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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Zurab MARSHANIA
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Associate Professor, IB Euro-Caucasian University
(Tbilisi, Georgia).
THE PHENOMENON OF POST-BIPOLAR REGIONALISM IN EUROPE
Abstract
The author concentrates on the typical features of regional cooperation in Europe in the post-bipolar world. He relies on a vast body of academic writings to arrive at his own interpretation of the following terms: post-bipolar world; region; expanse; and regionalization and post-bipolar regionalism, the latter being discussed in the context of the Baltic-Black Sea international cooperation system. He
describes post-bipolar regionalism as a qualitatively new type of regional cooperation which emerged in the de-polarized global system of international relations and a restructured balance of power. Equal partnership on the international scene is described as a specific feature of post-bipolar regionalism, as opposed to the domination of regional leaders over their smaller neighbors.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The last decade of the 20th century witnessed a global tectonic shift: the Soviet Union fell apart to leave the United States the only and genuinely global power and spell the end of the bipolar world order. Western Europe, which has preserved a large share of the world's political and economic might, however, remains one of the geopolitical heavyweights. The same applies to other parts of the European continent. The geopolitical changes which, in the final analysis, created a new, post-bipolar world order unfolded in two stages:
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■ the end of the bipolar world order;
■ the first post-socialist states joined NATO and the EU.
Some think that it is too early to talk about any more or less clear outlines of a new system of international relations, even though the old system has disappeared from the world scene. The same authors believe that there is no reason to describe the present system as a multipolar world: those who support the idea of a multipolar world, as opposed to the "unipolar domination of the United States" on the international arena, fail to contemplate the possible negative repercussions of any other international system.1 The new post-bipolar system of international relations is described not as a result of someone's consistent efforts. It is born by objective processes—disintegration of the bipolar system; appearance of new centers of power in some of the regions; and weakening of the two former superpowers. American political scientist Stanley Hoffmann writes about the growing number of new independent states and the greater role of the non-state actors, the mounting mutual dependence, and the changed correlation between the economic and military factors as the most typical features of the world today. It is also said that in the past the system of international relations was arranged as a hierarchy of power factors; in the 1970s, however, several functional hierarchies (based on economic, military, ideological, and socio-cultural factors) began taking shape.2
Typical Features of the Post-Bipolar World
Many academic communities, including the neorealists, are interested in the specific features of the post-bipolar and post-Cold War international system.3 At the same time, there is no agreement among the neorealists about the possible development trends in the post-bipolar world and the prospects of hegemonism in particular.
Some think that hegemonism cannot survive over the long run; on the other hand, it is believed that an effective foreign policy can help maintain America's leadership for a long time. "The United States should seek the means to remain an acceptable leader in the military, economic and political spheres rather than to impose its will within an imperial model."4
Regional cooperation, which came to the fore after the Cold War in the developing post-bipolar world order, is gaining weight; it has already caused even greater decentralization of the current system of international relations. The regional format of multilateral cooperation has already become one of the key factors of international relations today.
Decentralization and more or less consistent development have been and remain the reasonable and important tasks of international cooperation. Today, decentralization of economic development has become one of the pillars of sustainable development, which means that economic development of any region is a task of global dimensions related to the whole of mankind rather than to those living in the region.5
1 See: Mirovaya politika i mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, ed. by S.A. Lantsov, V.A. Achkasov, Piter Publishers, St. Petersburg, 2008, p. 136.
2 See: Ibidem.
3 "Neorealism is one of the contemporary theories of international relations, a renovated version of political realism. As a scientific world outlook, it figured prominently in shaping the United States' foreign policy in the last decade... When talking about our day and age the neorealists deem it necessary to point out that after the Cold War the international system preserved its main regularities" (I.N. Koval, "Postbipoliarnaia mezhdunarodnaia systema: podkhody i otsenki 'ne-orealistov'," Visnik Odeskogo natsionalnogo universitetu: Sotsiologia i politichni nauki, Vol. 12, Issue 14, 2007, p. 139, in Ukrainian).
4 Ibid., p. 140.
5 See: J. Käkönen, "Local Dimension and Regionalisation: The Northern Peripheries," in: The New North of Europe, ed. by L. Heininen, J. Käkönen, Tampere Peace Research Institute, Research Reports, No. 80, 1998, p. 63.
