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Pathways After Empire. |
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION
The end of the Cold War reinforced the necessity to rethink the
historical and cultural bases of world politics. Over the subsequent decade, everyone
became increasingly aware of cultural and normative influences in the international arena. Among scholars, the so-called constructivist turn[1]
began to document the effects of international norms and identities at least in security
and political affairs. This research
seriously undermined the view that cultural properties are too elusive to be considered by
those committed to standards of rigor and progressive knowledge cumulation.[2] Studies of the world political economy, however,
have been much slower in responding to the cultural challenge. A number of subjects, such
as economic security, remain almost untouched by this newer angle of vision. Instead the neorealist and neoliberal perspectives
remain dominant in international political economy.[3]
In an attempt to move beyond these accounts, this book advances a
constructivist analysis of the foreign economic policies of the new states that succeeded
the Soviet Union, other than Russia. After
1991 some of them directed their economic activities primarily toward Russia and other
former members of the USSR, while others shifted their foreign economic policies sharply
away from what used to be the Soviet empire and toward new partners. A central reason for the striking difference in
policy outcomes is substantial variation in the strength of the new nations’ national
identities. The stronger the identity, the more likely the new state was to shift away
from the empire. This study introduces the
national identity perspective into International Political Economy studies, and
establishes it for this region with the use of both qualitative and quantitative
techniques. If this central idea is valid here, it may be valid in other world regions as
well. The book points the way toward further
investigations beyond the former Soviet region.[4]
A sophisticated, culture-sensitive understanding of their
policies improves upon the still common, simplified perception that all the newly
independent states (NIS) will soon become a part of the global "free-market"
world, especially those that are strategically located and endowed with plentiful natural
resources. Because national identity is
involved, the question of "joining" the community of Western developed nations
is much more complicated than one might think. Equally,
though, we should question expectations that all the former Soviet republics will return
to their traditional trading area sooner or later, assuming that only the political
ambitions of their leaders are currently driving some away from establishing a customs
union on Soviet territory. Some of the NIS, despite being relatively weak as economic
entities, are still likely to pursue an aggressive policy of restructuring their trade
pattern and thereby "joining" the West.
This national identity perspective is rich with implications for
scholarship and government policy, outside as well as inside the former Soviet region. For economic affairs, it points to an overlooked
source of national competitiveness and success in adjustment to globalization, as well as
a foundation for regional integration. For
security affairs, this point of view illuminates post-imperial nationalism, the
sovereignty dilemmas of weak states, and alliance formation. For comparative politics, the cultural standpoint
can add to our understanding of the economic reform process and democratization. For policy, the book points to the importance of
recognizing that there is more than one path toward development. It sensitizes us to ways in which culture can be
an advantage as well as a constraint.
The Question
Why did the former Soviet republics’ responses to the post-1991 environment
differ so dramatically? Immediately after the
break-up of the USSR, some observers were convinced that the newly independent nations
would become, sooner or later, a part of the "free-market" world.[5] Others suggested that the ex-Soviet republics
might eventually remain in their traditional area and that it is primarily the political
ambitions of their leaders that are currently driving them away from establishing some
sort of a union on the territory of the former USSR.[6] It soon became evident, however, that the emerging
picture did not fit any of these expectations. “Joining”
the world community of independent nations has proved to be more difficult than one might
think it would be. The prospects for some
sort of imperial restoration, too, remain remote, at best.
Fortunately or unfortunately, after five year of independence, they pursued
fundamentally different patterns of international behavior.
At least three distinct patterns of the NIS’ foreign economic responses can be
identified.[7]
"Loyalists" announced their intention to remain loyal to their old
partners and to establish a regional economic union on the territory of the Soviet Union. They showed little desire to search for new
economic partners; instead, they committed themselves to transforming the CIS
(Commonwealth of Independent States) into a customs union.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgizstan were among the major "loyalist" NIS.
