Dosym Satpaev - An Analysis of the Internal Structure

I found an interesting paper written by Dosym Satpaev, a known Kazakh political scientist and head of the Almaty-based Risk Assessment Group. It has been written in 2005 but it still provides an interesting glimpse into the power politics within Kazakhstan's political elite. Among other things, Satpaev introduces several influential circles within the Kazakh elite and their ties to President Nazarbayev, and ponders a range of outcomes that could come define Kazakhstan's post-Nazarbayev legacy.

Here is an exerpt, and the whole paper can be found here:

"General Characteristics of Kazakhstan’s Modern Political Elite

• The elite is closed in nature and removed (economically, politically, informationally, and mentally) from the general population;
• The elite functions within the framework of a rigid hierarchy where concepts of professionalism are often disregarded in favor of concepts of personal loyalty and blood ties. This is also true, though to a lesser degree, for the business elite;
• The governing elite is not monolithic. On the contrary, it is caught in a state of continuous contradiction, as a result of which different blocks of convenience are formed around shared interests and the immediate political conditions among the elite;
• The main struggle within the elite is not for the right to spread its ideals of state and social development, but for the right to extend its influence over the head of state and other elite groupings, and only through these levers of power to influence the state and social development;
• The president of the country is the only guarantor of any stability within the political elite."