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The many recent crises in Belarus are often seen through the prism of democratization, post-communist transition, and nation- and identity-building. As a rule, it is put into the context of the 1989 democratization in Central and Eastern Europe and compared with similar societal mobilization in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004; 2014), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). This article, however, argues that while these theoretical approaches provide an important explanatory potential, they nevertheless fail to account for informal, hidden, and unstable processes presently unfolding in the Belarusian society, leading to profound change. We argue that, in the vulnerable, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world of today, our knowledge and ability to plan and achieve desirable outcomes are limited in contrast to a largely positivist or interpretivist epistemology of the mainstream theories, which conceive of the world as a closed system. In this article, we offer an alternative explanation of the many crises in Belarus by drawing on the insights ofcomplexity-thinkingto suggest that (hidden) transformative change in the country is now irreversible.

Al-Cr and Al-Cr-Si composite cathodes were obtained by the hot compaction of aluminum, chromium, and silicon powder mixtures. The phase transformations in the surface layer of the Al-Cr-Si composite cathodes subjected to the arc heating were considered. The elemental and phase compositions of the modified cathodes’ surfaces were studied using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The effect of the silicon addition on the structural evolution in the cathode surface during arc evaporation is shown. It was found that an arc impact on the cathode surface resulted in the melting and consequent crystallization of the multiphase mixture of intermetallic compounds and eutectic in the cathode surface layer. Cathode surface layers were found to be depleted of aluminum and silicon due to the ejection of these elements in drop form from the Al-Si liquid layer on the cathode surface. This can result in the change in the elements ratio in the deposited coating as compared with that in the cathode and thus influence the coated tools’ durability.

Living in times of increasing complexity is hard; it becomes even harder with the realisation of diminishing control. How do we adapt our governance to this complexity to ensure peaceful cohabitation of the established and emergent order regimes? This paper contends that it is important to embrace complexity in full, conceptually and practically, by shifting from ‘the global’ to ‘the local’, to understand the pressure of transformational change and to prepare the ground for the emergence of more resilient and cooperative orders. We apply this complexity-thinking, using a 3P analysis, to Central Eurasia, presently a battleground of three competing order-making regimes—the EU, China and Russia. We argue that for more resilient and cooperative orders to emerge, it is essential to understand and enable ‘the local’ and embrace the region in is diversity, to facilitate a more joined-up and bottom-up governance in managing the complexity of a changing world.

The presidential election held on 9 August 2020 and the subsequent popular mobilization marked the end of an era in the history of post-Soviet Belarus. Cautious and apolitical for three decades, Belarusian society seems to have awakened (Petrova and Korosteleva, 2021), in a short space of time observing a profound transformation of state-society relations taking them to a qualitatively new level of self-awareness and self-organisation. \ud This article explores the emergence of peoplehood in Belarus from a complexity-thinking perspective. This lens naturally lead us to the principal conceptual frame of this article - societal resilience as a process of self-organisation - which encapsulates and explains the gist of the recent developments in Belarus, and helps us understand why the rise of peoplehood as a process of emergence in the country may result in irreversible change.

The article examines societal fragilities and local resilience strategies in Belarus with a particular focus on the notion of peoplehood. Premised on the idea of evolving forms of agency under the Anthropocene, and the emergent complexity-thinking in International Relations, the article draws on these approaches to societal fragilities and community resilience to understand and explain the unprecedented levels of mobilization occurring in Belarus since the disputed presidential election in August 2020. To this end, the article zooms onto the local communities to provide an analytical perspective on the study of resilience as self-organization. In line with complexity-thinking, it argues in favor of history-specific processual identities, shaped by the aspirations of a “good life,” and realized via local support infrastructures which lie at the heart of societal resilience in Belarus. Yet, the potential of all these elements to actualize into a sweeping transformative force, referred to as “peoplehood” in this article, is rare, and comes at a time of unprecedented crises and existential threats to the life of a community. The Belarusian society seems to be undergoing such a moment that not only makes it more resilient and adaptive to change; it also transforms it into a new form of societal being, self-aware of its worth, self-organized, and self-reliant on its inner capabilities to fight for a life of excellence. The article traces these moments of becoming with, and societal being, via a critical discussion of fragilities and the elements of resilience, actualized into peoplehood.

