KAZAKHSTAN KLEPTOCRACY.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: KAZAKHSTAN

KAZAKHSTAN STRETCHES OVER 1 million square miles in Central Asia. It is richly endowed with oil, gas, and hard mineral resources. The country has 30 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves, the 12th largest in the world, and produces some 1.8 million barrels of oil per day. Hydrocarbon output constituted about 70 percent of exports in 2020. Yet those vast natural riches have not stopped the country from slipping into kleptocracy.

As the last former republic to declare independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in December 1991, Kazakhstan was led for nearly 30 years by President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev stepped down in

2019 and was followed by his hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. But Nazarbayev retains the crucial post of chairman of Kazakhstan's Security Council and remains head of the ruling Nur Otan ("Light of the Fatherland") political party.

Analysts suggest that foreign direct investment and links to Western natural resource companies might help moderate corruption in countries like Kazakhstan. But authoritarianism and abundant natural resources are a treacherous combination. In a 2020 article, University of Richmond political scientist Sandra Joireman and her colleagues found that "the institutional reforms we would anticipate because of [economic] linkages have not occurred and those that exist are often cosmetic" in Kazakhstan. The authors suggest that Western companies "are willing to engage in 'commerce under anarchy' and even risk governments seizing property if returns from the investment are high enough."

Nazarbayev established a "neopatrimonial regime," George Washington University international affairs professor Sebastien Peyrouse wrote in 2012. Such regimes can "differ depending upon whether they emphasize political...