Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies Series Editor: Oliver Richmond, Reader, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews Titles include: James Ker-Lindsay EU ACCESSION AND UN PEACEKEEPING IN CYPRUS Carol McQueen HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND SAFETY ZONES Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda Sergei Prozorov UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EU The Limits of Integration Oliver P. Richmond THE TRANSFORMATION OF PEACE Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies Series Standing Order ISBN 1 4039 9575 3 (hardback) & 1 4039 9576 1 (paperback) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
By the same author POLITICAL PEDAGOGY OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: A Study in Historical Ontology of Russian Postcommunism
Understanding Conflict between Russia and the EU The Limits of Integration Sergei Prozorov Professor of International Relations Petrozovodsk State University, Russia
Sergei Prozorov 2006 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-9689-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-54588-9 ISBN 978-0-230-62533-4 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230625334 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Prozorov, Sergei Understanding conflict between Russia and the EU : the limits of integration / Sergei Prozorov. p. cm. (Rethinking peace and conflict studies) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 1. European Union Russia (Federation) 2. Russia (Federation) Relations Europe. 3. Europe Relations Russia (Federation) 4. Russia (Federation) Economic policy 1991 I. Title. II. Series. HC240.25.R + 341.242 20947 dc22 2005045606 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06
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Contents Preface ix 1 Approaching EU Russian Conflicts: Beyond Transitionalism and Traditionalism 1 Introduction 1 Cooperation and conflict in the EU Russian strategic partnership 3 Transitionalism/traditionalism: a critique of existing approaches to EU Russian relations 11 Conflict as a discursive structure: towards an interpretative model of EU Russian conflict 20 2 A European Country Outside Europe: EU Enlargement and the Problematic of Exclusion 27 From issue to identity conflict: the Schengen curtain and the oscillations of the problematic of exclusion 27 Out of the united Europe: the liberal criticism of Russia s exclusion 33 Liberation from the European myth : left conservatism and the problem of false Europe 38 Conclusion: from exclusion to hierarchical inclusion 43 3 From Object to Subject: Intersubjectivity and the Problematic of Self-exclusion 46 The lack of strategic intersubjectivity: issue and identity conflicts in the narrative of self-exclusion 46 Liberal empire : self-exclusion and the strategy of redoubling of Europe 54 Getting over Europe: left conservatism and the demise of the question of European identity 59 Conclusion: beyond the exclusion/inclusion opposition in EU Russian relations 68 4 Sovereignty and Integration in EU Russian Encounters: an Interpretative Model of Conflict Analysis 74 Structural determinants in EU Russian encounters 74 Interactional determinants in EU Russian encounters 95 vii
viii Contents 5 Dissensual Interfaces: Interactional Asymmetries and EU Russian Conflicts 102 European exclusion of Russia: the problem of visa and passport regimes 102 Russia s self-exclusion from Europe: the problematic of integrated cross-border governance 111 6 Equivalent Interfaces: the Limits of Integration and the Stability of Sovereignty 128 Cross-border integration and its limits: the case of Euregio Karelia 128 Mutual delimitation: intersubjectivity and sovereign stability 137 7 The Persistence of Sovereignty: Russia and the EU at the Limit of Integration 157 The paradoxes of integration in EU Russian relations 157 Toward a common European pluralism: EU Russian relations and interaction without integration 175 Notes 185 Bibliography 193 Index 208
Preface In contemporary International Relations we tend to think of integration in exclusively positive terms as conducive to peace and the prevention of conflicts. The process of European integration has been explicitly advocated as a peace project that would foreclose the very possibility of violent conflict between European countries and thus transcend the conflict-ridden Westphalian system of sovereign states. As the successive EU enlargements demonstrate, this peace project has been relatively successful, attracting other European states towards the process of integration, even as some of the founding member states presently appear less than enthusiastic about its prospects. Even the Russian Federation, whose membership in the EU was never officially discussed even in the long-term perspective, has declared its central foreign policy objective to be integration into Europe. Throughout the almost two decades of Russian post-communism and despite all the dramatic twists and turns in Russian politics, this ideal has been a constant feature of Russian foreign policy, even though the paths of its actualisation remained fervently contested by rival political forces. At the same time, this integrationist pathos became strongly undermined from the late 1990s onwards by the emergence of numerous conflictual issues in EU Russian relations. In such policy areas as trade tariffs and visa regimes, the EU was perceived as unduly exclusionary with regard to Russia, installing new barriers and dividing lines that contradicted its own rhetoric of openness, cooperation and inclusion. On the other hand, when the EU assumed a more active and assertive position with regard to Russian politics, e.g. on the questions of freedom of speech or civil society, its interference was perceived as illegitimate and hierarchical. Despite the officially proclaimed strategic partnership between equals, EU Russian relations increasingly became viewed as an asymmetric subject object relationship, from which Russia must disentangle itself. Thus, besides being a peace project of conflict management and resolution, integration can also generate new conflicts, determined no longer by Westphalian sovereign imperatives, but by factors that are immanent to the ideal of integration itself. This book is an attempt at a comprehensive analysis of conflictual dispositions in EU Russian relations and their theoretical interpretation ix
x Preface that focuses on the interface between sovereign and integrationist foreign policy orientations. Against the simplistic image of EU Russian relations as an encounter between a postmodern polity, which has transcended sovereignty and embraced globalisation, and a state that stubbornly sticks to the anachronistic ideal of sovereignty, we shall empirically demonstrate that both sovereign and integrationist logics are at work in the policies of both Russia and the EU. Moreover, our conceptual argument will demonstrate the irreducible interdependence of the ideal of integration and the principle of sovereignty, which accounts for both the inherently contradictory nature of the integrationist policies of both Russia and the EU and, more generally, for the inherent limits of the integrationist ideal as such. One of the tasks of this book is therefore to dispense with the naïve discourse of transcending sovereign statehood through international integration in the specific field of EU Russian relations and in international relations in general. This problematisation of the integrationist ideal is highly timely, given the contemporary crisis of the European constitutional process that arguably dismantled the self-evidence of the maxims of European integration that have delimited the field of EU Russian relations since the early 1990s. As we shall demonstrate, conflicts in EU Russian relations are directly related to the denigration of sovereignty in the European discourse, which deprives Russia of an equal standing in relation to the EU and of the possibility of adequately communicating its grievances concerning European policies. Although this book is about understanding, rather than resolving, EU Russian conflicts, the task of understanding must necessarily precede any meaningful engagement in the process of conflict resolution. This book will therefore fulfil its objective if it functions as a background for the more policy-oriented studies on preventing and resolving EU Russian conflict in particular policy areas. A major share of research for this book was undertaken during my research fellowship at the Danish Institute of International Studies in Copenhagen in 2004 in the framework of the Euborderconf project (Border Conflicts in Europe: the Impact of Integration and Association), an EU Fifth Framework project co-sponsored by the British Academy. I would like to thank Thomas Diez, Stephan Stetter, Michelle Pace and all the research fellows of the project for their comments on the working papers, whose revised and updated versions form part of the present study. I am particularly thankful to Pertti Joenniemi, the coordinator of the Copenhagen group within the project, whose intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness made this fellowship both productive and enjoyable.
Preface xi Early versions of some of the chapters in this volume have been presented at a number of international conferences. I am grateful to the following colleagues, whose comments and criticism have been highly helpful in the preparation of this book: Andreas Behnke, Chris Browning, Stefano Guzzini, Mika Ojakangas, Noel Parker and Rob Walker.