ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with redefinitions of the relationship between state and citizens, what might be called the social contract, after the end of the Soviet Union in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital city.1 Specifically, I focus on the diminution of urban social welfare provision after 1991 as the element of the revised social contract that was experienced and debated most keenly by my informants (see also Haney 2000). I explore this aspect of the retraction of state concerns as seen within the public administration and two neighbourhoods through an examination of water and electricity use and ownership. One neighbourhood case study is drawn from the 1960s micro-region of state-built apartment blocks in which I was living in 2000 and 2001, the other study is based on one of the rapidly growing peri-urban areas around Almaty where basic infrastructure is still poor or lacking.
