Abstract
This study integrates policy borrowing research and polycentric governance literature to examine the establishment of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools as a system of public international schools in Kazakhstan. Drawing on 28 elite interviews with national and international policy actors, the study analyzes how global education policy ideas were externalised, legitimised, and translated within a polycentric governance arrangement. The findings show that senior government officials strategically invoked external references to build reform coalitions and to justify the creation of NIS as a protected institutional space exempt from centralised ministerial regulation. Through special legal status and mandated strategic partnerships, NIS became a distinct decision-making centre in national curriculum reforms within Kazakhstan’s polycentric governance arrangement. Local adaptation at NIS and the spread of curricular innovations to mainstream schools unfolded through negotiation and conflict among decision-making centres, resulting in a reconfiguration of roles within the national policy system. The study contributes to education policy scholarship by demonstrating how centralised states may selectively cultivate polycentric arrangements to manage transnational policy borrowing while retaining political oversight. © 2026 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.