowledge requirements and started offering English classes (Dairova et al., 2013, p. 92; Sagintayeva & Jumakulov, 2015, p. 21). The programme has considerably enlarged its scope in 2005, when it became possible to pursue undergraduate degrees and the number of aspiring students was brought to almost 3000 per year (Dairova et al., 2013, p. 94). In that year, a Centre for International Programs (CIP) was established to manage the expanded scholarship programme.⁵ Bolashak was reformed in 2008, when quotas for students from rural regions were added, as well as special quotas for civil servants and academics.⁶ The most important reform was the one implemented in 2011, when the programme was significantly resized, and stopped covering undergraduate degrees. The goal was possibly to redirect talented young people to Nazarbayev University, a large public institution which had just opened in Astana and promised to be a hub of ‘patriotic’ education (Koch, 2015). Still offering about 1000 scholarships every year, Bolashak now offers grants to pursue Master’s and PhD programmes, as well as short-term professional internships (Dairova et al., 2013). The government has shown a keen interest in maintaining control on the quality of studies, progressively restricting the number of admissible academic institutions, which went from 630 in 2007 to 200 in 2015, reducing academic subjects and proposing it should define subjects for MA and PhD dissertations (Perna et al., 2015; Respublica, 2013, April 16; Sagintayeva & Jumakulov, 2015). Requirements for applicants have been tightened in 2014, both relatively to the knowledge of English and to previous work experience (Forbes, 2015, August 17).

Methods and sources

Empirically, this study is grounded on 22 semi-structured interviews with former recipients of the grant. Together with the examination of official sources, interviews served first of all to trace the policy measures addressing students abroad and returnees. Most importantly, interviews offer an insight into the way such measures are perceived, and on how the participation in the programme influences the alumni’s outlook on the country and its development plans, as well as on their own career opportunities. Finally, by investigating the alumni’s activities within associations of Kazakhstani students abroad (the so-called Kazakh Societies, and the umbrella organization KazAlliance), interviews served to understand to what extent students engage in Kazakhstan-centred or host country activities in their social lives. Interviews with alumni were integrated with document analysis of primary and secondary sources, as well as with five interviews with Kazakhstanis who had studied abroad on different funding schemes or were self-funded: three had completed their studies, while two were still abroad. In addition, one current and one former manager at the Centre of International Programs were interviewed, as well as the current director of the students’ association ‘KazAlliance’.

Interviews were conducted between 2015 and 2016, in person, over the phone or using Internet calling technology, in Astana, London and Warwick (on the comparability between phone and personal interviews, see Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004). With the exception of the CIP managers and of the KazAlliance Director, contacted in their official capacity, snowball sampling was employed to find interviewees. Interviewees varied for the level, country and period of studies. Half of them pursued a Bachelor’s degree, while the other half completed a postgraduate course of studies. Most of the interviewees studied in the UK or in North America, which are the most popular destinations for Bolashak students (46% of the total number of grantees studied in the UK and 39,5%, in the USA or Canada: Today.kz, 2016). Their distribution over time reflects the programme’s phases of expansion and resizing (Dairova et al., 2013, p. 94): only one interviewee studied abroad before 2005; 17 interviewed alumni received their scholarship between 2006 and 2010 and 3 were awarded a grant after the programme’s resizing in 2011. All the respondents have returned to Kazakhstan after their studies and are complying (or already complied) with the requirement to work there for five years. Interviews were conducted under conditions of anonymity to encourage respondents to recount their experiences and share their opinions more freely. With the exception of the officials interviewed in their public capacity, the names presented here are pseudonyms.

