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Parting the Black Sea (Region): Geopolitics, Institutionalisation and the Reconfiguration of European Security
Abstract
This article examines critically one of the most active regional dynamics of European security, centred on the Black Sea. Recently, the Black Sea region has received increased attention from a variety of political actors, who seek to increase the profile of the region in order to develop a common regional identity and an integrated approach to the security problems of the Black Sea region. This resurgence of the Black Sea region can be understood as the combined product of local interests, European integration and the 'global war on terror'. The main argument of the article is that Black Sea security integration is characterised by a fundamental contradiction between two different logics of security - geopolitical and institutional. Three other problems - transposition, fragmentation, and duplication - are also discussed. In the conclusion, the article examines the significance of the efforts to build the Black Sea region for the future of regional integration in European security.
... For the outsider champions-the United States, NATO, and the EU-the Black Sea region often has different valences. For the US, the region is more a link in a chain of wider global security concerns (Ciută 2007), whereby a stable WBSR would allow for more geo-strategic flexibility in the Eurasian Balkans. For the EU, it is still a liminal area to be potentially and incrementally subjected to soft normative centralization processes (Zielonka 2006) or stabilized through combining a variety of geo-strategic models of regionalization (Browning and Joenniemi 2008: 544-6). ...
... 7 Region and regionalism as political narrative are hard to define and contour in a heavily "parted region" (Ciută 2007) like the Black Sea, but because they can be more easily postulated and prescribed, we consider that the term "wider region" is more appropriate here as a comprehensive construct. Given the incipient degree of "regionality" in the Black Sea, the term "wider region" is in our opinion easier to problematize, especially when including Russia. ...
... Scholars have attributed the 'paradox (Triantaphyllou 2009a, 225)' of unfulfilled regional security community aspirations to 'diverging and at times competing agendas (Triantaphyllou 2009b, 223).' Other key variables include history, geography A strand of policy-oriented literature focuses on Black Sea geostrategy, highlighting the Black Sea basin as 'increasingly at the center of United States foreign policy (Miller 2017, 1)' for its importance to energy security (Winrow 2007;Paillard 2007;Pamir 2007), and both European (Triantaphyllou 2007) and Euro-Atlantic (Asmus 2006) The security studies literature has focused on conceptualizing the Black Sea region as a 'nascent' but not 'mature (Adler and Barnett 1996)' security community (Hajizada 2018), and then problematizing that conception, identifying contradictions between geopolitical and institutional logics of security (Ciută 2007) in a 'complex and contested security space (Melvin 2018, vii).' Security scholars have analyzed individual countries' strategic behavior (Sanders 2007) and relationships with institutions (Nieto 2008), as well as geostrategic (Antonenko 2009) and maritime issues in an institutional context (Sanders 2009). Only Weaver (2011) has taken an explicitly theoretical approach to security in the entire Black Sea region, focusing on challenges to regional security institutions. ...
The allocation of scarce resources is a grand strategic question – burden-sharing behaviour has clear effects on states’ ability to contribute to collective defence. Both NATO and the European Union encourage members not just to spend more on defence, but to focus those expenditures on equipment modernization and shared operational requirements. After NATO allies formally pledged to improve burden-sharing along these lines in 2014, and EU members followed in 2016, transatlantic debates on defence spending have become increasingly tense, particularly since 2017. What actually drives states’ choices to allocate resources to shared defence priorities? I operationalize transatlantic burden-sharing in line with NATO’s ‘Cash, Capabilities, and Contributions’ approach for a mixed-methods analysis of the burden-sharing behaviour of NATO’s Black Sea littoral states – Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. Using a multi-method analytical approach, I find that national and particularly regional political economies drive burden-sharing choices more than geostrategy, at least in the current strategic environment.
... Scholars have attributed the 'paradox (Triantaphyllou 2009a, 225)' of unfulfilled regional security community aspirations to 'diverging and at times competing agendas (Triantaphyllou 2009b, 223).' Other key variables include history, geography A strand of policy-oriented literature focuses on Black Sea geostrategy, highlighting the Black Sea basin as 'increasingly at the center of United States foreign policy (Miller 2017, 1)' for its importance to energy security (Winrow 2007;Paillard 2007;Pamir 2007), and both European (Triantaphyllou 2007) and Euro-Atlantic (Asmus 2006) The security studies literature has focused on conceptualizing the Black Sea region as a 'nascent' but not 'mature (Adler and Barnett 1996)' security community (Hajizada 2018), and then problematizing that conception, identifying contradictions between geopolitical and institutional logics of security (Ciută 2007) in a 'complex and contested security space (Melvin 2018, vii).' Security scholars have analyzed individual countries' strategic behavior (Sanders 2007) and relationships with institutions (Nieto 2008), as well as geostrategic (Antonenko 2009) and maritime issues in an institutional context (Sanders 2009). Only Weaver (2011) has taken an explicitly theoretical approach to security in the entire Black Sea region, focusing on challenges to regional security institutions. ...
