Beyond Survival: Power Continuity Through Nuclear Compliance In Kazakhstan

Experiencing independence only for twenty years Kazakhstan is showing quitestable levels of economic and political development. The level of recognition andauthority of Kazakhstan is increasing year by year and people of Kazakhstan haveprobably forgotten hard times of the distemper which followed after the Soviet Unionbreak down. In1991the problem of the ex-Soviet Union nuclear heritage was themost intriguing and important.The end of the Cold War resulted by the Soviet Union collapse. It raisedquestions about command and control of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal.Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belorussia all together de-facto gained nuclear-power status.The attention of the world community was focused on these countries’ situation, sinceno one has previously experienced it. The situation was unprecedented, because itwas impossible to calculate the options of its development. In case of loss of centralcontrol over the post-Soviet nuclear weapons, variety of situations could havehappened. Any adverse scenario would affect the interests of the internationalcommunity. The worst fear was that nuclear weapons would fall into the hands ofnon-state actors. Despite the role of the new born nuclear power which was preparedfor Kazakhstan, President of the Republic refused having this “gift” of the fate anddecided to abandon nuclear arsenal. The study of the nuclear abandonment by the states is very specific, as it iscontradicting to the mainstream of international relations theories. Political scientistScott Sagan offers us the most comprehensive statement on why states “go” nuclear.Sagan posits that there are three primary models explaining nuclear acquisition: a“security” or realist model, which argues that states build weapons for security andbecause others do; a “domestic politics” model, which sees nuclear weaponsdevelopment as the outcome of actions of powerful coalitions within states that seekinstitutional power via this end; and finally, a “norms” model, which argues that“weapons acquisition, or restraint in weapons development, provide an importantnormative symbol of the state’s modernity and identity”. Sagan’s article argues inconclusion that both “nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear restraint haveoccurred in the past, and can occur in the future, for more than one reason: differenthistorical cases are best explained by different models”. However, the history hasshown that not all of the states decide to “go” nuclear and the need to explore more onthis issue still exists.Most of the international relations theories face difficulties while addressing tothe problem of voluntarily rejection of nuclear weapons. Neorealism holds that stateinterests come from the fundamental anarchy of the international system. Becausethere is no sovereign authority exists to guarantee the security of the states, they seekpower to increase their security. Preserving nuclear weapons, according to this theory, is attractive for internal means and for increasing power. Liberal democracy seems tohave reasonable explanations of the nuclear compliance. Democratic states pursuingliberal economic policies may decide that it is not in their interests to develop an overtarsenal, due to their extensive reliance on the global economy and the internationalcommunity. A theory of nonproliferation built around liberalism alone, however, isstill having a strong limitation because a significant number of nonliberal states alsocomply with the nonproliferation regime. Theories that rely on and technologicaleconomic capacity also face some problems. The examples are showing thattechnological and economic development of the states does not always determinepossession of the nuclear weapons.There are a quite limited number of the theories which deals with nuclearnon-proliferation phenomenon. However, this thesis provides new theoreticalframework while answering questions about nuclear compliance issue. The paperproposes a diversionary compliance theory while addressing to the states voluntarilyrejection of the nuclear weapons. The research conducts a study where the mainobjective is to find the linkage between the use of diversionary compliance foreignpolicy and political leader power security. Given objective raise a set of question,which need to be explained in order to reach the proposed goal. First, to understandthe reasons upon which states prefer to comply with international non-proliferationnorms. Second, to explain the influence of nuclear compliance to the political leader’s power continuation. Diversionary compliance theory is a new theory to internationalrelations comparing to the once that are commonly known. Originally, the conceptwas used to explain why the states after having nuclear weapons for a long timesuddenly decide to renounce it. Usually it means that the state is undergoing throughthe process of the fundamental change within the country which has an effect to theforeign policy. Voluntarily rejection of the nuclear weapons according to this theorycomes from political and economic crises which put the political leader under the riskof losing power. Seeking to preserve his power national leader prefer a peacefulmeans of complying with the norms of international community to obtain support byrenouncing nuclear weapons.According to the diversionary compliance theory, there can be two situations thathelp leader’s position by giving up nuclear weapons: the first, when there is aconsensus in society to renounce nuclear weapons; and the second, when there is anational crisis where giving up nuclear weapons becomes one of the best options tosurvive during crisis. Political leaders are intent on maintaining themselves in powerand use available tools of power and rules to accomplish mission of preservingpolitical influence this end. The leaders in power wish to maintain power and thoseleaders need the support of others to do so. All leaders share one fundamental reality:their political futures depend on the implementation of foreign and domestic policies. Therefore, the research finds that the nuclear compliance in case of Kazakhstanhad a very positive and benign influence to the stabilization of situation within thecountry. Following the logic of the diversionary compliance theory the study findsthat voluntarily rejection of the nuclear weapons could impact the political leaderapproval ratings, though solving a certain kind of problems which country face duringthe domestic crises. First, material rewards which state obtain after nuclear weaponsabandonment could help in recovering of economic situation of the country. Second,non-material rewards which state also obtain after nuclear compliance could create anecessary international image for the country, which is very important whileconducting foreign policy. Obtaining of these rewards is considered to be a mainobjective for the state leader in order to survive crisis. The stabilization of economicand political development increases the political leader approval ratings. Economyand foreign policy of the country considered to be one of the major factors uponwhich electorate choose the government. The electorate and government modelhelped in specifying the main objects of the research work, and also helped incomposition of logical answers to the main research question.Kazakhstan decision to prefer nuclear compliance indeed had a great influence instabilizing the political and economical situation of the country. That decision hadplayed o positive role in international, as well in domestic level. Nuclear compliancegave the opportunity for Kazakhstan to be considered as a country which comply and respect the norms of international community and as a country which is ready for thepeaceful and mutual beneficial cooperation. The decision to give up nuclear weaponswas correct and has played a significant role in Kazakhstan state building, becomeexemplary in terms of responsibility according to international policy regardingnuclear weapons and created favorable conditions for full political and economicdevelopment which in a long run affected political leader’s power continuation.