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Do the CIS member states share foreign policy preferences?
Flemming Splidsboel Hansen
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
article info
Article history:
Received 31 January 2014
Accepted 17 October 2014
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Commonwealth of Independent States
United Nations
Foreign policy
Convergence
Divergence
abstract
Relying on a large quantitative data set from the United Nations General Assembly voting
records in the years 1992e2013, this study analyses developments in the foreign policy
preferences of the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS]. It
finds that the general level of disagreement between the member states as a whole has
increased significantly and that policies have become more radicalised, causing member
states to hold directly opposing views still more often. It also finds that a majority of
member states, led by Russia, have converged on the foreign policy mean, causing the core
of the organisation to become still denser. This suggests that the CIS will undergo a future
development where member states will travel along increasingly different trajectories.
This research has important implications for our understanding of the CIS and of the
policies of the individual member states.
Copyright © 2014, Asia-Pacific Research Center, Hanyang University. Production and
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1. Introduction
Established in December 1991, the Commonwealth of
Independent States [CIS] has provided a forum for a ma-
jority of the former Soviet republics to advance both their
individual and collective interests, be these of a political,
economic, military, cultural or different nature. Whereas
for some member states (mainly Georgia, Moldova,
Turkmenistan and Ukraine) the CIS has been little more
than a necessary and not least temporary evil designed to
manage the complex interdependencies created by the
shared existence within the former unitary Soviet state, for
others it has provided the foundation on which something
much more ambitious eventually would be built.
1
These
latter have since worked to bring the CIS member states
closer together and to both widen and deepen their inte-
gration in all policy spheres (Kosov & Toropygin, 2009;
Kubicek, 2009: 241).
Much of the Western scholarly literature on the record
of the CIS is negative. Writing in the late 1990s, Richard
Sakwa and Mark Webber (1999: 379) noted that the orga-
nisation “has failed to integrate the Soviet successor states
in any meaningful sense”, and a majority of writers seem to
have reached similar conclusions, if not always expressed
so directly, since then. These writers will usually point to
the continued existence of serious conflict, military even,
within the membership circle, the frequent policy opt-outs,
the low of the lowest common denominator, the lack of
supranational decision-making bodies and enforcement
mechanisms as well as withdrawals e or a combination of
it all (for instance Åslund, Olcott, & Garnett 1999; Hansen,
2013; Kramer, 2008; Kubicek, 1999, 2009).
There is an alternative and more positive interpretation,
however. Taking a “glass half full” perspective, these
scholars emphasise what has been achieved rather than
E-mail address: flc960@hum.ku.dk.
Peer review under responsibility of Asia-Pacific Research Center, Hanyang
University.
1
Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin “thought of the CIS as a new
type of union, formed to rescue Soviet integration as the Soviet state was
falling apart, leading in a few years to a confederal arrangement, similar
to the European Union” (Brzezinski & Sullivan 1997: 41).
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what may be lacking. One recent such study, by Willerton,
Slobodchikoff, and Goertz (2012), analyses the dense se-
curity treaty network within the CIS, arguing that it is a sign
of a mature organisational culture, where member states
willingly let their future actions be restricted and defined
by a shared legal framework. Willerton et al. (2012: 60)
insist that their findings from the CIS security domain are
relevant to other policy fields as well, and they remain
optimistic about the future of the CIS, guided as they are by
assumptions about the positive effect of the treaty lock-ins
for learning, socialisation and incremental change among
the signatory states.
Other scholars (for instance Costa-Buranelli, 2014;
Pourchot & Stivachtis, 2014) share these positive con-
clusions. Relying on English Sc hool insights they argue
that a regional shared understanding e a society e has
emerged according to which common rules should be
observed and common institutions respected. T hey see
the gradual strengthening of a shared normative struc-
ture within t he CIS which points to a continued positive
development; as Willerton, Slobodchikoff a nd Goertz
they focu s on those elements which have moved re-
lations beyond the mini anarchy w hich we could othe r-
wis e expect to find in a regional setting such as that
covered by the CIS.
Some of these assumptions are drawn from social
constructivist integration theory according to which we
should expect to see still greater policy co-operation, co-
ordination and eventually integration among member
states across a wide range of issues. It is argued that a high
level of interaction, for instance within an organisational
setting such as the CIS, may gradually reduce differences
between the actors involved, eventually making them
much more similar by giving them a more or less full set of
shared norms, identities and preferences (Checkel 2007;
Herrmann, Risse, & Brewer, 200 4; Risse-Kappen, 1996;
Tonra, 2003). This is due to the cognitive capacity of actors;
as they interact, they tend to learn from each other,
developing and internalising new world views and stan-
dards of behaviour in the process, and in general begin to
think and act in increasingly similar ways (Checkel, 1999,
2005; Checkel & Moravcsik, 2001).
Social constructivists further insist that state interests
are not defined and fixed a priori but instead develop
during interaction with others; put differently, preferences
are endogenous to interaction. And they will point, for
instance, to studies of the European Union [EU] member
states or other groups of states with frequent interaction to
show that this preference harmonisation e or socialisation
e does indeed take place. Thus, it has been suggested, for
instance, that the EU member states have developed a still
higher degree of foreign policy harmony e and that this has
been achieved despite even the intake over time of a rela-
tively large number of new member states (Johansson-
Nogu
es, 2004; Luif, 20 03; Marchesi, 2010).
