With authoritarianism globally resilient, scholarly accounts are once again playing catch-up with real-world developments. As important as the “color” revolutions in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine were in the 2000's, and as surprising as the Arab uprisings were in the 2010's, today the nexus between regime type and activist challenges again does not fit past molds. In such a context, Diana Kudaibergen—a must-read scholar of Central Asian politics and society—offers an especially welcome intervention.

Empirically, The Kazakh Spring deals with Kazakhstan, which experienced an unusual transition from the dictatorship of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country's long-standing authoritarian president, to that of Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, its current president. We typically expect dictators to hold power as long as possible, but Nazarbayev formally resigned from the presidency in 2019, handing the reins of power to Tokayev. Rather than leaving politics entirely, however, Nazarbayev retained special privileges as the country's founding president (elbasy) and remained chairman of the all-important Security Council.

Under the surface of a smooth handoff, social discontent was rising, as activists called for fair elections, highlighted regime abuses and excesses, strove for decolonial outcomes, pushed back agains