Abstract
Over three decades of its independence, Kazakhstan faced strong public outcry against nuclear energy despite continuous attempts to embrace it as part of the country’s development strategy. This article examines how Kazakhstan managed to navigate past the long-lasting nuclear impasse and alleviate existing tensions in the society, ultimately leading to the deepening nuclear energy consensus, despite the country’s standing anti-nuclear sentiments. This research unpacks how the Kazakh government fostered a pro-nuclear agenda, employing methods that diverge from traditional authoritarian top-down approaches of silencing dissent and enforcing compliance. This qualitative study explores public deliberations on the proposed nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan through a mixed-method approach. Primary data was collected via ethnographic fieldwork (2023–2024) in several cities in Kazakhstan, including observations of formal discussions. Content, thematic, and discourse analyses of media and social media sources were conducted to capture public sentiment and the societal context surrounding the project. Findings show that by shifting the discourse from an inherently political and historically fraught topic towards a narrative centred on economic growth, energy security and environmental sustainability, the Kazakhstan’s administration effectively depoliticized an issue that had been hitting a nerve within Kazakh society for decades.