Beyond geopolitics: Agency and modularity in mobile telecommunications in Kazakhstan

Much of the discourse on U.S.-China tech decoupling has centered on trade and geopolitics, often overlooking the ground-level realities of developing countries and their strategic digital choices. The telecommunication industry, with its international supply chain and long-term orientation, is a particularly interesting locus to explore distributed and ground-up agency in countries that depend on Western and Chinese tech giants. In this article, we draw on fieldwork in Kazakhstan conducted in 2022 and 2023, primary and secondary sources, to describe the decision-making process in building and maintaining mobile telecom infrastructure. We identify three key constraints shaping this process - market and network structures, distribution and procurement process, and (geo)political and security considerations. Within these constraints, we uncover spaces for agency at different levels and highlight the ability of different actors – from engineers to telecom companies' management - to influence choices in hardware, software and financing. We argue that the strategic role of telecom firms in national economies, the industry's long-term orientation and modularity, and the firms' ownership structures serve as important counterbalances to sudden disruptions caused by international politics. In a digital world increasingly shaped by competition between U.S. and Chinese tech giants, findings from Kazakhstan highlight the potential for developing countries to carve their own digital trajectories and offer a framework for future research to extend this analysis to other sectors and regions. • Developing countries are seen as having limited agency in tech sectors dominated by Western and Chinese players. • Modularity, long-term orientation and layered decision-making are key in mobile telecom infrastructures. • We show how historical, technological, market, and (geo)political constraints shape telecoms' choices in Kazakhstan. • We identify distributed agency exercised by local actors in decisions regarding hardware, software, and financing. • Telecoms' long-term orientation, modularity, and ownership structure counterbalance sudden geopolitical disruptions.