Research

Abstract: Does social media exposure contribute to progressive or polarized views among youth? With a large and young population online, Kazakhstan offers a polarized authoritarian context in which to study the effects of social media. We use a mixed-method approach that contrasts wider statistical trends from an online survey and experiment with Kazakhstani youth aged 18–30 (N = 1027) and empirical data from 23 exploratory semi-structured interviews with mainly urban Kazakhstani youth conducted in the southern regions of the country in August 2022. The findings from both analyses show that the frequent use of social media positively influences Kazakhstani youth attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community. We also causally identify that pro-LGBTQ+ social media posts in general promote positive LGBTQ+ attitudes but post wording may matter less. The findings from statistical and non-statistical analyses show the frequent use of social media positively influences Kazakhstani youth attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community.

The authors have committed to self-archiving to ensure access to Central Asian and LGBTQ+ people outside academia. Please find the linked paper here.

Do authoritarian secularization policies affect attitudes and behaviors concerning women? Existing scholarship largely ignores the role of religious institutional design, which we advance as an explanation. Post-communist Central Asia provides a useful setting, where state repression and regulation of Islam produced a dual system of state-sanctioned formal and less regulated informal institutions. Using an original dataset of religious institutions (N = 6,704), 97 interviews, and panel survey data from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, we find limited support for the expectation that informal institutions foster more gender-inclusive attitudes and behaviors; their effects are largely null. Proximity to formal religious institutions is associated with null to positive effects, including increased women’s participation and mother's education. We conclude that institutional inclusivity rather than institutional type explain these results: post-communism's religious revivals may be transforming formal institutions into sites of community formation and women’s engagement.

Religious groups perceived to "defend the nation'' from external aggressors go on to wield substantial influence over policy (Grzymała-Busse, 2015).  Why then do some churches defend the nation, while others remain neutral or even side with the aggressors? We examine this question in Ukraine, where starting in 2018 each of the country's Orthodox churches were given the option to publicly affiliate with either the Moscow Patriarchate or the newly-created Orthodox Church of Ukraine.  We model this church-by-church decision as a product of local political attitudes, state capacity, socioeconomic context, religious competition, and exposure to war violence. A number of findings stand out, including that the probability of "defending the nation''–switching to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine–is highest among churches that are physically smaller, located in less developed areas, are closer to nationalist churches that existed prior to 2018, and are in areas with greater political competition. Spatial models also show that being located near other Orthodox churches that switch strongly influence a church’s own decision to switch.  Additional qualitative information provides further context to illustrate these findings, and suggests a new focus on the role of priests.