Russia and Eurasia

Beggar Thy Neighbor? Application of SPS measures by the Russian Federation and Case Study: The Impact of the Russian Import Ban on Ukrainian Confec...

Views from the Pivot Point: Chinese Perceptions of Russia’s ‘Go East’ Strategy

One of Three Roads: The Role of the Northern Sea Route in Evolving Sino-Russian Strategic Relations

Russia and China in Central Asia

Over the last three years, Russia and China have increased their engagement in Central Asia in response to NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Moscow has deepened its security cooperation with the Central Asian states with a new strategic purpose– guarding against instability spilling over from northern Afghanistan– and has promoted the expansion of the Eurasian Economic Union. China also has dramatically accelerated its economic activities in the region by announcing the One Belt One Route (OBOR) initiative, an ambitious project to upgrade regional infrastructure and connect China to Europe and the Middle East. Although both Beijing and Moscow claim to be regional partners and not rivals, since the Ukraine crisis Russia has been forced to accept China’s terms of cooperation in order to signal that it has non-Western partners and opportunities.

Erika Fatland: Sovjetistan

En diskusjon som lenge har pågått i forskningen på postsovjetisk Sentral-Asia er hvor mye mening det gir å avgrense det som et eget forskningsfelt. Hvor like er egentlig Kasakhstan, Kirgisistan, Tadsjikistan, Turkmenistan og Usbekistan, og bør man inkludere Afghanistan i regionsdefinisjonen? Den samme ambivalensen gjenspeiles i måten styresmaktene snakker om seg selv på. Forsøkene på regionalt samarbeid – ofte initiert av eksterne aktører – har som regel feilet på grunn av en blanding av manglende tillit og manglende vilje til å gi avkall på kontroll over interne affærer vis-a-vis sine naboland. Dyrkingen av den nasjonale identiteten har vært i sentrum siden uavhengigheten, blant annet i forsøk på å integrere de mange subnasjonale identitetene. Det er ikke ofte man møter på folk i disse landene som ser seg selv som en del av et større sentralasiatisk felleskap: de mange andre identitetsmarkørene er langt viktigere.

Towards Multi-level Security Community Building: The EU’s and Norway’s External Governance in Ukraine

initial objective of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was to expand the European zone of peace beyond the EU’s borders through processes of external governance. It was seen as an instrument for promoting security in the region through processes of integration and association. Although initially developed as a rather coherent policy, it has over the years become something very different. In this paper, we examine what these changes have actually entailed. Our main argument is that the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy –the lead framework of the EU’s external governance has been developing from the original concept of a set of rationally planned processes coherent across countries of this Neighbourhood, towards a complex and ambiguous set of ‘garbage can’ type of processes in individual countries. We focus on the latter dimension, specifically analysing the nature of coordination of reform processes in Ukraine. Here, the original model of a rational process, with detailed action plans, monitoring, reporting and progress assessment of reforms, has given way to a set of loosely coupled processes involving various interests, problems, solutions and decision-making situations–what Cohen, March and Olsen (1972) termed the garbage can model of change. EU institutions and EU member states are involved in various forms of engagement with Ukraine, resulting in complex and often loosely coupled forms of adaptation. Nevertheless, Ukraine is experiencing unprecedented levels of extensive transformation processes connecting its various societal segments with the EU.

Towards Multi-level Security Community Building: The EU's External Governance in Ukraine