Suchergebnisse

In this well-researched and detailed book, the authors provide an extensive and critical analysis of post-Soviet regional integration. After almost two decades of unfulfilled integration promises, a new - improved and functioning - regime emerged in the post-Soviet space: the Eurasian Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan (ECU). The contributors seek to explain this puzzling and politically significant development by examining the ECU's origins, institutional architecture, key driving forces and emerging implications. Their investigation reveals that the ECU is an ambitious and fast moving project in deep economic integration, yet its legal design is complex and member states are driven by a precarious balance of diverse motives. Nevertheless, as the contributions to the volume indicate, the emergence of the ECU already carries important external implications, especially for EU's strategy in the post-Soviet space.Being the first comprehensive and systematic study of the new Eurasian economic integration regime, this book will appeal to academics and students of regional integration, international relations and international law, Russian studies, Post-Soviet politics, as well as Central Asian studies.

Using role theory, in this article we seek to bridge existing gaps in research on the European Neighbourhood Policy by asking how local actors perceive EU engagement in regional security. Based upon extensive qualitative research conducted in the South Caucasus, we scrutinize whether the EU's conception of its role as a security actor coincides with the expectations of South Caucasian actors and their perception of the EU's performance in conflict resolution. We show that the EU's prioritization of security coincides with high demand in the South Caucasus for greater EU involvement. Yet our analysis reveals a major mismatch between, on the one hand, the EU's own role conception of being a strong security provider and South Caucasus countries' perceptions of its weak performance in conflict settlement. This is because the EU's toolbox – focussing on capacity- and confidence-building measures – is not well attuned to both local needs and a broader regional context shaped by an increasingly confrontational Russia.