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Abstract
Collective ontological security refers to the psychological human need to be part of a stable collective identity. Populations expect leaders to help meet these ontological needs and support those that do. In the Eurasian region, Russian and Kazakh presidents have used regional cooperation efforts as, among other objectives, an elite-led strategy of ontological security building and reinforcement. This is especially important as national identities were contested and weak after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Focusing on ontological security presents a novel research perspective on Eurasian regionalism and offers a new (but complementary) explanation for both autocratic regional cooperation and conflict.
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the IR Research Colloquium (3 March 2016, University of Oxford) as well as at the II Workshop on “Regionalism and Identities in the Post-Soviet Areas: Actors and Processes after the Ukrainian Crisis” (26-27 October 2017, Sciences Po Bordeaux). We would like to thank the organisers and participants of both events for the constructive discussions. We are also grateful to Neil MacFarlane, Fuadi Pitsuwan, Caroline Dufy, Daniel Bach, Babatunde Fagbayibo, Angela Crack and Elin Hellquist for their comments.