Resilience seems to have become "the everyday" covering many aspects of our lives and the policy agenda of major international institutions. However, despite the upsurge in its popularity, are we sure we understand resilience well enough to make full use of its potential? Is resilience just about an entity and its qualities, the knowledge of which could help us improve its response to adversity? Or is it more about resilience as governance-thinking which could enable local communities to self-organize to build life they have reason to value, with external assistance as necessary? Tackling these fundamentals is important, not least to ensure that resilience is not another buzzword but an opportunity to make governance more adaptive. This article argues that resilience cannot be engineered externally, and requires local communities, aware of their own strength and capacities, to actualize their own potential in their strife for "good life," the way they specify.

In this study, the structure formation of multicomponent composites based on Ti-C-Al, Ti-Al-C-Fe2O3 and Ti-Al-C-TiO2 powder mixtures under combine synthesis are considered. The features of Ti-C-Al, Ti-Al-C-Fe2O3 and Ti-Al-C-TiO2 composition synthesis that was accompanied by the formation of MAX phases and intermetallic compounds with different properties is studied theoretically and experimentally. An attempt is made to determine conditions and compositions of the starting powder mixtures for the powders composite materials with a complex multiphase structure. It is shown that during simultaneous process of wave combustion and metallothermy the inclusion and a matrix structure are formed with fundamentally different properties. Depending on the combination of the initial powder mixtures a metal matrix composite or ceramic composite can be formed. Metallothermal reactions initiated to obtain composites with oxide inclusions (in Ti-Al-C-Fe2O3 and Ti-Al-C-TiO2 powder systems) results in the occurrence of the non-equilibrium phases. These phases are not predicted from the preliminary thermodynamic evaluation but can be predicted based on thermokinetic models that include a set of possible chemical stages. It was shown that, in addition to intermetallic phases, the composition of the synthesis products includes the Ti2AlC phase which could be synthesized both in the combination with Fe2O3 and using TiO2.

This article introduces the special issue by going beyond the traditional debates about geopolitics and great power rivalry. Instead, it examines the emergent and highly complex world of Central Eurasia, in its transformative effort to reorder itself in response to both global and local change. In particular, the paper (and the volume) focuses on two interrelated themes: one of a changing Russia, that is anxiously trying to adapt to the uncertain dynamics within and beyond the wider Eurasian space; and the other—of an emerging complexity of new order-making regional (integration) initiatives that are poised to reshape the future of international and global order. The overarching intention of this paper and the volume is to advance the need to focus on ‘the local’, to gain a more holistic understanding of the present-day challenges and the kind of global response needed to stay attuned to the increasingly complex world.

Drawing on Edkins’ (1999) interpretation of ‘politics’ and ‘the political’, this article conceptually rethinks the Eastern Partnership agenda. Part of the problem, as this article argues, is the EU’s failure to imagine a new social order, which would give a relational value to the Other, and become more accommodating of their diverse and different world: and not by way of disciplining it to the EU purported standards, but rather by way of aligning differences to a mutually agreeable ‘normal’. The article thus problematises power relations as a process of ‘othering’, in order to re-conceptualise them via the key notions of differentiation conceived as distinction rather than deviation, and normalisation, seen as the interplay between different normalities. The article argues for bringing ‘the political’ (Edkins 1999) back in as an opportunity for debate and legitimation of contesting social orders.

Drawing on Edkins’ (1999) interpretation of ‘politics’ and ‘the political’, this article conceptually rethinks the Eastern Partnership agenda. Part of the problem, as this article argues, is the EU’s failure to imagine a new social order, which would give a relational value to the Other, and become more accommodating of their diverse and different world: and not by way of disciplining it to the EU purported standards, but rather by way of aligning differences to a mutually agreeable ‘normal’. The article thus problematises power relations as a process of ‘othering’, in order to re-conceptualise them via the key notions of differentiation conceived as distinction rather than deviation, and normalisation, seen as the interplay between different normalities. The article argues for bringing ‘the political’ (Edkins 1999) back in as an opportunity for debate and legitimation of contesting social orders.

