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A quarter-century of independence has transformed Kazakhstan into a leading Central Asian economy and consolidated authoritarian regime. The political systems of Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan were very similar to that of Kazakhstan until they were hit by a "color revolution virus" that dismantled authoritarian institutions and initiated democratic reforms. How, then, has Kazakhstan-like other Central Asian autocracies- remained somewhat immune to these bottom-up revolutions? This paper adopts a social movement perspective to explain how such factors as resource mobilization, political opportunities, and protest framing strategies have shaped protest mobilization dynamics in Kazakhstan, a variable that was crucial to the success of color revolutions. Through elite interviews and newspaper content analysis of protest events in Kazakhstan between 1992 and 2009, the article suggests that the Kazakh government has erected numerous anti-democratic barriers, illustrating how autocracies have learned from the successes and failures of color revolutions to remain in power.
A number of so-called "color revolutions" that began in the early 2000s and spanned autocracies from the Middle East to South Asia have occasioned dramatic political transformations in a number of former Soviet Union (FSU) countries. These democratic transitions have redrawn the socio-political and economic landscapes of affected authoritarian and hybrid regimes.1 It remains to be seen whether the Georgian Rose, Ukrainian Orange and Kyrgyz Tulip revolutions have brought their respective countries anywhere close to the desired consolidation of democracy. But it is already clear that these events broke political stalemates by overthrowing authoritarian regimes and initiating democratic transitions-a prerequisite for democratic consolidation.2 The question of what made color revolutions possible in these countries, at the same time as they failed to materialize in other FSU countries with which they shared a common past-such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Russia-is a question that has spawned numerous articles in the fields of post-Soviet politics and democratization.3
Located in the heart of Eurasia, Kazakhstan is the 9th-largest country in the world, with a multiethnic population of over 17 million people. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country's president since the collapse of the Soviet Union, promotes Kazakhstan as "an island of stability and accord."4 This portrayal has some merit: unlike other FSU states, Kazakhstan not only managed to avoid civil war during the early post-independence years, but has also achieved sustained...