Towards a more rational international order? : The West, China, and the democratization of post-Soviet Kazakhstan

Open Access

Abstract

Does China deliberately promote democracy resistance in non-Western, non-democratic states so as to weaken the prevalence of liberal norms on the local level and thus contribute to the normative diversification on the global level? Drawing upon insights from international socialization theory and social psychology, this book examines China's efforts to multi-polarize - and hence potentially de-liberalize, even de-Westernize - the international system from a local perspective, investigating Beijing's normative engagement in post-Soviet, newly independent Kazakhstan. This is a nation that, during a two-decade trajectory of political development (1991 – 2012), experienced a substantial normative turnaround: it evolved from an enthusiastic supporter of liberal democracy and the West's normative domination of international affairs into an overt critic of both – however, only after the Kazakh government institutionalized its relationship with the Beijing-initiated and -led Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Using a quasi-experimental research design, this book traces and juxtaposes the respective patterns of Kazakhstan's democracy-oriented regime transformation and political identity development before the SCO entered the region (1991 – 2001) and after (2002 – 2012), yielding not only unexpected conclusions about the quality of post-Soviet democratization outcomes, but also about Beijing's local and global influence potentiality – and its limits.