This chapter examines the challenges posed by the changing eastern neighbourhood and the (in)adequacy of the European Union's (EU) response to this dynamic and volatile region. It argues that the EU has undergone at least three paradigmatic shifts in its strategic approach to the region, which included: regional differentiation, diversification of policy instruments, extending outreach to all-level actors and fine-tuning the budget. The chapter also argues that in blames increasingly inter-connected and unstable global order, the blame could be equally assigned to both the EU and Russia, for their neglect of 'the other' and, especially, of the less-protected recipient-countries of the region. It reviews the EU's reflective attempts to adjust its policy to the eastern neighbourhood and the latter's variable response and commitment to reform. The chapter shows that the Eastern Partnership has effectively been developing almost in parallel and, yet, unaware of the engendered Eurasian economic space – often a spoiler to European integration.

Is Belarus an enviable constant in international relations: a maverick, isolated from the West and inseparable from the East? On the surface, there seems to be business as usual: Lukashenko's regime remains unchallenged; Belarus’ relations with the European Union – spasmodic at best; while its absorption into Russia's Eurasian project continues apace. Yet, some critical disjunctures – manifested in government tacit resistance to Russia's influence, and more instructively, in people's growing affinity with Europe – may indicate a sea-change transformation in the very fabric of society. This article, utilizing extensive and subject-focused research, conducted in the country between 2009 and 2013, examines the nature and causalities of the occurring change. It argues that democracy promotion, in Belarus’ case, may work better when depoliticized and inculcated, through norms, regulations, and practices of international order, into the daily lives of individuals. Through its continued technocratic, inclusive, and sector-level engagement, European Union governance, even under the conditions of limited bilateral dialogue, have succeeded in fostering much-needed space for reciprocal learning and critical reasoning, which may have far greater transformative potential than manufacturing a single collective will for democracy building.

The countries of the former Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union have exhibited remarkable diversity in their post-communist regime paths. Whereas some states have become demonstrably more democratic and have moved in the space of fifteen years from the periphery to the centre of European politics, in others the political and economic climates seem hardly to be better, and their societies no more free, than in the final years of the Cold War. Assessing progress towards democracy in the former Eastern Bloc - or the lack of it - requires a qualitative examination of post-communist polities. This collection of articles brings together a number of perspectives, both macro and micro-analytical, on the 'quality' of democracy in post-communist Europe. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

Despite growing scholarly interest in the EU's flagship policy towards its Eastern and Southern neighbours, serious attempts at theory-building on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) have been largely absent from the academic debate. This book aims at contributing to fill this research gap in a three-fold manner: first and foremost it aims at theorizing the ENP as such, explaining the origins, development and effectiveness of this policy. Building on this effort, it also pursues the broader objective of addressing certain shortcomings in EU external relations theory, and even beyond, in International Relations theory. Finally, it aspires to provide new insights for European policy-makers. It is one of the first volumes to provide different theoretical perspectives on the ENP by revisiting and building bridges between mainstream and critical theories, stimulating academic and policy debates and thus setting a novel, less EU-centric research agenda. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in EU external relations, EU foreign policy, the European Neighbourhood Policy, and more broadly in European Union Politics and International Relations.

The European Union (EU) continuingly searches for more effective policy towards its eastern neighbours, which is reflected in the ongoing adaptation of its existing approaches, discourses and policy strategies to the new challenges of its external environment. In order to understand the complexity and limitations of the EU framework under the European neighbourhood policy and the eastern partnership initiative – that is, to consider the interface between policy instruments, institutional structures and multiple agents – one needs to adopt an original analytical perspective of practices to comprehensively assess the policies' outcomes. With this in mind, this issue sets to discern patterns of social practices between the EU and its eastern neighbours, and examine how these relations guide agents' interactions in various policy areas. This introduction outlines the theoretical framework synergising the three fundamental concepts – of practices, policy instruments and social structures – that have predicated research for this issue. It also outlines the structure and main arguments of the individual case-studies which inform the issue's conceptual framework.

