introduction
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
International Affairs 80, () ‒
ROY ALLISON
This special issue of International Affairs examines how regionalism contributesto and is shaped by the changing international order in Central Eurasia—a partof the world which has been thrust to the forefront of international andstrategic affairs since September 11 2001, but has been overlooked in moststudies of regionalism. These articles assess why regionalist impulses in CentralEurasia remain fragile, for reasons specific to the internal makeup and interstatepolicies of the local states and their dependence on powerful external states.One objective is to contribute to our broader comparative understanding ofthe constraints on regionalism in areas where it is poorly developed or of recentvintage. Another is to show how the strategic agendas of external states impacton regional projects and processes, positively and negatively. Particularattention is paid to the traditional regional hegemon in Central Asia, Russia,the new regional player and global power, the United States and the would-beregional partner Iran.
‘Central Eurasia’ is not a distinct geographic, political or cultural entity,although it can be defined narrowly for the purposes of this analysis to includethe post-Soviet states of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) and of the Caspian seaboard (which includes Azer-baijan). In a fuller sense Central Eurasia can be viewed as a category that drawsattention to processes and interactions between these states and neighbouringcountries in the wider region—in particular the south Caucasus, Iran, Russiaand China—as well as to the changing geometry of links between non-stateactors. This broad setting provides the context to the articles that follow.
Most of the articles focus on the five new Central Asian states, which in thepost-Cold War period have tended to have been perceived to form some kindof core grouping in a broader and more disparate region or to connect severalmacro-regions. Certainly these states have been the object of numerous initia-tives from outside and within Central Asia to promote regional cooperation inmore or less institutionalized forms. However, the efforts of the Central Asianstates to cooperate and coordinate strategies, to promote common goals invarious issue areas, have proceeded only slowly overall reflecting difficulties
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within and between these states as well as the frequently intrusive and self-regarding role of external powers.
These impediments to regionalism can be summarized as follows. First,there exist significant clashes of interest and rivalries between Central Asianleaders, which are expressed in contemporary policies but have historical andcultural roots. An emphasis on the consolidation of their new-found sover-eignty, sometimes at the expense of their neighbours, has diluted their interestin pooling sovereignty or in forging and projecting a self-conscious regionalidentity. This helps to explain why regional structures in Central Eurasia havemostly tended to be consultative in nature rather than consisting of bodiesmaking and implementing decisions. Second, state-sponsored regional projectshave suffered from weaknesses in local state capacity and economic resources aswell as in economic non-complementarity. This is especially significant sinceregionalism as a policy and project has been associated particularly with state-level activities in Central Asia and the wider region. There has been lessevidence of soft regionalism, of sub- and suprastate regional processes, than inmore developed regions elsewhere in the world, although some functionallinkages have formed, for example those concerning energy policy. Third,initiatives for active cooperation in Central Asia have tended to take the formof top down efforts reflecting the political priorities of the incumbent authori-tarian rulers and the political systems they dominate, for example in bolsteringinternal and regime security.
All these constraints on regionalism in Central Eurasia mean that the struc-tures that have been formed at the regional level have so far lacked one of thesignificant functions they perform in some other parts of the world—the abilityto mediate between national and global policies and to aggregate the commoninterests of the local states to allow better negotiation with global institutionsand powerful states.
The role of powerful external states in Central Eurasia has strongly influ-enced patterns and processes of regional association. It is not clear, however,that these states have favoured regionalism, at least in preference to thecultivation of effective bilateral relations with local rulers. A focus on bilateral-ism is also found in the policies of these local leaders when they have soughtways to bolster their domestic standing or their profile vis-à-vis their immediateneighbours. However, for much of the 1990s the ‘overlay’ of Russian influencedampened down the expression of local security and foreign policy dynamics.In this period Russia was indisputably, although decreasingly, the regionalhegemon in Central Eurasia while also trying to project itself as the uncon-tested regional security manager, working through the framework of theCommonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It is a matter of debate whetherMoscow’s favoured regional projects under the CIS represented, and throughsuch bodies as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation still represent, aform of coercive or pseudo regionalism or alternatively of voluntary accom-modation by the smaller member states to a Russia-led system.
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However, since September 2001 the regional environment has becomemore complicated with the projection of American global interests intoCentral Eurasia. In the new strategic setting a number of questions should beraised: at a general level, are the roles and capacities of regionalism changing ina world increasingly influenced by the exigencies of American power and theprojection of that power into Central Asia as well as into the Middle East andSouth-East Asia? Does this then on the one hand make it more difficult becauseof the US focus on key bilateral relationships for regional structures andframeworks to develop and for regional identities to be consolidated? Or, onthe other hand, might some countries in these regions seek to coordinate theirpolicies more in regional formats in order to guard against unreasonableexpectations or demands from the United States?
