Legitimacy and Legitimation in Central Asia: cases of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

This chapter brings to bear what Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan can explain with regard to the conceptsof legitimacy and legitimation in authoritarianism. It argues how legitimation should be understood as aseries of claims by the regime regarding their appropriateness to rule which are then transformedthrough social action which then produces legitimacy. The chapter challenges contemporary theorisationof legitimation in the post-Soviet space, which disaggregates the process too far, failing to address theoverlapping and interdependent nature of legitimising claims. Instead, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistandemonstrate how authoritarian regimes can rely on a combination of charismatic, traditional and legalrationalclaims to evoke legitimation, but that ultimately, we can never truly know the extent to whichbroader society believes in the legitimacy of these regimes.