Authoritarian Regionalism in the World of International Organizations: Global Perspective and Eurasian Enigma

1. Introduction 2. Regionalism and Political Regimes 3. Authoritarian Regionalism 4. Studying Non-Democratic Regional Organizations: Methodological Issues 5. Membership and Governance 6. Impact on World Politics and Economy 7. Past Non-Dependency in the 21st Century 8. The Enigma of Eurasian Regionalism 9. Political Regionalism: The CIS 10. Economic Regionalism: The EAEU 11. Security Regionalism: The SCO 12. ConclusionThe post-Cold War world has witnessed the extensive development of regional international organizations world-wide. The realtionship between their membership and democratization remains a topic of intense scholarly debate. This book opens up a new aspect of the debate by examining regional organization as set up by autocracies (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, and China)—referring to them as “non-democratic regional organizations.” How do these newly emerged organizations counteract and confront the democratization process in their own member states and beyond their borders? How and why do the political regimes, the economic development and the cultures of their member states impac the foundation and development of these organizations? What influence do these organizations have on migration, trade, conflicts, and democratization? The book addresses these questions by developing a new theory of authoritarian regionalism. Employing quantitative analysis of authoritarian regionalism world-wide and its historical development since the 1950s, as well as analysing case studies of post-Soviet Eurasia, the book argues that authoritarian regionalism is a new phenomenon in world politics and that modern non-democratic organizations differ from their historical predecessors and that their influence has radically increased in terms of geographic scope and intensity in the last few years. As such, authoritarian regionalism is an important addition to studies of comparative regionalism and the international dimension of authoritarianism. From the policy perspective, non-democratic regional organizations pose a challenge for Western actors in promoting democracy around the world