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Fragmentation of the post-Soviet geopolitical expanse can be described as another typical feature of the post-bipolar era; this is confirmed by the emergence of new transnational regional organizations.6 Regional integration and coordination of innovation politics are conducive to resource saving and make it easier to sell new products. This means that economic growth in large and small countries is possible in regions which closely cooperate, on a global scale, with the developed, new industrial, and developing countries.7
"Nation-states continue to be the basic units of the world system... Geographic location is still the point of departure for the definition of a nation-state's external priorities, and the size of national territory also remains one of the major criteria of status and power. However, for most nation-states, the issue of territorial position has lately been waning in salience."8 This became especially obvious after the Cold War when the global system of international relations became depolarized, while the old balance of power was restructured. This pushed forward integration on a world and regional scale, while the process was free from global ideological pressure and the diktat of the superpowers. In the early 1990s, the old state alliances fell apart; their members formed new regional and sub-regional groups.9
Collapse of the communist system changed the geopolitical map of the world beyond recognition. The post-Soviet states with similar historical roots inherited from the Soviet Union its defective system of administrative-command economy, which lacked many of the indispensable state institutions. With practically no experience of independent statehood, they not only had to cope with numerous persisting domestic problems, but also with expanding globalization; this explains the regional alliances of states with similar interests. Together, they can more efficiently cope with their problems and achieve their aims.10
Here is what Zbigniew Brzezinski has to say about globalization and its possible effects: "'Globalization' in its essence means global interdependence. Such interdependence does not ensure equality of status or even equality of security for all nations. But it means no nation has total immunity from the consequences of the technological revolution that has so vastly increased the human capability to inflict violence and yet tightened the bonds that increasingly tie humanity together... But a gradual and controlled devolution of power could lead to an increasingly formalized global community of shared interest, with supranational arrangements increasingly assuming some of the special security roles of traditional nation-states. Global security dilemmas in the early decades of the twenty-first century are thus qualitatively different from those of the twentieth. The traditional link between national sovereignty and national security has been severed."11
The Concept of Region and Regionalization of International Relations in the World Today
The advent of the post-bipolar (post-Cold War) era made what the academic community had to say about political geography and geopolitics more pertinent. In the past, geographers described and
6 See: T. Beridze, E. Ismailov, V. Papava, Tsentralny Kavkaz i ekonomika Gruzii, Nurlan, Baku, 2004, p. 49.
7 See: R. Abesadze, V. Burduli, "Innovative Activities and their Coordination under Advancing Globalization,"
The Caucasus & Globalization, Vol. 3, Issue 4, 2009, p. 79.
8 Z. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books, New York, 1997, pp. 37-38.
9 See: S.V. Glebov, Stanovlenie sistemy bezopasnosti i sotrudnichestva v Chernomorskom regione i rol Ukrainy v etom protsesse (1990-e gg.), Ph.D. thesis, Odessa, 2002, p. 24.
10 See: V. Papava, "On the Role of 'Caucasian Tandem' in GUAM," Central Asia and the Caucasus, Special Issue, No. 3-4 (51-52), 2008, p. 47.
11 Z. Brzezinski, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, Basic Books, New York, 2004, pp. ix, 2, 13.
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classified geographic areas (internally homogenous with obvious and fundamental delineations and territorial divisions), the boundaries of which were nothing more than the lines which kept these areas apart inside the territory.12
Some of the researchers describe political geography as a science with permits the study of spatial perspectives.13 Graham Smith has described geopolitics as a geographic concept which attaches great importance to the mechanism and development of international relations, or as a concept that allows geographers to study the relations between geographic expanse and politics.14 Simon Dalby, in turn, has written: "Geopolitics is a complex cultural matter, where identities are formulated, represented, and repressed in contemporary political discourses."15
Geopolitics is not neutral: it studies political processes in different geographical contexts to identify geostrategy at the state level.16 Geopolitics is closely connected with progress in political geography; there are different ideas of geopolitics: it can be understood as a philosophical approach to history, or as fundamental political geography, or as a security policy which rests on geographical factors. Geopolitical location, for example, is understood as the location of a state in relation to:
■ Various military-political groups and blocs;
■ The key transportation and economic routes;
■ States with different ethnic and cultural traditions.
