The agency of secondary states in post-Soviet Eurasian regionalism

Abstract The extant literature on Eurasian regionalism predominantly employs a hegemony-centric instrumental approach that views regional organisations as tools of control by the hegemon—Russia, implicitly considering secondary states as unwaveringly loyal to Russia. This article advocates the shift of perspective to the arena approach that allows secondary state strategies both within Russia-led regional organisations and across the wider spectrum of regional organisations in post-Soviet Eurasia. At the regional level, these strategies are illustrated through interpretative analysis based on the existing literature. At the organisational level, secondary state strategies are evidenced through a novel dataset on the high-level document-signing patterns within the Commonwealth of Independent States from 1996 to 2022. The results suggest that secondary states, including those that bandwagoned with Russia, have consistently exercised significant agency in the post-Soviet Eurasian regionalism. The study contributes to varying degrees to the literature strands of secondary state strategies, international organisations, and Eurasian regionalism.