CIS political scholars bid for integration
Russia and Kazakhstan intend to promote integration of political experts within the CIS. Such is the bottom line of the roundtable discussion, Political Reforms in the Post-Soviet Space: Challenges of Ensuring Stability and Democracy, held in late March at the Ukrainian House. Organized jointly by the Kazakh International Institute of Contemporary Politics, the Russian Fund of Effective Politics, and the Kyiv Center for Political Research and Conflict Studies, the roundtable became a continuation of the discussion that began several months before at a similar gathering in St. Petersburg. The political scientists of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan then signed a declaration on the cooperation of expert centers.
According to the prime mover behind the dialog, International Institute of Contemporary Politics Director Dariga Nazarbayeva, the so-called Eurasian three — Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine — are undergoing similar reforms, except that the time frames of such reforms sometimes differ. Hence the need for a forum of experts that study the various models of development of post-Soviet nations. Nazarbayeva is convinced that these models of development should not become an example to follow but a subject of expert analysis. “Western experts are unable to give us a recipe for curing our growing pains. Thus we must seek advice from one another,” Nazarbayeva said. She does not rule out the creation of a Eurasian Union in the future — and not only at the level of experts — “on the basis of multipolarity and in the interests of all its members.”
Effective Politics Fund Director Hlib Pavlovsky, who, as he admitted, treats the notion of the so-called Eurasianism with caution and considers the term Euro-East more appropriate, is convinced that the post-Soviet nations need to integrate today. “But we should stop repeating this as an incantation and understand the real diversities within the commonwealth... The CIS is multipolar. Every successful nation becomes the leading center of integration and attracts investors, and not only Western, and lures its workforce,” he said. Meanwhile, the ideas and concepts of integration, according to Pavlovsky, should be developed by public organizations and political consulting centers. Their goal is to study and propose ways of “guided normalization” of our societies (Pavlovsky prefers this term to modernization).
According to Pavlovsky, the ruling elites of the Euro-East should have three immediate political priorities: internal integration accompanied by openness to global processes; political and financial challenge of moving from ideological to institutional politics; and search for a global identity. “The external forces are, as a rule, multivector and insensitive to our internal dissimilarities,” Pavlovsky agreed with Nazarbayeva, adding that “For this reason we must be more active in proposing our own models of success.”
Russia’s National Civil Council for International Affairs Director Serhiy Markov is convinced that criteria that are currently used to assess the post-Soviet countries “are based on theoretical assumptions, since there is no definitive theory of the development of post-Soviet nations, including their democratization.” In his view, this theory should be developed by a network of expert centers only. Ukraine’s Penta Consulting Center Director Volodymyr Fesenko has recognized the growing role and responsibility of political and intellectual elites in the post- Soviet space and stressed that “public opinion polls register public disapproval of the institute of multiparty politics and distrust of those in power.”
Meanwhile, chairman of the board of the Belarusian Strategy Analytical Center Leonid Zayiko believes that thus far he can call the tetragon of Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus nothing more than Malevych’s Square. Aside from their similarities, the four countries are undergoing different processes, whose path of development is not always easy to forecast. Andrei Vardomatsky, director of the Belarusian Novak Center for Market and Public Opinion Research, has said that according to his information, 44% of Belarusians currently support integration with the EU, while 41% opt for joining Russia and Ukraine. This is an interesting trend, given the dwindling popularity of President Lukashenka. According to the Novak Center, last year the rate of public disapproval of Lukashenka exceeded for the first time the rate of public support for him.
International Institute of Contemporary Politics General Director Erlan Karin is convinced that it is much too early to speak of a Russian, Kazakh, or Ukrainian model. In his view, these are only experiments, since reforms in CIS countries often prove to be maneuvers designed to protect the interests of those in power. In particular, the constitutional reform in Kyrgyzstan, which has given more powers to the parliament, is not an example to follow for neighboring countries and has even become a subject of heated debate in Kyrgyzstan, only revealing the confrontation between those in power and the opposition, Erlan Karin is convinced.
Thus, other components of expert cooperation notwithstanding, Ukraine’s political reform is guaranteed attention from analytical centers across the CIS. Everybody wants to know whether the reform will ensure, to quote Hlib Pavlovsky, “the formation of a nationwide platform on which the interests of all social groups would be recognized.” Meanwhile, Our Ukraine headquarters chief Ihor Hryniv believes that the goal of post-Soviet political elites should be not only and not so much to ensure stability as to ensure the effectiveness of those in power and political culture of the people.
The discussion participants assured one another and the journalists present that they do not intend to harness everybody to the Eurasian cart. Accentuating the different national ideas of “norms and processes,” they actually left out of the discussion the creation of a Single Economic Space (as we know, the presidents of the four states have repeatedly stressed the need to ratify documents on the creation of the SES by midsummer). However, given the high level of the organizers of the roundtable from Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine, it is obvious that the initiative of expert integration — a kind of SES-2 — is not without purpose and will see a continuation.
