(The following is the first article of the chronicle retracing my diploma's thesis)
Integration is a notion common to several disciplines, from law to economics, from mathematics to physics. Obviously the meaning of the term changes depending on the context in which it is used but the deep meaning of the term remains the same. Integration is the act of merging several objects in order to create an object on a larger scale. In law, we speak of integration essentially to speak about the creation of a legal regime common to several groups which until then were separate.
Legal integration invariably follows political integration. The two processes are fundamentally linked because the law is the expression of the sovereign will, and therefore eminently political. The economy, on the other hand, needs a legal framework to evolve. Thus, even if the image is imperfect, the political creates the legal and then the legal creates a frame for the economic. It is therefore easy to guess that integration, regardless of its scale, is an important issue because it dictates the evolution of our societies.
Although the term may be anachronistic, the History of Humanity is made up of integrations and disintegrations. Like the waves which crash on the shore before withdrawing, the great regional groups of the planet have known Empires then their destructions. From Greek koinons (the famous “leagues”) to modern international organizations, the History of human societies is a History full of different forms of integration. If we take French history for example, we could say that the French Republic is the result of a long process of integration that began in medieval times, during which the royal power sought to unify in a coherent territory, a very feudaly splintered unit (moreover the term “feudal” refers to “federated” and therefore to “federation”). The Kingdom itself was born from the disintegration of another unit that preceded it: the Roman Empire. But if we consider that France is now a unitary state, that is not quite the case since the reforms on decentralization and the creation of regions. In addition, the French Republic participates in other integrations in which it is only one federated actor among others: the European Union, NATO, etc... Therefore it is a good example of integration and disintegration as well as the new processes of integration to a higher degree.
The end of the 20th century was a period of violent disintegration: the end of the colonial Empires, the fall of the USSR, the end of Yugoslavia ... In 50 years, the International Community has grown from around fifty members to over 150. And the independence movements are not yet over. Apart from unrecognized states like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, what will be the future of Tibet or Kurdistan? The reign of the great States seems to be coming to an end ...
But while this process of disintegration seems to be accelerating, we are witnessing a new particular phenomenon: integration at the regional level via international organizations with specific goals (military or economic in particular). Thus, faced with a globalization that is supposed to open all borders, states have decided that it is in their interest to work together with their neighbors at the regional level to face foreign competition and to implement common policies, like the creation of a common legal regime. Thus, if in the past integration took place at the national level, this process now takes place via international law treaties. The state remains sovereign, but it now participates in a larger whole, which does not appear on the maps showing the states, but which can behave like a regulatory state in certain areas. So, for example, we speak more often of “Europe” when we speak of markets or economic policy than of its member states. National economic policy is now nothing more than that: national.
But if all eyes are first on the European Union when it comes to regional integration, there is another area that can be just as interesting. A space which, moreover, poses a small concern about its name: we speak of “Eurasia” because it is an ensemble that straddles the two continents. But it's not quite European just like it's not quite Asian. This is why the easiest way to name this space is to call it after the name of the strongest integration that there has been to date in this area. This is why we are going to talk about the Soviet space (before 1991) and the post-Soviet space (after 1991).
This space, which everyone confuses with “Historic Russia”, or even “Imperial Russia” / “Soviet Empire”, is a region which has many assets and a great deal of importance in world issues. But too often has it been overlooked in doctrine for its institutions. Indeed, very few Western experts have studied the Soviet constitutional functioning or even the very recent framework of the Eurasian Union.
Considering that this ensemble is close to the European Union, and that the history of the two ensembles is strongly intertwined, it can be interesting to study their interactions. Above all, it seems interesting to reflect on the following question: how can one conceive of Soviet and post-Soviet integration in the light of the theory of European integration? Because one of the remarkable aspects of the comparison of the two spaces is that Europe seems to have created a useful model for understanding and analyzing other models of regional integration.
But before proceeding with this analysis, we still need to lay the foundations for this analysis. This is why we will first define the Soviet and post-Soviet space as well as its History (I) before recalling the main lines of the theory of European integration (II).