Theses defended
Hegemony, Power and Resistance: a critical analysis of power and security dynamics in the EU-Russia-shared neighbourhood triangle
December 5, 2016
International Politics and Conflict Resolution
Maria Raquel Freire
The end of the Cold War incited meaningful changes on power and security dynamics across the broader European space. To the West, the European Union (EU) was propelled to develop a foreign policy dimension enabling it to uphold a stronger role in regional affairs. To the East, the Russian Federation emerged as the most relevant actor in the former Soviet space with undisputable regional ambitions and interests. In between, the newly independent states struggled to undertake internal reforms and define foreign policy strategies aiming at taking the utmost advantage of their geopolitical location.
Since the EU's Eastern enlargement, the EU and Russia share a common neighbourhood. The fact that the Union is extending its power towards Moscow's traditional sphere of influence has further impacted on dynamics of power and security produced by and reflected on the interplay between identities, interests and discursive practices in this area. Both EU and Russian foreign policies are based on the understanding that security starts outside their borders, and thus countries in the shared neighbourhood emerge as linchpins to their regional strategies. As a result, a number of struggles for power over the region have unfolded, gradually conferring an antagonistic tone to EU-Russia relations. This has been a cornerstone cause of tension for their common neighbours, which find themselves torn between the economic attractiveness of the EU's agenda and a cooperative relation with Russia in order to manage their manifold dependences on Moscow.
Reflections on the configuration of power and security relations in post-Cold War Europe have been multiple and diverse. However, it remains absent from the debate a comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions in the EU-Russia-shared neighbourhood triangle looking at all intervenients from an equitable basis of analysis. It is precisely this lacuna that we aim to fill. To do so, the research follows from two assumptions. First, the EU and Russia are political entities with hegemonic regional ambitions, whose survival and security depend on asymmetrical relations with neighbouring countries. Second, Brussels and Moscow share a common sphere of influence over which their identities, interests and discursive practices collide - the shared neighbourhood. Despite this dispute over a common area of interests, it would be an overstatement to label the EU and Russia as enemies as they cooperate on a very significant number of issues. This tension between cooperation and competition opens important avenues for the countries in the shared neighbourhood to evade powerful manoeuvres by these actors and to influence their hegemonic regional endeavours - ergo underscoring the meaningful role of agency in shaping structures of power.
That brings us to the dual purpose of this research: 1) understand why countries in the shared neighbourhood have agency in the context of confrontation and dispute for influence between the EU and Russia; 2) critically analyse how this agency works in practical terms and whether it influences the constitution of EU and Russian identities, interests and discursive practices. Our initial contention is that countries in the shared neighbourhood are not merely passive reactors to their contextual environment. Instead, they actively resist EU and Russian structural power aiming at dominating them by using their key geopolitical and geostrategic relevance. In doing so, these countries stress the mutually constitutive nature of relations in the EU-Russia-shared neighbourhood triangle.
Critical constructivism - methodologically complemented by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's approach to discourse analysis - provides this research with the framework of analysis to delve into this topic. According to this framework, power implies a relation for it comes across as an imposition of a worldview over another, thus producing shared meanings which in turn constitute the identities, interests and discursive practice of the involved agents. In this reading, power tends towards hegemony and domination, though it is never absolute and agents may resist attempts at controlling their behaviour. Hegemony, agency and resistance are thus mutually implicated and resistance itself can be interpreted as an instance of power.
Overall, the research focuses on instances of hegemony by the EU and Russia, as well as on instances of agency and resistance by Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus - the last stronghold between West and East. The purpose is to deconstruct the manifold dynamics operating in and arising from this triangle in order to produce an independent and critical understanding on how power and security dynamics arise from the mutual constitution of the involved actors, ergo providing an interpretation focusing on hegemony, agency and resistance, something that remains absent from the literature on the topic.
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Abstract
Since the EU's Eastern enlargement, the EU and Russia share a common neighbourhood. The fact that the Union is extending its power towards Moscow's traditional sphere of influence has further impacted on dynamics of power and security produced by and reflected on the interplay between identities, interests and discursive practices in this area. Both EU and Russian foreign policies are based on the understanding that security starts outside their borders, and thus countries in the shared neighbourhood emerge as linchpins to their regional strategies. As a result, a number of struggles for power over the region have unfolded, gradually conferring an antagonistic tone to EU-Russia relations. This has been a cornerstone cause of tension for their common neighbours, which find themselves torn between the economic attractiveness of the EU's agenda and a cooperative relation with Russia in order to manage their manifold dependences on Moscow.
Reflections on the configuration of power and security relations in post-Cold War Europe have been multiple and diverse. However, it remains absent from the debate a comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions in the EU-Russia-shared neighbourhood triangle looking at all intervenients from an equitable basis of analysis. It is precisely this lacuna that we aim to fill. To do so, the research follows from two assumptions. First, the EU and Russia are political entities with hegemonic regional ambitions, whose survival and security depend on asymmetrical relations with neighbouring countries. Second, Brussels and Moscow share a common sphere of influence over which their identities, interests and discursive practices collide - the shared neighbourhood. Despite this dispute over a common area of interests, it would be an overstatement to label the EU and Russia as enemies as they cooperate on a very significant number of issues. This tension between cooperation and competition opens important avenues for the countries in the shared neighbourhood to evade powerful manoeuvres by these actors and to influence their hegemonic regional endeavours - ergo underscoring the meaningful role of agency in shaping structures of power.
That brings us to the dual purpose of this research: 1) understand why countries in the shared neighbourhood have agency in the context of confrontation and dispute for influence between the EU and Russia; 2) critically analyse how this agency works in practical terms and whether it influences the constitution of EU and Russian identities, interests and discursive practices. Our initial contention is that countries in the shared neighbourhood are not merely passive reactors to their contextual environment. Instead, they actively resist EU and Russian structural power aiming at dominating them by using their key geopolitical and geostrategic relevance. In doing so, these countries stress the mutually constitutive nature of relations in the EU-Russia-shared neighbourhood triangle.
Critical constructivism - methodologically complemented by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's approach to discourse analysis - provides this research with the framework of analysis to delve into this topic. According to this framework, power implies a relation for it comes across as an imposition of a worldview over another, thus producing shared meanings which in turn constitute the identities, interests and discursive practice of the involved agents. In this reading, power tends towards hegemony and domination, though it is never absolute and agents may resist attempts at controlling their behaviour. Hegemony, agency and resistance are thus mutually implicated and resistance itself can be interpreted as an instance of power.
Overall, the research focuses on instances of hegemony by the EU and Russia, as well as on instances of agency and resistance by Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus - the last stronghold between West and East. The purpose is to deconstruct the manifold dynamics operating in and arising from this triangle in order to produce an independent and critical understanding on how power and security dynamics arise from the mutual constitution of the involved actors, ergo providing an interpretation focusing on hegemony, agency and resistance, something that remains absent from the literature on the topic.