Authors

Discussion

There is extant literature about the role of political leaders in politics and policy formation in comparative political science and in the context of hybrid and authoritarian regimes in post-Soviet Eurasia (Hale 2014; Frye 2022; Huskey 2016; Fortescue 2017; Wilson 2021; Galeotti 2019). The literature on leadership in post-Soviet Eurasia builds on the earlier research analysing the way Soviet political leaders constructed their power, authority and influenced policy and reform in the nominally communist authoritarian bureaucratic regime in the Soviet Union (e.g. Brown 1983; 1996). The present paper/chapter draws on the research on Soviet and Eurasian political leaders, and especially those studies that emphasise the importance of leaders’ ideas and discourses (Kudaibergenova 2019; Khmelnitskaya et al. 2023), as well as on comparative authoritarianism and public policy literatures. The paper offers a discursive model of domestic policymaking and governance by authoritarian presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan.

The study relies on the analysis of presidential speeches by the Russian and Kazakhstani presidents and further policy formation and implementation by national government and local officials, with important involvement of civil society actors; and on the secondary literature. The paper argues that authoritarian presidents guide domestic policy and governance by controlling and adjusting the “institutional discourse” that defines the authoritarian rules of the game. They nonetheless allow a greater degree of freedom as far as “policy discourse” is concerned, thus inviting contributions by other policy participants among the officials, civil society and citizens. The latter type – policy discourse – displays greater pluralism which speaks to Juan Linz’ (2000) observation that modern autocracies are inherently pluralistic. The former – to a much greater extent approximates to the view of personalistic nature of autocracies and policymaking in Russia and Kazakhstan (Frye 2022; Taylor 2018).