After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 15 former Soviet republics became newly
independent states. Their transitions from planned to market economies prompted the
new states to conduct fundamental reforms in both political and socio-economic
spheres. Kazakhstan is the largest and most active reformer among the central Asian
post-Soviet countries. This paper focusses on the transformation of Kazakhstan’s
higher education system and specifically the influence of NPM on educational reforms,
using the case of the implementation of the European “Bologna Process.” The paper
addresses the following questions: what is Kazakhstan’s experience in implementing
the NPM-inspired Bologna educational reforms, and what does this say about the
readiness of post-Soviet republics to embrace NPM?
The primary argument of this paper is that basic administrative reforms and
professional capacity building of public servants is required for effective implementation
of NPM reforms in post-Soviet states. NPM-inspired Bologna educational reforms take
certain administrative structures and cultures for granted, yet some of these underlying
elements do not exist in post-Soviet states. The implementation of the Bologna reforms in
Kazakhstan, while successful in some respects, has been hindered by the absence of
necessary structural and cultural elements in the public administrative system, along
with a tension between results-oriented reforms and remnant Soviet administrative
practices. Thus while Kazakhstan appears to have adopted many aspects of the NPMoriented
Bologna agenda, including westernized curriculum structure, university
autonomy and a system of course transfer credits, close scrutiny reveals that many pre-
NPM structures and practices persist. We conclude that NPM reforms in post-Soviet
states are most effective when accompanied by efforts to secure sound underlying
structures, appropriate professional cultures and managerial capacities.
Methodologically, this paper uses the reflective case study approach, combining
direct experience of Kazakh educational reform with a systematic literature review and
data collection. The paper reviews English-language studies of the implementation of
NPM in post-Soviet republics, as well as research on implementation of the Bologna
principles in post-communist states. We add to both literatures by comprehensively
reviewing the Russian-language material on NPM and the implementation of the
Bologna reforms in Kazakhstan, including a significant number of official documents.
We further supplement these literatures and documents with in-depth interviews with
key informants and also insights gained via the first author’s direct professional
experience of Kazakh educational reform processes.
The next section of the paper addresses the literature on public management reform
in post-Soviet states. Then it outlines the Bologna Process as a case of NPM. After this
we outline our methodology and address Kazakhstan’s experience with Bologna
reforms. In the discussion we highlight broader lessons for the implementation of NPM
in post-Soviet states.
2. Public management reform in post-soviet states
NPM has been the most influential public administration reform paradigm of the last
three decades (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). Although NPM is an umbrella term for a
complex and varied set of administrative transformations spanning many different
jurisdictions and policy sectors, all NPM reforms share the goal of overcoming
problems associated with traditional “Weberian” public bureaucracies (Aucoin, 1990).
Concerns with the traditional bureaucratic model of public service delivery emerged in
the west in the 1970s as politicians and the public increasingly lost faith in the capacity
of government organizations to deliver services effectively and efficiently. There was a
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