Kazakhstan’s recently adopted legislation – a move to ban “LGBT propaganda” – closely mirrors a law passed in Russia in 2013. The Kazakhstani parliament passed the legislation on Dec. 18 and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the new law on Dec. 30. To political scientists, this is a clear example of authoritarian policy diffusion – the process by which institutions and policies travel from one autocratic regime to another.
Kazakhstan is a conservative society and its population is largely ambivalent toward – or against – protecting the rights of LGBT individuals. Yet many citizens of Kazakhstan nevertheless oppose the legislation. A new public opinion survey suggests people view this move not only as a boon for Russian propaganda, but also a dangerous expansion of government censorship. These findings suggest that domestic and foreign observers who warn about Russian influence in Kazakhstan may have reason to worry. Russian media consumption remains widespread in Kazakhstan, given the large Russophone population. Russian state media channels powerfully shape public attitudes on LGBT issues – even more so than demographic factors like age, ethnicity, or education. The new legislation thus has its stakeholders not just on the government level in Kazakhstan, but also among ordinary people who still view Moscow’s governance as the model to follow.
Kazakhstan’s violent history under Russian rule
Kazakhstan shares a nearly 5,000-mile border with Russia, and the two countries’ histories are deeply intertwined. Once part of the Mongol Empire’s famous Golden Horde, the territory of Kazakhstan came under Russian imperial control during the 18th to mid-19th centuries. Attracted by the prospect of open land, Russian peasant settlers moved into the steppe in large numbers.
Under Soviet rule, the Kazakhs – traditionally a nomadic people – faced the trauma of forced sedentarization. Soviet authorities confiscated their livestock, provoking a devastating famine. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union established a vast system of labor camps on the Kazakh lands, carting in millions of political prisoners – what Moscow called “enemies of the people” – and their families, as well as members of ethnic groups deemed potentially disloyal to the Soviet regime.
These population disruptions left ethnic Kazakhs in the minority when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Today, they make up a majority of the population, but Kazakhstan remains an ethnically diverse place and the government is anxious to ensure harmony. Russian remains the primary language for many citizens, including ethnic Kazakhs.
Russia’s enduring influence in Kazakhstan
Russia maintains multiple levers of influence over Kazakhstan. The two countries are closely linked economically, and Kazakhstan exports the vast majority of its crude oil via a pipeline running through Russia. Kazakhstan has also joined Russia-led regional organizations, including the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – Moscow’s comparatively weak counterpart to NATO. In a controversial move, the CSTO dispatched Russian “peacekeepers” to quell protests that erupted across Kazakhstan in January 2022 in response to a fuel price hike and spiraled into calls for political change.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine damaged its image in Kazakhstan; a nontrivial share of Kazakhstani citizens fear that Moscow could use ethno-linguistic ties as an excuse to attack their country next. A wave of Russians have recently migrated to Kazakhstan, particularly after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a partial military mobilization in September 2022. But Kazakhstan preaches neutrality, and attitudes toward the war within the general population are fragmented. However, Russian television remains popular throughout the country, especially among older people, and pro-Russia narratives also circulate widely on social media. These outlets tend to promote the Kremlin-backed narrative of “Western hedonism” while upholding traditional conservative values related to family and religion.
Kazakhstan mimics Russia’s 2013 anti-gay legislation
After protests rocked Russia from 2011 to 2012, the Putin regime embarked on what scholars have called a “moral crusade” to justify increased repression of civil society organizations. In June 2013, Russia’s parliament passed a bill outlawing “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors” – intentionally vague phrasing – despite pushback from local activists. Other post-Soviet countries like Moldova and Ukraine proposed similar laws, but abandoned the legislation as they sought closer ties with the European Union. A decade later, amidst increasing autocratization, Kyrgyzstan passed its own version of the law in 2023, as did Georgia in 2024.
Anti-LGBT legislation in Kazazhstan has not followed a linear path, however. In 2015, the parliament passed a bill with similar language to Russia’s, but the courts later found it unconstitutional and the measure was dropped – possibly to boost the country’s chances of being selected to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Last year, members of parliament revived the initiative. On Dec. 30, 2025, President Tokayev signed a series of amendments to existing legislation that collectively restrict the dissemination of information about LGBT people. To critics, this amounts to a “copycat version” of the earlier Russian law. Social media backlash was swift: Many citizens of Kazakhstan claimed the legislation was a convenient distraction from persistent problems such as corruption and ineffective governance.
What my survey data reveal
Just after the bill was passed, I fielded an online survey of approximately 1,300 citizens of Kazakhstan (ages 18 to 60). Respondents could choose to answer in Kazakh or Russian, the two most commonly spoken languages. The data aren’t fully representative of Kazakhstan’s population – they skew younger due to online sampling – but they broadly match the country’s gender, language, and regional distribution. I included two LGBT-rights questions: (1) respondents’ satisfaction with the “LGBT propaganda” legislation and (2) the importance they attached to protecting LGBT rights.
Figure 1 below shows the overall distribution of responses to these questions among respondents in the survey. Although the survey shows moderate public support for the anti-LGBT law (among those who provided a response), a deeper look at the responses reveals an important nuance: Many respondents who oppose the legislation are not particularly supportive of LGBT rights. Only 28% of respondents who said they were “not at all” or “not very” satisfied with it said that they think legal protections for LGBT people are important. This seemingly contradictory position may reflect the fact that these respondents hold conservative social views but nonetheless view the legislation as an expansion of government censorship powers.
The high non-response rate tells its own story. Around 34% of respondents said “don’t know” or refused to answer when asked about their satisfaction with the LGBT legislation. This likely reflects both their discomfort with answering politically sensitive questions and, even more importantly, their genuine uncertainty about the implications of the amendments.
Figure 2 shows another striking finding: Russian media consumption, which is more frequent among older individuals, strongly predicts support for the anti-LGBT legislation. Even after controlling for ethnicity, home language, and other socio-demographic characteristics, respondents who regularly watch Russian TV were significantly more satisfied with the new legislation than those who rarely consume Russian media.
Surprisingly, Russian media consumption is also weakly positively associated with valuing LGBT-rights protections, even with socio-demographic controls. This may be a reflection of the higher levels of political interest among Russian TV viewers; after adjusting for variation in political interest, the association is no longer statistically significant.
This legislation as an example of authoritarian diffusion
Kazakhstan’s anti-LGBT legislation demonstrates how authoritarian policy diffusion works in practice. There is no evidence that Russia explicitly ordered Kazakhstan to follow its lead. Instead, a combination of geopolitical pressure, media influence shaping public discourse, and convenient policy templates created fertile ground for Kazakhstan’s leadership to adopt their own version of Russia’s anti-LGBT laws when they saw fit.
For ordinary citizens, these events raise larger questions. In recent years, Kazakhstan has sought to maintain good relations with both Russia and Western countries. Does this new legislation signal that Kazakhstan will increasingly follow the lead of its northern neighbor, which has further clamped down on independent media and civil society since 2022?
Over the longer term, whether socially conservative – even repressive – policies will harm Kazakhstan’s relations with Europe remains an open question. The E.U. is a major trading partner for Kazakhstan, and the E.U. ambassador in Astana voiced concerns about the legislation – yet the statement appears to have carried few, if any, substantive consequences.
Isabelle DeSisto is a 2025-2026 Good Authority fellow.
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