Repressive measures: protecting development benefits by authoritarian means

Given its relevance for development, it is not surprising that the regime attempts to protect the good functioning of Bolashak, with the ultimate goal to ensure that the significant investment made by the state is justified. Even if now Kazakhstan is no longer in the difficult economic conditions of the 1990s (it is firmly in the group of upper-medium income countries, World Bank, 2015), Bolashak is still expected to contribute substantively to the country’s economy. The 2008–2009 global financial crisis and the 2014–2015 monetary crisis demonstrated that the sheer richness in natural resources, which drove the 2000s’ economic boom, cannot sustain high levels of growth alone (Del Sordi, 2016). In this respect, Bolashak alumni, with their high-quality education and global connections, are an obvious asset. It is, therefore, natural that the regime tries to ensure their return home or their academic success, just as is done in democratic contexts. The goal of these measures is not authoritarian in nature, as it aims only at returning the investment made. So, can authoritarianism be distinguished, and how? For instance, when obliging students to return to Kazakhstan after their studies, is the state securing the return of a costly investment, or limiting its citizens’ freedom of movement? The answer to this question lies in a careful analysis of the single policies. Authoritarianism could be detected in their features, and in the ways policies are perceived by those who experience them, that is the participants and former returnees of the programme. For instance, the previous question could be answered by noting that the regulations for return are extremely strict, and unreasonably so compared to those of other study-abroad programmes; and that participants themselves, even when they demonstrate themselves willing to go back and ‘give back’ to their country, define the rule as ‘cruel’ (Interview with Zamziya, Bolashak alumna, 2015).

Non-returnees – students ‘disappearing’ during their studies or not returning to Kazakhstan after getting their degree – constitute the main problem. Graduates who stay abroad represent a total loss of the investment and a source of brain drain. In the first years of the programme, between 1993 and 1997, a segment of students just stayed abroad after their studies. To solve this problem, since 1997 applicants are required to return to the country and work there for five years. Such a requirement is not exclusive of Bolashak: the already mentioned Fulbright programme, for instance, also asks that participants return to their home country for at least two years at the conclusion of their grant (Fulbright, 2016). What is specific is the extremity of the sanctions: the families of the Bolashakers who do not return have to pay the government back for the cost of the entire scholarship, to the amount of several thousands of dollars. To this purpose, at the moment of application, candidates have to demonstrate that they have sufficient collateral to cover the award, or to find up to four guarantors who will be held liable in case of non-return of the scholarship holder (Perna et al., 2015, pp. 90–91). In 2012 the rules were further toughened: new applicants have to demonstrate that they are currently employed and, upon return, must go back to the job place they were holding before receiving the scholarship (Perna et al., 2015, pp. 90–91).

In addition, the regime has charged the national secret service, the KNB, with setting up a system to control students abroad in 2013 (Respublica, 2013, April 16). Applicants are asked about their intention to come back already during the application process, as two of the interviewed alumni mentioned. Even open and justified requests for extensions of the study period tend to be refused, as recalled by this young man studying in the USA: ‘I asked to stay for additional three-months for summer courses, but they denied the possibility on the ground that it was not part of the program, and said I had to go back to Kazakhstan’ (Dimitry, Bolashak alumnus, phone interview, 2015). The three interviewees who were authorized to delay their return to a later period in order to complete another degree described the process as burdensome. Rules are strict also for those who come back, who have to demonstrate to be working for the mandatory five years. Vika recalls: ‘the policy works like this: you have to get a job and you have to submit a letter every six months, from your job, stating that you are employed in Kazakhstan’. Implementation, however, seems patchy and arbitrary, as Vika herself remembers:

for maybe a year and a half, I was sending emails with the papers but I never got a reply back [ … ] only lately a lady [ … ] asked me to gather as many papers as I could, because she said they got lost.

Interviewed alumni understand the rationale of the rule while deprecating its lack of flexibility. For instance, Zamziya said:

it is a good one, although it is cruel. I see that young people have good jobs and networks when they came back, things that they wouldn’t have without the scholarship. But who knows, maybe they would have been even more successful, had they stayed abroad.

The strict rules did not resolve the problem, as since 2005 about 155 students disappeared (Tengrinews, 2016, December 8).

