Kazakhstan’s foreign policy is shaped by geographical and demographic circumstances, by patterns of communication, transport and human settlement. The economy of the western region is based mainly on oil, that of the southern mainly on agriculture, and that of the northern and central mainly on extractive industry with some agriculture. The western region of Kazakhstan brings out, in Weberian terms, the ‘charismatic’ component of Nazarbaev’s authority; the southern region, the authoritarian component; and the north- central region, the bureaucratic component. The north-central region is the most complex because it represents the combination of two distinct overlapping sub-regions. The multiplicity of domestic geo-cultural bases for Kazakhstani foreign conduct provides an explanation of its multifarious foreign policies since independence. These policies are explicated in their relation to the social and cultural history in each of the three identified regions of the country.
This document is available in 
full-text.
- The Periodization of
Kazakhstan's Early
Foreign Policy
- Table 1. Periodization of the first five years of Kazakhstani foreign policy
- The “Tous Azimuts” Period: December 1990 through May 1992
- The “Pentagonal” Period: May 1992 through July 1994
- The “Crisis Program” Period: August 1994 through October 1995
- Geography and
Demography: Essential Sources of
Kazakhstani Foreign Policy
- Figure 1. Administrative Map of Kazakhstan at Independence
- Description
- Analysis
- Kazakhstani Foreign Policy since the End of 1995
- Conclusion
- Notes
Robert M. Cutler, “[Abstract of] ‘The Sources of Kazakhstani Conduct,’” pp. 63–76 in Continuity and Change in Central and Inner Asia, ed. Michael Gervers and Wayne Schlepp, Toronto Studies in Central and Inner Asia 5 (Toronto: University of Toronto, Asian Institute, 2002), available at <http://www.robertcutler.org/ch02mg.htm>, accessed 17 May 2008.