Autocracies and regional integration: the Eurasian case: Post-Communist Economies: Vol 30 , No 3

Abstract

The establishment of the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2010, succeeded by the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015, constituted an important discontinuity in the development of post-Soviet regionalism: while the preceding organisations remained cases of ‘ink-on-paper’ regional integration, in the case of the Customs Union the members actually implemented their commitments. This creates an important theoretical challenge: the literature (which the previous experience of Eurasian regionalism was very much in line with) conjectures that authoritarian states are unable to successfully implement an economic regional integration agreement (RIA). The aim of the article is to explore the conditions under which implementation of economic RIAs by autocracies happens. We argue that the implementation is influenced by the extent of economic, social and political ties between member states, and suggest that, unlike democratic states, which are more likely to implement a RIA where there are strong economic ties, non-democracies are more likely to do so in the case of intermediate economic dependence.

Keywords:

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the helpful comments of Kathleen Hancock, Ora John Reuter, Harley Balzer and participants of the International Studies Association convention, the Second World Congress of Comparative Economics, and the research seminars and conferences at the Aarhus University and the Georgetown University, where this paper was presented. All mistakes remain our own.

Notes

1. Kommersant, 19 January 2016.

2. Support of autocracies is also associated with providing transfers (in form of loans, low gas prices etc.). But these transfers do not require cooperation in terms of economic policies: they represent an individual decision by a government to finance an ally abroad, even if the policies remain strikingly dissimilar.

3. An interesting research question is why under these conditions countries still prefer creating regional organisations, which officially commit to economic goals: it could be related to the international legitimacy of the RIAs or to the ‘global script’ argument of comparative regionalism (Halliday, Block-Lieb, & Carruthers, Citation2010).

4. http://ia-centr.ru/expert/804/, accessed 19 March 2017.

5. Kommersant, 9 May 2016.

6. We do not consider the reasons countries had to sign the RIA in the first place: in Eurasia, regionalist projects emerged as part of the process of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, or as an attempt to use the benefits of integration rhetoric for autocracy stabilisation and hence are less interesting for us. Our focus is on the implementation gap of the already existing RIA.

7. Implementation gap has been shown to be an outcome of lack of state capacity, flawed design or leadership turnover (Gray, Citation2014; Gray & Kucik, Citation2017). These three factors are insufficient to explain the variation we observe in our article. The non-implementation was in many cases a clear and openly stated decision of the political leadership. Furthermore, we specifically look at the implementation of RIAs, which had very similar or identical declared policy goals and membership. Thus, within these RIAs, Kazakhstan and Belarus made the same commitments: but while in some cases they have actually implemented them, in others they did not.

8. Hypothetically, opening borders can reduce the effectiveness of propaganda due to access to information from abroad, as well as limit the power of repressions, allowing regime critics to escape to another country. However, since we look at the case of a RIA where all members are autocracies, this problem is less pronounced (although, e.g. in Belarus the opportunity to move to Russia was used by some discontented with the Lukashenka regime).

9. Direct gains from cooperation exist even if the RIA is welfare reducing, i.e. trade creation effects are smaller than trade diversion. It is sufficient that some influential groups gain from the RIA and hence support the autocrat or that the autocrat can use the resources to co-opt or repress key influence groups.

10. This problem played a substantial role in the case of the CU 2010, which faced numerous technical problems in the first years of its functioning because of ambiguous regulation and unclear bureaucratic practices.

11. This is what could be happening in Kazakhstan in the case of the EAEU implementation, see Schiek (Citation2016).

12. On the ability of the within-case analysis to identify the causal effects see Brady and Collier (Citation2010) and Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (Citation2003). The approach we use resembles the ‘difference-in-difference’ logic frequently underlying the large-N research.

13. See http://www.rbcdaily.ru/2012/03/13/focus/562949983229958, accessed 15 December 2016.

14. Since all post-Soviet countries share the same 1520 gauge, another critical issue is the availability and compatibility of locomotives, wagon cars and railroad equipment.

15. http://www.belrynok.by/ru/page/economics/2520, accessed 19 March 2017.

16. In 2014–2015, Belarus seized the opportunity presented by the Ukrainian crisis to improve relations with the EU. As a result, sanctions were levied; as of 2017, the relations between the EU and Belarus are better than before. This, however, happened after the key event we investigate in this article – the implementation of the CU.

17. Izvestiya, 27 January 1995.

18. Izvestiya, 31 January 1995.

19. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 7 October 1997.

20. Pravda-5, 22 October 1997; NG Stsenarii, 10 July 1997.

21. Itogi, 8 September 1997.

22. Izvestiya, 27 October 1997.

23. Izvestiya, 24 September 1997.

24. Izvestiya, 24 May 2010.

25. Belarus is interested in obtaining Russian oil to fill its oil refinery plants, mostly exporting their output to Europe. However, Russia imposes export duties on raw oil to protect its own oil refinery industry and budget revenues. The scope of this taxation, as well as division of possible tax revenue, has been subject to intensive debate between Russia and Belarus since the early 2000s.

26. Vedomosti, 24 May 2010; Vremya Novostey, 25 May 2010.

27. Kommersant, 29 May 2010; Vremya Novostey, 31 May 2010.

28. Kommersant, 2 June 2010.

29. Vedomosti, 9 June 2010; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 9 June 2010.

30. Izvestiya, 7 June 2010.

31. Vedomosti, 15 June 2010.

32. Kommersant, 16 June 2010; Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 17 June 2010.

33. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 21 June 2010.

34. Novye Izvestiya, 30 June 2010.

35. Vedomosti, 1 July 2010.

36. http://lenta.ru/news/2010/12/09/poshlina/, accessed 1 December 2015.

37. https://kapital.kz/economic/36805/biznes-prosit-zacshity-ot-devalvacii-rublya.html, accessed 1 February 2017.