3. Why Partnerships? The Approaches in Kazakhstan and Russia

When scholars and practitioners in Kazakhstan and Russia consider PPPs, the discussion often becomes unbalanced. In addition to noting traditional justifications for PPP deployment, such as a lack of budget for the provision of much-needed public services, a long list of advantages is assigned to partnerships. These advantages are discussed in a manner that diminishes the value of the context in which a PPP is formed, launched and managed. In these cases, the legal and institutional frameworks of other countries are not incorporated into the discussion, whilst the contextual environment of the specific industry and the nation’s management practices and financial arrangements underpinning PPPs are simply disregarded. This means that advantages and benefits that PPPs demonstrated in other nations’ contexts are often automatically applied—in the discussion, rather than in reality—to the Kazakhstani or Russian context, with an anticipation that similar advantages will be received in these two countries. In addition, scholars also assign another feature to PPPs in Kazakhstan and Russia: that a PPP implements a socially significant project. This chapter aims to investigate what advantages are associated with partnerships in the two nations, and the accuracy of these perceptions and opinions.