What kind of region: spatial constructs in the populist era

Abstract

The rise of populism has often been conceptualized as a major challenge to the contemporary international order. Strong ethno-nationalist drive and xenophobic sentiment undermine liberal values, while deification of nationalist leadership may undercut democratic institutions at home and in the international arena. Consequently, it was expected that the anti-liberal and ethno-centric nature of populism would bring about the end of the liberal rule-based world order. In particular, economic success of authoritarian regimes in emerging markets would make European choices less and less attractive even for European Union (EU) member states and countries in its periphery (Krastev and Holmes, 2018). Consequently, ethnonationalism and economic egoism would simply make it impossible for nation-states to overcome the logic of power politics and national interest. This logic would lead to further fragmentation of regional projects (starting from Europe and Euro-Atlantic community) and result in a new era of Realpolitik, probably expressed in geo-economic struggles between major powers (Haas, 2018). The present issue of the Journal of Cross-Regional Dialogues / Revue de dialogues inter-regionaux sets out to question these two arguments by providing exploratory analysis of the interplay between globalising and re-nationalising drives in the broader Eurasian space. One of the underpinning ideological assumptions of regional has long been the fact that various types of regionalism were (as