Xenophon Paper 2 pdf - ICBSS

outside. There are various factors that have to be taken into account in the discourse
of domestic developments.
First, the formula ‘Well-being=NATO+EU Reforms’ may sound a propaganda piece
like Lenin’s ‘Socialism=Soviet Power + Electrification’, but the similarity is only apparent
and misleading. NATO and the EU are not rigid structures, they are dynamic systems
and their evolvement is very complex. The reforms associated with accession into these
organisations are nothing like the ‘reforms’, to which the socialist countries have been
used in the past, following then solely guidelines from the Kremlin. Nowadays, there should
be enough innate reform will in societies and political groups alike to voluntarily concede
to devising and following either EU or NATO reforms.
Second, neither the EU nor NATO is wide open to those seeking a greater engagement
with them. On the contrary, both organisations are criticised as being unwilling to get
deeply involved in the Black Sea affairs. In a similar vein, both NATO’s policies and
more recently the EU’s ENP have been viewed as substitutes in order to prevent
membership requests by the countries in the region.
Third and foremost, it is not immediately clear that the ‘European’ or ‘Euro-Atlantic’
model of political, economic and social development is the dominant one in this part of
the world. Russia has been offering its alternative model, accompanied by artificial
integration initiatives of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It constantly
refuses to deliver though, but Moscow still continues to offer a rival political and economic
model, augmented by Putin’s policies. In a global perspective, the recent trend is being
called the ‘Beijing consensus’ 19 as an alternative to the transatlantic model. In the ‘Beijing
consensus’ economic liberalisation and growth does not necessarily grow hand-in-hand
with liberal democracy. President Putin’s consolidation of power and his policy of
‘bringing the state back’ have reached immense proportions and have indeed curbed
many of the rights taken for granted in a democratic society. Russia is not an authoritarian
state yet it is not a typical liberal democracy either. The term coined for Russia’s political
and constitutional set up is ‘sovereign democracy’, whereby a strong centre and state
control co-exists with some democratic practices, left mainly for legitimising purposes.
There is a plethora of reasons cited for introducing such a system - protecting a
disintegrating state from separatism, failing institutions, national security reasons,
punishing the oligarchs, etc. In this sense, many countries in the region may be tempted
to follow this model as it seems to offer immediate solutions to exactly the same problems.
The slow formation of a new political culture might also be attributed to the attractiveness
of alternatives to liberal democracy.
19 For a discussion on the concept see Joshua Cooper Ramo (2004), The Beijing Consensus, Foreign Policy
Center.
50 UNFOLDING THE BLACK SEA ECONOMIC COOPERATION VIEWS FROM THE REGION