ABSTRACT

In the first decade of independence, the ruling regime in post-Soviet Kazakhstan proved to be highly resilient in the face of the threats posed by the broadly understood oil industry. Nazarbayev, once confronted with a direct challenge to his grip on the National Oil Company, was quick to replace the ill-serving corporatist technique with the patron-client instrument which was further strengthened in the process of the Kazakhization of the oil industry. Moreover, in order to address the growing sense of crisis in the oil-rich regions, besides using patron-client patterns on the local level, the regime also entered into a tacit agreement with foreign oil companies. As a result, by the early 2000s the mechanisms used by Nazarbayev’s regime to control the oil industry could be characterized as being highly personalized, with informal networks strongly favoured over formal institutions.