De-personalisation trends in Central Asia

This paper compares the trajectories of depersonalisation that defined transitions out of first presidencies in Turkmenistan [2006/2007], Uzbekistan [2016], and Kazakhstan [2022]. In considering the evolution of post-personalist rule in each of the three landscapes in question, the paper will determine the circumstances that led Turkmenistan to re-personalise its politics shortly after the death of Saparmurat Niyazov (December 2006), comparing these to the more complex settings that, in turn, have resulted in the consolidation of non-personalist regimes in post-Karimov Uzbekistan and, more recently, post-Nazarbayev Kazakhstan.