Abstract
ABSTRACT After two decades of meagre results in post-Soviet regionalism, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is the first gleam of hope. However, research on the EAEU is mostly Russia-centred and focused on trade issues, which leaves the small states’ perspectives and developmental aspects, such as the EAEU’s industrial cooperation agenda, understudied. The small states might disproportionately benefit from a shift towards developmental regionalism, but there are also many challenges associated with this issue. Thus, this paper examines Armenia’s and Belarus’ industrial development prospects in the framework of the EAEU. Based on Regulation Theory, the paper triangulates data from national, supranational and international organisations, official EAEU documents and reports with insights from 10 expert interviews with policy makers, policy advisers and management consultants. The paper identifies diverging (and sometimes conflicting) interests regarding the relevance and concrete arrangement of industrial cooperation, which has particular implications for smaller member states like Armenia and Belarus.
Highlights
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet space witnessed several attempts at reintegration through regionalism
All Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member states formerly belonged to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the centrally planned economy of which was closely integrated through produc tion chains traversing different republics (Libman & Obydenkova, 2014, p. 173)
Bonatti and Haiduk (2014, p. 7) term it the ‘exchange of political loyalty for guaranteed employment and periodic increases in real incomes and wages.’. It is exactly the trade of industrial goods and the cooperation in manufacturing in the EAEU that allows Belarus to preserve the labour-intensive industries that are vital for the continuity of the social contract, as restructuring would cause a steep rise in unemployment (Yarashevich, 2014a, p. 38)
Summary
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet space witnessed several attempts at reintegration through regionalism. 156–157), in 2007 three countries inside the EurAsEC – Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation – agreed to create a customs union (CU) This initiative to strengthen the trade ties among the post-socialist states came into force in 2011 This paper contributes to the more general debate on the Eurasian economic integration process by analysing the industrial coopera tion initiative in the framework of the EAEU from an Armenian and Belarusian perspective. The article deals with these two countries, because they are both under the influence of two competing regional initiatives, the European Union’s Eastern Partnership and the EAEU (Vieira & Vasilyan, 2018) This has specific implications for their industrial develop ment options (differing from those of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). After summarising the results of the investigation, the conclu sion will illustrate alternatives and complements to the current industrial cooperation initiative
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