The academic performance of Bolashak students is also reason for concern from the management’s side. Academic underachievement (neuspevaemost’ in Russian) is a reason for withdrawing the scholarship award. More recently, the CIP started filing lawsuits against the students who have not completed their studies and did not voluntarily return the scholarship money (Today.kz, 2016, February 15). Since the programme’s inception, about 500 students have had to return their scholarship on these grounds (Today.kz, 2016, February 15). Again, the goal in itself is hardly authoritarian, but the paternalistic nature of the regime comes out in the high frequency of reporting on academic progress, as well as in the measures adopted against noncompliant students. All the post-2005 interviewees confirmed that they had to send reports on their academic progress at the end of every term, whether in forms of transcripts, letters from supervisors or self-evaluation reports. In 2014 it became mandatory for students to obtain a written confirmation from the hosting institution in which the latter agrees to send all the relevant confidential information to the CIP (Ministry of Education of Kazakhstan, 2014). Some of the interviewed students have been asked to hand in the passwords of their personal pages to their kurator (a sort of personal manager), so that the latter could check grades at any time. Erzhan Elikov, the Bolashak student mentioned at the beginning of this paper, was also monitored in this way, as the Director of the CIP confirmed in an interview (Inform.kz, 2016, October 16).

Repressive measures: making sure young people are not ‘lost’

A potential problem of studying abroad is, paradoxically, returning home. Besides gaining technical skills and knowledge, young people who study-abroad experience significant personal growth and, consequently, may have trouble in re-adjusting in the home reality. Blum (2016), while not referring directly to students, investigated the issue of cultural change in Kazakhstanis who spent time in the USA. Change, he finds, does not happen categorically, but, rather, according to a continuum of possibilities, going from a superficial and pragmatic adoption of new ideas to deep, radical, transformation (Blum, 2016, p. 193). Accordingly, returnees experience different problems in re-adjusting to the home reality. The Bolashak returnees interviewed here reflect this variety of positions, ranging from superficial appreciation for habits like running or recycling to deeper change. Vika, for instance considers that she was ‘completely different’. In particular, she changed her outlook on traditional gender roles, and disappoints her mother by refusing to get married early. It seems indeed that, coherently with what was found by Blum, returnees who became more accepting of Western values in terms of family relations or gender roles are perceived to be particularly problematic by their family and friends, as they rebel against social conventions (Blum, 2016).

In particular, students who pursued undergraduate degrees seem to be more conscious of having changed and suffer more in re-adapting to the reality of Kazakhstan. Jamelya, a returnee who experienced deeply the reality of her host country, talked of her return home in terms of ‘reverse cultural shock’. Possibly, this is connected with moving out of the country at an earlier age. As Berik, who graduated from an engineering programme in the USA, puts it: ‘I left when I was 19 years old, which is a period of [personality] formation. It had a big influence on how I look at the world.’

The interviews reveal that the regime has enacted a number of measures to avoid ‘losing these kids’. Similarly to what seen in the previous section, the management’s concern with the possibility of radical change in young people is not necessarily related to the political implications of the phenomenon, although the abovementioned case of Erzhan Elikov demonstrates that a radical, foreign-generated, change in social values may result in political demands. However, the measures found seem to perpetuate the paternalistic relationship between the state and its young people, who are perceived as children, to be kept under the state’s vigilant eye.

First of all, the authorities decided to avoid sending people abroad at a very young age. As seen before, in 2011 Bolashak stopped financing undergraduate degrees. Again, the motivation of such a choice is likely to be a blend between considerations for the youth of participants and other structural processes. In 2010, Kazakhstan started implementing the Bologna process, and reoriented the programme’s priorities towards research degrees, therefore privileging Master’s and PhD programmes (Dairova et al., 2013, p. 94). Also, the resizing of Bolashak coincided with the opening of Nazarbayev University, which offers full undergraduate programmes in English (Sagintayeva & Jumakulov, 2015, p. 22). Indeed, the authorities presented the possibility to provide quality undergraduate training at home as an alternative to the Bolashak undergraduate programme (Interview with a middle level manager of the CIP, Astana, 2015). The main rationale for resizing Bolashak, therefore, was unlikely to be related to the problem of ‘lost’ young people. More simply, the significant funding put into Nazarbayev University needed to be justified by attracting the country’s best perspective students; and that would have been very difficult, if those students were still offered the possibility to get a scholarship for the best universities in the UK and the USA (Interview with Sayasat Nurbek, Former Director of the Centre for International Programs, London, 2016).

