East Central Europe today: an historic institutionalist approach

Abstract

The paper employs historical institutionalist (HI) approach to a meta-regional analysis of possibilities to construct an institutional setting for the East Central European region. The need for such a setup is rationalized based on two presumptions: (i) the region in question has experienced multiple events of major historical significance caused by exogenous forces to the disadvantage of regions nation-states and (ii) in the absence of institutions capable to take assertive action on policies of relevance on a regional level a danger that unwanted exogenous events will keep impacting this region remains. Analysis presented in this paper has provided at least one narrative which would define ECE within a space of nine states and could provide an ideational basis for a viable institutional solution. The paper however refrains from making any conclusive statements and instead identifies some of the major institutional constrains that might impact the content and functionality of any possible regional narrative. The fact that no narrative has produced an endogenous institutional setup bares witness to the magnitude of existing constrains. However, even within the very limited scope of inquiry this analysis has set itself a discussion on the fate of this region within the broader institutional setup of EU appears to be more than warranted.