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Papers by Assel Tutumlu (Rustemova)

Central Asian Survey

This article answers the question of why Central Asia studies has not contributed more fully to t... more This article answers the question of why Central Asia studies has not contributed more fully to the study of comparative politics since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It argues that during the Soviet period, Central Asia remained a dark matter to Western scholars specializing in Sovietology and who lacked access to the region. Although in the 1990s Western academics saw the 'light at the end of the tunnel', expecting Central Asia to join the liberal world order, these hopes declined after the 2000s when not only the transition paradigm failed, but also because a consolidated form of authoritarianism closed access to the field. In conclusion, this article offers the most promising fields for the development of the study of comparative politics across and inside Central Asia.

Theorizing Central Asian Politics, 2018

This chapter argues that governmentalization in post-Soviet Kazakhstan produced neopatrimonial ca... more 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.

Security Journal, 2021

While studies have explored how the porosity of the Nigeria–Niger Republic border has fuelled the... more While studies have explored how the porosity of the Nigeria–Niger Republic border has fuelled the insecurity in Nigeria, they have glossed over the value of a shift in strategy from surveillance to whistleblowing as an approach for managing trans-border arms trafficking. This study explores the inadequacy of the surveillance approach in the management of trans-border arms trafficking on theNigeria–Niger Republic frontiers and suggests the whistleblowing approach as a more effective border security governance alternative. This study utilized a qualitative dominant method based on ethnographic fieldwork, comprising participant observation and interviews with security personnel, community leaders, and other stakeholders purposively selected along the Nigeria–Niger Republic borders. The study found, among other things, that border communities have been excluded in the border security governance on the Nigeria–Niger Republic borders, which leads to information asymmetry that benefits arm...

Problems of Post-Communism, 2021

This article questions conventional interpretations of the nature of power in authoritarian regim... more This article questions conventional interpretations of the nature of power in authoritarian regimes that treat the political position of the ruler as hierarchical and top-down. Instead, it applies the principal–agent problem to information asymmetry in a single case study, Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan, to analyze the inability of the ruler to conduct effective oversight when officials engage in elaborate personality cults, depoliticization, and informal patronal practices that threaten the market and the legitimacy of the ruler. Data for this article came from local mass media and in-depth interviews with mid-level bureaucrats in Kazakhstan collected in 2011–2017 on a confidential basis.

Central Asian Survey, 2021

Rather than interpreting President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s nationbuilding model of Kazakhstani-nes... more Rather than interpreting President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s nationbuilding
model of Kazakhstani-ness as a balance between civic
and ethnic forms of nation-building, we show that Kazakhstaniness
was styled on Leonid Brezhnev’s supranational modern
identity of the Soviet People. We explore three similarities by
comparing rulers’ discursive aspirational statements (rather than
historical policy trajectories) in a single case study of Kazakhstan.
Both discursive models were based on teleological supranational
state ideology, both were depicted as modern and advanced, and
both modelled the new identity on the language and culture of
ethnic majority. We used thematic discourse analysis in over 50
government documents and speeches of leaders to illustrate our
argument. This case presents bigger lessons for regime’s power
of defining the national membership in post-Soviet Kazakhstan
and beyond.

Multiple theories of authoritarian persistence have attempted to explain the durability of Presid... more Multiple theories of authoritarian persistence have attempted to explain the durability of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s regime in Kazakhstan. Some attribute this success to economic growth and relatively large revenues from mineral rents. Others claim that Nazarbayev’s ability to mediate differences among clans and his capacity to keep “the house in order” have made him indispensable. Lastly, some scholars point to Nazarbayev’s ability to sideline potential opponents through electoral manipulation, leaving him the only viable candidate. But not many scholars are able to explain the process of authoritarian stability. They fail to answer the question of how the
authoritarian regime in Kazakhstan remains durable in both good and bad times. What logic drives the mechanism of political stability? How exactly does Nazarbayev negotiate and maintain control over his political position?
This chapter provides an analytical framework of authoritarian stability.
Authoritarian stability is a situation in which the same nondemocratic ruler stays in power regardless of the electoral law and relative domestic peace is maintained through the consent of the elites and population in economic booms and busts. Although the framework can be applied to other countries, this chapter illustrates the workings of authoritarian rule through an in-depth analysis of the single case.

This article aims to give an overview of the analytical approaches to political economy of Centra... more This article aims to give an overview of the analytical approaches to political economy of Central Asia. It argues that twenty years after transition paradigm we still find lingering separation between politics and economics that compartmentalizes studies of economic development, nation-and state-building into separate projects. 1 The analytical separation between economics and politics creates two crucial problems for scholars of development in Central Asia: the suspense of theorization of economy and lack of attention to the new practices of governing. Two theories tried to solve the issue of separation. First is the theory of the "resource curse", which argues for the inability of a raw material supplier to develop a healthy democratic system . The second view, "varieties of capitalism" traces institutional and historical peculiarities as preconditions for a stable marketoriented democratic system Luong, 2000). However, the first view is rather deterministic in relying on a single variable to prove the case; whereas, the second view is highly arbitrary by picking specific historical and cultural contexts that suit the case. I argue that post-structuralist approaches and specifically, the framework of "governmentality"a term coined by Michel Foucault, allows for more fruitful heuristic exercise. Governmentality as an analytical approach looks at the way the state positions itself in its society and determines the type of governing rationale it adopts. Particularly, it incorporates both discursive and structural-technological conditions of each state into analysis by augmenting the data before constructing the theory to argue what rationale drives government activities in the state. Governmentality speaks to both "resource curse" and the "varieties of capitalism" by enriching and complicating them while allowing identification of how rationales of governing evolve and change over time.

Europe-asia Studies, 2009

and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study pu... more and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

Books by Assel Tutumlu (Rustemova)

This volume intends to revive the much neglected and highly misunderstood concept of the 1990s, m... more This volume intends to revive the much neglected and highly misunderstood concept of the 1990s, multilateralism, and situate it within the global governance research. In a recent commentary for the journal Governance, David Coen and Tom Pegram (2015) called for a third generation global governance research effort. We hear this call to bring multilateralism back in. By creating the first attempt at the third generation research in multilateralism, we want to go beyond the distinction of multilateralism vs global governance and trace how the former works within the latter. In other words, our goal is not to vindicate multilateralism as a useless concept compared to the benefits of global governance, as many second generation scholars have done; rather we seek to identify processes and issue-areas where multilateralism works within the structures of global governance and to map its contemporary limitations. This conceptual synergy is especially important today, when there is substantial variation in the extent to which multilateral commitments persist, both across issue-areas and over time. Understanding these interactions require close study of political alignments within specific issue-areas as well as systematic comparative analysis of patterns across them.

Book Reviews by Assel Tutumlu (Rustemova)

Book Review, 2022