Political Values in the European Post-Soviet Space: Identity and Sovereignty in the Face of Integration Processes

Abstract

The article analyzes the intergation processes in the post-Soviet space and shows that their direction is determined by the competition of states in a specific organizational field of political values. The effectiveness of the governments in this field depends directly on their ability to switch between the political values of the country and universal aggregations. This ability is becoming a key attribute of the empirical sovereignty of the state today. It is shown that in the conditions of asymmetric integration into the EU space in post-socialist countries and insufficient integration in the former Soviet republics, the accomplishment of this function requires specific institutional adaptations: differentiation between buffer mechanisms responsible for communication with external value systems, and the core that holds the deep value complexes of the community. The stability of the organizational bundle of state sovereignty and identity, the specifics of its functionaries in the post-Soviet space are described as giving the Russian Federation an opportunity of value action, focused on the population of post-Soviet and post-socialist countries and bypassing communications with pro-European-oriented and subordinated power apparatuses.

Keywords

• identity
• political values
• state sovereignty
• societal security
• post-soviet space
• eastern europe
• european union