ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Kazakhstan. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Kazakhstan. The 1999 Kazakhstani census revealed that, emigration by Russians had resulted in ethnic Kazakhs constituting more than half of the country's population. Kazakhstan joined most of its Central Asian neighbours in 2001 in offering its support for the US-declared war on terrorism following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Kazakhstan's parliament overwhelmingly approved a law in June 2000 giving Nazarbayev lifetime privileges after the end of his second term in office in 2006.