"Independents" chose to become full-fledged members of the world trading
system and to find new, primarily Western economic partners. Despite being closely connected with Russia and
other ex-Soviet republics, and even economically dependent on them (oil and gas dependence
on Russia is the most obvious aspect), these nations have been much less cooperative with
the CIS than the first group. The Baltic
republics became the strongest proponents of this type of policy. By 1993-1994, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had
signed a number of trade agreements with northern European nations and established the
necessary domestic institutions for launching successful market-oriented foreign economic
activities.
The third group of nations falls between those poles. Nations that belong to this group pursued a
policy, which cannot be identified as staying with the old trading partners, because they
made serious efforts to sign new commercial agreements with new partners. However, unlike the Baltic republics, these
nations were less committed to following this type of strategy. They also maintained relationships with Russia and
the CIS, and while not committing themselves to the CIS as a customs union, they stressed
the importance of good relations with Russia and other CIS members. Also unlike the Baltic republics, they were slow
and indecisive in establishing domestic economic institutions necessary for shifting their
trade pattern towards Western countries. Ukraine,
Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and some other nations fall in this category.
The question of variation in the economic strategies of the fourteen NIS has not
received much attention in the scholarly literature.
Economists have been either preoccupied with other foreign trade issues,[8]
or dissolved this question in a more general question of economic viability of the NIS.[9] Foreign policy experts, while generally more
sensitive to this problem, have failed to analyze it in a systematic way. To date, the best that has been done are small-n
comparative studies of some of the NIS' foreign policies mentioning the relevance of the
issue of economic restructuring but with no specific focus on it.[10] The first step toward understanding the causes of
differences in the NIS’ policies is to consider possible general ways of explaining
countries' foreign economic policies in a market-oriented international environment.
Insufficient Explanations
Following established International Political Economy (IPE) perspectives one can
imagine at least three different ways of answering this question.[11] This section addresses possible explanations of
the observed variation and suggests that none of them is sufficient to account for the
newly independent nations’ foreign economic policies.
International market conditions
The first perspective—from international market conditions—operates on
the assumption that market conditions are the strongest stimulus in shaping foreign
economic policies. International trade theory
assumes, for example, that the point of departure for formulation of foreign trade policy
is a country's comparative advantages in resource endowment (natural resources, labor,
technology, etc.). If this theory
applies,[12]
then in a newly independent nation we should see shifts in trade policy and in the
direction of trade to the extent that former trade departed from comparative advantage.
This perspective, while being generally applicable to the NIS,
misses the fact that they were just emerging out of a command political economy in 1991
and, therefore, lacked the of institutions necessary for launching market-oriented trade
activities. Conventional trade theory
and—more generally—the international market perspective abstracts from national
institutions and traditions, and it is not designed primarily to explain government
policies in the first place. It is therefore
not particularly helpful in clarifying how the new actors of the world economy make their
choices and why they chose to direct economic ties toward one country/set of countries,
and not to another. Apart from the idea that
each country should have some sort of marketable resource to trade, this perspective does
not tell us enough about variation in their policies of becoming independent actors of the
world economy.
International power structure
It was in response to the insufficiency of the international market perspective
that another perspective—from the international power structure—has emerged. Being driven by different political biases and
empirical preferences, it theorizes the influences of international power from the
standpoint of the developed and the developing worlds.