From this it follows that politics and economics are the sum-total of varied dynamic processes, while the geopolitical location of states varies in time and space.17
It is becoming increasingly clear that the issues which used to belong to geography (including the emergence of new regions) have moved into the field of attention of political science. This is caused by more intensive international contacts, the increased importance of geopolitical factors, and security issues, and the continued drawing closer of the geographical and political sciences.18
The present geopolitical situation has stirred up an interest in the principles of regional structural-ization of geopolitical and geo-economic expanses,19 which makes the contemporary scholarly interpretations of the term "region" extremely interesting. There is any number of interpretations ranging from philosophical (a world with a specific mentality, traditions, world outlook, and world perception) to formal legal as a legally identified sub-national unit. There are historical, geographic, geopolitical, economic, and other interpretations of the concept.20 Jussi Sakari Jauhiainen of Finland has rightly noted that there are many contradictions in the way the term is defined and the essence of the phenomenon the term describes. This explains the continued and fairly intensive academic discussions.21
The region understood as a vast area, a group of adjacent countries or territories (areas) tied together by shared features, looks to be the simplest of the scholarly interpretations.22
A more detailed interpretation of the term "region" (a word derived from the Latin regio) describes it as part of a country or any other vast territory which differs from all the others in its natural
12 See: J.S. Jauhiainen, "A Geopolitical View of the Baltic Sea Region," in: Dynamic Aspects of the Northern Dimension, ed. by H. Haukkala, Jean Monnet University of Turku, Turku, 1999, pp. 47-48.
13 See: P.J. Taylor, "Political Geography," in: R.J. Johnston, The Dictionary of Human Geography, ed. by G. Derek, G. Smith, 3rd ed., Longman, New York, 1994, p. 447.
14 See: G. Smith, "Geopolitics," in: R.J. Johnston, op. cit., p. 228.
15 S. Dalby, "Geopolitics and Global Security: Culture, Identity, and the 'Pogo Syndrome'," in: Rethinking Geopolitics, ed. by G. O'Tuathail, S. Dalby, Routledge, London, 1998, p. 295.
16 See: J.S. Jauhiainen, op. cit., p. 48.
17 See: A. Gegeshidze, Geopolitics, Tbilisi, 1999, p. 196 (in Georgian).
18 See: Z. Abashidze, The Cold War: Past or Present? Tbilisi, 2009, p. 47 (in Georgian).
19 See: E. Ismailov, V. Papava, Tsentralnaia Evrazia: geopoliticheskoe pereosmyslenie, CA&CC Press, Stockholm, 2010, p. 123.
20 See: Yu.N. Gladkiy, A.I. Chistobaev, Regionovedenie, Moscow, 2002, p. 16.
21 See: J. S. Juahianen, op. cit.
22 See: I.S. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova, Tolkovy slovar' russkogo iazyka, Moscow, 2002, p. 32.
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or historically developed economic, social, and cultural features; a group of adjacent countries which forms a special economic-geographical, ethnocultural, and socioeconomic part of the world.23
Some scholars look at the region as an expanse, the population of which is consolidated by a common history and strategic interests and challenges.24 Others believe that the states in a region attach special importance to collective security.25 Still others look at the region as a community of states defending their specificity in the face of mounting globalization.26
Eldar Ismailov and Vladimer Papava rely on a descriptive approach to revise certain aspects of the geopolitical interpretation of the region unrelated to the interests of the world and regional powers.27
The concept of region cannot be reduced to a simple sum-total of characteristics; its content depends on the task as formulated by the researcher. This explains why the region is not a particular entity but a certain systemic quality produced by cooperation among many factors. The region is not something immutable or eternal; its borders are flexible. This explains why S. Grinevetskiy, S. Zhil-tsov, and I. Zonn have written that "new regions may appear due to all sorts of mechanisms; this means that in all cases the specific reasons of the emergence of a regional entity should be analyzed. The share of each factor potentially responsible for the systemic organization of an expanse should be identified." The same authors deem it necessary to add that a region can change its configuration even if there were previously no objective prerequisites to treat it as a single whole.28
There is the opinion that today regional boundaries can no longer be regarded as simple dividing lines on the map. Like political and other factors, the boundaries are conventional and do not play the main role in the complex process of region-building.29 This makes the so-called post-modernity territorial units a doubly interesting trend associated with a clear understanding that mounting globalization makes regions highly vulnerable. This trend is manifested in the so-called virtual regions taking shape in the regional development of geographically close territorial units. Virtual regions are not territorial units limited by administrative borders. They are brought together by common interests envisaged by mutually advantageous agreements. This allows virtual regions to coordinate their efforts, effectively use their resources, and achieve short- and long-term aims much more efficiently than the traditional structures of centralized governance.30
According to K. Mötölä, the concept of region-building which gained popularity in the 1990s presupposes that shared security (military, economic, and environmental) plays the leading role in the process. The author refers to the OSCE expanse as one of the examples of his interpretation of regions.31 According to Carl-Einar Stälvant, regionalization is a great achievement of the post-bipolar era. Winston Churchill placed the Iron Curtain between Trieste and Lübeck. The Berlin Wall made the division of Europe complete. Regionalism in our day and age has created a policy and strategy aimed at overcoming the effects of the postwar division of Europe.32
1957.