... Attributing the same 'integrationist' and 'sovereign' features to Russia and the EU, Prozorov explains both the cases of collaboration and of conflict in Russia-EU interactions. This trend has recently been applied in the research on the Black Sea region in which some authors have problematised the imperial paradigm and the representation of Russia as a barbarian, imperial 'other' from the West (Ciută 2007(Ciută , 2008. Others acknowledge that it was the EU that was inconsistent in its policies in the region (Delcour 2010;Nitoiu 2011), and reluctant to engage Russia in EU policies for the region (Najšlová 2010). ...
Ukraine has long been considered as a bone of contention between the EU and Russia which could eventually lead to a geographical split of the country. This interpretation, however, fails to explain the dynamic of the Ukrainian revolution and Russian–Ukrainian war. To address the deadlock in understanding the mixed dynamics of the situation in Ukraine, the article argues that the relations in the EU–Ukraine–Russia triangle are affected by the combination of choices that the Ukrainian political class, business elites and broader society make in four major dimensions: internal political practices; economic dimension; a dimension of international politics; and an ideological dimension.
Drawing on classical realism, the article investigates whether the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), just like the other subregional projects that Romania took part in since joining NATO in 2004, has been part of Romania’s external balancing towards Russia. In contrast to the 1990s, when the Black Sea area had not been mentioned in Romania’s strategic documents, Bucharest came up with a grand principle (the internationalisation of the Black Sea area) and a grand behaviour (external balancing) once it joined NATO. Considering that the Black Sea area has played a central role in all major strategic documents issued by Romania since 2005, one could draw the conclusion that, at least formally, Romania has devised a grand strategy for the region. The article examines whether 3SI, with its apparent emphasis on desecuritisation, marks a turn in Romania’s grand behaviour in the region, as Bucharest’s previous subregional initiatives have been guided by securitised multilateralism. By bringing into analysis the main differences among 3SI and Romania’s prior strategic initiatives in the area, i.e. the Black Sea Forum for Dialogue and Partnership, Black Sea Synergy, Black Sea Flotilla and Bucharest 9, the article pays heed to the question of change and continuity in Romania’s grand behaviour in the Black Sea area. The article concludes that 3SI is in line with securitised multilateralism, which is the common denominator of all Romania’s subregional projects in the region.
The paper aims to shed light on how a region may be built out of the Black Sea area. Therefore, the paper asks, first, whether the Black Sea area is a region or a region-to-be. If neither, then how to transform the Black Sea area into a region through the context of 'new regionalism' and the relevant theories. First, it delves into defining what it means to be a 'region' in the context of 'new regionalism'. Then, three different theories, i.e. neo-functionalism, neo-liberal institutionalism and constructivism, are unravelled to lay the foundation for the main query of the paper-'is the Wider Black Sea area a region'. Constructivism provides fertile ground for the most appropriate premises for constructing a region around the Black Sea in relation to new regionalism. Accordingly, the paper discovers the perils and opportunities lying ahead of any initiative to construct a region out of the Black Sea area. The paper offers that the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) acts as an anchor of the Wider Black Sea area and a catalyst for a new understanding of Ph.D candidate, Kadir Has University, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8453-4557 NASUH SOFUOĞLU 172 regionalism which is capable of taking root and thriving in the Black Sea area.
The reason/motivation for addressing issues related to the Black Sea region is multifaceted and requires adequate explanations which will be refereed to here from Romania’s perspective as, a Black Sea area country by geography, historical background, cultural and social characteristics, is the bridge of economic and cultural changes, peace stability and military safety. Its economy and standard of life is sensible to the various factors and trends originating in the region.
This paper aims to offer new perspectives in sustaining the idea of a valuable contribution of whom/what at the regional stability.
In the context of post–Cold War European integration, ‘making’ regions has become commonplace. Far from reducing the significance of regional initiatives, inflationary regional labelling draws attention to the significant role played by ‘regions’ as legitimating political vectors. Why are political projects formulated in regional terms? Critically examining the Black Sea region project, this article suggests that region-making transcends the boundary between theoretical and political praxis. Regional entrepreneurs frequently use different conceptual categories in the formulation and justification of their initiatives. In order to understand why regional forms are preferred politically, it is necessary to scrutinise closely this contextual interaction between political praxis and conceptual logic. The article maps the various concepts of region which coexist in the Black Sea region project, and discusses their relationship with four political and hermeneutical strategies that link the regional project with its context, profoundly marked by the logic of European security integration. The ‘double hermeneutics’ of the Black Sea region highlights the contradictory security logics that structure European security in general and this regional project in particular. In the conclusion, the article draws attention to the significant epistemological and normative consequences of the double hermeneutics of the Black Sea region.
The Black Sea region is an area rich in natural resources and cultural diversity. It has great potential as a transit corridor between Asia and Europe. At the same time, it is characterized by persistent state weakness, destructive nationalism, unresolved conflicts and endemic fragmentation, repeatedly leading to crises such as the 2008 Russian–Georgian war. 2007 enlargement brought the EU to the shores of the Black Sea. This contribution investigates how the EU addresses security‐relevant issues in this area and why its policies have so far not brought about a tangible improvement in the security situation.
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