Post-Soviet Space, Central Asia and Eurasia

The nature of holding-together regionalism dictates the initial composition of countries participating in a regional agreement and establishes borders which participants perceive as being, in some senses, natural and reasonable. This has probably been less applicable to former African colonies but is extremely pronounced in case of the FSU. The post-Soviet space inherited its borders from the Russian Empire: almost all nations of the FSU (with the exception of Western Ukraine, which has been part of the Hapsburg monarchy) have been part of a single state for at least one and a half centuries. However, as we have already described, these initially ‘natural’ spaces lose their coherence over time. This then erodes the foundation for the HTI. The situation is somewhat better in Africa, where post-colonial regionalism partially coincided with existing geographical borders between parts of the continent (these borders did not necessarily reflect cultural and religious divisions, but that is also true for the borders between independent states). In the post-Soviet space, which comprises countries with very different cultures and which lean towards different extra-regional poles of influence (Turkey, the EU, China, Romania and so on) the problem of fragmentation will have a fundamental impact on HTI.