Nur Otan,Informal Networks and the Countering of Elite Instability in Kazakhstan: Bringing the ‘Formal’ Back In

As opposed to the current literature which argues that informal politics pervades formal institutions in Kazakhstan and Central Asia more widely, this article argues that Nur Otan, the political party of the President of Kazakhstan, acts as a formal institution to counter the instability generated by informal networks competing for access to political and economic resources. This is achieved by consolidating the political parties associated with these networks into Nur Otan and the synchronisation of the party and the state apparatus. However, the extent to which Nur Otan can provide this stabilising function in the long term is dependent upon regime dynamics.     

Privileged Exclusion in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan: Ethnic Return Migration,Citizenship, and the Politics of (Not) Belonging

This article explores issues of citizenship and belonging associated with post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s repatriation programme. Beginning in 1991, Kazakhstan financed the resettlement of over 944,000 diasporic Kazakhs from nearly a dozen countries, including Mongolia, and encouraged repatriates to become naturalised citizens. Using the concept of ‘privileged exclusion’, this article argues that repatriated Kazakhs from Mongolia belong due to their knowledge of Kazakh language and traditions yet, at the same time, do not belong due to their lack of linguistic fluency in Russian, the absence of a shared Soviet experience, and limited comfort with the ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle that characterises the new elite in this post-Soviet context.     

Authoritarian legality and informal practices: Judges, lawyers and the state in Russia and China

To participate in the global economy authoritarian states are pressed to offer international business a legal order that protects the interests of investors, customers, and sellers, but the creation of a modern legal order threatens to undermine the leaders’ control of public life. An increasingly common way to resolve this dilemma, I argue, is developing formal legal institutions that appear to meet world standards, while using informal practices to maintain control over the administration of justice when needed. In this paper I show how the governments of post-Soviet Russia (with its hybrid or competitive authoritarian regime) and the fully authoritarian People’s Republic of China as well, have used this approach in their relations with judges and defense lawyers in their respective countries. The analysis underscores the utility of investigating informal practices along with the reform of formal legal institutions, especially in the context of transition.     

“Survival of the fittest:” Domestic and international dimensions of the authoritarian reaction in the former Soviet Union following the colored revolutions

This article examines the internal and external reactions by post-Soviet autocrats to the colored revolutions. First, the colored revolutions provoked incumbents in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and other post-Soviet countries to strengthen domestic efforts to preempt opposition challenges. Preemptive measures included restrictions on independent civil society, disruptions of independent electoral monitoring, promotion of pro-government civil society groups, and assaults on opposition and democracy assistance. Such actions, together with already existing endowments, allowed these regimes to survive. Next, the colored revolutions stimulated increased coordination among non-democratic states to squash opposition. Measures included counter-monitoring of elections to offset Western claims of fraud, and increased efforts at military and economic cooperation such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Simultaneously, Russia sought to destabilize Georgia and Ukraine through economic and, in Georgia, military pressure. This authoritarian backlash following the colored revolutions buttressed the surviving autocracies, which prospects for democratization have become even more bleak and distant.     

Hegemonic political parties in post-Soviet Eurasia: Towards party-based authoritarianism?

Hegemonic parties in authoritarian regimes can fulfill important purposes for those regimes and thereby contribute to their survival. Along with the consolidation of authoritarian regimes, hegemonic political parties have emerged in some post-Soviet states, raising questions about the role that these parties play in the survival of the regimes. This article asks which of the purposes that are frequently ascribed to ruling authoritarian parties are fulfilled by United Russia, the Yeni Azerbaijan Party, and Nur Otan of Kazakhstan, the hegemonic parties of the three strongest consolidated authoritarian regimes with a hegemonic party in the former Soviet Union. It is argued that despite the increasing prominence of the hegemonic parties, full-fledged party-based authoritarianism has not yet been established in Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.     

Ideological Recycling of the Socialist Legacy. Reading Townscapes of Minsk and Astana

This article addresses the ways in which the systemic transformation of the former Soviet republics has been reflected in urban development in two capital cities, Minsk (Belarus) and Astana (Kazakhstan). Changes taking place in these capitals have been analysed through the prism of an ideological recycling of the socialist legacy, a concept that permits exploration of which aspects of the socialist legacy have been jettisoned and which retained, in the process of formation of a capital. The article explores the nationalising strategies adopted by Belarus and Kazakhstan and reified by various practices, including those involving the recasting of cities. These strategies, however, are analysed not as inventions of post-Soviet regimes, but as forms of structural continuity.     

Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan as Post-Soviet Rentier States: Resource Incomes and Autocracy as a Double ‘Curse’in Post-Soviet Regimes

This article presents an analysis of two post-Soviet states, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which can be identified as post-Soviet rentier states. Both countries are characterised economically by enormous national resources of gas and oil and low economic diversification as well as politically by strong autocratic presidentialism with neopatrimonial structures. These two factors, combined with further post-Soviet legacies such as a low level of political interest in the respective societies and a basically hierarchical orientation of the population, lead to a specific post-Soviet variety of rentierism. From a political science perspective, this article reveals the impact of resource policies on these comparably new political systems and concludes with a summary of core features of these post-Soviet rentier states.     

The Soviet and the Post-Soviet: Street Names and National Discourse in Almaty

Abstract

While discussing Kazakhstan's post-Soviet identity, scholars treat ‘Kazakhisation’ as a given, and the substance of the process of developing such an identity is usually ignored. This article gives an insight into this process by analysing the politics of street names in Almaty and its relation to collective memory in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It is argued that the so-called ‘Kazakhisation’ of the country has been shaped primarily by the Soviet legacy, and it is in no sense pursuing the elimination of the Soviet past, or moving essentially anti-Russian lines. In fact, the post-Soviet discourse of the Kazakh nation is not a rupture but a continuation of Soviet discourses.     

Double Penalty in Returns to Education: Informality and Educational Mismatch in the Colombian Labour Market

This article examines the returns to education taking into consideration the existence of educational mismatches in the formal and informal employment of a developing country. Results show that the returns of surplus, required and deficit years of schooling are different in the two sectors. Moreover, they suggest that these returns vary along the wage distribution, and that the pattern of variation differs for formal and informal workers. In particular, informal workers face not only lower returns to their education, but suffer a second penalty associated with educational mismatches that puts them at a greater disadvantage compare to their formal counterparts.     

The Fight Against Government Corruption in Romania: Irreversible Results or Sisyphean Challenge?

The fight against political, especially government, corruption has dominated Romanian political discourse for many years. However, the vast majority of the political elite have continuously opposed the prosecution and conviction of defendants of corruption crimes. After a long constitutional conflict that seriously inhibited the fight against government corruption between 2006 and 2009, law enforcement agencies finally began to experience some success. Nevertheless, the extent of government corruption has remained consistently high. This article analyses the struggles that have occurred between 2004 and 2013 in the fight against government corruption in Romania and particularly examines the interplay between formal and informal factors in this field.     

Rethinking the Economic Relationship between Kazakhstan and Russia

According to their governments, economic relations between Kazakhstan and Russia—the two largest post-Soviet countries—have been exceptionally solid and robust. However, statistical data demonstrate that Russian investments in Kazakhstan's economy have been weak, and that Kazakhstan has only recently increased investment in the Russian economy. This raises the question of whether relations between the two countries have been more uneven than has been claimed officially. The article also explores the influence of off-shore investments via third countries and other aspects of the bilateral relationship between Kazakhstan and Russia and the involvement of each country in the other's economy.     

The International–Domestic Nexus in Anti-corruption Policy Making: The Case of Caspian Oil and Gas States

This article looks at the application, in the anti-corruption realm, of the analytical framework developed for transnational human rights advocacy by Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink. Focusing on Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, this article shows that the level of integration with Western actors on the state and corporate levels determined the degree to which the transnational anti-corruption regime has been accepted in the Caspian region. As the transnational regime does ultimately lack coercive powers, the tension between transnational demands and national political elites does not translate into serious conflict, as a broader formal acceptance of the transnational anti-corruption regime offers national actors only limited opportunities to genuinely promote the issue.     

Self-Determined Citizens? New Forms of Civic Activism and Citizenship in Armenia

This article examines the recent emergence and growth of grassroots social movements in Armenia which are locally known as ‘civic initiatives’. It considers what their emergence tells us about the development of civil society and the changing understandings and practices of citizenship in Armenia in the post-Soviet period. It analyses why civic initiatives explicitly reject and distance themselves from formal, professionalised NGOs and what new models of civic activism and citizenship they have introduced. It argues that civic initiatives embrace a more political understanding of civil society than that which was introduced by Western donors in the 1990s.     

Battlefields of Ethnic Symbols. Public Space and Post-Soviet Identity Formation from a Minority Perspective

This article provides an analysis of interdependencies between post-Soviet Erinnerungspolitik in public space and the individual perception of urban reconfigurations by ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan. Applying a qualitative social-geographic approach the author examines determinants of the process of ethnic symbolisation of real and imagined places. Individual biography and the extent of Soviet socialisation are factors shaping the personal perception of symbolic landscapes. From the perspective of the individual, space reflects the power distribution within society and hence, impacts on individual identity formation. Depending on the dominance of internal as opposed to external identification, the (perceived) changing ethnicised landscape of cities potentially fuels ethnic tension.     

