Abstract
ABSTRACTSoon after independence, Kazakhstan established the state-sponsored student mobility programme ‘Bolashak’, which has since provided almost 12,000 young people with full scholarships for their studies abroad. Bolashak is considered here as a multidimensional tool, promoting development and channelling authoritarian rule at the same time. Through a series of qualitative interviews with alumni of the programme, this paper investigates the authoritarian and paternalistic features in Bolashak-related policies and discourses, looking at how they contribute to the three ‘pillars’ of authoritarian stability: repression, co-optation and legitimation. The findings of this paper question the assumption that globalization is bringing only challenges to autocracies. Kazakhstan is an example of how contemporary authoritarian regimes may open up to the world in order to seek development as well as political stability.
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