Neorealists are especially concerned with implications of economic power for nation
military security and security arrangements; dependency theorists, on the other hand,
focus on more equal distribution of economic power and ways of maintaining national
autonomy in economic decision-making. Both
versions emphasize that the distribution of economic power is of key significance and no
individual nation, whether developed or developing, can afford to ignore this factor in
its foreign economic policy.[13]
The neorealist version makes particularly strong claims arguing that economic and
commercial decisions can be best understood if analyzed as driven by nation’s power
needs.[14] Each nation is expected to use physical resources
available, economic and military, for maintaining its security arrangements, particularly
when the efficiency of national security arrangements is questioned. Pursuit of economic reorientation then can serve
as a way to reduce dependence and create a better security arrangement, rather than as a
way to become wealthier. The power
perspective while is useful for clarifying the NIS' economic policy motivations, is
insufficient for identifying differences across countries' policies. During 1991-1996, at least some of the NIS, such
as Ukraine and Belarus, did not experience any direct threats to their security from
elsewhere, and yet their foreign economic policies turned out to be quite different. As far as indirect threats go, with Russia
proclaiming the strategy of “reintegrating the Near Abroad” in 1993, the NIS did
face the danger of being pulled back in Russian ‘sphere of influence’ by means
of economic or political coercion,[15] but their reactions to
Russian efforts were far from being homogeneous. Some
of the ex-Soviet republics, such as Ukraine and the Baltics, perceived Russia’s newly
proclaimed strategy as threatening their security, while some others remained indifferent
of Russia’s intentions and was not nearly as worried about their sovereignty and
independence.
Nor can the dependency perspective account adequately for the NIS’ varying
foreign economic policies. Obviously, during
the many decades of empire, the ex-Soviet republics developed various degrees of economic
interdependence and dependence on the metropole. They
became asymmetrically dependent on Russia’s market, fuel and supplies, as Russia had
a more diversified economy and was richly endowed in natural resources.[16] Yet, such dependence did not prove to be the only
significant factor for understanding the NIS’ policies. For example, the important division among the
republics in their endowment in tradable resources, most notably oil and gas, can be
helpful in understanding differences in economic policy of countries that are drastically
different in this respect, but not of those that are similarly rich or poor with respect
to their resources. This division can provide
some insights why energy-rich Azerbaijan and energy-poor Kyrgyzstan explicate different
patterns of behavior, but is of no assistance in understanding policy variation within the
group of energy-poor countries, such as Ukraine and Belarus.
National political institutions
The problem with both neorealist and dependency perspectives is their relatively
low sensitivity toward domestic perceptions of power resources relevant for restructuring
foreign economic activities. What often
matters in foreign policy decisions is not the international pressure, but the way it is
perceived on the national level. As a result,
nations that face similar challenges abroad may behave differently. A calculation of power—military or
economic—are done by policy-makers operating in varying national contexts and,
therefore, is incomplete without considering domestic arrangements. One influential way to consider domestic
conditions has been to bring national political institutions perspective in the
International Political Economy. What matters
in policy formulation, the supporters of this approach claim, is a different composition
of social and political institutions as well as an ability of states to overcome the
pressures of economic interest groups.[17]
This perspective is an important addition to the previous two perspectives, but it,
too, has limitations for explaining the observed variations. Theoretically, the perspective should predict
variation in the NIS' foreign economic policies on the basis of variation in their
political institutional arrangements. The
problem is, however, that having emerged out of the same empire in the 1991, all the newly
independent nations inherited domestic institutions that were product of the same
centralized rule and do not vary enough to be able to predict the wide variation in the
NIS’ foreign economic policies. It is
only at later stages that the NIS’ political institutions and state structures became
relatively more diverse, with more democratic, society-led regimes shaping up in the
western Eurasia and more authoritarian towards the south of Moscow.[18] Such increasing diversification of the ex-Soviet
republics’ political regimes is hardly helpful, however, in clarifying their foreign
policy choices: for instance, the fact that by the 1997, the Baltic nations, Ukraine and
Kyrgyzstan established democratic institutions cannot tell us why these three represented
three distinct patterns of economic orientation.[19] Something else must determine the NIS' economic
policy formulation, something that has not yet been captured by any of the above-listed
perspectives.