23 See: Etnologicheskiy slovar, Moscow, 1996, p. 124.
24 See: K. Deutsch, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,
25 See: I.S. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova, op. cit., p. 33.
26 See: S. Walt, The Origins of Alliances, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1987.
27 See: E. Ismailov, V. Papava, op. cit., p. 6.
28 See: S.R. Grinevetskiy, S.S. Zhiltsov, I.S. Zonn, Chernomorskiy uzel, Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, Moscow, 2007, p. 21.
29 See: J.S. Jauhiainen, op. cit., p. 56.
30 See: S. Boisier, "Postmodernismo territorial y globalizacion: regiones pivotales y regiones virtuales," CEPAL/ILPES, Santiago de Chile, 1993, Documento 93, p. 19.
31 See: K. Mötölä, "Security around the Baltic Rim: Concepts, Actors and Processes," in: North European and Baltic Sea Integration. The NEBI Yearbook, ed. by L. Hedegaard, B. Lindsröm, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1998, p. 364.
32 See: C.-E. Stälvant, "Security and Safety in the Baltic Sea Region: Transformation and Three Agents of Change," in: Challenges and Prospects for Nordic-Baltic Security Sector Reform—The Western Balkans, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Sub-Saharan Africa, Research Report, ed. by M. Ekengren, C.-E. Stälvant, A. Helkama-Rägärd, Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, 2007, p. 34.
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Other authors agree with the virtual region idea; they point out that the role of the nation-states is diminishing, their functions being limited to brokerage between foreign trading structures and the local population.33
Here I shall present my idea of the terms "expanse" and "region"; these two concepts are not identical. Expanse is a territory which includes geographically close, but historically, politically, and economically alien states. For example, the Baltic and Black Sea expanses include the coastal countries. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Russia, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland belong to the former; Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Rumania, Georgia, and Turkey belong to the latter. The region is, however, not only a geographically but also a geopolitically homogeneous entity consisting of states bound by shared political and economic interests and a common past. Since a region, as distinct from an expanse, is not a group of states consolidated by a common geography but by a set of several features (political, economic, cultural, historical, etc.), common interests rather than their geographical proximity should be viewed as the key factor of regional identity. This means that any region can be regarded as an entity in the broader sense of the word. The Greater Black Sea region is one of the best examples: it includes not only the coastal states but also Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, countries with no direct access to the Black Sea.
In the post-bipolar world, the rising regionalization of foreign policies is accompanied by the ever mounting opposition of the majority of states to new dividing lines in the world or any of its regions and by the emergence of an effective network of transborder cooperation, which makes new international regional organizations and initiatives even more important. Continued discussions have already convinced many political scientists that regionalism and regionalization are phenomena of the post-bipolar era (which began when the Cold War ended). Both, however, cannot be described as absolutely novel phenomena.
During the Cold War, these phenomena were studied in the context of integration theories; the so-called old regionalism was based on inter-state cooperation, while new regionalism (or post-bipolar regionalism) of the post-Cold War era is a much more complex phenomenon, hence the greater academic interest in it.34
It should be said that in some cases regionalism is manifested in international relations in a highly ambivalent way, which explains the extremely divergent opinions about the issue. Ian Clark, for example, believes that regionalism differ greatly from globalization as a phenomenon "leading to regional blocs, and countering the formation of globalist institutions or agenda."35 According to A. Vysotskiy, regionalism contains two opposite principles: on the one hand, the states tend toward integration within certain geographical limits; while on the other, groups of states prefer to detach themselves from others.36 Zbigniew Brzezinski believes that in the contemporary world "geopolitics has moved from the regional to the global dimension."37 Andrew Gamble and Anthony Payne view regionalism "as a step toward globalization rather than an alternative to it."38
It is not easy to come up with an adequate definition of the term "regionalization." Jyrki Kakonen, for example, describes it as a typically modern phenomenon which has taken the form of a "complex European process"; in 1992, it assumed a visible form after the creation of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). In the 1990s, regional cooperation in the Baltic area helped Lithuania,
33 See: P. Wong-Gonzalez, "Integracion de america del norte: implicationes para la competencia y competitividad internatinal de regiones," CEPAL/ILPES, Santiago de Chile, 1997, Documento 93/19, p. 35.
