Crisis in Kazakhstan
There have been nationwide protests in Kazakhstan recently and the Western media did what they always do: show a few pictures of destruction and ignore the cause of the people in the streets. With Russian troops coming in to ‘maintain order’ and a ban on the widely used mobile internet it’s very hard to tell what is going to happen next.
This week on Black Diplomats Terrell talks to two experts who are from the Kazakh region and know firsthand the frustrations that are driving the largely peaceful protests. Dr Diana T. Kudaibergenova is a lecturer and author who specializes in Central Asia, and Dr. Asel Doolotkeldieva teaches graduate courses in Political Science at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek.
They’re both keen observers of the post-Soviet struggles in the region and perfect guests Black Diplomats.
Thank you for listening!
Dr. Diana T. Kudaibergenova
Dr Diana T. Kudaibergenova is a lecturer in Political Sociology at the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge. She is the author of recently published "Toward Nationalizing Regimes. Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm" (Pittsburgh, 2020) study on complex regime-society relations and nation-building processes and a forthcoming study about contentious politics under authoritarianism.
Dr. Asel Doolotkeldieva
Dr. Asel Doolotkeldieva teaches graduate courses in Political Science at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek. She earned her PhD from the University of Exeter (UK) in Politics and her Masters’ degree from Sciences Po Paris. Previously, she was a Visiting Fellow at College Mondial, FMSH (Paris, France). Her academic interests include social mobilizations, regime transition and democratization, postsocialism, and political economy of resource extraction in Central Asia.