ABSTRACT
Underpinned by informal powers of patronage and an extensive patron–client network, the president of Kazakhstan has been able to define and manage the formal institutional boundaries within which political parties emerge and function. Formal rules, while for the most part seemingly operating at a rational level in order to appeal to and impress the international community, are designed on the assumption and expectation that state agencies and local executives will demonstrate loyalty to the president in exchange for their political positions by ensuring the marginalization of parties and actors critical of the regime. It has led to the formation of a party system dominated by the president's party Nur Otan (Light of Fatherland). What effect, therefore, have these formal institutional constraints, influenced by the informal politics of selective application, had on the types of parties that have emerged in Kazakhstan? How have parties memberships, organizations, decision-making structures, ideologies and behavioural norms been affected by both the informal and formal rules of the game within which they operate? Moreover, to what extent, and in what shape, does the formal–informal dynamic apparent in neopatrimonial regimes appear internally within political parties? This chapter seeks to address these questions.
