Acknowledgments
Putting together a multi-authored report about a complex moving target (Nazarbayev resigned just after the first draft was completed), compared to producing a single-author monograph, is akin to how Ginger Rogers described dancing with Fred Astaire: she did everything he did, but backwards and in high heels. L’ubica Polláková has effectively done this, coping with missed deadlines, collecting numerous external and internal peer reviews, offering valuable comments of her own on the text, and generally keeping everyone in line. Primary thanks go to her.
The authors would also like to thank Elaine Conkievich and other, anonymous, external peer reviewers who gave up their time and knowledge to tighten the draft. The Russia and Eurasia Programme regards this as an essential part of the process. Thanks also go to Kassymkhan Kapparov, Benjamin Godwin and Tobias Vollmer. Jaroslava Barbieri, Gillian Hannahs, Adam Kowalski and Ekaterina Aleynikova provided invaluable research assistance. Helena Hendin translated Dosym Satpayev’s chapter into English.
As always, Robin Niblett, Chatham House’s director, provided constructive suggestions for tightening the executive summary.
Chatham House also gratefully acknowledges the support of the Open Society Foundations for the outreach around and forthcoming translation of this report.
Final thanks go to the Chatham House external and on-staff copy editors, Anna Brown and especially Jake Statham – the latter now a veteran of such beasts for the institute’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, following his work on The Russian Challenge and The Struggle for Ukraine. It never ceases to amaze what horrors they find, even after so many experts have looked at a text beforehand.
In spite of all this, responsibility for any mistakes lies, of course, with the authors alone.