Governmentalization of the Kazakhstani State: Between Governmentality and Neopatrimonial Capitalism

Abstract

This chapter argues that governmentalization in post-Soviet Kazakhstan produced neopatrimonial capitalism, which enabled people to gain informal access to wealth outside of market principles and guaranteed relative well-being. By relying on Michel Foucault’s theory of the state (Lemke 2007), this chapter redefines the nature of political authority away from objects, functions and policies towards technologies, strategies and practices to show that Kazakhstan adopted efficiency as the primary technology of power in opposition to the Soviet governing rationale of equality. Efficient re-organization of political economy with strategies of free enterprise, equality of outcomes and individual responsibility drastically diminished social welfare prompting establishment of neopatrimonial capitalism. A single case study of Kazakhstan sheds light on the political theory of neoliberalism, development studies and policy analysis.