Kazakhstan: Power and the Elite
2006; Middle East Institute; Volume: 60; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1940-3461
Autores Tópico(s)Russia and Soviet political economy
ResumoCENTRALASIA Kazakhstan: Power and the Elite, by Sally N. Cummings. New York and London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2005. vi + 155 pages. Appendix to p. 160. Notes to p. 180. Bibl. to p. 198. Index to p. 202. $45. As I write this review, Kazakhstan is less than two days from reelecting its authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, for a third term - in elections that are unlikely to meet international standards. Sally Cummings, who has become a must-read source on Central Asia in general and Kazakhstan in particular, has written an impressive profile of the Kazakhstan! political elite and the mechanisms of soft authoritarian rule that is as timely as it is insightful. Her book offers an important scholarly contribution that could also serve well in an upper-division, specialized, undergraduate course. Based upon a variety of research methods (elite interviews, systematic consideration of a panel of experts, a thorough reading of the secondary literature and indigenous sources, and databases on political appointments), Cummings proposes to create a portrait of elite politics in Kazakhstan. And she succeeds admirably, producing a monograph that details the creation of authoritarian practices, the emergence of rent seeking behavior, and strong patron-client structures that resulted in the crucial period from 1991-2001. What emerges is a study that is vivid and well documented on the one hand, and refreshingly honest about the uncertain state of our knowledge about an insular and private elite on the other. Indeed, studies of elites are too easy to decry as incomplete; witness the limitations of Kremlinology during the Cold War. By conceding the limitations of data, Cummings reminds us that the scholar's task is to contribute to knowledge - to begin, rather than to end, the conversation. After setting the empirical and conceptual scene in the introduction and chapter 1, she turns her attention to the career paths of particular members of the elite (chapter 2), elite social background (chapter 3), elite self-legitimation (chapter 4), how the elite maintains itself in power (chapter 5), and the broader social and political environment which both enables and constrains the elite (chapter 6). A short conclusion sums up. Each chapter adds to our knowledge of elite politics, eclectically building on and where appropriate - challenging existing literature. Particularly novel, however, is chapter 5, which begins to lay bare the inner workings of this soft authoritarian state - something that begs to be done in a fulllength book of its own right. …
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