Regions in Transition in the Former Soviet Area: Ideas and Institutions in the Making

240 Pages·2018·2.35 MB·English

by  Alessandra Russo (auth.)

REGIONS IN TRANSITION
IN THE FORMER SOVIET AREA
Ideas and Institutions in the Making
ALESSANDRA RUSSO
Regions in Transition in the Former Soviet Area
Alessandra Russo
Regions in
Transition in the
Former Soviet Area
Ideas and Institutions in the Making
Alessandra Russo
Sciences Po Bordeaux
Centre Emile Durkheim
Pessac, France
and
Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Pisa, Italy
ISBN 978-3-319-60623-1 ISBN 978-3-319-60624-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60624-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947807
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F
oreword
Regionalism in the former Soviet space is a thriving and dynamic field, but
it displays a number of gaps. It tends towards the historical-descriptive end
of academic endeavour; efforts to engage relevant bodies of theory are
rare. It tends to be russo-centric, focusing on the region’s leading power
and not giving full place and voice to Russia’s neighbours. To the extent
that the international policy perspectives of small neighbours receive aca-
demic attention, the questions are largely how these states manage their
relations with Russia or how they interact with external institutions
(NATO, the EU) or major states (the USA). Like much analysis in area
studies, academic work on the former Soviet area tends to be idiosyncratic,
focusing on the region as it is and how it is developing, rather than situat-
ing it in a comparative frame. Finally, there is a tendency in work on for-
mer Soviet regionalism to focus on interstate institutions and on policy,
rather than on how these states and their citizens understand the space in
which they exist.
Dr. Russo seeks to rebalance our understanding of the region(s) in
several ways. Her interest in discourse and understandings of regionalism
pulls us away from institutions and policy. Her work is self-consciously
comparative and provides a fruitful blend of deep understanding of rel-
evant bodies of theory and profound knowledge of the region’s his-
tory, politics, and society. She also takes the focus away from Russia as
regional leader and towards small states who seek to survive and to pros-
per in this difficult environment.
v
vi FOREwORD
In this way she provides an original and distinctive account of the
dynamics of regionalism in the former Soviet area that enriches our
understanding of this complex space. Her discussion of the interdepend-
ence of processes of state- and region-formation is particularly compel-
ling. The focus on how states and societies conceive and act in regional
space is a welcome supplement to a literature which is dominated by dis-
cussion of relations between these states and their powerful regional and
global interlocutors.
In short, Dr. Russo seeks to move beyond ‘subaltern’ analysis of the
region’s small states and to give them their own voice. For all these rea-
sons, this book is a commendable addition to a thriving literature.
S. Neil MacFarlane
Professor of International Relations
University of Oxford, UK
A
cknowledgements
This book is based on my Ph.D. research: during those years, that I have
spent between Pisa, Oxford, Tbilisi, Bishkek, Chisinau and Berlin…
I have encountered so many people without whom my doctoral studies
would not have been such an exciting journey.
Many whole-hearted thanks go, first and foremost, to my supervi-
sors, Francesco Strazzari and Neil MacFarlane. However, this thesis
could not have been written without the support of researchers, col-
leagues, experts, advisors, whom I have met during my fieldwork peri-
ods in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Therefore I want to express
my gratitude to my ‘‘Georgian family’’, above all the staff of the Center
for Social Sciences and precisely Marine Chitashvili, Mako Mikaberidze,
Salome Minesashvili, Irina Osepashvili, Diana Lezhava, Lika Tsuladze,
Nani Bendeliani, Elena Japaridze, Ketevan Gikasvili. In addition to these
great women, I would like to thank Alex Rondeli, that has often opened
the doors of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International
Studies to me, never tired of replying to my questions.
My gratefulness also goes to the people who helped me during my
stays at the Central Asian Studies Institute of the American University of
Central Asia, Aigul Kubatbekova and her family, Vassiliy Lakhonin, and
Kanybek Mukalaev; and the people who made my visits to Chisinau pos-
sible, in particular Petru Negura.
vii
viii ACKNOwLEDGEMENTS
In general, I am indebted to all respondents, interviewees, focus
group participants, for their time and attention, and having helped me in
my research with their insights, opinions, and perspectives.
This manuscript was in part drafted with the support of a grant by
the the Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) ‘‘The Transformative Power of
Europe’’, hosted at the Freie Universität Berlin. Therefore I also thank
Thomas Risse and Tanja Boerzel, the KFG staff and fellows.
My acknowledgements also go to the colleagues and friends from the
Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna.
Finally, last but absolutely to least, all my thanks and my love go to
the ones who have sustained and encouraged me well beyond, and often
in spite of, the sleepless nights of thesis writing.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Region-Building in the Former Soviet Space 19
3 The Paradox of Russian Hegemony 61
4 Post-Soviet States and Post-Soviet Regions 83
5 The Inside-Out Facet: State Identity and
Regional Imaginaries 113
6 The Outside-In Facet: Regional Models of
Governance Transfer? 179
7 Conclusions 221
Index 229
ix
l F
ist oF igures
Chapter 3
Fig. 1 The five stages of Russia’s foreign policy (according to Mikhail
Molchanov’s classification) 67
Chapter 4
Fig. 1 Component parts of the state and components parts of the
region: geographical, institutional and ideational dimensions 84
Fig. 2 Dobson’s conflict-interdependence-integration spectrum,
in De Lombaerde (2006, p. 14) 84
Fig. 3 The two constitutive vectors of state-formation and
region-formation, that can be theoretically conceived
of as two parallel co-constitutive processes 87
Fig. 4 Co-constitution and bracketing strategy 87
Fig. 5 Neoclassical realist approach to foreign policy making 92
Fig. 6 Double shift of focus vis-à-vis neoclassical realism 92
Fig. 7 Post-Soviet countries’ levels of dependence on Russia and size
in terms of demographic, economic and military capabilities
(approximation based on Tables 2, 3 in Chap. 2) 98
Fig. 8 Decreasing and increasing trends of democracy in the CIS
member states. Data about Russia are not included in the
database “V-Dem”, which nonetheless covers all the years
since 1991. V-Dem Institute, Varieties of Democracy (Liberal
Democracy Index), www.v-dem.ne (last accessed: 15/01/2017) 99
Fig. 9 Screenshot (on-line focus groups) 101
xi