This study builds on and tests these assumptions as it
seeks to increase our understanding of the CIS, the closest
we get to an organisational embodiment of the Soviet su-
perpower that was once was. It does so by analysing the
actual foreign policy behaviour of the member states e as
seen in their individual voting records in the United
Nations [UN] General Assembly e in order to observe and
assess possible developments within the group as a whole.
The integration theory just sketched gives us reason to
expect, all things being equal, that the CIS member states
have converged still more on a foreign policy mean, grad-
ually causing differences in preferences to have been ironed
out. The available data will show if this is so.
It should be noted that Article 4 of the CIS Charter,
signed on 22 January 1993, declares that member states
should strive for “foreign policy co-ordination”, which in
itself alone would seem to suggest policies ranging from
mere advance consultation to a full harmonisation of
foreign policy behaviour. However, as Article 1 of the same
Charter lists among the fundamental aims of the organi-
sation “the future development and strengthening of …
mutual understanding and mutually beneficial co-
operation between the member states”, the original
ambition indeed seems to have been that policies should
show still greater convergence and that member states
would gradually move towards the deeper end of the
integration pool (Ustav, 1993). While the Charter is rather
vague on foreign policy e quite obviously a reflection of
what little could be achieved when it was being negotiated
e there is little doubt that growing divergence would go
against the hopes and aspirations of the CIS “founding
fathers”.
I perform four main tasks in this study. Firstly, I give a
short background to the CIS and to the UN membership of
the member states. Following this, I go over the method-
ology of using the UN voting records to measure the foreign
policy cohesion between two or more states. I then present
and discuss the findings for the whole CIS before looking at
specific dyads of states, focussing on both core and outlier
states as well as on key issues of agreement and disagree-
ment. Finally, based on these different findings of the study,
I offer a few perspectives on the future development of the
CIS and on individual relationships between the member
states.
2. The CIS member states and the UN
The 8 December 1991 announcement by the then
leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine that the Soviet Union
would cease to exist by the end of that year suddenly threw
into real sovereign existence all the 15 former Union re-
publics. Whereas by this time a majority of the republics
had already declared their sovereignty, although not al-
ways strictly as understood by international law, they now
all had to seek international recognition and to develop the
full machinery of a sovereign state. General international
recognition of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had started
pouring in already in early September 1991, but the other
republics had to wait longer; the United States of America
[USA], for instance, waited until 25 December 1991 before
recognising en bloc the sovereignty of the remaining 12
Soviet republics.
With universally recognised sovereignty came mem-
bership of the UN. As the official successor state of the
Soviet Union, Russia did not have to apply for membership
but simply took over all former Soviet rights and obliga-
tions in the UN system, including the prestigious
F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e102
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Studies (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2014.10.0 02
permanent seat in the Security Council; and since the So-
viet regime under Josef Stalin had decided to give both
Belarus and Ukraine the façade of semi-statehood which
made it possible for them to enter the UN as founding
members in 1945 and thus to secure two extra votes for the
Soviet Union, they merely continued their presence in the
organisation (Bühler, 2001:171e172).
2
The remaining nine republics, however, had to apply for
membership and then join separately and as new entities.
3
While eight of them (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbe-
kistan) were all admitted to the UN on 2 March 1992, the
last (Georgia) was admitted only on 31 July 1992 (UN
General Assembly Resolutions A/RES/46/223e230). This
delay was caused by the lack of effective government in the
republic; the political chaos and instability that had broken
out in Georgia as the former Soviet Union was collapsing
had brought a large number of states to hold back their
recognition of the sovereignty of the republic and it was
only following the appointment on 11 March 1992 of then
former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze to the
position of acting head of state that this changed and the
way was cleared for Georgia to obtain membership of the
UN (A/RES/46/241).
In the UN system, the CIS member states are split be-
tween two regional groups or voting blocs, making co-
operation and co-ordination between the various national
delegations slightly more difficult (Gruenberg, 2009:
477e482; Peterson, 2007:106e110). Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine e together
with for instance Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the states of
the former Yugoslavia e all belong to the Eastern European
Group; with only 23 members, this is the smallest of the
five regional groups. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on the other hand are all in
the AsiaePacific Group together with states such as China,
India, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan; this group has 54
members (UN Department for General Assembly and
Conference Management, 2012).
3. A note on methodology
The use of quantitative data from the UN General As-
sembly as a proxy for foreign policy “interests” or “prefer-
ences” (Voeten, 2013: 62) is a favourite approach among
many students of international politics. The first such studies
appeared already in the 1950s, and it is therefore a well-tried
methodology with a strong pedigree (for instance Ball, 1951;
Holloway,1990;Holloway& Tomlinson,1995; Kim & Russett,
1996; Lijphart, 1963; Newcombe, Ross, & Newcombe, 19 70;
Voeten, 2000). It is particularly useful for those interested
in the big pictures e drawn overtimeand/or across agroup of
states. As used here, the data may provide us with a central
piece of the jigsaw that is the foreign policy harmony be-
tween the CIS member states: Their level of cohesion, asso-
ciated trends and issues of (dis)agreement.
As Erik Voeten (2013: 62) notes about the UN General
Assembly voting records, “there is no obvious other source
of data where so many states over such a long time period
have revealed policy positions on such a wide set of issues”.
