Turan Research Center

Turan Research Center Director Joseph Epstein spoke with Kazakhstan's DKNews.kz about the country's newly enacted Constitution, which President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has framed as the start of a new historical era in Kazakhstan's statehood.

Epstein argued that the reform's most consequential element is the reintroduction of a vice presidency, which he read as a deliberate effort to build a transparent, institutionally anchored mechanism for the succession of power. For three decades, he noted, the core problem across Central Asia was never a shortage of strong leaders but the absence of predictable procedures for transferring authority — Islam Karimov left no clear succession plan and power changed hands behind closed doors, while Tajikistan and Uzbekistan largely resolved the question along dynastic lines. By writing a full succession mechanism into the Constitution, Kazakhstan is attempting something the region has scarcely seen, shifting the guarantor of stability from a single personality to a durable state institution. The real test, he emphasized, will be implementation rather than the text itself, but he called the ambition the right direction of travel.

On Tokayev's framing of the Constitution as the foundation of a "Just Kazakhstan," Epstein described the president's approach as evolutionary rather than abrupt, and said a constitution is one of the few instruments capable of preserving a chosen course beyond any single government or shift in public mood. Embedding the "Just Kazakhstan" concept directly in the Basic Law — rather than as a standalone state program — turns human-centered governance, the rule of law, and social-state principles into fundamental reference points that future governments would find far harder to abandon quietly. A document becomes truly strategic, he argued, precisely when it can constrain those who come after its authors, and that is the high bar Kazakhstan is now setting for itself.

Turning to investment and international standing, Epstein stressed that stability and predictability matter more to investors than almost anything else, and that this is where Kazakhstan holds a deliberately cultivated regional advantage. The "Law and Order" concept and the constitutional succession mechanism, he said, function partly as signals to the international investment community that the country's political and legal environment remains steady — a message that resonates given Kazakhstan's position as the world's largest uranium producer, a major center for critical minerals, and a key link in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route connecting Europe and Asia while bypassing Russia and Iran. He was candid that reputations diverge by audience: investors and governments focused on reliability will read the changes positively, while parts of the Western expert community attentive to democratic procedure will likely criticize further concentration of executive power. Kazakhstan, in his view, is betting that predictability is now a more valuable resource than political uncertainty — a wager he considers reasonable in the current geopolitical climate.

Epstein also welcomed the Constitution's enshrining of long-term national values such as national unity and social accord, calling this especially relevant in an era of globalization where a state that fails to define its own values is shaped by external trends it cannot control. For a country home to more than a hundred nationalities, he said, that diversity can be either a source of friction or a strategic asset, and Kazakhstan has consistently chosen to treat its Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Turkic, and other communities as bridges to the wider world. He underscored the need for balance — Kazakhstan is the state of the Kazakh people, so strengthening Kazakh national culture is both natural and necessary, even as every citizen, whatever their origin, should feel fully part of the state and proud to call themselves Kazakhstani. Speaking personally, Epstein described Kazakhstan as a country he knows well through his own family, and called the combination of a strong Kazakh national foundation with genuine respect for all citizens one of the country's most underrated strengths.

Looking ahead, Epstein cautioned against expecting a sharp break, noting that constitutions rarely create a new political course and more often accelerate trends already underway. He expects continued momentum behind Kazakhstan's role as a key state of the Middle Corridor, further investment in mining, critical minerals, and transport-logistics infrastructure, and more stable conditions for long-term capital. Politically, he flagged the August elections to the Kurultai as the first serious test of the new legislative model and the eventual appointment of a vice president as a revealing indicator of how succession will be built — but identified 2029 as the decisive threshold. If the new constitutional model performs as hoped, he concluded, the coming years could lay the groundwork for what Central Asia has struggled for decades to achieve: a peaceful, predictable, and fully constitutional transfer of supreme state power.

Read the full interview at DKNews.kz (Russian).

Joseph Epstein is the Director of the Turan Research Center.