On the other hand, the choice can also be seen as a way to privilege home-grown, ‘patriotic’, education to foreign instruction (Koch, 2015). In the words of President Nazarbayev, ‘Kazakhstan is capable of offering Bachelor and Master Degree programmes locally. We have spent dozens of millions of US Dollars on foreign education, supporting foreign universities. Let us channel the funds to support domestic universities’ (Tengrinews, 2011). There are other signs that show that considerations on the age of the students were also part of the picture. Sagintayeva and Jumakulov point to the fact that ‘[t]he age of undergraduate scholarship recipients (between 17 and 19) was perceived by policy-makers as psychologically immature for studying abroad’ (Sagintayeva & Jumakulov, 2015, p. 22). More explicitly, a manager of the CIP mentioned that policy-makers considered the undergraduate programme incompatible with the way young people are brought up in Kazakhstan:

For Kazakh people, the person who graduated from secondary school is still a child. And why do you send this person, this child, say, to New Mexico. It’s very challenging [ … ]. They have never really seen real life in Kazakhstan. They were always under the protection of their parents, system, school, and now we are sending them [where] there are no parents, no brother, no sister, no Kazakhstani officials. Just go to the USA and study. (Interview with a middle level manager of the CIP, Astana, 2015)

He also confirmed that officials are concerned the process of re-adaptation to the home society:

once back, they couldn’t fit in our country. Young generations, they very easily accept new things from abroad [ … ]. Their values totally become American or European. But our values here are kind of a mixture between European/Western and Asian. We are not totally an Asian country, and we are not totally a European country. For them very it was very difficult to go back to a country where they do not fit. (Interview with a middle level manager of the CIP, Astana, 2015)

Besides trying to send them out at a later stage in their lives, another strategy to keep an eye on the ‘kids’ is to promote a sense of community among Kazakhstani students abroad, establishing a network of mutual support. This builds on the spontaneous tendency to stick together with people belonging to one’s community. While abroad, students from Kazakhstan (not necessarily on Bolashak) often organize in ‘Kazakh societies’. For many interviewees, these associations represented the centre of extra-curricular activities and the main venue of socialization. Particularly common in the UK, where the university tradition incentivizes the creation of students’ clubs based on common interests or nationality, Kazakh societies are present all over the world (Aiupov, 2015). While natural in the beginning, the tendency to stick together becomes less evident over time, as confirmed by many Bolashak returnees. For example, Lyazzat recalls that she felt the need to reach out of her community after some time: ‘In the first year I had a lot of friends from Kazakhstan [ … ] and I think I should have made more friends among foreign students. But [later] I only had one friend from Kazakhstan. [ … ] my views changed. I understood I needed to reach out’. In a way, the state seems counteract this natural tendency, and prolong the sense of community among Kazakh students beyond that initial stage. Kazakh students are occasionally invited to large events, such as concerts and lectures organized by the Embassy.

