Dosym Satpayev asks questions at congress of political scientists

The first Eurasian Congress of Political Scientists Post Soviet Transit: Trends, Myths and Prospects has started today in Almaty. Discussions of the political scientists who have assembled for today’s congress are revolving around the idea that all the post-soviet republics have a common past and similar political launching pad. However their development paths have been very different after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The political scientists are now trying to find explanations to the developments, understand these processes more deeply and answer the question of “what awaits the post-soviet citizens around the corner.” Here is how Dosym Satpayev, an acknowledged political scientist from Kazakhstan, puts it: counties are moving from A to B where A is the Soviet Union and D is one of the democratic political systems. However the post-soviet countries are progressing with various speeds and the problem is that neither the distance that they are supposed to go, nor the speed of their movement are given in this equation and this is what complicates things gravely. The most important, in Satpayev’s opinion, is “to avoid traps” on this path. He has not offered any immediate solution to the problem. Being a moderator of one of the congress’ sections he called the participants to think about the reasons behind historic processes, development models and about the signals that should indicate the end of the post-soviet stage of development. Another interesting thesis that he called the participants to think about was: “If we all come from a common past then why after 20 years we have all become so different… What internal and external factors were the keys governing the development trajectory of each of the post-soviet nations and directing them to one political system of another.” 150 experts from 27 countries are taking part. The majority of the participants are from Kazakhstan, Russia and their post-soviet neighbors, but some are from South Korea, Poland, Israel, Turkey, France, Germany and Iran.