Foreign Policy Through the Prism of Domestic Policy: Kazakhstan’s Aspiration to Become An ODA Donor

Arailym Sailaubek, Sangbum Shin

Abstract
Why did Kazakhstan, as an authoritarian post-Soviet state with moderate economic performance, become an Official Development Assistance (ODA) donor? In this article, we argue that state identity has a causal and constitutive effect on Kazakhstan’s foreign policy through discursive development encounters between Kazakhstani state actors and representatives of the international development community. The research questions are addressed by applying discourse analysis to official documents and media articles from Kazakhstan and international sources, along with the ODA dataset collected during fieldwork, focusing on 2013-2019. The article concludes by stating that Kazakhstan's decision to become an ODA donor is primarily motivated by the political elite's desire to boost national prestige and patriotic spirit among the population through the implementation of the domestic development  rogram "Kazakhstan 2050," which would include the country on a list of 30 developed countries, the condition of which is to provide and institutionalize
ODA.

Keywords
ODA, Kazakhstan, KazAID, identity theory, political elite, social constructivism, non-DAC donor]