Studying EU–Russia policies in the shared neighbourhood in Russia and in the West

ABSTRACT

The article examines and compares the Russian and Western research agendas on the European Union (EU)–Russia policies in their shared neighbourhood. The analysis will be implemented in four successive steps. (1) The conceptualisation of the EU–Russia common neighbourhood in the Western and Russian researches will be analysed in three dimensions (terminology attributed to this region, political–social transformations, regionalism) that will contextualise the subsequent analysis of the Western and Russian research agendas on (2) EU policies (European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership) and (3) Russia’s policies (including the issues of the Eurasian integration) towards the common neighbourhood and also on (4) EU–Russia interactions within this area. The conclusions will identify and systemise the major trends as well as nuances in each agenda and also the differences and asymmetries between the Western and Russian research agendas will be outlined and analysed. These differences are determined by both, the policy-oriented and academic factors. The agendas are asymmetric, yet they are not monolithic, pluralism exists in both of them. Prospects for the further research will be outlined.

KEYWORDS:

• EU–Russia shared neighbourhood
• post-Soviet space
• European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)
• Eastern Partnership (EaP)
• Eurasian economic integration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Regarding some keywords the search period was shorter, e.g. 2003–2018 (‘ENP’), 2008–2018 (‘EaP’) or 2012–2018 (‘Eurasian Economic Union’).

2. Search performed on 02.08.2018 with the SciVal; the keyword ‘post-Soviet space’ was used to define the research area in the subject area ‘Social sciences’.