Introduction

Multinational integration and globalization are major trends in world history today, and the beginning of the 21st century has become a time of conflicting movements. Just as globalization has become a globally accepted ideal, a strong momentum has emerged across societies worldwide for the ‘recovering of local identity, which was challenged by diminished national politics, culture and economic sovereignty in a globalized world’ (Baunov, 2017). This has resulted in the conservative, anti-globalist, and even nationalist agenda popular worldwide today, empowering leaders who appeal directly for national self-reliance without the intermediacy of globalized elites. Along with Brexit, this trend has become the most serious challenge to the neoliberal model of globalization since the previous Cold War dichotomy of a bipolar world. In the post-Soviet space (particularly in Russia), this trend is met with encouragement, as the neoliberal model of globalization is associated with US domination, while moving away from this model is seen as forming a ‘polycentric world’ with Russia as one of its centres. Paradoxically, ideas of multinational integration still dictate the foreign policy agenda in most countries, including post-Soviet nations.

There are several reasons for this. First, nostalgia for the Soviet Union is strong in parts of these societies (particularly in Russia), and elites seek to use this agenda to legitimize their ruling position (White, 2010). Second, the weakness of certain post-Soviet states, the difficulties of forming autonomous economies there, and the dependence of their economies on infrastructure networks inherited from the Soviet Union (Obydenkova, 2011: 88) all compel them to look for greater regional integration.