From Central Asian Regional Integration to Eurasian Integration Space? The Changing Dynamics of Post-Soviet Regionalism

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reevaluate some elements of literature on Central Asian regionalism through the prism of contemporary regionalism theories elaborated by international epistemic community of regional scholars. Firstly, it will briefly present contemporary regionalism as a phenomenon and a discipline. It will then advance an analytical framework of regional order. The second part will give a short introduction of post-Soviet and Central Asian regionalisms. It will then argue that the analytical framework presented on the first section should be applied to Central Asian case to make sense of regionalism processes there. As a conclusion, I will argue that we should move from “Central Asian regional integration debate” to discussions around “Eurasian integration space.”

Keywords: Central Asia, Eurasian Integration, Eurasec, CACO, Regionalism, Post-Soviet Space