The richness of the source does not mean, however, that it
is unproblematic to rely on. Critics often point out that a
vote in the General Assembly merely shows whether a state
is willing to support a resolution e it may not entail more
than that and so is not necessarily reflected in subsequent
policies (Voeten, 2013: 62). Also, the methodology is
fraught with dangers and may easily produce biased find-
ings; the coding of the votes is challenging and different
approaches will easily lead to vastly different conclusions
(Bailey, Strezhnev, & Voeten, 2013; Boockmann & Dreher,
2011; Voeten, 2013:62e64). Having noted this, it is a
standard tool and studies relying on the UN General As-
sembly voting records are being prepared in ever greater
numbers and across a wide range of issue areas (Voeten,
2013:54e55).
The overall data set for this study then is the voting re-
cord of the CIS member states in the UN General Assembly.
For the purposes of this study I define the CIS as the 12
former Soviet republics and now sovereign states which
have e for different durations and with different statuses e
been members of the CIS in the years 1991e2013. I do this
despite the following important exceptions to the general
membership rule: Georgia joined the CIS in March 1994 only
and left again in August 2009; Azerbaijan joined in
December 1991, then left in October 1992, only to return
again in September 1993; Ukraine has never ratified the CIS
treaty and so technically has remained an associated mem-
ber only, a status which Turkmenistan has also been claim-
ing for itself since August 2005.
4
While the precise meaning
of the term “CIS” thus remains unclear and even contested, it
is still our best shorthand reference to these 12 states, the
post-Soviet development of which has been markedly
different from that of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
I employ data from sessions 47e67, beginning in
September 1992 and ending in September 2013; within this
time span, I use data from every second session, giving me
data from eleven different sessions.
5
All the data is openly
available at the UN website (http://www.un.org/
documents/resga.htm). The data collection has been
based on the following three principles.
Firstly, in order to make the study more manageable, I
use only entire resolutions passed which is in line with
previous literature. In other words, I exclude for instance
votes on resolutions which have been rejected by a majority
2
In the words of a legal expert, “[the membership of Belarus and
Ukraine] made little sense prior to 1991 from the legal point of view”
explaining that “since the [Soviet Union] itself (…) was considered a legal
subject of international law and was a member of the [UN], there was no
legal justification for the membership of the UN of any of its constituent
republics, just as none of the states of the Unites States ever sought or
acquired membership”; Blum, 1992: 354e355, n. 2.
3
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had all been admitted to the UN already
on 17 September 1991; see UN General Assembly Resolutions A/RES/46/
4e6.
4
Following the March 2014 annexation by Russia of the Ukrainian
peninsula of Crimea (including the city of Sevastopol), it was announced
that Ukraine intended to withdraw completely from the CIS.
5
Since Georgia was only admitted to the UN as the 46th session was
coming to a close, data from this session will not be included.
F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e10 3
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as well as votes on parts of resolutions such as operative
paragraphs (see Luif, 2003:22e23). Studies suggest that
the effect of omitting rejected resolutions is marginal
(Boockmann & Dreher, 2011: 4 47).
Secondly, from this data set I include only roll call
(recorded) votes; usually, some 75e80 per cent of all res-
olutions are passed without a vote (this is done by
consensus), and if added to the picture of foreign policy
congruence between two or more states, these resolutions
would inflate the figures, leading to an often dramatically
exaggerated image of the foreign policy harmony of the
states in question (Luif, 2003: 20).
6
When combined these two first principles leave us with
a pool of typically some 65e85 resolutions per session.
Thus, a total population of 826 recorded votes is included in
this study. On each of these resolutions, the member states
had the choice of voting “yes” or “no” or abstaining, or they
could simply choose to be absent, that is, not take part in
the voting altogether.
7
Absenteeism may be caused by a number of different
reasons, the most simple of which are a lack of either
commitment to the UN or financial or human resources, in
general or at specific times only. It may also, however, be
caused by the controversial nature of a specific resolution,
bringing states to “hide” behind a non-vote and thus
reducing the risk of conflict with other states. To illustrate,
in sessions 60e66 Mongolia was absent from every single
vote on the human rights situation in North Korea, thereby
avoiding the painful choice between doing damage to its
relations with China, the most important ally of North
Korea, or to its reputation as a liberal state (see for instance
A/RES/66/174).
8
Absenteeism is a general problem for anyone studying
the UN voting record as there is no immediate or easy way
of determining how the member state would have voted
had it taken part in the voting. The problem is accentuated
when there is a relatively high degree of absenteeism as is
indeed the case with a number of CIS member states;
Uzbekistan, Georgia and Turkmenistan have all been ab-
sent for more than 90 per cent of all recorded votes during a
single session, but Kyrgyzstan (þ70 per cent), Tajikistan
(þ60 per cent) and Armenia (þ50 per cent) also have re-
cords of comparatively high levels of absenteeism during
one or more sessions. All in all, in the eleven sessions
analysed in this study, one or more CIS member states have
been absent from more than half of all recorded votes.
Faced with the challenge of absenteeism some re-
searchers simply throw out all cases with less than full
participation of all objects of analysis (Johansson-Nogu
es,
2004:4e5). This, however, clearly would not work in this
study as it would leave a pool of less than half of all votes
only; these remaining votes, moreover, would be unevenly
scattered across various sessions, making the final result a
highly skewed set of findings without much validity.