This article applies the Foucauldian premise of governmentality and the analytics of government framework to demonstrate how exclusive modalities of power – of the European Union (EU) and Russia – and their competing rationalities relate, intersect and become, counter-intuitively, inextricable in their exercise of governance over the eastern neighbourhood. This particular approach focuses on power as a process to gauge the prospects for compatibility and cohabitation between the EU and Russia. Using original primary evidence, this article contends that cohabitation between these two exclusive power modalities is possible and even inevitable, if they were to legitimise their influence over the contested eastern region. It also exposes a fundamental flaw in the existing power systems, as demonstrated so vividly in the case of Ukraine – that is, a neglect for the essential value of freedom in fostering subjection to one’s authority, and the role of ‘ the other’ in shaping the EU–Russian power relations in the contested region.

As with the rest of the world, Belarus has been affected by the global economic crisis.\ud However, the main consequences for the country were less economic, but rather\ud political in nature. Although closely connected with Russia, it was not the spillover\ud of the crisis, such as the reduction in its hitherto ‘miraculous’ levels of\ud economic growth to almost nothing in one year, that hit Belarus hard. Instead, it was\ud Russia’s deliberate politics of ‘pragmatization’, directed at its ‘near abroad’ to\ud facilitate compliance of and interdependence with its neighbours, which dramatically\ud altered Belarus’s foreign policy landscape. The two principal corollaries of the\ud global crisis for Belarus therefore included the new and irreversible search (successful\ud or otherwise) for diversification away from Russia, and the reinvigorated sense of\ud sovereignty with which Belarus now attempts to rebuild itself domestically and\ud internationally.

This article examines the discourse of the EU’s relations with eastern Europe under the recently launched Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative. First, it evaluates the EaP’s conceptual framework to suggest that there seems to be more continuity than change in the EU’s modus operandi with its neighbours. More crucially, the notion of ‘partnership’, central to the new philosophy of cooperation with the outsiders, continues to be ill defined, causing a number of problems for the effective and legitimate realisation of the European Neighbourhood Policy/Eastern Partnership in the region. Second, drawing on the empirical investigations of the official discourses in Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, the article reveals an increasing gap between EU rhetoric and east European expectations. In the absence of adequate partnership response to the needs and interests of ‘the other’, the policy is unlikely to find anticipated legitimation in the neighbourhood.

Studying European Politics can be a challenge! And this is not surprising: even the best scholarly minds of European politics often struggle to give precise definition to such a young, but already so complex and constantly evolving polity as the European Union, and are increasingly at odds with identifying its prospects for survival. One way to achieve a better understanding of the subject is to utilize a threshold concept approach, which is essentially a “less is more” approach that chooses to work with a few “founding” concepts, and identifies a “road map” for independent learning of broader but essentially inter-connected issues of the discipline. The threshold concept approach becomes even more effective if combined with enactive learning—that is, learning-by-doing, through role taking and simulation of the threshold concepts during seminars. Such learning evidently exceeds the boundaries of conventional knowledge and becomes a useful transferable investment for the future.

The 2006 presidential election in Belarus mobilized a large cross-section of society to protest against the Lukashenko regime. Although unprecedented, the mass mobilization was short-lived, failing to develop into another kind of coloured revolution in the region. The key to our understanding of the endurance of Lukashenko's regime seems to lie in its internal environment, and notably, in the seemingly contradictory feature of the Belarusian electorate. Not only do they fully identify with the president, thus effectively legitimizing his politics and policies; they also do so knowingly, through their strategic learning of how to survive and even thrive under Lukashenko's regime. This type of learning, however, may not necessarily lead to a critical reflection of the regime's malpractice, and thus is unlikely to challenge its foundations.