The Argument in Brief
In attempting to compensate for the weaknesses of economic and political
explanations, I propose to develop a national identity explanation for the former Soviet
republics’ international economic policies.[20] National identity is a cultural norm that reflects
emotional or affective orientations of individuals toward their nation and national
political system. It involves symbolic,
socially constructed meanings, which is well captured in the Benedict Anderson definition
of nation as an "imagined political community."[21]
Rather than looking at national political arrangements, the national
identity perspective emphasizes domestic cultural institutions thereby highlighting
the sources of state structures and identity. It
does not treat institutions as endogenous of the state; instead, it sees them as capable
of influencing state actions independently.[22] This becomes a major advantage in theorizing about
the post-imperial nations, or the newly emerged nations, as the NIS are. The NIS are emerging out of an empire and going
through the process of nation building. Whereas
the NIS do not vary significantly in their political institutions, they are different in
their cultural characteristics, such as national memory and cultural perceptions of the
empire and the outside world. While sharing
the same imperial legacy, the republics differ across various dimensions relevant for
understanding their national identities and specifics of their identification vis-à-vis
the ex-empire and the ex-metropole. At least
three groups of newly independent nations can be identified depending on how strong their
national that is non-imperial, feelings are.
The nations of one group may have had some experience of independent nationhood
and, therefore, some sense of national identity before they had been incorporated into the
empire. If this independence experience was
lengthy enough and the domestic institutions of sovereignty grew relatively strong, these
nations also developed a strong connection, both physical and symbolic, with the world of
sovereign nations. All this became imprinted
in these nations memories and led to perceiving the metropole as more threatening their
security and the outside world as less threatening or even potentially friendly. Assuming the absence of other powerful actors with
strong imperial ambitions, the states of this group after the imperial disintegration will
be unlikely to make a positive identification with the ex-metropole. Rather, they are likely to relate to various parts
of the world of sovereign nations, assuming the growing strength and the only alternative
this world represents to the old imperial order in terms of the authority principles.[23] On the other extreme, one can imagine the group of
nations that did not have any historical record of independence and had been incorporated
into the empire without a well-developed sense of their political identity. This lack of ability to identify themselves with a
country or region outside the empire (weak external identification) led them to perceiving
the metropole as neutral or potentially friendly and other parts of external environment
as threatening to their security.[24] Finally, some nations may fall somewhere in
between these two groups having difficulties of establishing their identification with the
empire or the world of sovereign nations.[25]
For comparative purposes, it may be useful to conceptualize the effects of national
identity on policy makers in terms of degree of national identity strength. Depending on how firmly the national
(non-imperial) identity is established and, therefore, how strongly people in the newly
independent nations disassociate themselves from the empire and identify with the nation
as a non-imperial entity, the policy makers of the newly independent states may view the
goals of these nations’ survival in a fundamentally different way. A relatively well developed national identity
constitutes a non-imperial reality, thereby exerting relatively strong regulative effect
and providing policy makers with a resource for challenging the institutional legacies of
the former empire and broadening a nation’s options in choosing an optimal strategy
of international economic adjustment. The
ex-imperial nations, therefore, may vary in their economic policies depending on their
ability to challenge the inherited imperial institutions for the purpose of assuming
control over their policies, or in other words, depending on how strongly they are
affected by the national identity norm.
The effect of national identity on policy making is mediated by
domestic struggle of culture-based political coalitions.
With the decline of an empire, this sense of national difference and national
“selfness” gives additional stimulus to a rapid development of
nationalist-oriented social movements pursuing goals of nation-building. Depending on circumstances, nationalist movements
may appeal to the population’s linguistic and religious instincts or historical
feelings. Nationalists get involved in a
political process of competing with empire-savers for mobilizing social support. If national identity is strong and the large
share of the population has gone though the process of mental disassociation from the
empire and identification with the nation, such support turns out to be sufficient. As a result, nationalists replace the old
pro-imperial elite as a result of a coup or elections, and set the agenda of economic
decision-making. If not, decision-making is
likely to remain under the control of empire-savers.
