The Applicability of Sociological Theories to Ethnic Conflicts in Central Asia: The Case of Kazakhstan *

This paper tries to show how ethnic conflicts in Kazakhstan can be explained by sociological theories. In order to illustrate ethnic conflicts in Kazakhstan, three sociological theories - modernization perspective, exploitation theory and social stratification theory - were presented. As a result of contrasting these theories against the real situation in Kazakhstan to prove their utilities, these sociological theories were not quite able to fully explain the realities of ethnic antagonism in Kazakhstan. The instrumental approach, as an alternative perspective, was thus adopted to address the ethnic strife between the Kazakhs and Russians. This instrumental approach, in which ethnicity is regarded as a social construct, pointed at five factors contributing to the deterioration of ethnic relations in Kazakhstan: korenizatsiya, language issues, demographic indigenization, the role of Islam and geographical dimension.