Post-Soviet Integration and the Interaction of Functional Bureaucracies

Abstract

This paper focuses on post-Soviet regional integration as a special case where integration projects are established by countries that originally comprised a single political entity after its collapse. It shows that in this framework the existing economic ties between countries are likely to affect adversely the interest of functional bureaucracy to support regional integration given that cutting existing connections is often more promising from the point of view of the budget expansion. Hence, the interaction of national and supranational bureaucracies is unlikely to generate impetus for increasing regional cooperation, which, surprisingly, can, however, be supported by adverse economic shocks. The results are validated using the experience of two ‘low-level politics’ sectors of interaction in the post-Soviet space: electricity and transportation.