What I do instead, and this is the third principle, is to
follow a common practice by regarding absenteeism as
abstention and to assign a middle position to the state. The
basic assumption behind this principle, so explains Paul
Luif (2003: 25), who also relies on it, is that “the country is
regarded as not knowing how to vote, it is ‘in-between’ a
pro and a contra vote” (Luif, 2003: 25; also Holloway &
Tomlinson, 1995: 243, Kim & Russett, 1996: 632; Voeten,
2000: 193).
However, if a member state is absent for more than one-
third of all recorded votes during a single session, data for
this particular state will not be included in the cohesion
index for the year in question; its entire voting record will
simply be disregarded (Luif, 2003: 25).
9
This rule is relevant
to six different member states and to five different sessions;
of all the CIS member states Turkmenistan and Tajikistan
have shown the poorest voting discipline in the General
Assembly and data for both is excluded from sessions 47
and 51e57, while data for Uzbekistan is excluded from
sessions 47 and 55e57, for Kyrgyzstan from sessions 47 and
57, and for Armenia and Georgia from session 47.
4. The overall pattern
I start by looking at the overall voting pattern of the
entire group of CIS member states. This is done by classi-
fying the data into three categories according to the dis-
tance between the states on the range “yes-abstention-no”.
Firstly, a unanimous vote on which there is full agreement;
secondly, a two-way split (or partial disagreement) where
at least one state abstains while the others vote either “yes”
or “no” (but not both); and a three-way split (or full
disagreement) where at least one state votes “yes” while at
least one other state votes “no” (Johansson-Nogu
es, 2004:
4). Fig. 1 shows the result (x-axis ¼ session; y-
axis ¼ percentage of total number of recorded votes).
a) What is immediately noticeable in Fig. 1 is the relatively
low level of agreement between the member states; the
share of unanimous votes has never been higher than 44
per cent (in the 57th session) and in general it has
remained within the 25e35 per cent band. This means
that the CIS member states in general have only agreed
on every third or even fourth vote passed by the General
Assembly (in the 67th session the share was 34.7 per
6
For an example of the differences between the two data set (that is,
between all votes and roll call votes only), see United States State
Department (various years).
7
Member states may also be non-eligible to participate in the voting,
for instance because of arrears in their contributions to the UN; most
significantly, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were all prevented
under Article 19 of the UN Charter from voting in the 56th session as their
financial contributions were in arrears.
8
No vote was recorded on the human rights situation in North Korea in
the 67th session.
9
Lowering the threshold of absent votes accepted from one-third to
e.g. one-fourth may reduce the number of uncertain votes in the calcu-
lations made, but it may also reduce accuracy and validity as recorded
votes are thrown out. To illustrate, Turkmenistan in the 61st session was
absent from approximately 30 per cent of all recorded votes, and a
threshold of one-fourth would then have meant that its voting record
would have had to be excluded; while this may have added slightly to the
accuracy of the calculations by possibly excluding a few “false” abstaining
votes, it would also have left out the four important votes on which
Turkmenistan voted in complete isolation from the other CIS member
states.
F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e104
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Studies (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2014.10.0 02
cent). This is significantly below the cohesion levels of
for instance the EU and even more so the Association of
South East Asian Nations, both of which routinely record
unanimity levels of þ75 per cent (Ferdinand, 2013).
What is left then is a relatively high level of disagreement;
whereas the overall share has remained quite constant
(with a 0.4 per cent increase only in two decades), two-way
splits have steadily given way to three-way splits (the latter
reaching a high of 26.3 per cent in the 67th session). The
member states hold directly opposing views still more
often, and this clearly indicates that policies have become
radicalised and that disagreement has hardened.
As will be demonstrated below, a few member states (most
notably Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia) have caused
this development, expressing strong dissent on a few iso-
lated issues; these have mainly been human rights and se-
curity and disarmament matters, and in the 67th session the
general picture was such that whereas Moldova, Ukraine
and Georgia tended to vote together against the rest, Russia
found itself in complete isolation on several occasions.
A note should be offered on the 55th and 57th sessions,
which have produced a sudden increase in the share of
unanimous votes on the one side and a decrease in the
share of partial disagreements on the other side (see Fig. 1).
The explanation is simply methodological; as will be shown
below, Uzbekistan has been a relatively strong outlier and
in the 53rd session it was in fact further removed from the
CIS mean than any other member state. The country,
however, has been excluded from the data set for the
following 55th and 57th sessions because of a high degree
of absenteeism (57 and 45 per cent, respectively). If instead
included in the data set for these two sessions, the voting
record of Uzbekistan would cause the share of unanimous
votes to be reduced to 18 and 16 per cent, respectively
(instead of 40 and 44 per cent), and the share of partial
disagreements to be increased to 66 and 71 per cent,
respectively (instead of 43 and 44 per cent).
It should be made clear that these last figures are sur-
rounded by a very high degree of uncertainty as a large part
of the Uzbek votes now included were absentee votes
(treated here as abstentions). However, given the earlier
record of Uzbek voting, there is good reason to speculate
that the country would in fact have continued e albeit
possibly with a certain moderation e the strong indepen-
dence which so characterised its foreign policy line in the
second half of the 1990s. If so, this would have caused the
data for sessions 53e59 to change much less dramatically
than shown in Fig. 1.
