Politics of Titular Identity and State-Legitimization: The Unique Case of Post-Colonial and Post-Communist Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

This paper seeks to analyze the composite intersection of numerous identity parameters to answer the empirical puzzle of how did these Central Asian countries' administrations approach the construction of their post-Soviet identities through the installment of a titular ethnic group as they were faced with decolonization in a post-communist space and in a period of Islamic turmoil?