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Astana's Privatised Independence: Private and National Interests in the Foreign Policy of Nursultan Nazarbayev

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Tor Bukkvoll
Tor Bukkvoll*
Affiliation:
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment in Oslo, Tor.Bukkvoll@ffi.no
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Extract

Nursultan Nazarbayev has been President of Kazakhstan since that country became independent in 1991. Observers expect him to remain in his current position until 2013, and there are clear indications that he has started to prepare for his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, to take over power after 2013. Analyses of Kazakhstan's foreign policy therefore both has had and will continue to have a close focus on the person of Nursultan Nazarbayev. In addition, this is all the more true because foreign policy in Kazakhstan to an extreme degree is a one-man affair. The present article discusses the interplay between personal and national interests as motivating factors in the foreign policy of Nazarbayev. More specifically, it investigates how these different types of motivation have influenced Nazarbayev's attempts to seek partnership with or distance from the USA and Russia.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 2004 , pp. 631 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

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