Interconnectedness of nationalism and authoritarianism: the role of nationalism in regime legitimisation and power personalisation in post-Soviet Kazakhstan and Tajikistan

Abstract

The role of (non-)representational symbolism and nationalism in post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s and Tajikistan’s regime-building process remains the least studied despite the extremely high magnitude of accommodated national symbols, monumental space, and metanarrative in both former Soviet republics. Increasingly personalistic authoritarian regimes where
personality cults of both — Nursultan Nazarbayev and Emomali Rahmon — have gone beyond is more remarkable considering two countries of the former Soviet Union with various distinct characteristics. This thesis claims that post-Soviet Kazakhstan and Tajikistan is a strong case-study for understanding the
interconnectedness of nationalism and authoritarianism, and its vital role to acquire “legitimacy” for consolidating and personalising power. The research explores the change in Kazakhstan’s and Tajikistan’s form and substance of nationalism as a multifaceted process, with delicately institutionalised and instrumentilised type becoming a significant variable source of power legitimation (domestically and internationally) and
personification. The primary tools for achieving these aims were the unearthing the history, myth, and the utilisation of nationalism which act as driving engine for the progress of regime signification from the early days of independence up until now. The study’s central arguments are (1) that nationalism in both republics became the first and foremost variable source of “legitimacy framework” in the early wakes of independence
when other sources were yet to revive; (2) monopolistic exhibition of nationalism enables regimes to frame the substance of nationalism that denigrates any opponents from
political landscape thus helps regimes to become inalterable; and (3) that the successful management of monumental space is the engine for the advancement of regime signification and generating compliance within masses (alongside the real repressive policing and surveillance) sustains the stability and durability of authoritarian regimes in “state of emergency” periods, and nurtures personality cults of leaders. To support these claims, the study provides extensive qualitative analysis of primary and secondary sources.