Aigul Zabirova,
Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor,
Chief Research Fellow at the KazISS under the President of the RK
Today’s society is changing not only on the surface – the inner grammar is transforming as well. It’s not just the wrapper that is being reshaped, but also the deeper code of society. What does that mean, and where does it lead? That is the focus of this KazISS expert column.
Until quite recently, sociologists could almost unfailingly predict a person’s behavior by simply knowing their age, gender, education level, and place of residence. These basic variables functioned as reliable keys: they helped explain why one person chose an SUV while another preferred a small hatchback, why someone bought spicy sauces while another chose diet yogurt, why she took out a loan for a new kitchen while he saved up for fishing gear. These models worked in Kazakhstan for a long time as well. For example, urban dwellers tended to be more secular, young people more open to change, women more supportive of the authorities, and the poor more dependent on the state. In other words, these connections were clear and predictable.
But something has changed. More and more often, we encounter paradoxes: two people with the same income level vote for opposing political parties, or a well-educated young person holds conservative family values, or a rural resident turns out to be more tolerant than their urban counterpart. The poor don’t necessarily vote for those who promise assistance, and the wealthy don’t always support the status quo.
This shift is particularly palpable in Kazakhstan. Why? Because our society exists at the intersection of eras, cultures, and expectations. What does that mean? The generations born in the Soviet Union are now raising children who hold TikTok in one hand and the Quran in the other. Some have studied for five years at Oxford but seek answers to life’s questions from their grandmother in the village. Some have never left the aul, yet within themselves, they are philosophers, poets, musicians, and strategists of their own futures.
In other words, in the Kazakhstani context, these transformations are especially vivid. We are a society in transition, where the post-Soviet logic of a “single correct path” confronts a diversity of values, cultural competition, and anxious searches for identity. Today, we can no longer classify Kazakhstani citizens by age, wealth, or urbanity. The dividing lines run deeper – through perceptions of justice and injustice, through lived experiences of humiliation, through cultural affiliations and the sense of one’s place within the nation.
Returning to the key metaphor, it’s becoming clear that the traditional keys are no longer enough. We may still carry them, but increasingly it’s evident that new doors require new tools.
The world has changed. People have become more complex, more multilayered. Income level alone is no longer sufficient to understand how a person votes, why they take to the streets, or why they feel alienated in their own country. People with similar incomes and educations now behave differently. Political preferences no longer follow a strictly class-based logic. New forms of collective identity have emerged that don’t fit into classical sociology. The social fabric is no longer shaped solely by demography and economics.
The research of American political scientist Ronald Inglehart and French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has already shown that human behavior is determined not only by objective conditions but also by internal meaning frameworks – by how a person interprets reality. The same law can be seen by one person as an act of state care, and by another as a slap in the face. A price increase might be supported by one and opposed by another. This isn’t just opinion – it’s the meaning a person assigns to the world, their own understanding of what is normal.
Why has this suddenly become so important? Because we live in an era where behavior is increasingly shaped not by social position, but by perception. People act not because they are poor, young, female, or rural – but because they feel anxiety or hope for change. Because they believe in justice as balance – or, conversely, as compensation. Because they still believe that a single voice can matter.
And one more thing: we live in a country that is searching for itself. This search is not just about politics, economics, or national projects. It’s about the individual we’ve long overlooked – it’s about the citizen. And perhaps that is the most important aspect of the changes happening today. It is precisely this that lies at the heart of the idea of a “Listening State.”
P.S. To fellow sociologists: What “new variables” do you consider key today? What, in your view, truly explains human behavior in Kazakhstan today? Please share.
