Professional Affiliation

Ph.D. Student, Institute for Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, United Kingdom

Wilson Center Project

Dynamics of Personal Rule in Central Asia: Regime Behavior in Kazakhstan

Project Summary

Utilizes and developes a body of comparative government literature on sultanistic regimes, noting the highly personalized system of political control, seeking to explain the structural similarity of such regimes through the accommodation that transnational corporations (oil and gas) and institutions of liberal economic governance (IMF, World Bank and OECD) have reached with fundamentally illiberal forms of political governance in Central Asia. Examines the impact on the political elites, and their attitudes toward human rights, political repression and corruption. Focuses on Kazakhstan.