In particular, Kazakh Societies are the place where Kazakhstani students find practical help and solidarity in adapting in the new reality. This reduces the shock of finding themselves in a new country but is also likely to reduce the range of their local experiences, maintaining them in a Kazakh-speaking, and patriotic bubble (Dalmasso et al., 2017). It is possible that the authorities decided to improve this support system through the establishment of an umbrella organization. Founded in 2015, KazAlliance gathers more than 30,000 people in 17 different countries, and has the primary goal of ‘promoting stability and sustainable development of Kazakhstan’ (Aiupov, 2015). Among its goals there is the one of promoting the ‘consolidation’ of the 70-something Kazakh associations in the world (Aiupov, 2015). Aida, a self-funded student in the UK, was part of the executive board of the Kazakh Society in her own campus when KazAlliance was established. She mentions that she and several Kazakh Societies board members were briefed by a KazAlliance representative on their roles and responsibilities towards the larger community of students:

first of all, they told us to give support to the newcomers, providing assistance with finding accommodation and in case of problems with documents, bank and the like … for young people who just arrived in a new country it is easy to feel lost. To receive this kind of help allows [the new comers] to feel at home, surrounded by their own, so they don’t get lost.

Again the concern for young people abroad that emerges from this account seems to have a mixed nature: concern for the actual process of adaptation seems to be blended with a paternalistic attitude towards these young people, considered, despite being of age and smart enough to study abroad, as children in need of support from home.

Some of these measures of control seem to be connected with the concern that students ‘misbehave’ while abroad. This is problematic not only for the ‘loss’ of the young people but also because it potentially damages Kazakhstan’s international image (Perna et al., 2015, p. 93). As it will be seen later, the projection of a positive image abroad is crucial to Kazakhstan’s legitimation process, and Bolashak has an important role in it. Aida, the same self-funded student who recalled being briefed about providing support to Kazakh students, also remembers that ‘local societies were instructed from the central one [KazAlliance] to promote culture. We were given a list of movies that we were supposed to show to students or days we were supposed to celebrate’. She also mentioned that the local representative of KazAlliance was ‘super-active’, always making sure that at least 30% of the invited guests at the Kazakh parties were foreigners.

Interviewees report that a culture of peer-control exists, especially for those cohorts of students who travel and are placed as a group in the most popular campuses: students are informally encouraged to report each other’s bad behaviour, which includes speaking critically of Kazakhstan in public. Jamelya, for instance, was reprimanded for criticizing the regime’s policies in class and remembered that also among her peers, the mere opportunity that someone would report on them would be sufficient to constrain the others’ behaviour. It is possible that the efforts of uniting Kazakhstani students in an umbrella organization were further motivated by a – more serious – case of misbehaviour. The Second Meeting of the Foreign Student Associations of Kazakhstan called for the establishment of a centralized association of students abroad after that two young Kazakhstani were involved in the Boston bombings, in 2013. The organizations, according to their statement, was supposed to provide consultation and support in ‘force-majeure cases’ like this one (Tengrinews, 2013).⁷

Optimism, gratitude and loyalty: between rhetorical co-optation and performance legitimation

Besides fulfilling a common dream of going abroad, the big ‘selling point’ of Bolashak is the advantage it gives in the job market. When asked about their motivation to apply to the programme, many returnees answered something along these lines: ‘it is prestigious, an investment for your future, and you don’t really have to pay for anything … . I am lot more competitive than people who graduated from KZ universities’ (Rinata, Bolashak Alumna in the USA, Astana, 2015).

The regime is establishing this relationship as a form of rhetorical co-optation: on the one hand, the regime generously provides young people with an excellent education and, consequently, with better opportunities for employment; the young people, in exchange, offer their loyalty (Dalmasso et al., 2017). There is some truth in the picture of Bolashakers as better off in the job market. Alumni have competitive advantages in terms of knowledge, critical thinking and soft skills (Perna et al., 2015; Tolesh & Del Sordi, 2017) have a lower unemployment rate compared to graduates of local universities (Perna et al., 2015); and earn twice as much the average wage in Kazakhstan (Kapital, 2016, January 15; Kazinform, 2016, February 15). The government, at least in theory, facilitates the employment of Bolashakers. Since 2007, the CIP engages in employment assistance, organizing career fairs as well as publishing a job vacancies’ newsletter (Perna et al., 2015). Alumni mentioned that they can enter their resumes into a national database for administrative cadres, and have the advantage of qualify directly for the second step of the administrative ladder. However, only one of the interviewees for this research has found employment through these means, or even considered these initiatives as useful.

