The poll was aimed at discovering notions and sentiments about tribalism that exist in Kazakhstani society. To provide meaningful and coherent expression of the sentiments of different Kazakhstani

The poll was aimed at discovering notions and sentiments about tribalism that exist in Kazakhstani society. To provide meaningful and coherent expression of the sentiments of different Kazakhstani social groups, the questionnaire was made so as to contain questions that reflect the social background of respondents.

The questionnaire consists of 22 questions that aim to discover the meaning of tribalism and society’s attitude to this social phenomenon. The first seven questions were set to collect the information about the social background of respondents including information about citizenship, sex, age, occupation, ethnicity, homeregion/town and native language.

The remaining questions try to investigate the attitude and meaning of tribalism for the respondents. As many Kazakhstani newspapers and experts emphasize the relationship between economic corruption and tribalism, the rest of the questionnaire asks the respondents about the definition of tribalism, the relationship between corruption and tribalism, differences between tribalism and other social phenomenon often considered to be reasons for economic corruption (clanism and regionalism) and the importance of these social phenomena in Kazakhstani society.

For a sample of the questionnaire, see the Questionnaire appendix attachment.

To make the results of the questionnaire reliable and unbiased and to make sure that the results represent opinions of the whole society, the sample of surveyed population was chosen from different social groups of Kazakhstani society.

The surveyed sample populations have several social indicators that prove the diversity and difference between these populations and that help to link the social background of responders to the answers they provided to the questions. This link would help us see the relationship between social background and the attitude that the social group with a particular social characteristic (indicator) such as occupation, ethnicity, the level of income and home region/town holds. For detailed information about the sample characteristics, see Sample Characteristics appendix attachment.

Note that the survey took place in two cities, Almaty and Astana, because it was hard to collect information from other regions while having not many acquaintances from other parts of the country. Also, only one sample population was surveyed in Astana, that is MUA, the others were surveyed in Almaty. The following chart shows the sample population classified by the occupation and places.

As it is shown on the pie chart above, six out of nine sample populations represent students and pupils who study in the two major cities of Kazakhstan, Almaty and Astana, because this social group has numerous advantages such as many residents from all regions of the country and even from other countries. Since Almaty and Astana are the biggest educational centers of Kazakhstan, students and pupils are likely not to be only from these two cities but also from other regions of the country.

One of the main objectives of the primary research was to investigate the meaning of tribalism for the people of Kazakhstan and its guests. At the first glance, on the answers of the question number nine (What do you think tribalism is?), one might have a feeling that most of the surveyed don’t understand the term tribalism. The respondents were to give any definition of tribalism; they could define tribalism in their own words, without scientific approach. Most of the respondents (60%) didn’t give the definition at all. This implies that the respondents that gave no answer for this question have never heard about the term.

In spite of the fact, that only 29 respondents (only 16% of all respondents) gave one of the right or almost right definitions of tribalism, most of respondents showed their understanding of this social phenomenon by answering other questions. All the respondents gave answers to questions 13-21 which concern the role of tribal relations in the personal and social life in Kazakhstan (for the questions look to the attached Appendix).Thus, without knowing the name of tribalism, surveyed people knew the framework and one of the meanings of tribalism.

The second important objective was to investigate to which extent, the respondents consider tribal relations important. All Kazakh respondents gave answers to the question number eleven (to which Zhuz do you belong to) and most of them (93%) answered question number twelve (to which tribe do you belong to), which means that Kazakhs do not consider this information as something really private.

This claim is also supported by my personal experience of travelling to Shymkent, city with the reputation of the most tribalism affected place in Kazakhstan. During the holiday of Nauryz (from 20^th to 24^th of March) I travelled to Shymkent as a guest on the marriage of my best friend’s sister. Every Kazakh person I made acquaintance with asked my tribal belonging and in turn divulged his or her tribal belonging.

Also both Kazakh and non-Kazakh respondents strongly agree (87% of Kazakh respondents and 84% of non-Kazakh respondents) that it is important for Kazakhs to know their tribal affiliation (question number seventeen). They both see this social aspect as an essential part of Kazakh culture.

Moreover, they also think (96% of Kazakh respondents and 62% of non-Kazakh respondents) that prejudices or stereotypes about some tribes are true, for example that naimans are cunning or adays are bellicose. This is an interesting social phenomenon, even though non-Kazakhs are less affected by Kazakh tribal relations, they believe in some tribal stereotypes and prejudices. This clearly illustrates impact of tribalism on the whole Kazakhstani society.

Also it the investigation discovered that a significant portion of the surveyed people know tribal affiliation of their friends. 23% of non-Kazakh respondents and 67% of Kazakh respondents respectively know tribal affiliation of their friends (question number fifteen).

Another aspect of tribalism which is often discussed in newspapers is the relationship between tribalism and corruption. Both Kazakh and non-Kazakh respondents think that top government posts are not distributed equally in terms of “tribal balance” (question number nineteen). The public recognizes the problem but as the government mass media does mention corruption related to tribalism, the people have little knowledge about the details, though knowing the state of affairs.

Generally, the respondents are against corruption derived from tribalism. Even though, the questionnaire didn’t contain questions regarding the positive or negative attitude of the respondents to tribalism based corruption, the project assistance who conducted the survey emphasized that respondents would talk about the aggravating effect of this kind of corruption after the poll was conducted.

The claim is also supported by the fact that 91% of non-Kazakh respondents and 89% of Kazakh respondents think that tribalism plays a significant role in the corruption in Kazakhstan. Moreover, from three social phenomena which are usually considered to be reasons for corruption, 75% of Kazakh respondents and 84% of non-Kazakh respondents choose tribalism as the most influential (question number 21). Paradoxically there goes a cognitive dissonance because 92% of Kazakh respondents admitted that they would like their tribe to dominate in government organizations.

This implies that Kazakhs either unconsciously support corruption derived from tribalism or refuse to admit that they support this kind of corruption. I would consider this paradox as the main problem, as the main factor of the existing relationship between corruption and tribalism. The fact that both the government and society declared war against corruption does not change the situation if the people actually do not mind degrading forms of tribalism. It seems that the fish doesn’t “begin stink at the head”.

Additionally, the majority respondents simply confuse tribalism, clanism and regionalism; although they interfere with each other, they cannot be called the same social phenomenon. 86% of the respondents didn’t give the answer to question number ten, which asks about the difference between clanism and tribalism. It can be explained by the Mukhamedov’s assumption that clan might have members from one tribe and a few close friends, thus making this clan almost tribal.

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