Nationalization of Natural Resources in Kazakhstan: "Hard" Resource Nationalism or Liberal Economic Policy.

Abstract

In contemporary geopolitical debate Kazakhstan's energy policy dimensions gained great attractiveness and its recent veering away from its "investment friendly'' policy was interpreted as the next classic example of "resource nationalism". In this paper I argue for an alternative approach to the particular case of Kazakhstan's "resource nationalism". My claim is that the Kazakhstani case of ''resource nationalism" does not completely coincide with the classic understanding of this phenomenon, and the description given in the literature does not embrace all elements of resource nationalism and does not analyze specific characteristics of this• case. By • analyzing the scope and the manner of the nationalization process I came to the belief that the mode of "resource nationalism" in Kazakhstan is a soft form and driven by structural conditions of market economics, more precisely, by the economic fluctuations that the country faced during its liberalization period. I view the nationalization of energy resources in Kazakhstan, firstly, as a backlash strategy for correcting the mistakes made by rapid privatization and secondly, as a consequential policy conditioned by "reciprocally broken promises". Thus, I argue that the nationalization policy of Kazakhstan remained within the framework of liberal economic principles and purposed to conceal the negative implications of its previous privatization policy.