Legitimation and Identification in Kazakhstan

This article analyzes Kazakhstan's contested process of nation- and state-building through a closer examination of the links between legitimation and identity. A wider Weberian emphasis on how the elite relates itself to the broader relationship between rulers and ruled illuminates the difficulties Kazakhstan's elite has encountered in providing both a collective identity and one of self. This complex symbiotic relationship between self-legitimation, legitimation and identification is explained in terms of the economy, polity and perceptions of the Soviet order.