Introduction

In Kazakhstan, an oil-rich country, the oil industry plays a key role in economic and political life due to the country’s considerable oil revenues, and accompanying conflicting interests. As an arena of political struggle, this industry provides a good test case for uncovering regime maintenance techniques. How did the post-Soviet Kazakh regime sustain itself in power? What sort of regime maintenance techniques did the Kazakh regime use in the process of establishing and upholding its position? This book attempts to answer these questions by scrutinizing the tools that the Kazakh regime applied in order to: a) bring the country’s oil industry under its control; and b) to maintain its grasp over it.