About the authors
Annette Bohr is an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. She was previously a fellow of Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge and an analyst at the University of Manchester and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, focusing on Central Asia. Bohr received her undergraduate education at the University of California at Berkeley and her graduate education at Harvard University. She has published extensively on Central Asian politics, contemporary history and energy issues. Selected Chatham House publications include: Turkmenistan: Power, Politics and Petro-Authoritarianism (2016); Regional Implications of Afghanistan’s Transitions: Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (with Gareth Price, 2015); and ‘Regionalism in Central Asia: New Geopolitics, Old Regional Order’, in International Affairs (2004). She is the co-author of Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities (with Graham Smith et al., Cambridge University Press, 1998). Annette regularly prepares briefings and reports for a range of corporates and diplomats on political risk and strategies of engagement in Central Asia.
Birgit Brauer is an independent analyst, writer and journalist covering Central Asia. For 17 years she was based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where she wrote for The Economist, the New York Times, Bloomberg News, the Associated Press and others. She is also a former Caucasus editor for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. Birgit received her bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Harvard University Extension School, a master’s degree in journalism and public affairs from American University in Washington, DC, and a PhD in political economy from the University of Birmingham. Her doctoral dissertation was on foreign direct investment in the oil industries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Nigel Gould-Davies is an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He teaches at Mahidol University in Thailand. From 2010 to 2013, he held senior government relations roles in the international energy industry in Central Asia and Southeast Asia. From 2000 to 2010, he served in the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, where his roles included ambassador to Belarus, head of the economic department in Moscow, and project director in the Strategy Unit of the Policy Planning Directorate. Nigel is widely published on international relations and Soviet/post-Soviet affairs. He received his BA and MPhil from Oxford University and his PhD from Harvard University.
Nargis Kassenova is a senior fellow (Program on Central Asia) at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (Harvard University), and an associate professor at the Department of International Relations and Regional Studies at KIMEP University (Almaty, Kazakhstan). She holds a PhD in international cooperation studies from Nagoya University (Japan). She is a member of the advisory group of EU Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM), a member of the academic council of the European Neighbourhood Council, a member of the advisory board of the SenECA (Strengthening and Energizing EU-Central Asia Relations) project, and a member of the advisory board of the Open Society Foundations Eurasia Program. Her research interests include Eurasian politics and geopolitics, Kazakhstan’s foreign policy, governance in Eurasia, Islam and state–society relations in Central Asia, and the history of state-making in Central Asia.
Joanna Lillis is a Kazakhstan-based journalist reporting on Central Asia. Her work has featured in outlets including The Economist, the Guardian, the Independent and the Eurasianet website. She is the author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan (I.B. Tauris, 2018).
Kate Mallinson is an associate fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. An acknowledged independent political risk expert on Kazakhstan, she has worked continuously in the Central Asian region since 1987. Kate has spent nearly two decades in the risk management business advising foreign companies on the impact of regulatory, security, domestic and geopolitical developments in the Central Asian region and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. Kate runs scenario-planning exercises and political risk workshops for multinationals and international financial institutions, particularly with regard to political succession in the region. Kate worked in advocacy in Uzbekistan (1999–2001), Ukraine (2001) and Russia (1996–97) for Médécins Sans Frontières.
As well as working on political risk in the region, Kate is researching informal networks and governance in Central Asia. She is a group member of the Locarno Group within the Eastern Europe & Central Asia Directorate at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Kate is a frequent panellist at conferences and events around the world, and frequently comments on developments for the media.
James Nixey has been head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House since January 2013. He is also an associate fellow with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and serves on the board of the journal UA: Ukraine Analytica. Selected Chatham House publications include: ‘The South Caucasus: drama on three stages’, in A Question of Leadership: America’s Role in a Changed World (edited by Robin Niblett, 2010); The Long Goodbye: Waning Russian Influence in the South Caucasus and Central Asia (2012); ‘Russia’s Geopolitical Compass: Losing Direction’, in Putin Again: Implications for Russia and the West (2012); ‘Russian Foreign Policy Towards the West and Western Responses’, in The Russian Challenge (2015); and the introduction for The Struggle for Ukraine (2017). He has also written for the Guardian, The Times, the Telegraph, the Independent, Newsweek, BBC.co.uk and CNN.com. James holds degrees in modern languages and international relations, and has previous experience in journalism (as a reporter in Moscow in the late 1990s) and in the banking sector.
Dosym Satpayev is an independent political analyst and the director of the Kazakhstan Risks Assessment Group, an Almaty-based think-tank that researches political reform, democracy, corruption and transparency in Kazakhstan. Since 2017, he has been a member of the Kazakhstan Council on International Relations. From 2002 to 2004, he was the director of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting’s regional office in Kazakhstan. From 1997 to 2000, he was a senior research fellow at the Kazakhstan Development Institute. Dosym is widely published on international relations and politics in Kazakhstan. He received his PhD from Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University.