Authors

Florence Ertel¹; Julian Plottka¹;  ¹ University of Passau, Germany

Discussion

Against the backdrop of recent crises and geopolitical changes, the Kazakh and other Central Asian governments signal interest in deepening economic ties with the West. If the European Union and other Western countries decide to take the opportunity and intensify relations with Kazakhstan, the number of companies which consider investments in the Central Asian country will increase.

Such investments are not without political risks. Therefore, we analyse in our paper political risks originating from the domestic context of the Central Asian countries on the one hand and the external context of geopolitical changes on the other hand. As internal factors we consider the violent protests of January 2022 as an expression of dissatisfaction with the socio-economic situation in Kazakhstan (societal factors), the economic impact of the ongoing economic crisis in Russia since 2014 and the consequence of the COVID19-pandemic as well as the recent constitutional reform moving the country away from hyper-presidentialism (political or state-related factors). With regard to the external environment, we analyse the changing Kazakh-Russian relations and the search for a new balance in the Kazakh multi-vector foreign policy towards China, Europe and the United States. We have selected these factors for our analysis in order to focus on the ongoing changes in Kazakhstan. Based on our assessment, we will draw conclusions, how companies can mitigate the potential impact of these risks on their business activities in Kazakhstan and what the EU can do to facilitate investments in Central Asia.