Same Logic, Different Result: Comparing Think Tank Policy Responses to the Covid-19 Crisis in Kazakhstan and Russia

Rooted in the common communist past and similar post-1991 regime trajectories, countries of post-Soviet Eurasia are often assumed to bear resemblance in the functioning of their political institutions and policymaking processes. This assumption concerns especially the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) that, after a brief period of democratization in the 1990s, consolidated their authoritarian governance structures in the 2000s, including Russia, Belarus, and Central Asian states. Theories of authoritarian learning and policy convergence further reinforce this assumption, suggesting that countries with similar political legacies and institutional contexts develop analogous policies. However, can we extend this assumption to policy advisory systems in such political environments? Do political advisors and policy experts perform similar functions in FSU countries with consolidated authoritarian governance? This study sheds light on this question by comparing discursive responses of state-linked think tanks in Kazakhstan and Russia to a major recent crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on an original set of semi-structured expert interviews with think tankers and content analysis of think tank publications covering various aspects of the Covid-19 crisis, the paper demonstrates that, in both Kazakhstan and Russia, state-linked think tanks are strongly engaged in the legitimation of their country’s government policies. Nevertheless, there are considerable differences between Russia and Kazakhstan in how their major think tanks discursively responded to the pandemic. This finding shows the value of a more nuanced look at the functioning of seemingly analogous policy advisory systems, as similarities in how expert institutions are organized in authoritarian settings do not necessarily translate into identical crisis responses by these institutions. The paper is mainly intended for the panel: Policy Processes Beyond Democracies.