ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 establishes the thematic and conceptual background of the study: it introduces the working definition of the democracy concept that will be used throughout the study; it delineates the core aspects of the democratization process; finally, it addresses the development of democracy in the aftermath of the Cold War, that is, during and after unipolarity, establishing the global-local nexus of Western dominance. In this regard, the core aspects of current academic debates on the subjects of democracy promotion and authoritarian diffusion will be introduced, elucidating the particular role of China’s normative functioning in this regard. At the end of the chapter, the main protagonist of the analysis at hand, post-Soviet Kazakhstan, is presented.