5. The CIS mean
The voting patterns presented in Fig. 1 only inform us
about the CIS as a whole; they do not tell us anything about
individual member states. The first step in this direction
instead is to look at the CIS mean or “average” voting record
and calculate the distance of the individual member state
from this. I do this by identifying all absolute majorities
among the CIS member states included in the data set for the
various sessions and then assign values to the member states
based on their distance from this majority. The standard
absolute majority will be 50 per cent plus one, that is, seven
member states. However, since a number of states have been
excluded from a number of sessions because of absenteeism,
the absolute majority will vary; while in 47th session it is
only four, in the 51st and 53rd sessions it is six, and in the
55th and 57th sessions it is five.
If a state forms part of an absolute majority, it receives a
score of 0; if it votes against the absolute majority in a two-
way split (partial disagreement), it receives a score of 1/2;
and if it votes against the absolute majority in a three-way
split (full disagreement), it receives a score of 1. The com-
bined total is then presented as a share (in percentages) of
the total number of recorded votes in a given session. This
means that if a member state is completely on the mean
(always voting with the majority), it receives a distance
score of 0; if it is as far away from the mean as is possible
(always voting against the majority in three-way splits), it
receives a distance score of 100 (Luif, 2003: 28). The result
is presented in Table 1 (0 ¼ minimum distance;
100 ¼ maximum distance).
b) The first thing that should be noted is that Russia clearly
has not been defining the “CIS foreign policy line”.In
fact, throughout the 1990s Russia was a leading outlier,
occasionally finding itself completely isolated on votes,
and only later did it gravitate towards an average po-
sition. Some of the more notable outlier issues included
the Arab-Israeli conflict (where Russia sided cautiously
but also consistently with Israel in the first half of the
decade (Nizameddin, 1999)) as well as human rights
(where Russia often held a highly liberal position).
It is important to add that the move towards the mean in
the 1990s was caused mainly by a change in the Russian
policy rather than by a process by which the other member
states gradually and increasingly voted with Russia
(Chubaryan, 2003). Changes in the Russian policy included
both the Arab-Israeli conflict (gradually increasing its
support for especially Syria and the Palestinians) and
human rights standards (gradually becoming less willing to
support Western criticism of alleged human rights viola-
tors). As an illustration of this latter process, Russia in
sessions 47e53 voted in favour of the annual resolution
criticising the human rights standards in Iran (and on five
of these seven votes was even the only CIS member state to
do so (for instance A/RES/53/158)); in the 54th session it
suddenly abstained; and from the 55th session and on-
wards it has then voted against all of these resolutions,
closely associating itself with the Islamic regime in Tehran
(for instance A/RES/65/226).
Fig. 1. The overall pattern of cohesion.
F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e10 5
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In the 2000s the picture became more unclear; Russia
made minor changes to its foreign policy but some of the
other member states also started to follow the Russian lead
more closely than they had done before. With a distance
score of 6e 8 in sessions 57e65, Russia found itself within
close reach of the mean, but in the 67th session it moved
again to a relatively strong outlier position. The cause of
this was found most immediately in its votes on nuclear
disarmament and human rights in Syria, where it failed to
bring the rest of the CIS over, even voting in complete
isolation on six different occasions. Clearly, despite its
progressively more assertive policy in the CIS, how Russia
votes is not necessarily how even the weaker member
states vote (Kramer, 2008; Kubicek, 2009; Nygren, 2008;
Trenin, 2009).
c) The CIS foreign policy line instead has been epitomised
most strongly by Kazakhstan. With an average distance
score from the CIS mean of 3.6 only in the eleven ses-
sions, the country is closer to the average position than
any other member state. By contrast, Moldova has an
average distance score of 14.3 in the eleven sessions,
making the country the strongest outlier of all, closely
followed by Georgia with an average distance score of
13.1 in ten sessions.
As already indicated, in the 21 years of General As-
sembly voting examined in this study, the controversial
votes producing outlier positions have mainly been on is-
sues of security and disarmament (including questions of
nuclear disarmament and the legality of the use of nuclear
weapons) and human rights (including the interpretation
and universality of these as well as the alleged violation of
agreed standards in specific countries). In the 1990s ques-
tions of colonialism (including the right to self-
determination) was also a relatively frequent source of
disagreement within the CIS membership circle.
d) In the 67th session the dyads with the smallest distance
scores were MoldovaeUkraine, Moldova-Georgia
and TajikistaneUzbekistan (all five per cent), Belar-
useUzbekistan, TajikistaneTurkmenistan and Turkme-
nistaneUzbekistan (all six per cent) and
BelaruseTajikistan (seven per cent). At the other end of
the scale we find MoldovaeTurkmenistan (31 per cent),
MoldovaeRussia and MoldovaeUzbekistan (30 per
cent) as well as MoldovaeTajikistan, GeorgiaeRussia
and UkraineeRussia (all 29 per cent). This indicates that
voting patterns are heavily influenced by domestic
regime type e democratic versus authoritarian e as
other studies of voting in the UN General Assembly
have also found (Voeten, 2000: 205e207).
6. The distance from Russia
While Russia has not been defining the CIS foreign
policy line, it still enjoys a position of overwhelming
dominance within the organisation. Thus, its population of
142.5 million represents just over 50 per cent of the com-
bined CIS-12 population; its Gross Domestic Product [GDP]
of USD 2553 billion represents a full 70 per cent of the total
CIS GDP; and its military budget of USD 90,464 million
represents a staggering 86 per cent of the total CIS military
expenditure (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014; Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, 2014). By compari-
son, Germany, the biggest and leading EU member state,
only has a 16 per cent share of the combined population of
the 28 EU member states and its economy represents also
relatively modest 20 per cent of the combined EU GDP
(Central Intelligence Agency, 2014).
