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| 1 |
ID:
091408
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| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The EU's agenda in promoting multilateralism faces a few challenges in the eastward direction. The Caspian Sea basin, which has been acquiring increasing importance for the EU in the context of energy, above all gas, supplies from the Caucasus and Central Asia, represents a complex mix of states with different histories, identities, regimes, centres of gravity and regional ambitions. Unlike the Black Sea basin, where the EU has developed the Black Sea Synergy policy, none of the Caspian littoral states is an EU member and this has led to a lack of EU interest in and commitment to the promotion of multilateralism in the area. Thus, in spite of significant energy security interests, the EU lacks the will, the capacity or the consistency to address regional security issues or promote reform. Indeed, economic interests are inevitably likely to clash with the reform promotion objective.
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| 2 |
ID:
191772
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| Summary/Abstract |
The study uses the theoretical framework of rentier states to compare the political economies of Belarus and Azerbaijan and the differing conditions created for the political opposition. It conducts a comparative analysis of the structural and agency factors affecting these conditions, focusing on the sources, control and the mode of distribution of rents in the two states. While both states combine post-Soviet legacies with rentier economies, they have different sources of rents. The study shows a ‘converging divergence’ of these two rentier states, based on the analysis of their type (pure rentier or semi-rentier state) and demonstrates the role of power transition in determining the distribution of rents. The combination of these variables, in turn, shapes different types of regimes—exclusive patronage in Azerbaijan and inclusive distributive rent-seeking in Belarus—and creates different tasks for the political opposition in terms of ideology and forming Western alliances.
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