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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Polit. Sci.
Sec. International Studies
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1544208
Superpowers and regional powers' soft power in Kazakhstan
Provisionally accepted- 1 L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Nur-sultan, Kazakhstan
- 2 The Institute of State History, Committee of Science, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nur-sultan, Kazakhstan
Since gaining its independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has sought to balance its foreign policy towards those of the superpowers and regional powers. This study conducts a literature review and analyses the soft power strategies of superpowers and regional powers toward Kazakhstan, and the country's endeavours to avoid being dominated by a single country to maintain a balanced relationship with all the great powers. The data is collected through qualitative interviews with Kazakhstan officials who have lower-and middle-level executive experience in security organisations. Overall, pragmatic relations with all foreign actors are deeply engrained in the mindset of Kazakhstan's middle-management officials, which indicates the development of balanced reports for higher decision-makers, leading to balanced relations with other powers.
Keywords: soft power1, foreign influence2, public diplomacy3, geopolitics4, kazakhstan5, Central Asia6
Received: 12 Dec 2024; Accepted: 05 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yessirkep, Abdrakhmanova, Zhumashov and Pussyrmanov. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Saken Yessirkep, L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Nur-sultan, Kazakhstan
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