The idea that the regime is a generous provider and requires gratitude and loyalty in exchange might also be seen as a part of the general attempt of the regime claim to legitimacy through performance. Through their participation in Bolashak, young people not only become more optimistic about their own career opportunities, but also about the future of the country in general. Several interviewees made a direct connection between the possibility to study abroad on the Bolashak programme and their positive outlook on Kazakhstan. This optimism is accompanied by a strong sense of gratitude and patriotism about receiving such a great opportunity (see also Dalmasso et al., 2017, p. 6). The enthusiasm was particularly high in correspondence with the 2005 expansion of the programme. Aijamal, a dedicated young woman now working in the public sector, mentioned that

when they enlarged the programme in 2005 [ … ] I thought that, as our country has the possibility to finance such an amount of scholarships, give this chance to such an amount of students, moreover every year … of course I believed only the best. I thought that when we all come back, when it will be thousands of us, our country will change for the better. Also our culture will change, will be more global, with larger horizons.

Damira, a native of a rural region who, thanks to Bolashak, fulfilled her dream to study abroad, expressed a similar opinion:

[o]f course, I was very optimistic: the initiative of sending 3000 people is, I mean, a kind of step towards modernization, globalization … economic development. It is only 3000 people, but still, it is a great benefit [ … ]. That’s why I had great ideas, that the country is developing, changing its mind, its vision.

In these words it is possible to recognize the regime’s discourse around the programme, depicted as a generous and insightful way to serve the interests of the country and the personal aspirations of young people. Nazarbayev often reminds Bolashakers of their good luck: ‘this generation is the only one in Kazakhstan, and among just a handful in the world, who can boast such a fortune’ (Dalmasso et al., 2017, p. 5).

That opportunities come in exchange of gratitude and loyalty to the regime seems to be confirmed by the treatment of returnees who appear to be problematic (Dalmasso et al., 2017; Koch, 2015). The latter are accused of refusing job opportunities because they feel superior thanks to their foreign education and do not want to debase themselves to work for low salaries and humble conditions. Despite evidence to the contrary (Tolesh & Del Sordi, 2017),⁸ Bolashak alumni are considered picky about jobs, cultivating high expectations which are often disappointed by reality: ‘[i]t always happen like this. Bolashak alumni always have high expectations and struggle with job opportunities arriving back to Kazakhstan’ (Adil, Bolashak alumnus in the UK, Phone Interview, 2015). Interestingly, most of the interviewed Bolashakers mentioned the problem in the third person, as something they have heard about, or observed in their peers, but not experienced themselves (Tolesh & Del Sordi, 2017). Dimitry connected the problem with over-increased self-esteem of graduates: ‘some of the scholarship holders overestimate themselves; they think that they have a UK or a US degree so now they are better’. This need to distance themselves from picky returnees shows how strong the stigma is for alumni who show themselves ungrateful and do not confirm the much advertised expectation that being a participant of Bolashak ensures a wonderful job and a brilliant future.

It would be incorrect, and perhaps unfair, to assume that Bolashak students receive these discourses uncritically. Many of them expressed more critical views alongside their optimism, and one seemed aware of the influence of official discourse. Elmira, who has a degree in sociology, declared:

At that time I had a big belief [ … ] Maybe it was also a result of information propaganda of the country, showing that Kazakhstan has so many resources, and that people were influenced by that. On the other hand, I believe that realistically it was so. Both the President [ … ] promoting the concept of Eurasia, and our resources, we are rich in oil and gas, we are rich in that our people are stable, patient and tolerant.

This rare awareness is a reminder of the specificities of investigating opinions in authoritarian, or closed, contexts (Koch, 2013; Wedeen, 2015). There, respondents are embedded in the regime’s official discourses and tend to reproduce them either for fear of repression or because that was the mode of their socialization (Koch, 2013, p. 416). However, their reflecting the official narrative does not reduce the relevance of the positions expressed by my respondents: even if they were biased by social desirability, even if they were akin to a performance concealing, totally or in part, their authentic views, they still offer a view of what is considered to be socially acceptable from the side of Bolashak returnees.

