Following the January 2022 crisis, President Tokayev fast-tracked a political reform package planned for later in the year, and submitted it to a nationwide referendum scheduled for June 5. The constitutional amendments accelerate the pace of reform in the country, but conditions for their implementation will not be easy given a difficult economic and geopolitical environment. These reforms represent a shift: while earlier reforms sought to build participatory and competitive politics only very slowly at the local level, the current reform package envisages a gradual liberalization of the political system at all levels in order for the system to maintain its legitimacy.
When: Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 11:00-12:00 ESTSvante Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council
Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on Central Asia at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (Harvard University) and Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations and Regional Studies of KIMEP University (Almaty, Kazakhstan)
Moderator:
Fred Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council
When: Wednesday, June 8, 2022, 11:00 AM- 12:00 PM
Register on Zoom. The event will also be live-streamed on the CACI Facebook page and here, on the Silk Road Studies website.
Speakers:
In January 2022, Kazakhstan experienced an unprecedented political crisis. Though since overshadowed by events in Ukraine, it marked a turning point in the country’s history - one that will have considerable implications for the future of Central Asia. Those events are the subject of a new publication by Dr. Svante Cornell, and he will discuss his analysis and its major findings at our upcoming Forum.
Date: May 5, 2022, 9:00 AM EST.
Discussants:
CAMCA (Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan) is a vulnerable region grappling with a range of issues including low connectivity, economic dependency, food security, poor governance, corruption, and terrorism - all exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not fully recovered from the pandemic's negative impacts, the war in Ukraine poses a new set of political and economic challenges. In addition, the reemergence of the Taliban and terrorist syndicate in Afghanistan has created a new phase of security challenges for the entire region. The presentation by the spring 2022 Rumsfeld Fellows examined the challenges posed to the CAMCA region by the pandemic, Taliban, and Ukrainian conflict, and suggest possible solutions.
When: Tuesday, May 3, 2022, 3:00-4:30 PM EST
Where: Middle East Institute, 1763 N St NW, Washington, DC 20036
Co-organizers: The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at AFPC, The CAMCA Network and The Rumsfeld Foundation