Who could be the driving force behind “significant changes” in the developing countries? The World Bank experts in their report “Governance and the Law” give an answer to this crucial, according to many, question.

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As usual, we will start with some quotes from the report.

•  “Changes in contestability, incentives, and preferences and beliefs are the key levers for correcting power asymmetries in the policy arena, leading more effectively to commitment, coordination, and cooperation. But how can these changes be brought about? This Report identifies three encouraging drivers for bringing about significant changes conducive to development: elite bargains (which take the distribution of power in the policy arena as a given); citizen engagement (which tries to change the distribution of power in the policy arena); and international interventions (which indirectly affect the distribution of power in the policy arena)—see box O.9.

• All countries, regardless of their level of economic and institutional development, are subject to elite bargains. Change is unlikely to occur unless powerful actors—elites—in the country agree to that change. When influential actors resist change, suboptimal policies and governance institutions that are detrimental to development tend to persist. Under certain circumstances, however, elites may voluntarily agree to limit their influence in their own self-interest. Citizens can also organize to bring about change, playing an important role in applying pressure to influence the outcome of favorable bargains in the policy bargaining process. Moreover, governance does not occur solely within the boundaries of nation-states. Although international actors cannot engineer development from the outside, these transnational actors play an important role in influencing the domestic bargaining dynamics by strengthening (or weakening) local coalitions for reform”.
• “Just as in the Spanish transition, elites frequently choose to constrain their own power. Changes to the “rules of the game” often reflect bargaining outcomes that result from elites acting in their own interests (box O.10). While seemingly counterintuitive, reforms that limit the arbitrary exercise of power today may be necessary for elites to maintain or enhance their power or to provide insurance against a loss of power tomorrow”.

• “Formal institutions—moving from deals to rules—can enhance the credibility of commitments, overcome coordination challenges among elite actors, and strengthen the stability of elite bargains. In cases of long-term successful transformation, elite actors have adapted to changing circumstances by generating more capable, contestable, and accountable institutions, and these institutions themselves have helped enable further development.
• To maintain their own power and influence, coalitions of decision makers may have incentives to broaden the policy arena, including adding new actors to formal decision-making bodies and increasing accountability to other elites (horizontal accountability). Despite a preference for keeping coalitions small, elites may choose to broaden them to improve stability when the potential for conflict rises. Bringing new actors into credible institutions for contestation may be less costly than repressing them, and expanding the formal accountability space may help provide internal commitments that facilitate agreement.
• Institutionalizing accountability to citizens (vertical accountability)—for example, through the introduction of elections or electoral reforms—may also be a rational elite strategy to maintain privilege, particularly in the face of rising demands from the opposing elite. When splits develop among elite actors, the introduction of vertical accountability mechanisms can enhance the bargaining power of one faction. Moreover, when bottom-up citizen movements threaten elite interests, elites may choose to introduce preemptive vertical accountability mechanisms to respond to societal demands before such pressure reaches a tipping point. In Europe in the 19th century, the extension of suffrage was heralded by the threat of revolution and social upheaval in the form of revolutionary activity in neighboring countries34 and strikes in the home country.
• Although elites often choose rules to maintain their position of power, sometimes—when acknowledging threats to their continued dominance—they may adopt rules to constrain their own influence as a type of political insurance. The hope is that those rules will bind not only them but also their successors. The adoption of cohesive and constraining institutions increases with the likelihood that the incumbent government will be replaced. This is an institutional variation on American philosopher John Rawls’s “veil of ignorance”: design institutions without knowing whether you will be subject to or master of them in the subsequent period.36 Fiscal transparency, for example, ties not only the hands of current elites but also those of successors”.
• “Leaders can also spur elite-driven change by solving coordination challenges or by transforming the preferences and beliefs of followers. Transactional leaders use an array of bargaining tactics and strategies to promote coordination among elite actors and reach positive-sum outcomes (win-win solutions). These leaders change the incentives of other elites by taking into consideration who wins and who loses over time. By overcoming information and coordination challenges through political strategy, they can help find areas of agreement among conflicting parties without necessarily shifting norms or preferences”.
• “Transformational leaders can, in addition, actually change elite preferences or gain following by shaping beliefs and preferences. They are entrepreneurial in coordinating norms and can effect large changes in society by changing the environment in which politics plays out, often by reducing the polarization of elites”.

A simple analysis will show that, as of now, there are no “encouraging drivers for bringing about significant changes conducive to development” in Kazakhstan.

Let us start with the “international interventions”. Here we have the evident sharp decrease of the Western interest towards the Central Asian region and Kazakhstan. The USA and the EU have abandoned their attempts to implement democracy in the region and assumed the position of observers. Perhaps the elites of these countries got tired of the ineffectiveness of these attempts. Or, may be, their domestic problems have worsened to the extent that the matter of the democracy implementation abroad is no longer relevant. As for Russia and China, due to the domestic and foreign-policy issues, both countries show no desire for Kazakhstan’s political development.

Now, let us consider the next “encouraging driver” that is “citizen engagement”. There is no point to expect the Kazakhs be politically engaged citizens today. The political activity in the country is reduced to the minimum because it can only be expressed allusively or through social protests (mostly in the social media).

As for the elite bargains, no such thing can exist today as a matter of principle and not only because the “quality” of the elites in question is low. The thing is that the process of the power transition will soon take place in the country, therefore, the stakes have been raised. So, the elite bargains associated with significant changes will inevitably be preceded by ferocious fights. And only when one single clan suppresses all the other elite groups or, conversely, if they achieve such a balance when no one will have a significant advantage, elite bargains will become possible. These scenarios, however, will require several years to materialize.

Thus, the speedy and successful implementation of the “significant changes” in Kazakhstan is theoretically possible only on one condition – the further harshening of the political regime when the country will be led not by an authoritarian ruler but by a dictator. Only then the fast consolidation (voluntary or not) of the elites with the further implementation of a Stalin-style speedy political, economic, technological, and social modernization will be possible.

Of course, it would be quite difficult (if at all possible) to transform Kazakhstan into North Korea, especially in the 21^st century. On the other hand, the hope that some “transactional leader” will appear leading the country towards a bright future is equally futile.

  * World Bank, 2017. “Governance and the Law”. Overview. WB, Washington, D.C. Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO