If true this is truly amazing. So rare nowadays to see countries move towards democracy instead away from it.
But it is quite extraordinary to see parts of the government lead by Tokayev, eject an autocrat (Nazarbayev) and begin the process of democratisation. And it does seem to stem from a lack of willingness to carry out a crackdown on the people.
It is not likely to become a liberal democracy soon if ever (not that is needs to be a goal at all). A hybrid regime is very likely though.
You love to see it.
Eg. This was co-ed with their president 11 years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kazakhstans-steady-p...
Many signs that they have good-will for democracy, but I don't think it's easy in their position ( member of the CSTO and in Russia's "sphere of influence").
I have seen signs that they aren't just a puppet of Russia for example and I wasn't sure what was going on. But the article somewhat explained it.
But the ( natural) direction seems to be set either way.
The natural process of democracy seems to be: Dictatorship -> industrialisation -> democracy. Does any one knows any books talking about this?
e.g. I’m pretty sure Loui didn’t expect in his worst nightmares that his head will be chopped of a couple of years later).
The only successful exceptions I can think are is Spain after Franco died, Taiwan and South Korea but these are all rather modern.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38521576
Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but it tackles the somewhat bumpy transition from industrialization to democracy (or rather why it didn’t exactly work out that way)
Absolutist monarchy -> violent jacobin style revolution -> ??? (a lot of war and dead people)-> reactionaries come back to power -> a more moderate revolution/coup which brings a more balanced regime which establishes some kind of a rule of law based constitutional order.
Britain only had a single cycle of this, while France needed 2/3.
It not like the goal of Prussia was to establish a democratic regime in France, that was just side effect and arguably Napolean brought that war on himself (just like his uncle did with Russia)
Many other monarchs gave up their "divine" rights under pressure, but without being really overthrown.
What about the UK?
Mexico is another modern example; it became democratic gradually and peacefully in the late 90s or early 2000s. There was no sudden regime change, and the formerly ruling PRI is still a major political party that runs in the (now fair) elections.
Read this section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_revolutions_of_1848%E2%...
Summary: The King gave half the population what they wanted and then he used good old military force to struck the rest down and then he regained all of his powers.
England had a head start thanks to the Magna Carta (which established the Parliament) and the Civil War (which gave it teeth); by the time the steam engine was invented, the rule of law was well established and industrialists didn't need to worry about having their work confiscated.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism#Traje...
"Capitalism, Alone" by Branko Milanovic discusses that, amongst other things.
Watch this video ("The Rules for Rulers" from CGP Grey)[0], it's a summary of a book from de Mesquita ("The Dictator's Handbook")[1]. The video explains this process very well, imo.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11612989-the-dictator-s-...
What really brought it home to me, was a podcast of two boardgame designers working on the "tech" trees of a Civilization type game. One was for religion, which had to start with mysticism, to move on to theology. When my offense about this line of thinking passed I had to wonder: since Judaism -> Christianity -> Islam, are they going to stop the monotheistic track at Christianity or Islam?