The Kazakh Spring
Digital Activism and the Challenge to Dictatorship

A detailed review of the political developments and pro-democracy movements leading to the mass protests of Bloody January in Kazakhstan.

Diana T. Kudaibergen (Author)

9781009454261, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 May 2024

318 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.6 cm, 0.47 kg

How can a de-institutionalised protest movement disrupt a solidified, repressive and extremely resilient authoritarian regime? Using the context of the Kazakh Spring protests (2019–ongoing), Diana T. Kudaibergen focuses on how the interplay between a repressive regime and democratisation struggles define and shape each other. Combining original interview data, digital ethnography and contentious politics studies, she argues that the new generation of activists, including Instagram political influencers and renowned public intellectuals, have been able to de-legitimise and counter one of the most resilient authoritarian regimes and inspire mass protests that none of the formalised opposition ever imagined possible in Kazakhstan. 'The Kazakh Spring' is the first book to detail the emergence of this political field of opportunities that allowed the possibility to rethink the political limits in Kazakhstan, essentially toppling the long-term dictator in unprecedented mass protests of the Bloody January 2022.

Introduction
1. What is the Kazakh Spring? 2. Who are Oyan, Qazaqstan?
3. Deconstructing Vlast'
4. Performing the state, performing the protest
5. Generation Q and decolonizing Alash
6. The public square and the body under authoritarian pressures
7. Queering the public sphere
8. Making sense of the Bloody January 2022 mass protests (with Marlene Laruelle)
Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]