Identity in a country in transit: external projections vs internal conceptions of the Caspian macroregion from the perspective of Kazakhstan

Abstract

English-language political discourse on relations of states surrounding the Caspian Sea is increasingly constructed through geopolitical language, rooted in contestation, conflict and instability in international political discourse. This thesis critically examines the ‘Caspian Region’, a term first politicised in US foreign policy strategic discourse, to understand how this space is understood from the perspective of those who live and work there. This research is premised on the basis that the Caspian Region, like all political norms and societal structures, is socially constructed. The author rejects the normative view that regions and boundaries are permanent or immovable. Therefore, the Constructivist School of IR provides the intellectual backdrop to the inquiry. Critic Geopolitics and Neoregionalism augment this field to critically analyse the conventional world map and gain the ontological perspective required to encapsulate organic processes of region-building within a certain space. Using identity as an ‘eye-opener’, the author seeks to determine the importance of the spatial element of the foreign policy priorities of Kazakhstan and how individuals locate this. To do so, 16 academics, foreign policy analysts, and strategists from or based in Kazakhstan have been interviewed. This research finds that the external construction of a ‘Caspian Region’ is not matched within a leading state of the area concerned. The reasons for this are found in political, cultural and spatial relationships and processes. Kazakhstan does not see the Caspian Region as a profitable project. The political will required to undertake structural changes is lacking. Following centuries of Imperial Russian then Soviet political, economic and cultural superiority imposed on Kazakhstan, in the period since independence 1991 the country and its citizens have been in renegotiating what it means to be Kazakh. A process hastened by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Most Kazakhs are hesitant to engage in further cooperation in a Russia-dominated political project, underpinned by multivectorism -- Kazakhstan’s central foreign policy doctrine that seeks to balance regional superpowers – which supersedes relations with one pole at the expense of another. Kazakhstan’s regional priorities instead like in the concept of Central Asian/Eurasian states, not influenced by regional powers Russian and Iran. What the US sees as contestable space continues to be Russia’s backyard. Local ideational forces inhibit the state’s ability to act in tandem with the regional superpower to develop a regional project. The contestation over key concepts used in popular political discourses leads the author to propose a novel framework for studying this space in International Relations, contributing to the decolonization of Central & East European, Russian and Eurasian Studies discourse. The author argues that the political culture of Kazakhstan and systems of (pan) national identification locate region building priorities for Kazakhstan in Central Asia, rather than the ‘Caspian Region’.