Book Reviews: Kazakhstan in the Making: Legitimacy, Symbols, and Social Changes

The book opens with Assel Tutumlu's analysis of pension reform, a balancing act between the needs of society, loyalist oligarchs, and potentially predatory officials. Sebastien Peyrouse provides a detailed account of Kazakhstan's wealthiest and most influential elite groups and what they h...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Slavic review 2018, Vol.77 (4), p.1088-1090
Main Author: Pohl, Michaela
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Advocacy
Bibliographic literature
Famine
Field study
Kazakh language
Legitimacy
Minority & ethnic violence
Nationalization
Oligarchy
Political activism
Reforms
Society
Turkic languages
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Summary:The book opens with Assel Tutumlu's analysis of pension reform, a balancing act between the needs of society, loyalist oligarchs, and potentially predatory officials. Sebastien Peyrouse provides a detailed account of Kazakhstan's wealthiest and most influential elite groups and what they have gained since the 1990s, including the president's family and its offshoots, several sets of Astana-based bosses, and a “well-managed” dissident group (including the former boss of Kazkommertsbank, a “Kazakh Khodorkovsky”). Few advocate directly against Russians, urging them to leave, for instance. Because of the government's and many Kazakhs’ continuing support for the Russian language, the issues are still how forcefully to promote the Kazakh language and how to end the perceived silence on historical injustices, most prominently the Kazakh famine.
ISSN:0037-6779
2325-7784
DOI:10.1017/slr.2018.329