The article examines some conceptual and practical tensions related to the application of the external governance framework to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in less motivated states, such as Belarus. First, it critically analyses the foundations of the external governance framework – from M. Smith's perspective – in order to suggest that the failure of the ENP to legitimize in Belarus should not be solely attributed to the vices of Lukashenko's regime. Second, it argues that an understanding of specifically Belarusian ‘boundaries of order’ – geopolitics and culture – is essential for tailoring a more nuanced policy that will be able to accommodate the needs and interests of ‘less motivated’ ENP partner states. In conclusion, it is suggested that a new policy framework – of extended partnership – should be more technical and less political, based on horizontal networks of cooperation rather than on hitherto hierarchical governance by conditionality that has found little appeal in the less motivat...

Since the end of the Cold War, European Union (EU) efforts in transforming Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have been enormously successful. The 2004 enlargement is widely regarded as the single most effective foreign policy strategy in the Union's history, and the recent European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was designed to repeat that success in countries located on the EU's new Eastern borders. Although the ENP has been the subject of substantive discussion in European academia, Belarus is the one country in Eastern Europe that has largely escaped scholarly attention. This article takes stock of recent developments in EU—Belarus relations and seeks to explain the very limited leverage of the EU over the country. We first examine the EU's relations with Belarus through the theoretical lens of external governance. By taking for granted the EU's ability to transfer its norms and values, however, the governance perspective does not account for the EU's very limited success in changing Belarus. We therefore revisit Michael Smith's notion of `boundaries of order' to highlight the impact of legal/institutional, transactional, cultural and geopolitical factors on EU—Belarus relations. We argue, in particular, that the existence and the construction of boundaries between the Union and its neighbouring states are essentially mutually constitutive processes. Besides shifting its own boundaries (and thereby extending its rules to outsiders), the EU is itself subject to the boundaries enacted by neighbouring states. In our conclusion, we juxtapose the notion of external governance as `rule transfer' with `partnership' as a more suitable mode of interaction between the EU and Belarus.

The article examines trends in participation and engagement in the post-Soviet sphere, treating participation as one element of a wider examination of the ‘quality’ of democracy. Through analysis of trends in political interest, trust and traditional and non-traditional forms of participation since 1989, and taking into account elements of social and political capital, it concludes that the citizens in post-communist European states display fewer signs of political engagement than their Western counterparts, and that such tendencies are particularly notable in the post-Soviet ‘outsider’ states of Russia, Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Belarus. Examination of the causes of disengagement suggests that it is partly accounted for by low levels of political efficacy and lack of interest in civic affairs.

A re-examination of the role of agency suggests that although the endurance and the lawful functioning of democratic systems do matter, what appears to be of greater importance is the citizens' ‘enlightened understanding’ of the workings of democracy, without which the progress towards good governance and full partnership between the rulers and the ruled cannot be achieved. There is an existing gulf between people's acceptance of the ‘institutional’ forms of democracy and their ‘emotional’ loyalty to the past legacies in Belarus and Ukraine. As a result, these regimes can be defined as cases of demagogical democracy, associated with mass approval and reliance on the personalized power of a demagogue who governs by decree and seeks legitimation directly from the electorate.

The article analyses the meaning and the forms that contemporary democracy may take, especially in application to the new regimes in Eastern Europe. The evaluation of developing polities always poses a difficulty, as one never knows whether an existent form of government is the final one that a state aims to achieve, or whether it is simply an interim effort to survive transition. Furthermore, there may be as many forms of democracy as there are different states, and the currently prevailing liberal form of democracy may not necessarily be the only or the best means to form a sustainable government. From this perspective, contemporary Belarus provides an insightful study of a regime that may be labelled as 'authoritarian', but in this article is arguably viewed as a 'demagogical democracy' following Aristotle's conceptualisation of a democratic state. I wish to acknowledge the invaluable support of INTAS (99-00245) and the British Academy (SG-31102 and PDF/2001/174), without which the project on which my ...