Given this dominant position of Russia, the country is a
natural focal point for the other member states. For this
reason alone it is of interest to see how the latter relate to
the centre or “engine”, which Russia is, and how they
accept or resist its heavy gravitational pull. This data will
complement the findings presented in Table 1, serving to
produce a fuller picture of the position of the different
member states in the CIS landscape.
I calculate the distance of each member state from
Russia by employing the same methodology which was
used to calculate the distance from the CIS mean. Only now,
when voting together with Russia, the country receives a
score of 0; when voting against Russia in a two-way split
(partial disagreement), it receives a score of 1/2; and when
voting against Russia in a three-way split (full disagree-
ment), it receives a score of 1. The combined total is then
again presented as a share (in percentages) of the total
number of recorded Russian votes in a given session. This
means that if a member states always votes with Russia, it
receives a distance score of 0; if it puts itself in maximum
opposition to Russia (always voting against Russia in three-
way splits) it receives a distance score of 100. Let us now
consider some of the more noticeable trends.
e) Much talked about by observers (Lane & White, 2010;
O
Beach
ain & Polese, 2010) in the 2000s, the anti-
establishment “Colour Revolutions” in Georgia (2003),
Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) were expected
by many to weaken not only the CIS in general but also
the ability of Russia to exercise its power over the other
member states more specifically (Delyagin, 2005;
Wallander, 2007). Whether based on hope or fear,
such an interpretation should lead us to expect
increasing divergence from Russia as the new regimes
would redirect the foreign policy of their respective
states to reflect their opposition to Russia and to the
Table 1
The distance of member states from the CIS mean.
47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67
ARMn/a98662 86656
AZE8 99965 16136
BLR2 54 4 116 63523
GEO n/a 8 5 7 13 9 20 19 19 20 21
KAZ2 76073 33054
KYR n/a 16 7 3 7 n/a 6 2 1 8 2
MOL12 67 6 13111823202022
RUS 13 15 12 13 10 7 6 6 8 7 15
TAJ n/a 7 n/a n/a n/a n/a 4 4 1 5 2
TUR n/a 7 n/a n/a n/a n/a 11 13 11 9 6
UKR 3 3 5 2 10 7 13 20 20 18 20
UZB n/a 9 17 20 n/a n/a 13 8 4 5 3
F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e106
Please cite this article in press as: Hansen, F. S., Do the CIS member states share foreign policy preferences?, Journal of Eurasian
Studies (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2014.10.0 02
authoritarian rule of the Kremlin (Hagan, 1989;
Morrow, 1991; Siverson & Starr, 1994).
The general data in Table 2 present a mixed picture.
Whereas there is a significant increase of seven percentage
points in the distance between Ukraine and Russia in ses-
sions 59e61 (2004e05 to 2006e07), suggesting that the
Orange “turn tothe West” did have a more or less immediate
impact on the country's foreign policy behaviour, Georgia
saw a much smaller increase of just one percentage point in
sessions 57e59 (2002e03 to 2004e05) and Kyrgyzstan
even recorded a fall of three percentagepoints in its distance
from Russia in sessions 59e61. As noted earlier, however,
the Russian foreign policy in the 2000s saw minor changes
and it is of course possible that the effects of the Colour
Revolutions were simply offset by these.
A closer inspection of the voting records reveals that this is
not the case. Contrary to our expectati ons, neithe r the Rose
Revolution in Ge orgia nor the Tul ip Revolution in
Kyrgyzstan produced a noteworthy ch ange in the voting
alignment of these two states. Again an illustrative
example is found i n the annua l resolution criticising the
human rights standards in Iran, which even in the post-
revolution years Georgia continued to abstain from and
Kyrgyzstan continued to reject. By contrast, Uk raine shif-
ted towards a policy of support for this specific critical
resolution already in the 60th session (2005e 06) and in
genera l quickly became more critical of alleged human
rights violators and of attempts, usually by me mbers of
what Erik Voeten (2000: 213) has called “the counter-
hegem onic group” , to introduce into the UN system
alternative and broader understandings of human rights
(Donnelly, 2013).
More detailed future studies may profitably pursue these
differences about which it may for instance be hypoth-
esised that the collective cognitive effect of the trans-
formation has been greater in Ukraine than in both Georgia
and Kyrgyzstan; after all, even the “post-Orange” admin-
istration of former President Viktor Yanukovych largely
resisted rolling back the human rights achievements
recorded during the reign of his predecessor Viktor Yush-
chenko (Freedom House, 2014). It may also be speculated
that the greater weight of Ukraine e with an economy 12
times bigger than that of Georgia and 24 times that of
Kyrgyzstan (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014) e makes the
country less vulnerable to external pressure and therefore
gives it an amount of autonomy in decision-making not
enjoyed by the two smaller states.
