Rethinking the Eastward Extension of the EU Civil Order and the Nature of Europe's New East–West Divide

Abstract

The first half of this article argues that the EU can be most aptly characterized as a law-governed and highly consensual civil association and that the chief benefits of the ongoing eastward enlargement of the EU derive from the impact of the rule of law and increased rule-certainty on economic, social and political activity and conduct in the new and prospective member countries. The second half of the article argues that the unreadiness of Russia and most other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to become part of Europe's civil order derives, not from ‘essentialist’ cultural/civilizational differences between the CIS and the rest of Europe, but from the profoundly entrenched (albeit not wholly unassailable) ‘verticality’ of power structures and power relations in most of the CIS polities, economies and societies. Thus Europe's new East–West divide need not be explained by ethnocentric cultural essentialism and fatalism concerning Europe's ‘East’ (a latter day version of ‘Orientalism’). This divide can instead be challenged and eventually surmounted by persistent and concerted efforts to change the structures, opportunities, incentives and penalties in Europe's East–West relations.

Key Words:

• Civil association
• rule certainty
• eastward enlargement of EU
• post-Western EU
• reform fatigue
• backsliding
• Russia
• Putin
• Commonwealth of Independent States
• Kazakhstan
• Central Asia
• oil and gas windfalls
• rentier states
• cultural essentialism