The Political Logic of Cadre Rotation in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Analysts have frequently discussed "cadre rotation" in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, or the tendency of President Nusaltan Nazarbayev to transfer high-level personnel across regions. Some see it as an element of clan politics, while others consider it to be an element of center-periphery politics. Nearly everyone agrees, though, that it is a mechanism of authoritarian rule. Here I argue that cadre rotation has a deeper logic and is tied more to state formation than to regime politics. After describing cadre rotation in historical context, I offer a comparative analysis of its implementation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan since 1991 to highlight divergent processes and outcomes of state formation.