Is Bolashak promoting international recognition?

One of the reasons to establish Bolashak was to put the newly independent country on the world map and to get international recognition as global promoter of education (Interview with Sayasat Nurbek, see Dalmasso et al., 2017, p. 6). In this respect, Bolashak can be considered as one of the many manifestations of Kazakhstan’s pro-active international engagement (Engvall & Cornell, 2015), and, possibly, of the regime’s strategy to boost regime legitimacy through international recognition (Schatz, 2008).

It is possible that students were called to promote a positive image of Kazakhstan, or even to ‘correct’ negative impressions of the country abroad. Again, Kazakh societies are the most important instrument for doing so. Echoing many of his peers, Yerlan mentioned that his Kazakh Society organized events not only to gather Kazakhstani students but also to ‘let people know about Kazakhstan’. Dimitry, who was studying in the USA, was invited with many other fellow students to a big reception at Carnegie Hall, in New York. There, performers of traditional Kazakh music entertained a large number of Kazakhstani students as well as international guests. Dimitry remembers that there was a rumour among students: ‘it was because of the Kazakhgate at the beginning of 2000s, so the embassy spent money in order to promote a better image of Kazakhstan’.⁹ Even without this specific reason, the organization of such large event is consistent with the effort the Kazakhstani regime is playing to improve its international image.

Again, Kazakh Societies are a relevant part of this plan, and receive ‘excellent support’ from diplomatic representations when they carry on their cultural initiatives, as remembered by IT former student Serik. Asel, who was the President of an early Kazakh Society in the UK, mentioned that: ‘in case we needed something, costumes, or something else, we just contacted them’. Even more than the Societies, KazAlliance seems to be the key actor in coordinating Kazakhstan’s promotion efforts. The umbrella organization was mainly created to respond to a call to support the civil society organization ‘Kazakhstan 2050’, in particular ‘to involve also the students abroad [in] the movement, with the goal of doing something useful, no matter where they are’ (Interview with Bexsultan Abdizhalil, Director of KazAlliance, London, 2016). In addition to promoting development, by planning to organize Kazakh societies around the world, it is likely that KazAlliance becomes an improved support system for students abroad (as seen before) as well as a mechanism for the promotion of Kazakh culture abroad. According to its former president Rashid Aiupov, the promotion of a positive image of Kazakhstan has a central place in the mission of KazAlliance: the organization presents itself as force of soft power and cultural influence, aimed at becoming an equivalent of the British Council or the Confucius Institute (Aiupov, 2015). This confirms the leadership’s preoccupation for maintaining a positive international image, also for the importance it has for keeping consensus at home, and to capitalize on the presence of a large number of students abroad to portray an image of a successful and culturally powerful country.

Conclusions

This paper has demonstrated how Kazakhstan, a contemporary authoritarian regime, manages to pursue development and authoritarian stability while opening up to the globalized world. Bolashak, established to take advantage of the global market of education, becomes the place where the regime maintains control on its young population abroad and a tool for regime legitimation. First of all, by means of strict rules and monitoring, the regime makes sure that the significant investment made on the students is returned. Through Kazakh Societies, young Kazakhstanis provide support and keep an eye on each other while they are abroad, and remain in a ‘bubble’ of fellow nationals. The same associations contribute to the promotion of Kazakh culture abroad, possibly supporting regime legitimacy through international recognition. Finally, the regime engages returnees by demanding loyalty and gratitude in exchange for the wonderful opportunity to study abroad.