Obtaining redress for abuse of office in Russia: The Soviet legacy and the long road to administrative justice

This article examines the options for redressing abuse of office available to citizens in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. I consider the courts, the procuracy, and the complaint mechanism as sites for citizens to lodge claims against abuse of office in late-Soviet and post-Soviet times. After the collapse of the Soviet system there was an attempt to overcome the Soviet legacy, to strengthen legal institutions and establish administrative justice. Analysis of Soviet and post-Soviet normative documents and statistical data allows us to argue that opportunities for Russian citizens to combat service crimes in the courts have improved substantially. However, the system for coping with abuse of office remains imperfect, and retains features of the Soviet legacy despite vague legislation about administrative justice and dual ways of coping with abuse through legal and quasi-legal mechanisms. The re-establishment of the complaint mechanism in the conditions of contemporary Russia exacerbates this imperfection. Overall, the complaint mechanism occupies a significant place in people's options for making claims against officials, especially claims against high-ranking officials.     

Wage determination in Brazil: The growth of union bargaining power and informal employment

This article examines wage determination in Brazilian manufacturing during the 1980s and early 1990s. It presents evidence to show that the reduction in state regulation of collective bargaining has led to the development of a system of wage determination which is increasingly characterised by rent sharing and insider trade union bargaining power. Real wages appear increasingly inflexible with respect to movements in open unemployment, with a large informal sector disciplining formal sector wage bargaining and cushioning the impact of broader labour market conditions. An important consequence of this is that the employment costs of a successful counter‐inflationary strategy may be very severe.     

中国参与非正式国际制度:以APEC和ARF为例

根据国家承诺属性的差别,国际制度可以分为正式国际制度和非正式国际制度。非正式国际制度的成员国之间不存在国际法意义上的权利与义务关系。亚太经合组织(APEC)和东盟地区论坛(ARF)都属于非正式国际制度。本文以中国参与这两项非正式国际制度为案例,考察中国在这两项非正式国际制度中政策偏好和行为模式的延续与变化,分析导致这些延续与变化的原因。本文发现,中国在加入APEC和ARF后,始终保持着对非正式制度的政策偏好,但行为模式逐渐向积极、主动的方向转变。这一外交行为特点,是缘于维护和促进国际利益的需要以及在参与后对制度规则的适应和学习。     

Regionalisation and regionalism in the post-Soviet space: Current status and implications for institutional development

The aim of this article is to analyse the nexus of integration and disintegration processes in the post-Soviet space. On the one hand it considers ‘formal’ regionalism projects and the reasons for their inefficiency, and explores the real impetus behind the repeated attempts at top-down regional integration by post-Soviet elites. On the other hand, it analyses the bottom-up regionalisation of the post-Soviet space through the investment activity of Russian corporations, and demonstrates possible effects of this process for institutional development.     

The evolution of Russian federalism and its current fiscal dilemmas: an institutional account

In order to make sense of the fiscal component of the emergent federalism in the post-Soviet Russian political system, this article provides an historical-institutional analysis which charts over time the development both of legal frameworks and informal political contexts, thus providing an overview of the changing mix of constraints, resources, and strategic opportunities present to actors occupying various roles within the federal system. Several discrete stages in the evolution of Russian federalism from the late Gorbachev era to the present are identified. According to this analysis, Russia's political system has elements of genuine federalism, but federalization is constrained by specific attributes of the Soviet legacy. Russian federalism is asymmetrical, that is, ethnically defined subunits (the republics) enjoy greater powers than their non-ethnically defined counterparts. This asymmetry may have been a necessary response to the ethnic ambitions of the so- called “autonomous” entities inherited from the Soviet era. At the same time, however, some of the non-ethnic subunits (principally the oblasts, or regions) have demanded similar rights of autonomy, especially with regard to control of natural resources, shared tax revenues, and other economic concerns. Developments since the mid-1990s suggest a modest return of power to the federal center at the expense of the subunits, but the latter still enjoy a degree of independence unheard of during the Soviet period. Meanwhile, there has been a trend toward equalization of economic powers between the republics and oblasts. Still worrisome, however, are the disparities in wealth among the various subunits and the penchant for self-enrichment on the part of leaders of otherwise impoverished regions and republics.     

Structural and Behavioural Characteristics of Informal Service Employment: Evidence from a Survey in New Delhi

This article argues that at least two distinct categories within the informal sector - informal services and informal manufacturing - exhibit different structural and behavioural characteristics. While some segments of informal manufacturing may indeed be 'dynamic' as noted by some recent studies, the hypothesis is tested for the informal service employment on the basis of a survey by the author in New Delhi, India. It examines investment, earnings, returns to human capital, socio economic characteristics and scope for upward mobility of informal service employment. It finds formal education does not explain differences in earnings in the sample but background characteristics do; earnings in the informal service sector are neither the lowest in the economy nor are they comparable to wages in the urban formal unskilled sector, when differences between migrants and non-migrants are taken into account. On the basis of these results, the paper reflects on the nature of growth and structural change in the Indian economy and draws some analytical and policy implications.