34 See: J. Kakonen, "Regionalization and Power in the Baltic Sea Region," in: Nordic-Baltic Region in Transition, New Actors, New Issues, New Perspectives, ed. by S. Perko, Tampere Peace Research Institute, Tampere, Research Report, No. 75, 1999, p. 52.
35 I. Clark, Globalization and Fragmentation, New York, 1997, p. 30.
36 See: A.F. Vysotskiy, Morskoy regionalism (mezhdunarodno-pravovye problemy regional'nogo sotrudnichestva gosudarstv), Naukova dumka, Kiev, 1986, p. 15.
37 Z. Brzezinski, op. cit., p. 39.
38 A. Gamble, A. Payne, Regionalism and World Order, Houndmills, 1996, p. 251.
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Latvia, and Estonia integrate into NATO and the European Union, thus diminishing the threat of regional confrontation, which might increase due to the fact that Russia was left outside the European and Euroatlantic expanse. The Baltic region, writes the Finnish academic, reflects the dualism of post-Cold War Europe. On the one hand, the integration potential on the continent is growing (three post-Soviet Baltic states returned to Europe); while on the other, there are new dividing lines between Russia and Europe.39
Jyrki Käkönen distinguished between "high" and "low" regionalization. The former refers to cooperation among the regional states at the government level; the other, to the involvement of mainly civil society entities (municipalities, chambers of trade and commerce, NGOs) in international cooperation. Regionalization provided small states with a better opportunity to set up all sorts of functional (or even multifunctional) regional structures. Some authors describe this process as regionalization. The Vyshegrad Group (Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary) and to some extent the EU are pertinent examples.
The nature of regionalization depends on whether the states allow their sub-regions to be involved, in their own right, in setting up regional organizations or councils of transborder cooperation (designed to cope with local problems) or whether the state has monopolized this activity.40
Today, borders are no longer as important as they were in the past, writes Käkönen, which is true of the world and of the European continent in particular. This means that security policy might lose some of its previous importance and transfer it to cooperation at the lower, transborder, level and the corresponding institutions; regionalization has obviously introduced new and non-traditional political actors into world politics.41
Björn Hettne believes that regionalization and "new regionalization" of the post-Cold War period in particular is connected with international transborder cooperation at the sub-regional level. More often than not, regionalization is associated with globalization and localization, that is, with "Glocalization."42
Arto Nokkala believes that regional policy geared toward "horizontal cooperation" within a region is a reasonable option and offered the North-South infrastructure across Europe as a pertinent
example.43
Regionalization is viewed as a strategy of the nation-state, which gives it a chance to decentralize its foreign policy. The large states, as regional leaders, will gain even more: this may alleviate the fears of the region's smaller states that have good (including historical) reason to be afraid of the military potential of their larger neighbor.44
The new regions are very different in terms of their characteristics, functions, and level of re-gionalization.
According to Jyrki Käkönen, regions may replace nation-states as active players on the international political scene.45 In particular, transnational regionalism means that there is "subnational paradiplomacy," which means more than a simple answer to new territorial economic ties and the globalization of markets. It is the answer to global interdependence and the limited possibilities of
39 See: J. Käkönen, "Change and Continuity in the Baltic Sea Region. A Historical Perspective," in: Europe and the New Role of the Regions, ed. by S. Camiz, T. Melasuo, Tampere Peace Research Institute, Tampere, Occasional Papers, No. 85, 2003, p. 80.
40 See: J. Käkönen, Regionalization and Power in the Baltic Sea Region, p. 54.
41 See: Ibid., p. 43.
42 See: B. Hettne, "The New Regionalism: Implications for Development and Peace," in: The New Regionalism: Implications for Global Development and International Security, Serial: Research for Action, ed. by B. Hettne, A. Inotai, UNU/WIDER, Helsinki, 1994, p. 62.
43 See: A. Nokkala, The European North—Challenges and Opportunities, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Helsinki, 1997, p. 20.