f) With an average distance score of 22.2 in the eleven
sessions and a score of 30 in the 67th session alone,
Moldova has the most dissimilar voting pattern relative
to that of Russia. The country in this latter session found
itself in full disagreement with Russia on one in every
six votes, covering mainly human rights and demo-
cratisation (where Moldova isolated itself from most
other CIS members) as well as nuclear issues (where
Russia isolated itself). The country e often described
and contextualised by its high level of vulnerability vis-
a-vis Russia (for instance Mungiu-Pippidi & Munteanu,
2009: 142) e has been the most consistent supporter
among all CIS members of what may broadly be termed
a pro-Western and liberal agenda and as a consequence
of this has had more three-way splits with Russia than
any other member state. This suggests a relatively high
level of socialisation into the underlying norms and the
existence of a domestic consensus which sees the
country's external action space (Mouritzen & Wivel,
2012:41e42) as comparatively clearly delimited by
those same norms.
g) Turning to the other end of the extreme, with a distance
score in the 67th session of relatively modest 13 Belarus
was closer to Russia than any of the other member
states. Indeed, Belarus has held this position in eight of
the 11 sessions, indicating that politically the country
may be seen as Russia's closest ally. This political prox-
imity is also illustrated by the fact that while Ukraine e
the third original co-founder of the CIS e has never
allowed its distance score to drop below 15, Belarus on
its side has never allowed its score to go beyond 15.
The two states have been entertaining ambitious ideas
about a possible union since 1993 and even more so since
1994 when Alexander Lukashenko took over power in
Belarus (Marples, 2008). Although leading policy-makers in
both capitals have since effectively abandoned the union
state project, its prominent position on the bilateral agenda
and in the public mind for nearly two decades suggests that
the high similarity in voting reflects more fundamental
similarities in norms and identities and, following this, in
interests (on this link, see Herman, 1996); the respective
world views of the two states, in other words, seem to have
become largely identical.
It could also be speculated, however, that Belarus follows
Russia's lead simply as a consequence of its heavy depen-
dence on Russian support e be it, for instance, of an eco-
nomic, political or normative nature. Thus, as Russia
continues to shield the regime in Minsk e the most
repressive in Europe e from the worst effects of the eco-
nomic and social sanctions imposed by the West and from
international shaming, Belarus may consider it wise to re-
turn the favour by supporting the Russian policy in the UN
General Assembly (Ambrosio, 2006; Klinke, 2008).
h) Finally, we see in Table 2 that Uzbekistan has narrowed
the otherwise relatively large gap which separated it
Table 2
The distance of the other member states from Russia.
47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67
ARM n/a 18 16 16 11 14 8 11 15 12 15
AZE 22 26 20 20 13 11 7 13 11 13 22
BLR 14 11 13 9 15 12 11 6 9 10 13
GEO n/a 15 17 16 22 21 22 23 27 23 29
KAZ 16 22 14 16 13 13 8 10 11 13 20
KYR n/a 31 16 18 10 n/a 12 9 9 14 18
MOL 18 19 20 19 22 21 19 27 26 24 30
TAJ n/a 14 n/a n/a n/a n/a 11 12 14 14 19
TUR n/a 21 n/a n/a n/a n/a 18 20 20 19 22
UKR 16 15 18 17 19 21 17 24 28 23 29
UZB n/a 23 28 30 n/a n/a 18 13 9 15 15
F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e10 7
Please cite this article in press as: Hansen, F. S., Do the CIS member states share foreign policy preferences?, Journal of Eurasian
Studies (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2014.10.0 02
from Russia in the 1990s; from a position of strong
dissent, the country has progressively realigned itself
with Russia in the General Assembly voting.This process
largely mirrors the level of Western pressure put on the
country as well as its dramatic record of alliance choices,
making it a somewhat unpredictable member of the CIS.
Uzbekistan in 1999 left the Russian-led military co-
operation of the Collective Security Treaty [CST], of which
it had been a reluctant member for a few years already, and
instead joined GUAM (consisting of Georgia, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan and Moldova), in the process causing this
grouping to be renamed “GUUAM” (Hansen, 200 0; Kuzio,
2000). Six years later, in 20 05, it left GUUAM again to re-
join its former allies in what had by then become the Col-
lective Security Treaty Organisation [CSTO], that is, a more
heavily institutionalised version of the CST. To complicate
matters further, Uzbekistan withdrew from the CSTO again
in 2012. This latter development has yet to translate into
any noteworthy foreign policy shift.
The years immediately preceding the dramatic 2005
realignment had witnessed an increase in the amount of
Western e and especially United States [US] e pressure on
authoritarian regimes. The 2002 US National Security
Strategy (White House, 2002: 6) had set the tone for what
would follow by openly emphasising the need for demo-
cratisation and the introduction of more civil liberties in
suppressive states, pointing to the “Muslim world” as an
area of special concern. Critical voices soon started calling
for reforms in Uzbekistan also, and president Islam Kar-
imov apparently drew the conclusion that his regime
would not survive under the then existing terms of co-
operation with the West and that he could in fact be the
next leader to suffer a Colour Revolution (Fumagalli, 2007).
For Karimov the solution, as also practised by many other
Third World leaders anxious to hold onto power, was to
distance himself from the external supporters of his do-
mestic opposition and instead move closer to those who
would help preserve political status quo in Uzbekistan
(David, 1991). The rationale is simply to pay the price for
what is good for the regime e in this case quite clearly to
converge with the Russian foreign policy line.
7. Conclusion
Two major findings stand out. The first of these is that in
the years since 1992 the level of disagreement between the
CIS member states has increased significantly. The disputed
votes in the 67th session represented 65 per cent of all
votes e the same as two decades earlier e but a full 40 per
cent of those votes were three-way splits.
