Eurasian Integration and its Institutions: Do They Serve to Provide Security in Eurasia?

Vinokurov E., Libman A. (2018) Eurasian Integration and its Institutions: Do They Serve to Provide Security in Eurasia? In: Bordachev T., Dutkiewicz P., Lukyanov F., Sakwa R. (eds.) Eurasia at the Edge. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD.

In this chapter, we turn to the large family of institutions that came into existence in post-Soviet Eurasia (and, in some ways, beyond it) over the last two decades. We will review their current state, agenda, real and perceived mandate, and their respective achievements and constraints. The main questions of interest to us are the following: do ‘Eurasian’ institutions serve to provide security/stability and, if so, how? To answer these two questions, we identify a number of key challenges to security in Eurasia, review the institutions belonging loosely to the Eurasian Economic Union’s institutional ecosphere, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Our goal is primarily to find out the possible contributions to security in the region from the point of view of the mandates of regional institutions and their capacity. As we will show, the potential of Eurasian regional institutions to provide security is substantial, and it partly materializes itself in concrete policy measures.