Trade initiatives in Central Asia: The Economic Cooperation Organization and the Central Asian economic community

Abstract

Russians in the non-Russian republics tend to have denser networks of family members, acquaintances, and former colleagues in the other republics than do the members of the titular nation. The individual diaspora member’s personal interests and private cost-benefit calculations are the most important factors determining their contribution to subregional cooperation. The dominant diaspora discourse in Russia is one of victimization of the local Russians at the hands of the politically dominant titulars, occasionally voices are raised in Russian media that ask whether ‘the diaspora situation really ought to be regarded as a condition of suffering’. The integration of local Russians and other Russophone groups is one of the most urgent and vexing problems in the nation-building processes currently in full swing in the Soviet successor states. The most immediate and direct effect of Russian diasporians taking Russian citizenship and voting for restorationist parties in Moscow is to provide grist to the anti-Russian nationalist mill in their countries of residence.