Bleaching out the Color: Kazakhstan’s Strategy Against Color Revolutions and Its Effectiveness

Abstract

This contribution is on the wave of popular protests that swept across Eurasia in 2000s and about the strategies and actions incumbent elites employed in Kazakhstan to prevent the spread of such protests in the country. A definition of color revolutions is made and similar terms, such as electoral revolutions and democratic breakthroughs are discussed. Also, the set of actions taken by Kazakh government are spelled out using process tracing method and their effectiveness in preventing color revolutions discussed. The main argument of this paper is that actions taken by Kazakh incumbents – limiting the power and opportunities for opposition, closer control of civil society and independent media groups, ideological counterattacks on color revolutions and international alliances with friendly anti-color-revolution states, have served power holders well. The given set of measures are also analyzed against previous and subsequent anti-revolution actions, as well as comparisons with Russian and Uzbekistani anti-color-revolution strategies are made.