Global governance and Eurasian international organisations: lessons learned and future agenda

ABSTRACT

The paper summarises the findings of this special issue and suggests avenues for future research. It concludes that the Eurasian regionalisms’ development in the 2010s was influenced, among other factors, by Russia’s concerns about external threats and by its control over the Eurasian space. However, the design of the regional institutions does not make them incompatible with global governance. The cooperation between global and regional institutions varies depending on the agenda of the specific regional organisation. In addition to direct competition between global and regional institutions, there may be an indirect one through offering access to different forms of economic benefits. Through this indirect strategy, regional institutions may reduce the incentives for individual countries to comply with their obligations to global institutions. This paper also places Eurasia within a global context of analysis and considers similar trends world-wide as well as outlines the agenda for future studies of global versus regional governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Global governance
• international organisations
• regionalism
• Eurasia
• regional international organisations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Authors are listed alphabetically and they contributed equally to this paper.

2. Authoritarian regionalism is also used interchangeably with ‘Non-democratic Regional International Organisations’, see); Libman and Obydenkova (2013), Libman & Obydenkova (2018a, 2018b), and Obydenkova and Libman (2019).

3. Libman and Obydenkova (2018a); Obydenkova and Libman (2019).

4. Here, ‘alternative globalization’ does not refer to the activity of critical social movements, which refers to itself as the ‘global justice movement’ or ‘alter-mundialization,’ but also anti-globalisation. Rather, we look at state-sponsored projects of alternative international governance and institutions.

5. On the relations between international organisations in the world politics, see Biermann and Koops (2017).

6. See, for example, Libman and Obydenkova (2013) on decorative commitments and agreements in the Commonwealth of Independent States as technically “ink on the paper”; yet serving as potential “stick-and-carrot” mechanisms within the informal governance context.

7. See also DiMaggio and Powell (1983) on the institutional isomorphism across organisations.

8. Larson and Shevchenko (2010) called the Chinese and Russian strategic responses to the US primacy as states ‘status seekers’.

9. Interestingly, Libman, in his article, shows that even Alexander Dugin, one of the best known criticists of “Western” globalisation in Russia, sees the EAEU as a tool of competing within the global order rather than as an alternative to it.

10. Many of these countries, like Kazakhstan, Armenia, and most recently Belarus, put substantial effort into balancing their obligations vis-a-vis the EAEU with developed ties with other international players or activity in the global institutions (e.g., Libman & Obydenkova, 2018b). Kazakhstan has so far been so far the most successful one in this respect. In 2017, the country was elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council; in the past, it chaired the OSCE and the Organisation of Islamic Conference (Del Sordi, 2016). Armenia’s new Enhanced Cooperation and Partnership Agreement with the EU can also be seen as an example of developing ties to the EU while remaining an EAEU member (Poghosyan, 2018).

11. An extreme case of this logic would be holding on nuclear weapons in Northern Korea, which, hopefully, will never be used, yet serves as an excellent demonstration of existing power and threat that is out there and potentially can be used at any moment should it be needed.

12. On the SCO and its security agenda and development, see Allison (2018), Aris (2011), Bailes (2007), Brummer (2007), and Obydenkova and Libman (2019). On the China’s role in regional and global governance, see Hameiri and Jones (2018), Ikenberry (2008), and Medeiros and Fravel (2003), and .

13. On the security regionalism and on the SCO, see Aris (2011), Bailes (2007), Brummer (2007), Obydenkova and Libman (2019), and Rahman (2011).

14. This lobbying was an important factor slowing down Russia’s WTO accession, see Connolly and Hanson (2012).

15. See http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/nae/news/Pages/01-03-2016-2.aspx. In 2017, for example, she stated that if Belarus joined the WTO, it would be “a great benefit” for the EAEU, see https://naviny.by/new/20170116/1484580188-vstuplenie-belarusi-v-vto-bolshoe-blago-dlya-eaes-schitaet-ministr-eek

16. On the survival of Soviet trade links, and their implications for modern political and economic development for post-Soviet republics, see for example, Lankina et al. (2016b); Libman and Obydenkova (2014); and Obydenkova and Libman (2012). For attitudes influenced by Communist legacies in Central European states, see Pop-Eleches and Tucker (2011, 2012)).

17. On theoretical aspects of challenges and obstacles in international cooperation and regional integration among ‘real existing democracies’ versus ‘real existing autocracies’, see Obydenkova and Schmitter (2020).

18. As with many other international trends, the current global pandemics has forceds us to rethink the trends observed in the last decades, yet any serious analysis of its effects as of now is impossible.

19. Obydenkova and Libman (2019) looked at a population of 621 non-democratic leaders worldwide between 1950 and 2015. They find around 60% of these autocratic executives are member-states in one or more NDRO. In contrast, only 40% of autocratic executives of the sample did not belong to any NDRO. This is an indication to the membership in NDROs serving as a survival strategy for a regime and consolidation of autocracy.

20. At the same time, there are also substantial costs: for example, concern about dependence on Chinese lending is a factor, which has already discouraged some countries from strengthening their participation in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Additional information

Funding

Alexander Libman appreciates the support of the MOE Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences in Universities of China (Centre for Russian Studies of East China Normal University), Project Number: 16JJDGJW004. Anastassia V. Obydenkova is grateful to the Centre for Institutional Studies of the National Research University – Higher School of Economics and to the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals for hosting her as a leading research fellow and a visiting professor.