Geopolitical games in Eurasian regionalism: ideational interactions and regional international organisations

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the ideational interaction underlying attempts at regional integration and cooperation in Eurasia. While the ideas and values of the European Union have been relatively well-studied within the theory of Europeanisation, the key concepts, ideas, values and principles driving Eurasian regionalism have remained out of the main focus of Western scholarship. This paper aims to shed more light on this ideational basis of Eurasian regionalism by unveiling the discourse developed in Russian scholarship and available only in Russian. Understanding interactions between institutions will always remain partial as long as the ideational interaction is not addressed. Such concepts as ‘integrative mentality’, as a segment of the wider category ‘foreign policy mentality’, and the theory of neo-Eurasianism have been incorporated into Russian political discourse and therefore affect public opinion through specific interpretation of economic, political and cultural processes in the EU’s near neighbourhood and the EU as an actor. The analysis presented in this paper indicates the development of new ideational competition, in addition to the well-documented geopolitical one. The paper also aspires to contribute to emerging research on public support to governmental strategic choices and self-legitimation of international organisations in Eurasia.

KEYWORDS:

• International organisations
• Eurasian regionalism
• the EU near neighbourhood
• regional integration
• legitimation
• public opinion
• neo-Eurasianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The authors of this paper are listed alphabetically and they contributed equally to this manuscript.

2. A very quick search in Google indicates approximately 609,000 links to ‘Europeanisation’. There was no result at all on ‘integrative mentality’ that would be related to political science (most of the links associate it with psychology or with maths-related studies on integrative models). In contrast, a search for the Russian translation ‘Интеграционная ментальность’ also in Google, produced over 268,000 findings – almost a half of the above – with the first and most ‘relevant’ references (yet not all of them) relating to regional integration.

3. See for example, Arpino and Obydenkova (2020), Jensen (2009) and Sutherland (2005).

4. Making citizens’ rights a tangible reality: 500 information сentres inform citizens across Europe. europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-234_en.htm, accessed 9 June 2019.

5. Declaration by the High Representative Federica Mogherini on behalf of the EU on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2017. http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/12/08/declaration-by-the-high-representative-federica-mogherini-on-behalf-of-the-eu-on-human-rights-day-10-december-2017, accessed 7 June 2019.

6. ‘Autocracy-led regional international organisation’ is used interchangeably here with ‘non-democratic regional organisation’ (NDRO).

7. We distinguish between ideological and ideational foundations – both are about sets of values and beliefs. Yet, we refer to ideology (e.g. Marxism–Leninism) as highly consolidated and dominant theory that is well elaborated and developed and, above all, accepted as the only ideational foundation of a state. In contrast, ideational refers to fluid or flexible sets of values and beliefs that can well co-exist with another, even contradictory, set of values. Ideational framework does not claim to be the only correct interpretation of the world or the only acceptable paradigm for the development of a specific state.

8. The classic example of this would be the establishment of regional development banks in the midst of the Cold War in the 1960s – the US initiative with an officially stated goal to sustain development in targeted loan-recipient states when the actual goal behind those banks was the intention to prevent developing states from sliding into the Communist camp (Ben-Artzi, 2016; Obydenkova & Vieira, 2020).

9. Whenever we refer to the former Soviet republics, we exclude the Baltic States from this group in this paper.

10. The vision echoes the idea of ‘liberal empire’ introduced by Anatoliy Chubais in 2003. Liberal empire was widely discussed in Russian mass media and the internet (see, for example, Igor Shatrovв, ИА ‘Росбалт’ 23 December 2004. http://www.rosbalt.ru/2004/12/23/190431.html, accessed 15 May 2020.

11. Armenia then witnessed some increase in public support for the EAEU: with an upward public approval of 50% in 2017.

12. EDB Integration Barometer. Saint Petersburg: EDB Centre for Integration, 2017.

13. Among scholars, however, there are debates on whether Eurasianism is really the foundation of the regional integration projects across the former Soviet republics (e.g. Laurelle, 2015). The concept of Eurasianism was not promoted by the political elite but by a few thinkers or intellectuals. Therefore, we argue that Eurasianism is one of the segments highly related to the discussion of the ideational foundation of Eurasian regionalism, yet, it is not the only one.

14. On historical legacies and their effects, see Lankina et al. (2016b), Libman and Obydenkova (2014, 2019a), Nazarov and Obydenkova (2020), and Obydenkova and Libman (2012, 2015). Some of these studies analysed the role of historical legacies and their implications for social-political development and for such issues as, for example, corruption, democracy and firm innovation.

15. Here, we use ‘thinkers’ interchangeably with ‘scholars’ as they all have doctoral degrees in history or in philosophy, except for Tsymbursky, who holds a PhD in philology, and was a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science. All of these scholars held professorships at some of the best universities in Russia and some of them were even professors of the authors of this paper at Moscow Lomonosov State University – the first and arguably the best university in Russia, at least in the humanities, philosophy and social sciences. Moreover, as further discussion demonstrates, some of them (e.g. Alexader Dugin) certainly left a trace in Russia’s foreign policy development and ‘mentality’ in the early 2010s.

16. See, for example, Dobrenkov and Dugin (2010) and Dugin (2009).

17. In fact, these were a few of the Western philosophers, upholding a civilisational approach, allowed as part of the syllabus in Moscow Lomonosov State University during the late stages of the USSR and the early post-Soviet period of the 1990s, in parallel with multiple readings of Panarin, Dugin, Tsymburskii and other neo-Eurasianists, where Western philosophers were interpreted in line with neo-Eurasianists’ ideas. This combination was highly influential in the formation of the vision and perception of many of the younger generations of students from the early 1990s until now.

18. This explains why the policy-makers involved in the EAEU placed an emphasis mainly on the economic and pragmatic benefits associated with regional integration – the pragmatic benefits are easily digestible in contrast to overwhelmingly sophisticated theories of Eurasianism.

19. It is remarkable that modern Russian academic discourse keeps on using ‘ideology’ and/or ‘ideological foundation’ while discussing politics and policy choices instead of ‘ideational’ foundation/dimension.

20. Russkiy Mir Foundation was created by Vladimir Putin in 2007 (imitating Instituto Cervantes of Spanish culture and language world-wide or the British Council).

21. Somewhat similar to Russkiy Mir, the Agency (known in Russian as ‘Rossotrudnichestvo’) focuses on cultural exchanges and foreign aid at a global scale but especially in former Soviet states and Eastern Europe, in addition to Latin America and Africa.

22. It is important to clarify here that all these are Russian initiatives.

23. Based on the integration of labour and healthcare markets, the Eurasian Economic Commission at the end of 2019 also announced its intention to create a common social space within the EAEU (EEC predlagaet sformirovat, 2019).

24. The full results of the survey were accessed in June 2019 at https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=9525, accessed 8 June 2019.

25. On the (negative) attitude of Russians towards migrants from former Soviet republics, see Libman and Obydenkova (2019b).

26. A significant amount of people aged 18–34 years old (born after 1991), reported ‘nostalgia’ about the USSR and claim that the disintegration of the USSR was a ‘bad’ thing (see Pew Research Centre 2016 ‘Views on role of Russia in the region, and the Soviet Union’, available at https://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/views-on-role-of-russia-in-the-region-and-the-soviet-union/, accessed 16 May 2020.

27. ‘Putin ratifies interim agreement on EAEU-Iran free trade zone’. http://tass.com/economy/1033258, accessed 2 June 2019.