Title
Russia-Kazakhstan Relations in the Early Post-Soviet Era: Explaining the Roots of Cooperation
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan was faced with domestic conditions that made cooperation with Russia rational. Kazakhstan inherited a large ethnic Russian population and a severe economic depression. These conditions affected other countries emerging from the Soviet Union, but only Belarus matched Kazakhstan’s level of strategic cooperation with Russia. President Nursultan Nazarbaev’s dominance of Kazakhstan’s national security agenda offers a partial explanation for the cooperation, but we still need to ask what makes him different from the leaders of other post-Soviet countries that faced the same conditions. Kazakhstan’s pattern of historical development provides the key to understanding the cooperation. The timing of the country’s contact and experiences with the Russian-led empires led to a ‘dominant ally’ image of Russia that continues to decide the two countries’ relationship to the present day.
DOI
http://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2020.1719979
Recommended Citation
Stevens, C.A. (2020). Russia-Kazakhstan relations in the early post-Soviet era: Explaining the roots of cooperation. Europe-Asia Studies, 72(7), 1153-1185. http://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2020.1719979 Please note that the Recommended Citation may not be appropriate for your discipline. For help with other citation styles, please visit http://libguides.misericordia.edu/citationguide.