44 See: J. Käkönen, "Regionalization and Power in the Baltic Sea Region," p. 62.
45 See: Ibid., p. 61.
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nation-states and international organizations of the U.N. type to be effectively involved on the world political scene.46
R.F. Chisholm deems it necessary to stress the importance of institutional transformations and the appearance of innovational alternative forms of governance in the cooperation process at the local and sub-regional level (transborder cooperation being one of its forms).47 Ivo Duchacek believes that transborder (or transnational) interaction should be interpreted as informal rules and institutional structures conducive to specific "regional behavior."48
Regional cooperation permits the states to ensure their national interests in the most effective way, while remaining independent political players. By way of specifying the terms "regionalism" and "regionalization," Susanna Perko writes that the term "regionalization" is ill-fitted to describe regional cooperation between states and suggested the term "regionalism."49
There is another interpretation of regionalism (or region-building): entities of interconnected states. Regionalism is a political concept related to specific identities and connected with realities at the regional and global levels. In the broad sense of the word, the term can be interpreted as stronger ties among geographically close countries with common economic problems and strategic interests typical of each of the regions.50
Intensified international cooperation at the regional level (in other words, mounting regionali-zation of international relations) has become a more effective instrument of regional and global security and stability. States united into regional alliances have worked and are working together for the sake of geopolitical stability.51
Philippe de Schouteete accompanied his analysis of regional cooperation on the European continent with a new concept of a regional subsystem within one region and identified three types: hege-monistic, integrative, and protective. Moreover, he is convinced that one state can cooperate in several regional subsystems at the same time.52 T. Pedersen, who relies on the studies of de Schouteete, suggests that the number of types of regional subsystems on which he relied when studying Nordic-Baltic regional cooperation should be extended to six. The author identified hegemonistic, dominant, balancing, integrative, protective, and functional regional subsystems. The interrelation between the type of regional subsystem and the integration effect (pronounced, moderate, and negative, i.e. disintegration effect) is of particular interest.53
The hegemonistic subsystem (T. Pedersen refers to the Franco-German axis within the EU as an example) has powerful integration potential; at the same time, there is a great risk of it degenerating into a dominant subsystem with a disintegration rather than an integration effect due to the fact that smaller countries find this type of cooperation unacceptable and unprofitable. NATO, within the European security system, is described as a classical example of a balancing regional subsystem with a moderate integration effect. Integration potential is slightly more pronounced in the subsystem of
46 See: O.R. Young, "Global Governance: Toward a Theory of Decentralized World Order," in: Global Governance: Drawing Insights from the Environmental Experience, ed. by O.R. Young, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997, p. 295.
47 See: R.F. Chisholm, Developing Network Organizations. Learning from Practice and Theory, Addison-Wesley, Reading (Mass.), 1998.
48 I. Duchacek, "International Competence of Subnational Governments: Borderlands and Beyond," in: Across Boundaries. Transborder Interaction in Comparative Perspective, ed. by O.J. Martinez, Texas Western Press, El Paso (Texas), 1986, p. 18.
49 See: S. Perko, "Verkostojen Itämeri," Tutkimuksia, Rauhan-ja Konfliktintutkimuskeskus, Tampere, 1995, p. 119. (S. Perko, "Baltic Sea Network," Research Paper, Peace and Conflict Research Center, Tampere, 1995, p. 119.)
50 See: A.F. Vysotskiy, op. cit., p. 14.
51 See: D. Lake, P.M. Morgan, Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA, 1997.
52 See: P. De Schouteete, "The European Community and Its Sub-systems," in: W. Wallact, The Dynamics of European Integration, Pinter, London, 1990.
53 See: T. Pedersen, "Sub-systems and Regional Integration—The Case of Nordic and Baltic Cooperation," in: Nordic-Baltic Region in Transition, New Actors, New Issues, New Perspectives, p. 36.
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the integrative type. The author cited the role the United States played in the early 1950s in the unfolding European integration and the stimulating role of the EU in Latin American integration as two examples of integrative regional cooperation systems. T. Pedersen has written that the protective and functional subsystems of regional cooperation have the most pronounced integration potential (using the example of the successfully functioning Nordic and Baltic subsystems).54
K. Lahtenmaki reminds us that so far academic thought has not yet clarified the correlation between the role of hegemony and regionalism in the contemporary world. In its traditional form (the EU, etc.), regionalism appeared when hegemony was not yet doubted. It was a time when regionalism relied on hegemonism.55 Some authors disagreed with this. Some of them regarded regionalism as confirmation of the domination of large powers over smaller ones; others described it as an attempt by the smaller countries to avoid patronage of this sort.56
Regionalization and regional cooperation are based not only on geographic proximity; region-alization may appear between geographically remote countries with functional proximity; R. Cappel-lin calls them "mezzo regions."57
Common identity is usually regarded as the key element of regionalization and integration; the role of "spread integration" is an important element of political integration.58
The end of the bipolar world order in the early 1990s and the changes it caused in the geopolitical configuration of the contemporary world extended the limits of regional cooperation; a fundamentally new type of regionalism appeared. Even though this regionalism does not differ radically from regionalism in the traditional "old" meaning of the word, today it is acquiring qualitatively new features caused by global economic changes, which have increased the significance of economic cooperation at the regional level; democratization of the post-socialist East European countries; the appearance of new independent states in the post-Soviet expanse; and continued enlargement of the European Union.59
What is Post-Bipolar Regionalism, After All?