National identity effects on policy making can be operationalized
in a number of ways. This study proposes that
for the post-imperial nations, the factor that is crucial for capturing the level of their
national identities development is these nations’ historical experience with national
independence. Since the Peace of Westphalia, national independence has been a key
condition in establishing modern system of power and authority relationships.[26]
Those nations that had enjoyed an experience with independence for a relatively long time
(before they were incorporated into the empire) have a relatively better chance of
developing and maintaining their non-imperial identity through the time of their colonial
existence. For constructing a more inclusive
picture, other indicators will be employed as well.
It must be emphasized that by putting forward the national
identity perspective, this study does not mean to suggest that other factors are
unimportant in the post-Soviet nations’ economic behavior. Rather, these factors, of market and power nature,
are insufficient and should be supplemented with national identity considerations. The perspective this study develops merely seeks
to point limitations of conventional approaches and illustrate possible explanatory
opportunities of bringing cultural variables in international political economy.
Research Design
This study uses two types of empirical research aimed at generating a new
hypothesis for political economy studies and evaluating it at least on a preliminary
basis. First will come comparative
exploration of a small number of cases or observations.
In this phase I prefer to use comparison across cases as well as detailed case
research. The main goal here will be to try
to improve the hypothesis by learning more about the process through which national
identity conceptions function (or do not function) in politics and policy making on
foreign economic issues, and to check for spurious relationships.[27] At the same time, if cases are selected carefully
for theoretical reasons, such that they are similar with respect to plausible alternative
causes of the main dependent variable, at least those alternatives can be ruled out as
threats to the identity interpretation for these cases.
Thus the project will select three republics that vary as to strength of national
identity but are relatively similar with respect to other possible influences, in order to
isolate the former for particular attention.
Two of the most important rival interpretations are relative security threats and
international market conditions. As far as
the NIS’ economic competitiveness is concerned, the fourteen republics varied in the
degree to which they would probably have benefited from abandoning the Soviet trading
system and conducting their trade at world prices. According
to calculations by Watson, all except Russia and Turkmenistan had enjoyed subsidies under
the Soviet system, so that all others were expected to suffer terms-of-trade losses from
shifting the same trade to world prices -- but in widely varying degrees (See the Table
1). Belarus, Latvia and Ukraine are adjacent
in the center of this spectrum, as roughly equivalent in economic respect and, therefore,
represent a reasonable set of cases for comparative examination.[28]
As for the relative security threats, those that had larger military capabilities
might have been expected to be less worried about trading with the ex-hegemon than those
with weaker military capabilities. All the
NIS other than Russia naturally faced a huge disparity in capabilities, but at least in
terms of conventional weapons, the weaker republics did not differ dramatically in this
respect,[29]
and none of the fourteen would stand any chance were it to resist Russia’s possible
attack. This makes them roughly the same in terms of selecting for a qualitative
comparison. Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia then
can be selected for our study with the intent to control for power influence on their
foreign economic policies.
These three republics amply illustrate the likely range of
potential variation in strength of national identity and perception of threat from the
ex-metropole. In terms of their experience
with national independence, they can be seen as representatives of at least three distinct
groups among the fourteen ex-Soviet republics.[30] Baltic republics would exemplify nations with
relatively well developed political identities. Before
they have been incorporated into the Soviet empire in 1940, they all enjoyed a
quarter-century period of independent nationhood. This period allowed them to develop the
sense of awareness of the threat to their identity posed by the Soviet occupation and
resist efforts of the Soviet regime to incorporate them culturally. At the other extreme are Belarus, Moldova, and the
five Central Asian republics. While different
in many dimensions, these nations are similar in having no experience with independent
statehood before their incorporation into the Soviet empire. As a result, their sense of
being threatened by the ex-metropole continues to be relatively low. Finally, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine
fall somewhere in between those two poles. Compared
to Baltic nations, the experience of these nations with national independence was rather
short-lived and fragmented, but it proved to be sufficient to develop and retain—even
through the period of Soviet empire—a set of historical myths glorifying the idea of
national independence.[31]
For the purpose of this study, it would therefore suffice to select Belarus, Latvia
and Ukraine, the cases from the three identified groups.
