The world is sliding into geoeconomic fragmentation: trade and investment are increasingly filtered through security logic, and predictability is becoming a scarce resource. The International Monetary Fund has been warning for years that policy-driven fragmentation can impose real economic costs and reshape incentives for states and firms alike – especially those positioned between larger power blocs. In such an environment, “middle powers” do not survive by pretending they are great powers. They survive by making themselves governable, legible, and reliable – first to their own citizens, and then to external partners.
Miras Zhiyenbayev.
That is why constitutional reform is not domestic housekeeping. It is foreign policy by other means. It is an attempt to lay an institutional foundation for long-term survivability at a moment when the global order is no longer merely competitive – it is structurally unstable.
Agency begins at home
When global rules weaken, the premium shifts from formal alliances to functional institutions. Investors and partners can tolerate political diversity; what they cannot tolerate is uncertainty that is personalized, improvised, or opaque. The paradox of the current era is simple: external autonomy depends on internal coherence.
This is the strategic logic behind the current push toward a new constitutional architecture. Kazakhstan is moving from a set of fragmented reforms to a consolidated governance model – entering a “final” and more systemic phase of constitutional transformation. The key word here is systemic. The question is not whether specific amendments look “more democratic” on paper. The question is whether the system becomes more resilient in practice: faster in response, steadier in succession, and broader in legitimacy.
Process matters because process is policy. A constitutional order is not only what it says; it is how it is adopted and internalized.
In January 2026, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a decree establishing a Constitutional Reform Commission, chaired by Constitutional Court head Elvira Azimova, with Erlan Karin as deputy chair and Aida Balayeva among the leadership. The commission’s breadth is not cosmetic: it was reported to include 126 members spanning government, Parliament, civil society, academia, media, and business – an intentional attempt to turn reform into a national conversation rather than an elite memo.
Transparency has been treated as a feature, not an afterthought. The first meeting was broadcast live, with the reform agenda linked to the ideas announced at the national forum in Kyzylorda. More importantly, the reform has not been limited to closed drafting: officials reported thousands of proposals submitted through electronic platforms during public consultations, and even work on conceptually new versions of the preamble and core sections.
The procedural endpoint is explicit: a nationwide referendum. In other words, this is not democratization for the sake of process. It is democratization for the sake of durability—because legitimacy is what allows institutions to function under stress.
Reducing transaction costs, hedging succession risk
Several institutional moves deserve to be read through a resilience lens.
● A unicameral legislature as speed and adaptability
The proposed shift to a unicameral parliament (reported as the Kurultai) should be understood as the deliberate minimization of governance “transaction costs.” In a world where reaction time to sanctions risk, commodity volatility, and technology shocks becomes a competitive variable, a slow legislative pipeline is not a neutral feature; it is a vulnerability. Whether one agrees with every design choice, the direction is consistent: simplify the machinery so it can convert public demand into law faster—and therefore absorb shocks with less institutional delay.
●A Vice President as constitutional risk hedging
The introduction of a Vice President is a classic instrument of political risk management. For external actors, it signals continuity; for the state, it reduces dependence on informal arrangements. This is not about personalities. It is about designing continuity so that it is structural rather than personal—which is exactly what investors and partners look for when they assess country risk.
● Institutionalizing voice: legitimacy that can be exported
The Qazinform overview describes the idea of a “People’s Council” (Halyk Kenesi) intended to institutionalize public participation and strengthen dialogue between society and the state. Here the logic is straightforward: internal legitimacy can be converted into external weight. States that can credibly demonstrate a stable, participatory governance channel gain bargaining power – not by coercion, but by predictability.
The strategic endpoint: stability as an export product
If this constitutional package succeeds (substantively and procedurally) Kazakhstan completes a shift from being an object of other people’s strategies to being an actor with its own. That is the real “great rupture” lesson: in an unstable world, sovereignty is not declared; it is built. And it is built through institutions that are fast enough to respond, legitimate enough to endure, and coherent enough to be trusted.
This is why it is better to frame the project as an institutional foundation for long-term survivability. The goal is not perfection. The goal is resilience – so Kazakhstan can remain predictable at home and therefore more sovereign abroad.