By post-bipolar regionalism we mean the qualitatively new type of international cooperation which took shape in the post-bipolar epoch when the global system of international relations became de-polarized and the old world balance restructured. In this way, integration at the world and regional level received a powerful impetus no longer produced either by global ideologies or the diktat of the world or regional superpowers.
As distinct from hegemonism (domination of large states over smaller ones in the context of international cooperation), post-bipolar regionalism is based on equal partnership of all states. One can say that in this context "post-bipolar regionalism" comes close to "geopolitical pluralism," which has created a context in which an ever greater number of states (new "independent actors") are work-
54 See: Ibid., p. 48.
55 See: K. Lahtenmaki, "Baltic Cooperation in the Framework of European Integration: An Introduction," in: Dimension of Conflict and Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Rim, ed. by K. Lahtenmaki, Tampere Peace Research Institute, Tampere, Research Report, No. 58, 1994, p. 2.
56 See: L.H. Miller, "The Prospects for Order through Regional Security," in: Regional Politics and World Order, ed. by R. Falk, S. Mendlovitz, W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1973.
57 R. Cappellin, Regional Economic Development, Regionalism and Interregional Cooperation: The Role of Regions in a Policy for European Cohesion, University of Joensuu, Report presented for European Summer Institute in Regional Studies, 14-29 June, 1993.
58 J.S. Nye, Peace in Parts, Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1971, p. 28.
59 See: D. Triantaphyllou, "The Black Sea Region and its Growing Influence," 18 July, 2006, available at [http://icbss. org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79] (see also: ICBSS, Black Sea Monitor, Issue No. 1, July 2006).
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ing hard on the international arena to protect their national interests amid the never-ending pressure of the regional leaders determined to preserve their domination at all costs (at the expense of the national interests of their "junior partners").60
The above can clearly be seen in the vast expanse comprising the Baltic and the Black Seas, which means that there is a new type of interstate cooperation: the Baltic and Black Sea states obviously intend to develop their bilateral and multilateral contacts. A new Baltic-Black Sea system of interstate cooperation is taking shape before our eyes with the stress on equal and mutually advantageous partnership. What is especially important is the fact that, within this system, all countries (big and small) can effectively protect their national interests at the regional level.
The regional structures of the countries of the Baltic and Barents seas in the framework of the Northern Dimension, of the Mediterranean countries within the Barcelona process and the Balkan states within the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe serve as another positive example of postbipolar regionalism in Europe.61
This trend will accelerate, which means that after awhile the Barcelona and the Northern Dimension will blend with the EU European Neighborhood Policy into a single renovated common European foreign policy doctrine. The European Union's rapid expansion and the new members, each with its own "dimension," can be described as another attribute of post-bipolar regionalism. Despite the recent EU membership of Bulgaria and Rumania, this picture lacks an important fragment, viz. the Black Sea expanse which, in the post-bipolar era, has acquired attractive and stable regional structures such as the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) and the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development—GUAM (ODED-GUAM), as well as recent international regional projects, such as the Community of Democratic Choice; the Black Sea Forum; the Energy Dialogue of Three Seas, etc.