Engaging with the literature on authoritarian stability, this paper has demonstrated that mechanisms of stabilization can become, at least temporarily, transnational. Through its diplomatic representations, the students’ associations and the impending obligation to return home, the Kazakhstani regime seems to be able to extend its reach outside its physical borders. Finally, the paper has demonstrated that measures enacted with the goal of promoting or protecting development can be authoritarian, and that a scheme engineered to import human capital can become a tool of stabilization in itself. Conceptualized as a multidimensional tool, Bolashak was not created with an authoritarian intention, but ends up channelling authoritarian control and supporting stability.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Marlies Glasius, Barry Gills, Inna Melnikovska and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments. Previous versions of this paper have been presented at the workshop on ‘Authoritarian Governance of Overseas Citizens’ held in September 2015 at the University of Amsterdam, in the Post-Communist Politics and Economics Workshop at Harvard University in April 2016 and at the ISA Panel on ‘Education as Public Diplomacy’, in Baltimore, February 2017. I would like to thank the participants to these events for their inspiring questions and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Adele Del Sordi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3836-8682

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the project ‘Authoritarianism in a Global Age’ at the University of Amsterdam, and received funding from the European Research Council (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no 323899. www.authoritarianism-global.uva.nl.

Notes on contributors

Adele Del Sordi

Notes on contributor

Adele Del Sordi worked for three years (2014–2017) as post doctoral researcher with the project ‘Authoritarianism in a Global Age' at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). There, she investigated the impact of globalization on authoritarian sustainability in post Soviet Kazakhstan. Her research interests include authoritarian regime stability, strategies of legitimation and authoritarian diffusion, with a particular focus on the post-Soviet region. She holds a PhD in Political Systems and Institutional Change from the Institute of Advanced Studies (IMT) in Lucca, Italy. In November 2017, she joined the Graduate School of East and South East European Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany as post doctoral researcher.

Notes

1. The message was quickly removed from Facebook, but several pages had already copied it. It can be found, for instance, on this blog: http://ainurkurmanov.livejournal.com/14360.html.

2. This paper uses the adjective ‘Kazakhstani’ to refer to the citizens of Kazakhstan, regardless of their ethnicity. The adjective ‘Kazakh’ is used to refer to the Kazakh ethnic group, as well as in the cases where the use of the word is official or established (for instance, for the Kazakh societies). The distinction is made necessary by the multi-ethnic nature of Kazakhstan, and the country’s efforts to create a civic identity alongside an ethnic one. See Ó Beacháin and Kevlihan (2013).

3. This paper uses the expression ‘state-sponsored study-abroad programmes’ to indicate schemes where a government provides funding and support for its citizens to pursue education abroad, mainly, but not exclusively, in the form of a complete degree.

4. In this special issue, Wrighton (2017) uses a similarly broad definition of co-optation.

5. The CIP was established in 2005 as a joint stock company under the control of the Ministry of Education. It is in charge of the everyday management of the program, as well as of its promotion (Dairova et al., 2013, p. 96). The number of grants for each year is decided by a Republican commission, made up by 15 government representatives, appointed by the President of Kazakhstan. The Commission has the final say on scholarship awards and withdrawals (Dairova et al., 2013). See also Nurbek (2013).

6. From the CIP website. http://www.bolashak.gov.kz/ru/o-stipendii/istoriya-razvitiya.html.

7. Two Kazakhstani students, Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, were detained in Boston as a consequence of their involvement in the terrorist act of April 2013. Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev were friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who carried on, together with his brother, the bombing attack at the finish line of Boston Marathon on 15 April 2013. The two Kazakh students were accused and later convicted for obstructing the investigations (Reuters, 2015).

8. An original survey conducted on 69 returnees from study-abroad programmes reveals that even those who have refused one or more job opportunities upon their return to Kazakhstan still found employment within six months of their return (Tolesh & Del Sordi, 2017).

9. Kazakhgate is the common name for a corruption scandal exploded in 2003. The American businessman and adviser to the President of Kazakhstan James Giffen was accused of having paid bribes for $80 million to President Nazarbayev and former Prime Minister Nurlan Balgimbayev in order to secure contracts over the Tengiz oil fields in the 1990s (RFE/RL, 2010).