Abstract
This paper examines issues of multiculturalism and civic identity in Kazakhstan. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan, like many other post-Soviet states, had faced a challenge of creating a new sense of national identity. Despite calls and temptations for more revengeful and nationalistic policies, the country's leadership depicts Kazakhstan as a model for peaceful coexistence of multiple ethnic groups. This model of multiculturalism integrated a new civic supranational identity with preserved ethnicity-based identities, highlighting their peaceful coexistence. This study focuses on the three main approaches to analyze Kazakhstani national identity. First, in terms of policy analysis, I focus on the recent policy instruments implemented by the Kazakhstani government to handle ethnic diversity, as well as to promote ethnicity-based multiculturalism. Second, I incorporate an analysis of public discourse regarding perceptions of civic “Kazakhstani” national identity in the media as well as in official Kazakhstani government statements regarding multiculturalism and nation-building. Finally, I also analyze results of surveys conducted in Kazakhstan in 2005 and 2016 to explore substantial dynamics in the respondents' perceptions vis-à-vis ethnic-civic national identity issues. By incorporating these different approaches, this study illustrates the complexity of the Kazakhstani nation-building project by highlighting perceptions from the two main actors: the state and society. By using these different approaches, the study illustrates the complexity of the Kazakhstani supranational identity project and incorporates views and perceptions from the three main actors: the state, media, and society. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the Kazakhstani national identity discourse by focusing on both the “top-down” and “bottom-up” perspectives simultaneously. Scholarship of national identity issues in Kazakhstan and other post-Soviet Central Asian countries expanded considerably after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The literature concentrated on several key areas, such as the growing “revenge nationalism” process; the relationship between Kazakhs and other ethnic groups living in Kazakhstan, primarily Russians; the role of intra-Kazakh cleavages and continuity between Soviet policies and independent Kazakhstan's approaches to the language situation.1 More recent works on national identity in Kazakhstan have focused on the role of the state and policy instruments, such as the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan2 and micro-level developments, arguing that the multicultural approach of Kazakhstan remains more of an accidental choice rather than a cohesive policy.3 The scholarship of the mass media industry in post-Soviet Central Asia tends to concentrate on a generic framework of comparative authoritarianism studies and to focus on the role that mass media play (or, rather, are allowed to play) in modern authoritarian political regimes.4 Scholars of Central Asian media also highlight the restrictive environment in which media outlets have to operate, including censorship, extensive legal regulations limiting blogging and independent journalism, lack of a functioning and competitive mass media market, limited financial resources, and dependence of journalists on the state and private sponsorship and patronage.5 At the same time, relatively little has been done to address the role of media outlets in the nation-building process, though there were some recent studies related to the perception of “self” and “other” in the Kazakhstani media discourse.6 This aspect of the media is especially important as media outlets can “set the agenda” for domestic and international politics; they not only inform the audience of politically salient issues, but also influence readers' evaluations by interpreting news and facts in a positive or negative manner.7 This is especially the case in ethnically diverse and multilingual societies, where media can also reflect different perceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes that various ethnic groups possess and express about each other. Kazakhstan makes a good case to examine the public debates on national identity being a multiethnic post-Soviet state in the process of nation-building with significant ethnic minorities present in the country as well as two languages that are widely used in the media and everyday life. Survey-based studies on Kazakhstan's national identity issues have been expanding in the last few years. Rees, Sharipova et al., among others, focus on mass surveys and interviews to highlight popular perceptions of national identity issues, as opposed to the earlier predominant approach in the scholarship that focused almost exclusively on the “top-down” state approach and narratives.