Please join the Fletcher Eurasia Club for a lunch seminar with researcher and author Miras Zhiyenbayev, an expert in global governance, multilateralism, and Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. The conversation will explore his new book, Widening the Scope: How Middle Powers are Changing Liberal Institutionalism (2023), emphasizing the role of Kazakhstan in global diplomacy in a changing world order.

We will delve into Kazakhstan’s multivector foreign policy, examining its relationships with major powers such as Russia, China, and the United States, and highlighting its economic and diplomatic successes. Moreover, we will discuss Kazakhstan’s engagement with international organizations, with a particular focus on the United Nations, covering its role in UN peacekeeping, nuclear nonproliferation, and multilateral diplomacy. Finally, we will address Kazakhstan’s response to the changing world order, including its transition from an aid recipient to a development cooperation partner and the challenges it faces as a middle power. The conversation promises to provide insightful perspectives on Kazakhstan’s strategies and initiatives in navigating its foreign policy amid a complex international landscape.

We encourage you to read the following articles by other scholars on Kazakhstan’s international development aid model, its evolving foreign policy, its engagement with regional economic blocs and initiatives, its policy of multivectorism, and its current relationship with global powers. The Eurasia Club weekly lunch seminar series engages with students, faculty, staff, and researchers to foster a better understanding of the region among members of the Fletcher community. Members of the wider Tufts community are also welcome to attend. Lunch will be served.

Miras Zhiyenbayev is a Kazakh scholar, specializing in global governance and multilateralism. Serving as the Lead Expert in the Department of European and American Studies at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KazISS) since November 2022, he plays a vital role in KazISS’ mission to advise the President of Kazakhstan on foreign policy. From 2019 to 2022, Zhiyenbayev was a visiting fellow and research fellow at the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies at Moscow’s HSE University, having spearheaded a program on contemporary Central Asia and earned recognition for his contributions to Eurasian studies. In 2023, Zhiyenbayev authored Widening the Scope: How Middle Powers are Changing Liberal Institutionalism, a monograph published by KazISS. This work, noted for its substantial academic contribution to international relations, features a foreword by Shigeo Katsu, founding President of Nazarbayev University. It has been added to the UN Library and Archives in Geneva, marking Zhiyenbayev as the youngest author to achieve this milestone.