ABSTRACT

This Special Issue examines the ways states, regions, de facto states and local actors situated in-between the EU and Russia cope with the competitive external pressure coming from the two regional powers. States, diverse groups and actors in this overlapping neighborhood navigate between varied economic and political integration projects and between different values, ideas and visions of society. This introductory article, first, contextualizes this “inside-out” perspective by presenting the nature of the current EU and Russian projects vis-à-vis the region, how they clash and how this puts regional actors in a state of “in-betweenness”. Then, it unpacks the concept of “navigation” by outlining the ways local actors at different levels of domestic governance studied in the contributions to this Special Issue respond to and manage areas of contestation relating to issues such as citizenship politics, minority rights, and political and trade strategies. The role of elite agency serves as a central thread running across the contributions. Caught “in-between” Russia and the EU, domestic actors, be it at national or sub-national level, navigate while adjusting to the external pressures, negotiating and appropriating external discourses. In the process, constraints are often turned into opportunities for the local actors to exploit.

摘要

本期特刊探讨了位于欧盟和俄罗斯之间的国家、地区、事实上的国家和地方行为体如何应对来自这两个地区大国的竞争性外部压力。这个重叠社区中的国家、不同群体和行为者在各种经济和政治整合项目之间以及不同的价值观、思想和社会愿景之间穿梭。这个介绍性的文章，首先，通过呈现当前欧盟和俄罗斯项目的性质contextualizes这种“由内而外”的观点面对面的人地区，它们如何发生冲突以及这如何使区域参与者处于“中间”状态。然后，它通过概述在对本特刊的贡献中研究的不同国内治理层面的地方行为者如何回应和管理与公民政治、少数群体权利和政治等问题相关的争议领域，解开“导航”的概念。和贸易战略。精英机构的作用是贯穿贡献的中心线。夹在俄罗斯和欧盟“中间”的国内行为者，无论是在国家层面还是次国家层面，都在适应外部压力、谈判和挪用外部话语的同时进行导航。在这个过程中，限制往往会转化为当地参与者可以利用的机会。