A.I Shaltykov

Doctor of Political Sciences

Professor (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

PR as a political phenomenon

          One major factor of the national security is the stability in social and political climate of the country, harmony and unity in the society, effective interaction of all social forces. As the President of Kazakhstan Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev noted in the Strategy "Kazakhstan-2030 ": "Our task is to destroy old and prevent creating new barriers that built obstacles on the path to unity, then regardless of what these barriers are based - on the habits, attachments, special interests, prejudiced attitude, religion, age community or other factors. By encouraging all sorts of dialogue forms, together with deepening the ties between people, we, gradually, step by step would root our national solidarity and build our national capacity"(1 ). In this context, for Kazakhstan as a modern, dynamically developing state becomes obvious the relevance of effective mechanisms and ways to harmonize the social environment, to ensure political stability.

          Today, special place among such mechanisms takes Public Relations (PR), which role is substantially increased under the information dominating and rapid development of communications.

         Political PR - a kind of tool of political, economic and competition, ideology of cooperation and interests’ harmonization, mind-control technology and the people’ mood; both within any organization and at a level of a social group , social stratum, and a class as a whole at level of society; this is a technology to promote products, organizations and leaders in the political markets.

         PR as a political phenomenon has its potentials and the limits in applying its technology in a competitive political battles, creating social and political consciousness of the modern Kazakh society.

         It should be noted that political PR market in Kazakhstan is at an early stage of its development. PR- activities of public and private entities launch only in the run-up to election campaigns of various kinds, while in developed countries, public relations are part of the daily work of a system.

On January 15, 2012, elections to Majilis (lower chamber of Parliament) took place. All long that campaign, various technologies have been used, which strongly enriched the experience of election campaigns in Kazakhstan: the technology of " cloning " or creating twin - namesakes, they worked out pre-election programs of the parties to transform Kazakhstan, youth divisions were established; demonstrating numerous actions and concerts, they used new technologies. The new trait of these elections was noticeable decrease in pressure of the authorities on the opposition. Like in vast majority of election campaigns, the main battle place for votes in Kazakhstan was concentrated on the field of PR - technologies and parties’ programs did not play any significant role.

For the Republic of Kazakhstan particular relevance is to develop the international state PR, i.e. founding contacts with foreign community, promoting certain state image in the international arena. Kazakhstan, as other CIS countries face to a common problem: in order to occupy firm and very attractive place in the mass consciousness of highly developed countries, to attract positive attention of the world community, investments, tourist flow – it is necessary to create a real international image and international state PR. From this perspective, the PR of a country raises to the level of national security issues.

          Thus, we can say that one of the most important directions of development of PR in Kazakhstan remains its development as an effective mechanism for management of social and political processes, to ensure stability of the socio - political situation.

Literature :

N.A. Nazarbayev "Kazakhstan-2030 ": Prosperity, Security welfare of all Kazakhstan’ citizens: Presidential Address to the people of Kazakhstan . Almaty, 2002.