Latvia, Ukraine, and Belarus amply illustrate the likely range of potential
variation in the strength of the effect of national identity. One reasonable proxy for this variable is the
number of years of experience as an independent entity the nation has had. Belarus, at one extreme, had had no such
experience at all prior to 1991, and Latvia had possessed all the attributes of nationhood
during 1921-1940. While Latvia and Belarus
may be considered the most "obvious", or the "most-likely" cases of
the national identity effect, the case of Ukraine is far less obvious and can serve as an
additional test of the national identity hypothesis. The Ukraine falls somewhere in
between Latvia and Belarus in terms of its national identity strength and, therefore, for
the national identity hypothesis to be valid, Ukraine should pursue the economic policy
falling in between those of Latvia and Belarus.[32]
The second phase of the project then attempts a statistical test of the national
identity hypothesis, as refined during the first phase.
Compensating for the relative shortcomings of small-n analysis, this phase aims at
adding rigor to the analysis by employing additional empirical evidence and thereby
improving causal inferences of the research. Fourteen
of the former Soviet republics during five years of their independence are selected[33]
for quantitative test of the major hypothesis of this project and for assessing relative
merits of competing explanations, such as market conditions, relative power, political
institutions, and national identities. The
evaluation of their relative merits is based on bivariate regressions of various
independent variables to the foreign economic policy score.
Taken separately, such evaluation, of course, is only tentative and would require
further research. However, when complimented
with in depth qualitative investigation, such statistical analysis provides us with extra
confidence in evaluating the explanatory potential of the national identity hypothesis.
Organization of the Study
The next chapter develops a national identity explanation for the former Soviet
republics' foreign economic policies. It
introduces the three main concepts around which this study is organized and establishes
theoretical framework for answering in a preliminary fashion the following set of
questions. What is national identity and what
are its basic dimensions? How does the
identity get constructed? What are the
conditions of its change and stability? How
can national identity be compared across cases and what type of effects it may possibly
have on countries’ economic policy making? What
is the agency through which national identity exerts its effects on policy makers? Finally, how the answers to these questions should
be modified for the conditions of post-imperial nations, the direct subject of this study?
Chapters 3-5 turn to case studies and trace the influences of national identity on
Latvia’s, Ukraine’s and Belarus’ foreign economic policies during
1991-1996. The analysis is focused on how
the three behaved vis-à-vis three goals of economic reorientation: minimizing economic
ties with old commercial partners; finding potential new partners and establishing
necessary domestic institutions for switching trade towards new partners; and signing
trade agreements, both bilateral and multilateral, with new partners.
After observing Latvia’s, Ukraine’s and Belarus’ policies on each of
the three stages, chapter 6 extends the analysis beyond the three cases’ comparison
and explores how the argument made holds against other ex-Soviet republics. The chapter proposes a way of analyzing the
fourteen republics’ foreign economic orientations and to assess relative merits of
competing explanations. It also suggests a
number of cases with deviant behavior, an avenue for further research of the issue, and
offers a brief qualitative investigation of two of them.
The final chapter summarizes the overall findings and their implications. It concludes that not only does national identity
matter for explaining varieties of the ex-Soviet republics’ economic policies, but it
seems to be the strongest predictor of their behavior, relative to explanations of
economic and political nature. The analysis
shows that the ex-Soviet nations’ economic considerations turned out to be embedded
in varying cultural contexts and it is only in these cultural contexts that economic
interests could be formed and meaningfully function.
In addition to summarizing the study’s major findings, the chapter addresses
alternative explanations and draws the implications of the analysis for theory and policy
making.
NOTES