Kazakhstan’s Energy Policy After Bloody January: Charting a Radioactive Governance Debate

• In Event: Statecraft and Geoeconomics: Impacts on Energy and Infrastructure in Central Eurasia

Abstract

In the past three years, regional and global realignments have widened the range of development opportunities available to Kazakhstan. This paper examines the role of Kazakhstan’s energy policy in the broader context of economic, energy and supply chain diversification, and its implications for Kazakhstan’s aspiration to position itself more firmly as a regional hegemon. We argue that Kazakh energy reform, galvanized as a response to the 2022 gas riots dubbed “Boody January” has become a critical governance challenge the state must overcome, and one that is counterintuitive given Kazakhstan’s ample energy resources. We illustrate the ways in which the ongoing shock of bloody January has influenced the Tokayev administration’s efforts to accelerate plans for a nuclear power plant (NPP) and chart the debate and later reached a critical point during the discussions leading to the Oct 2024 nuclear referendum. We explore the ways in which the debate over the NPP, which would most likely be constructed by Rosatom, has emerged as a proxy battle for political transparency, institutional trust, Kazakhstan’s future relationship with Russia, and country’s complicated nuclear legacy. The broader significance of the NPP debate has increased due to Kazakhstan’s vast uranium reserves and its potential role in the global race for critical minerals. Kazakhstan’s mineral endowments could serve as a bridge to more durable relations with the West, or, if Rosatom emerges as a technological “savior” could reinforce a dependency-based relationship with Russia. Through surveys and personal oral histories of witnesses of bloody January and the subsequent nuclear debate, the paper concludes by assessing whether this sequence of events will strengthen Kazakhstan’s potential to navigate other emerging governance challenges, including supply chain integration and trade.

Authors

• Nathan Mark Hutson, Kyiv School of Economics

• Sofiya Matskevich, U of Texas at Austin