title: Migrant Agency in an Institutional Context: The Akmola–Astana Migration System
abstract: This article addresses one of the key challenges facing transitional and emerging economies: managing ruralurban migration to tackle rural decline and the associated rapid urbanisation. We introduce New Institutionalism as a novel conceptual framework to analyse the interactions between the institutional environment and migrant agency in a rural-urban system: the Akmola-Astana migration system in northern Kazakhstan. Our results suggest that the government might be more successful if it engages 
journal: Europe Asia Studies