Neopatrimonialism and authoritarian decentralisation: the case of Kazakhstan

Decentralisation is a concept developed in the context of liberal democracies, and it assumes the presence of the rule of law and free and fair elections. This paper argues that existing conceptualisations have limited explanatory power in autocracies and proposes an alternative concept of authoritarian decentralisation. Per the proposed concept, the authority of regional governments in autocracies is based on trust-based relations between national and subnational elites and the latter’s ability to monopolise power within regions. The study is based on document and interview data from Kazakhstan and draws on the experiences of other authoritarian countries such as China and Russia.