Exploring Eurasian integration through the lenses of Carl Schmitt: The Eurasian Economic Union as an example of Schmittian “Great Space”

Abstract

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) embodies Russia’s latest attempt to restore interconnections among former Soviet countries through economic means rather than military might. The literature on the EAEU views the initiative as a geopolitical tool, a post-imperial escamotage, a platform to enhance reforms, or a counterhegemonic strategy. This article wishes to understand the EAEU as an example of Carl Schmitt’s theorizations, especially in relation to the concept of Great Space. The EAEU resembles the Schmittian Great Space in four main respects: the existence of a regional hegemon with spheres of interest beyond its fixed borders, the expression of an “imperial” community of cultural and historical affinity, the overcome of the rigid Westphalian state model expressed by the jus publicum Europeaum in favor of a large space, and the manifestation of the nomos of the Earth, that is a telluric civilization within the Schmittian contraposition between Land and Sea. The application of the Schmittian Great Space paradigm to the EAEU—in tandem with the proliferation of other regional integration initiatives and organizations—confirms the ongoing global shift from rigid Westphalian nation-states to highly integrated political-economic blocs based on civilizational identity in the frame of a multipolar world.

Science of International Law and Regional Orders: A Critical Appraisal of Alejandro Alvarez and Carl Schmitt

“…Such elusiveness also attracts academic interest among contemporaries, but which almost always contains a subjective addition by those interested in this concept. Some scholars minimize the relevance of the legal in this doctrine and use it for a political explanation (Mouffe, 2005), while others are interested in geopolitical application rather than the juridical ramifications (Pizzolo, 2023). Put differently, in between this theory's juridical meaning and the political reality, Schmitt provided a space for scholars to inject their own subjectivity, which scholars exploit while bringing political arguments.…”