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ABSTRACT
In the post-Soviet neighbourhood, the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union both address the common governance challenges, but there has been no institutional-level cooperation between the two unions. This total lack of cooperation on common regional challenges stands in stark contrast to the propositions of (neo-)functionalist/ rational institutionalist theories, which predict that technical cooperation can emerge even among actors who are hostile to each other. This article advances a social constructivist explanation to this puzzling phenomenon of noncooperation and argues that actors entrapped in normative conflicts are likely to refuse functional cooperation even when there are potential mutual gains.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Kazushige Kobayashi is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He specialises in Russian foreign policy, theory of international orders, and Eurasian regional integration and has given a series of invited lectures and public talks in Russia, Switzerland, and Japan. At the CCDP, Kazushige is currently leading a research project on Russian, Chinese, and Japanese approaches to peacebuilding activities. His most recent publication includes a policy report published by Valdai Discussion Club, entitled “Whose Liberal International Order? The Remaking of Eurasia and the Shifting Balance of International Ideas”.
Notes
1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2018 EUSECU-POLE Conference “Approaches of the European Union and Russia to Transnational Security Challenges” in Nizhny Novgorod on 24–26 May 2018, as well as at the Fifth EISA European Workshops in International Studies in Groningen on 7 June 2018. I thank the participants of these workshops for their constructive comments and criticism. I am grateful to the editors of this special issue, Agha Bayramov and Tracey German, for their helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to the journal’s three anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback.
2 Throughout this study, the qualifier “normative” indicates matters related to norms. Norms are understood as “shared understandings and values that shape the preferences and identities of state and nonstate actors that legitimize behavior, either explicitly or implicitly” (Badescu and Weiss Citation2010, 358).
3 Keohane (Citation1989, 3) defines institutions as “persistent and connected sets of rules (formal and informal) that prescribe behavioral rules, constrain activity, and shape expectations.” He argues that these institutions can be broadly categorised into formal intergovernmental or cross-national nongovernmental organisations; international regimes; and conventions, although there is a significant overlapping. Rational institutionalists argue that state actions considerably depend on these prevailing institutional arrangements that are formed on a basis of mutual interests. International institutions are important in world politics because they can influence the rational calculation behind state behaviours “chiefly by providing information, rules, and principles that reduce transaction costs, enhance decentralized enforcement, and increase interaction—make it easier for members to pursue shared interests and reap mutual gains (Moe Citation2005, 225).”
4 In the security domain, one of NATO’s key initial functions was “keeping Germans down,” which exhibited a high degree of continental distrust on German intentions even after its domestic transformation. Public opinion surveys cited by Ripsman (Citation2012) indicate that even in the mid-1950s, the majority of French public regarded Germany as a potential danger to European security.
5 The Baltic states for instance have been active in promoting the EU’s institutional ties to Central Asian nations, especially Kyrgyzstan.
6 See Jackson (Citation2014) for “statist multilateralism” of Eurasian regional organisations.
7 For instance, liberal international lawyer Emer de Vattel, known for his work Le droit des gens ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains, famously proclaimed that the balance of power was a cornerstone of a free and rule-based international order aimed at preventing an overwhelming concentration of power in Europe.
8 In the words of Richard Sakwa: “Putin is the de Gaulle of our day: Russia, like France, wants to be part of the West, but on its own terms” (Sakwa Citation2008, 246).
9 I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting the idea of cost-benefit analysis in EU-EAEU relations. To reiterate the previous points, the main argument of this article is precisely that the logic of normative action discursively forbids the EU of acting upon the logic of rational calculation.