Regionalism could also be boosted by the changing global agenda. Thefocus on countering transnational terrorism could create demands for greatercoordination at the regional level in Central Asia and South-East Asia and forinter-regional coordination. Overall, it is necessary to consider how therelationship between regionalization and globalization, as complementary pathsto global order, has been modified since September 11. This is a multifacetedresearch task that has to be conducted on a broader scale than is possible in thecollection of articles that follow. However, they assess some of the con-sequences and dilemmas of US strategic single-mindedness for regionalistpolicies and projects in a particularly volatile part of the world. Central Eurasiamight come to exhibit more ‘regionness’ and become more connected withpolitically stable and economically dynamic core regions in the world system oralternatively it might become marginalized and stagnate as a peripheral zone.
However, the potential for unipolar dominance by the United States in thecurrent period any more than in previous years, should not be overstated. Withthe end of the Cold War some suggested that US hegemony remained themajor challenge to the growing influence of regionalism globally. US dominancewould mean that counterbalancing regionalism could not be an option, sincethe pivotal states in each region would prefer, instead, to align with theunipolar centre of power. But this contention falsely assumed that dominanteconomic and military capabilities could invariably be converted into regionalpolitical control. The problems of this assumption are obvious currently fromthe specific case of Central Asia and the macroregions around (not to mentionthe Iraq imbroglio). It is reasonable to assume that in this unstable terrain theUS will continue to lack the ability to control—rather than influence—regional security processes. Equally, this task is beyond Russia. It is outdated toclaim, as some scholars did in the late 1990s, that most of the post-Soviet spaceforms a separate international region where Russian hegemony prevails. Eventhe description of Central Asia, according to security complex theory, as aweak subcomplex in a Russia-centred large regional security complex, is basedless on assumptions about Russian control mechanisms than the transnationalnature of security interactions across the post-Soviet territory.
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It is important to keep in mind the timeframe involved in the developmentof the first wave of regionalism in the developing world in the 1960s and the‘new regionalism’, beginning in the 1980s. The articles in this issue confirmthat regionalism still has shallow roots in Central Eurasia. The Central Asianstates tend to have a pick and mix approach to their commitments to regionalprojects and there is little sharing of core identity between them (apart from theamorphous Soviet experience) or in the wider region—between Iran and theCentral Asian states for example. However, the experience of these states withlittle more than a dozen years of independence, is too brief to foretellconfidently their potential for regionalism in ten or even five years’ time. Inother regions of the world functional cooperation in one field has oftenpreceded and helped to prompt functional cooperation in another; securitypolicy ties may follow the coordination of economic and trade issues, forexample, or vice versa. Soft regionalism has also developed as societies andpolitical systems have evolved and transnational networks have increased.
The case of South-East Asia is instructive in this respect. Here, thetimeframe for the development of regional projects and frameworks has beenlonger than in Central Asia and concrete challenges have had to be addressedand overcome to reach the more mature expression of regionalism represented,for example, by ASEAN. The collection of articles in this issue includes ananalysis of regionalism in South-East Asia as a point of contrast to theexperience in and around Central Asia. It suggests that regionalism amongdeveloping counties may need to be a long-term project and should not beexpected to flourish quickly on the basis of the political blueprints of localleaders or external sponsors. This study is also revealing since South-East Asia,like Central Eurasia has been one of the forward zones in the American-ledglobal campaign against transnational terrorism. The South-East Asian caseshows the resilience of regionalism and questions the contention that USunipolarity, unilateral strands in US policy in the post-September 11 periodand the priorities of counter-terrorism have been fundamentally at odds withregionalist impulses in South-East Asia.
These themes and others are amplified in the articles in this issue. LouiseFawcett sets the scene with a broad comparative and historical analysis ofregionalism, exploring the various dimensions and definitions of thisphenomenon. Neil MacFarlane examines the relationship between Americanpolicy and regionalism in Central Asia, concluding that regionalism is hardly aUS policy priority and US policy has done little to foster regional institutions.Annette Bohr studies the weaknesses of regional blueprints in Central Asia andidentifies the diverse constraints on regional projects. She suggests that thepost-September 11 geopolitical setting has not transformed underlying regionaldynamics in Central Asia. In my article I assess the security dimension toregionalism in the broader Central Eurasian zone and suggest that policies ofbalancing and bandwagoning help explain the conduct of states in regionalframeworks. But I point to the weakness of security-related regionalism in
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Central Asia except in forms relying on hegemonic sponsorship. EdmundHerzig reveals how regionalism has developed as an important strand in theespousal of Iranian foreign policy, but confirms that Iran’s actual engagement inmultilateral regionalism in Central Asia and the Caspian remains minimal.Joakim Öjendal, as noted above, offers a contrasting analysis of regionalism/regionalization in South-East Asia and explores the dynamic betweenunilateralism in US policy and regionalist processes in this corner of Asia.
Ultimately, as Fawcett reminds us, regionalism remains a work still inprogress. In Central Asia and the wider zone of Central Eurasia the roughoutlines of this work are still being sketched and its structure is not fixed. In thenext few years it may take shape on the drawing board or remain a faint patternunable to emerge in the face of powerful dynamics within and between thelocal states and their dependence on external patrons.