This makes it fully clear that a socialisation process,
reflected in an increasing homogenisation, has not taken
place within the group of member states as a whole. On the
contrary, from this perspective it seems that different
learning processes have taken member states in two
different directions; as they have developed new and, for
some at least, increasingly separate identities, their foreign
policy outlooks have also become increasingly divergent.
While some of the member states are gradually e albeit
with some difficulties e approaching Western liberal
democratic standards and have openly stated their
aspirations to join the EU, others have rolled back even the
democratisation of the late Soviet era and instead have set
up authoritarian regimes rejecting the values and norms of
the Western world.
Having noted this, it should be added that a relatively
large core of member states have converged on the mean,
suggesting that a socialisation process may have taken
place within this group. Excluding the three big outliers
Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, we find an average distance
score from the mean of 5.2 for the remaining nine members
in the 67th session; by contrast, in the 49th session (from
which data for all these nine states has been included) the
average distance score was 9.3. Future research inspired by
social constructivism may determine whether such a
socialisation process has indeed taken place, perhaps even
causing states to identity with the collective symbolised by
the CIS (Smith, 2004:25e35).
The second major finding is that Russia has not
controlled the foreign policy behaviour of the other CIS
member states e at least not the behaviour expressed
through voting in the UN General Assembly. The country
perhaps has never wanted to but if it has we may conclude
that it has failed in this. With distance scores ranging from
13 (Belarus) to 30 (Moldova) in the 67th session, none of
the other states follow the Russian lead blindly.
Again, however, we see that a smaller group of states
are now quite consistently within the 10e20 point reach of
Russia. As just suggested, such a growing convergence may
be caused by a process of increasing homogenisation, in
turn causing identities to become still more identical. This
could serve to explain the lower distance scores; these
states (including even Russia) may have learnt from each
other, eventually sharing still more views and achieving
the level of foreign policy harmony shown in the 67th
session.
A rationalist interpretation instead would hold that this
may simply have been caused by cost-benefit analyses.
While Russia has not been attractive or powerful enough to
bring especially Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine closer to its
own foreign policy line, it has had more success with most
of the other states. Closer studies may show just how useful
a rationalist approach is in explaining the foreign policy
behaviour of the CIS member states and, as part of this,
exactly when and how Russia has used its power to reward
or coerce the other member states to ensure their foreign
policy compliance.
A particularly interesting aspect of a future rationalist-
inspired study would be to assess the extent to which
Western pressure in general e and its democracy and
human rights promotion more specifically e has served as
an engine of foreign policy convergence between members
of what was described above as the relatively large CIS core.
The hypothesis would be that the greater the Western
pressure, the more closely the other authoritarian states
follow Russia's foreign policy lead in order to qualify for
protection and to receive compensation for losses as the
West reduces economic support. Put differently, such a
study could demonstrate the extent to which Western
pressure (the independent variable) has caused the foreign
policy convergence (the dependent variable) which can be
observed between some of the member states.
F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e108
Please cite this article in press as: Hansen, F. S., Do the CIS member states share foreign policy preferences?, Journal of Eurasian
Studies (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2014.10.0 02
If the past is a reliable guide for the future, the data
presented here suggests a further radicalisation of the
foreign policy of the different CIS member states, causing
them to act e and to vote e in increasingly dissimilar ways.
This process is likely to be led by Moldova, Georgia (already
an ex-member since 2009) and Ukraine (which in May 2014
announced that it intended to withdraw from the CIS).
These three states are main outliers and we should expect
that they will continue to produce three-way splits, pitting
themselves against various combinations of the other CIS
members in full disagreements. Following the March 2014
annexation by Russia of Crimea and its alleged involvement
in the subsequent civil war in Ukraine, the latter in partic-
ular may be expected to hold outlier positions, thereby
further distancing itself from Russia and the CIS core.
The data also suggests that the rest of the CIS will
continue to converge on the mean, eventually causing this
core to become denser by reducing the distance between
these states. It is likely that Russia will play a leading role in
this by either serving as a source of learning for the others
or by bribing or coercing them to bring their voting record
more in line with the Russian behaviour. From this does not
follow, however, that Russia will define the mean; even in
some of the later sessions Russia has voted in complete
isolation from the other member states and, absent any
dramatic changes in Russia's ability to inspire or willing-
ness to pay or force the others to fall into line, we should
expect that this will continue in coming years also.
Appendix
It may be argued, as did indeed one anonymous
reviewer, that a more correct picture would be offered if
Georgia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine were excluded from
the study; given the nature of their relations with the CIS,
we should expect that they hold (or have held) outlier
positions, thereby causing the level of foreign policy
cohesion within the CIS to be lowered. This step, however,
would also be problematic as all three states have been
members, even if only associated, of the CIS. A study of the
data without Georgia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine reveals
that they have in fact a marginal impact only on general
development. The overall level of cohesion among the
remaining nine member states is given below and when
compared to that of Fig. 1, we see that while the unanimity
vote is slightly higher, it is not enough to offset the dramatic
rise in three-way splits (in this case caused mainly by
Moldova).
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F.S. Hansen / Journal of Eurasian Studies xxx (2014) 1e1010
Please cite this article in press as: Hansen, F. S., Do the CIS member states share foreign policy preferences?, Journal of Eurasian
Studies (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2014.10.0 02
