The failure of liberal democratisation in Kazakhstan

After 1991, the newly independent republics of the former Soviet Union were seen as the new frontier for the reproduction of the ‘Western way’ of doing business and organising society, and as a result they were bombarded by Western diplomats, businesspeople, consultants, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) trying to show them how to be part of the West. Western analysts believed that with their help liberal capitalist democracies would become the norm in the region. Starting with Francis Fukuyama and his ubiquitously cited book from the time, The End of History and the Last Man, liberal democracy — and its liberal economic fellow traveller, capitalism — was seen as the only ideal left and would make the world ‘freer’. ¹ Free and open markets were seen as necessary to start democracy, ² and liberal globalisation would change domestic and international politics as states would lose their primacy in international politics to international organisations, such as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), as well as multinational corporations (MNCs) and civil society or NGOs. ³ Gregory Gleason, for one, argued in 2003 that liberal globalisation was forcing states in Central Asia to conform to the Western ideals of liberal democracy. ⁴