So far, the European Union has shown no intention of supporting these regional initiatives, which greatly limits the Black Sea Soviet successor-states' opportunity to take advantage of international cooperation in the conditions of post-bipolar regionalism. Moreover, since the end of the Cold War, the Western countries have been paying much closer attention to the Black Sea region, although they have not yet arrived at any clear strategy regarding it. Europe has not yet identified its strategic aims in the Black Sea basin. Within the regional format, the EU is obviously concentrating on the Baltic States; it is interested in the Mediterranean countries and the West Balkans. To borrow an apt comment from Ronald Asmus and Bruce Jackson, "in many ways the wider Black Sea region has been the Bermuda Triangle of Western strategic studies."62
The asymmetry of the integration processes in the post-Soviet expanse is an interesting feature of post-bipolar regionalism. The Soviet successor-states' relations with Russia became the main factor of their regional post-Soviet cooperation. In the early 1990s, the emphasis was "on the Near Abroad as Russia's central concern." Some Russian politicians advocated "a form of Moscow-dominated economic integration" (the CIS being the product of this approach), while others expected "an eventual restoration of some measure of imperial control, thereby creating a power more capable of balancing America and Europe."63
According to Amelle de Tinguy, Russia has always tried to prevent integration in the postSoviet expanse and will not abandon its efforts to achieve destabilization in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbai-jan, and Moldova.64 Khatuna Giorgadze believes that Russia will never abandon its tradi-
60 See: B.S. Shin, "Russian Policy toward Near Abroad under Putin: With a Focus on Multi-layered and Strategic Balancing Approaches," Review of International and Area Studies, Vol. 14, No. 4, 2005, p. 105.
61 See: M. Aydin, "Europe's New Region: The Black Sea in the Wider Europe Neighbourhood," Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, May 2005, p. 260.
62 R.D. Asmus, B.P. Jackson, "The Black Sea and the Frontiers of Freedom," Policy Review, June & July 2004, p. 26.
63 Z. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, pp. 98-99.
64 See: A. Tinguy, "From Central Asia to GUUAM: The Relaunch of Russian Diplomacy," Defense Nationale, Vol. 57, No. 8-9, Aug-Sept 2001, p. 79.
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tional geopolitical bias toward domination in the post-Soviet expanse, which explains its failures when dealing with the post-Soviet states inside and outside the CIS. This was what forced Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova to unite for equal and mutually advantageous cooperation within GUAM.65
International cooperation presupposes cooperation between two or more states, which rules out the use of force and calls for exerting common efforts to realize common interests.66 The Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (A/8082) of 24 October, 1970 obligates all states to develop "friendly relations among nations irrespective of their political, economic and social systems."
Some think, however, that the share of the regional leaders in developing and implementing the projects within CIS or even BSEC is disproportionately large.67 This means that the interests of the large and small countries will not be equally represented in such organizations and that the "deprived" countries will seek closer relations among themselves.
S. Glebov has written with good reason that "a combination of the levels of national separatism and contemporary regionalism is the main problem of post-Soviet republics. The former means that national interests should be protected even at the expense of neighbors; the latter means that these interests should be harmonized with the interests of neighboring states within the region."68 Lubomir Zyblikewicz has found an answer to this problem: unification of states which, within the framework of the organizations and initiatives they set up, could jointly address their political problems and other tasks on an equal footing.69 This is the main specific feature of post-bipolar regionalism.
C o n c l u s i o n
As distinct from a geographic expanse, a region can be described as not only a geographic, but also a geopolitically homogenous unit. The factor of regional identity is not so much geographic proximity of the countries which belong to the same region, but their common geopolitical interests and shared past. The growing role of the regional format of international cooperation is directly connected with the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the new post-bipolar world order.
Post-bipolar regionalism is a qualitatively new type of regional cooperation which came into being in the post-bipolar era in the context of the depolarized global system of international relations and restructured world balance. Post-bipolar regionalism is geared toward equal partnership of states, as opposed to the domination of large states over smaller ones in the process of regional cooperation. It is very close to the idea of "geopolitical pluralism," in which the number of smaller states determined to actively defend their interests on the international arena is growing steadily under the continued pressure of regional leaders trying to preserve their dominating position at the expense of the national interests of their "junior" partners. This explains why deepening integration processes promoted bilateral and multilateral contacts between the Black Sea and the Baltic states. This laid the foundation for a new Baltic-Black Sea system of interstate contacts.
65 See: K. Giorgadze, "Russia: Regional Partner or Aggressor?" The Review of International Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 1, Autumn 2002, p. 79.
66 See: P.A. Tsygankov, Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia. Uchebnoe posobie, Novaya shkola, Moscow, 1996, p. 187.
67 See: S. Celac, P. Manoli, "Towards a New Model of Comprehensive Regionalism in the Black Sea Area," Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, June 2006, p. 197.
68 S.V. Glebov, op. cit.
69 See: L. Zyblikiewicz, "Globalism versus Regionalism in Contemporary World: The Environment for Change in Europe," in: The Transformational Future of Europe, Lublin, 1992, pp. 159-199.
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Equal and mutually advantageous cooperation within the above-mentioned system will allow all the Baltic and Black Sea countries, including the smaller ones, to effectively defend their national interests on the international arena.
