Discourse analysis of different languages of newspapers in Kazakhstan reveals that Kazakhstanis' views toward China and the Chinese are divided. The official discourse in both state-sponsored Russian and Kazakh newspapers is in accordance with the country's policy toward further engagement with their rising Chinese neighbor.However, negative stereotypes of China and the Chinese, as well as sinophobia, are pervasive in private Kazakh language newspapers. Private Russian newspapers have a more nuanced view toward China, with a hidden inclination toward being critical of that country and its people. Although the majority of these societal voices do not have a direct impact on changing the national policies of Kazakhstan, they are important in the sense that Kazakhstan's ruling elite must continue to gauge social views and to placate differences in order to secure the stability and legitimacy of the regime.
The collapse of the Soviet Union led to profound changes in ethnicity and identity policies and practices in the newly independent countries, including Kazakhstan. The multiethnic population of Kazakhstan presented an immense challenge for the new regime and its approaches to the identity-building policies. This Article focuses on the identity-building policies of Kazakhstan and offers an overview of the legal framework regulating language use, education, media, citizenship, and official identity policy. This Article also focuses on the implementation of the officially stated policies and explores reasons behind inconsistencies and discrepancies between the declared policies and the de facto situation on the ground. Finally, this Article looks at the societal reactions towards the official identity and language policies expressed in the country’s public and media discourse. This Article argues that Kazakhstan’s post-independence identity- building process is affected by several important implications, including the legacy of Soviet nationality policy, significant continuity with late-Soviet policies and practices, the search for a new identity, and the regime’s aim to prevent political confrontation along ethnic lines by assuring Kazakh hegemony while allowing nominal minority representation.
The governance literature is currently in a state of conceptual confusion. Some scholars debate about the modes of governance (state, market, hybrids). Others argue about the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the rule of law. Fukuyama has recently joined the debate and argues that governance is "the government's ability to make and enforce rules, and to deliver services, regardless of whether that government is democratic or not." The key to Fukuyama's argument is to delink governance from democracy. He suggests that scholars should pay attention to two critical dimensions, which have been neglected in the literature: state capacity and autonomy. We build on Fukuyama's hypotheses by proposing several conceptual and operational measures of capacity and autonomy and
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.