The Outflow of Minorities from the Post-Soviet State: The Case of Kazakhstan

Abstract

Since achieving independence in December 1991, Kazakhstan has made cautious progress in assuring political rights and freedoms for all its citizens by stressing, among other things, the equality of the different ethnic groups in society, and the equality of individuals before the law. However, an observable outflow of the non-Kazakh population² from the territory of Kazakhstan has caused a certain hesitation about this. It has received a fairly consistent international response in the scholarly literature and press.³ In almost all cases, the emphasis is on emerging Kazakh nationalism as the most obvious reason for the emigration of the non-native population. It has also been suggested that the Kazakhs would have little to gain from it, given the allegedly dominant economic role of Russians, in particular, within the country, and given also their external dependence on Russia.