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2018 | Book

Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

Regions in Transition in the Former Soviet Area

Ideas and Institutions in the Making

Author: Alessandra Russo

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book aims to understand the “texture” of the post-Soviet region, where waves of de-integration and re-integration have been resonating at different times and through diverse manifestations over the last quarter of century. The post-Soviet states have been evolving in an embryonic system of states in their close neighbourhood, whose boundaries and rules of interactions are still in the making. However, one can already detect specific traits of regional governance, one of these being the presence of overlapping organisations and institutions.

It includes reflections on relations between state formation and region formation and a tentative conceptualisation of a post-colonial form of regionalism. The focus on small states, featuring different behaviours vis-à-vis regional organisations and regional imaginaries in their transitional and still unsettled state identities and foreign policy narratives, constitutes a further element of originality. This innovative volume is crucial reading for scholars and researchers of International Relations with a special interest in either the Former Soviet Space or Comparative Regionalism.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the rationales and motivations behind the research project as a whole. Specifically, this project examines regional dynamics inside the former Soviet space by observing the structuration of a region, how it relates to states and other processes of polity-making, and to what extent “the regionals”—i.e., all the various regionally-scaled articulations of political units—unfold through this dialectics.
Alessandra Russo
Chapter 2. Region-Building in the Former Soviet Space
Abstract
This chapter offers an overview of post-Soviet regionalism with reference to the existing literature. It reviews the main analytical frameworks and conceptual models which have been developed in relation to the post-Soviet region, and how the latter has been interpreted and read by different scholars. The chapter then attempts to reposition post-Soviet regionalism within an International Relations perspective, interpreting it as an instance of fundamental historical phenomena of integration and fragmentation occurring in the international system. In so doing, the chapter presents a trans-historical analysis of post-imperial peripheries.
Alessandra Russo
Chapter 3. The Paradox of Russian Hegemony
Abstract
This Chapter is devoted to investigating one of the peculiarities of post-Soviet regionalism, i.e., the controversial role of Russia, an actor caught between hegemonic capabilities and ambitions on one hand, and the post-colonial condition of a state in the making on the other. The chapter discusses the role of Russia vis-à-vis the region and its positioning therein, focusing in particular on the paradoxical essence of a weak-state hegemony. Although Russia has acted as the main region-builder, it set out from a condition of non-statehood or early statehood, being subjected to transformative pressures in the wake of Soviet dismemberment, similarly to other post-Soviet countries.
Alessandra Russo
Chapter 4. Post-Soviet States and Post-Soviet Regions
Abstract
Chapter 4 proposes an analytical model of state-region co-constitution wherein the formation of two different types of polities proceeds in parallel and in relation one to the other. This model represents the mutual constitution of structures (i.e. regional institutions) and agents (actors operating in the region, i.e. states) as a specific process shaping the post-Soviet region and explaining its fundamental features. The chapter argues that states’ characteristics and actions (and the way they are engaged in their own internal definition and structuration) define regional institutions, norms and practices, and are in turn defined by them.
Alessandra Russo
Chapter 5. The Inside-Out Facet: State Identity and Regional Imaginaries
Abstract
This chapter presents and analyses the data related to the three case studies selected to display the inside-out facet of co-constitution, namely Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. The link between their “ideas of the state” and “ideas of the region” has been investigated by using a discursive approach to explore their foreign policy narratives. Unsettled state identities in the three countries under investigation have affected the way the post-Soviet region has been imaginatively re-constructed, i.e., as a space in which multiple, divergent ideas of the region coexist and overlap.
Alessandra Russo
Chapter 6. The Outside-In Facet: Regional Models of Governance Transfer?
Abstract
This chapter delves into the outside-in facet of co-constitution. A sociological approach to two instances of post-Soviet regionalism (Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO) uncovers a set of unconventional functions delivered by these organisations. The analysis of both declaratory commitments and practices of regional coordination and cooperation in the fields of border management, counter-crime and counterterrorism serves to shed light on ‘‘bureaucracy-boosting’’ and ‘‘sovereignty-shaping’’ regionalism. Both the regional organisations under scrutiny turn out to play a role in constructing and ordering the fundamentals of statehood in the post-Soviet region.
Alessandra Russo
Chapter 7. Conclusions
Abstract
The proposed state-region co-constitution model aids in understanding post-Soviet regional governance and its morphogenesis. The Conclusions summarise the replies provided for the original research questions, i.e., why regional organisations in the former Soviet space proliferate and why references to the regionals appears to be a recurrent, enduring feature in both post-Soviet politics and elites’ discourses and narratives, in spite of dysfunctional/ineffective regional organisations and the repeated failure of regionalist projects.
Alessandra Russo
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Regions in Transition in the Former Soviet Area
Author
Alessandra Russo
Copyright Year
2018
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-60624-8
Print ISBN
978-3-319-60623-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60624-8