This volume offers a collective assessment of the development and impact of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership Initiative on its eastern neighbours - Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova in particular, with Russia’s added perspective. Founded on extensive empirical and conceptual research, the volume uniquely bridges the perspectives of all parties across the EU’s eastern border, in an attempt to understand advantages and problems related to the effective implementation of the EU policies in the eastern region. The undertaken research points to the prevalence of the top-down and conditional governance approach in EU treatment of the outsiders, which is not only Eurocentric and prescriptive in nature, but also falls short of the declared partnership principles. Without the understanding of partners’ internal dilemmas and needs, which could only be achieved through the equivalence and reciprocity of partnership, the EU would struggle to make the policy effective and legitimate in the region, and to buttress its reputation as a ‘credible force for good’ on the international arena. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

The article focuses on the aftermath of the colour revolutions by analysing and questioning the real success, as often depicted by the West, of democracy promotion in the East European region. First of all, the article challenges the conventional logic of democracy promotion – even when backed by moral reasoning and resource availability – as sufficient and adequate for instigating democratic change in non-liberal regimes. By examining the case of Belarus it further contends that authoritarian regimes effectively learn to resist and counteract foreign-led democracy promotion, and often do so legitimately, with a minimal use of force. The article concludes that in order to exercise democracy promotion (if such a thing is possible at all) a far deeper understanding of autocratic narratives is needed, associated with a much closer look at societal norms and values, as well as an individual country's geopolitical resources and strategies.

The EU's relationship with its neighbours to the east has long been founded on the aspiration to build a kind of partnership that does not automatically offer the prospect of membership to former Soviet republics apart from the Baltic States. The mechanism for this was initially the European Neighbourhood Policy, embracing a wider range of countries, which has been further buttressed by the Eastern Partnership initiative (EaP) in an effort to revitalize the partnership-building process in the east. Although more differentiated and versatile, the EaP has nevertheless inherited the Neighbourhood Policy's original conceptual limitations, especially concerning the ill-defined nature of partnership. Practical limitations, on the other hand, include the policy's lack of coherence and management, as well as its low visibility and public appreciation on the ground across the board. The East European response to the EU's initiative reveals further tensions and contradictions, especially pertaining to partner countries' geopolitics and cultural and civilization differences. It is clear that the EU's ‘politics of inclusion’ needs further conceptualization in order to shift the balance away from the EU towards the partner countries themselves. Only in these circumstances of de-centring can the notion of partnership become true and effective.

The article examines EU–Moldovan relations from the perspective of the external governance framework. It reveals some considerable progress in the procedural engagement of both parties. However, the internal instability experienced by Moldova in 2009 is seen to have disrupted these relations, stalling further negotiations and even questioning Moldova's true commitment to Europe. To understand this ostensibly sudden change in Moldova's allegiance to Europe, it is argued that analysis needs to go beyond conventional governance framework(s). Premised on the notion of ‘constitutive boundaries’ a ‘partnership’ perspective offers a more nuanced understanding of the boundaries of ‘the other’, thus revealing the salience of geopolitics and culture in Moldova's relations with the outside world.

Belarus became an independent state in December 1991 on the dissolution of the USSR; and it became a presidential state under its constitution of March 1994. At the first election under that constitution, in July 1994, Alexander Lukashenko won a convincing mandate with 80% of the vote in a second-round runoff against the then prime minister, Vyacheslav Kebich. Once elected, Lukashenko moved quickly to extend the powers of his office, which soon brought him into conflict with the Belarusian parliament (then known as the Supreme Soviet) and the Constitutional Court. He sought to resolve this by calling a referendum, in May 1995, when a positive vote allowed him to expand his presidential powers. In November 1996, a further and more controversial referendum approved an extension of the presidential term and replaced the parliament with a smaller and wholly subordinate National Assembly (Natsional'noe Sobranie). This was effectively a constitutional coup, which paved the way for the establishment of an increasingly authoritarian regime.

Western commentators sometimes refer to Belarus as ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’.1 This emotively charged description is certainly an exaggeration. It nonetheless captures the unique situation in which Belarus has found itself the target of consistent criticism on the part of Europe’s main international organizations and the United States for failing to meet what most European nations recognize as international democratic standards. The administration of President Lukashenko, who has been in power for the last decade, finds itself in a state of confrontation with ‘the West’, primarily due to its non-espousal of these standards — at least as perceived by the country’s critics. The Belarusian administration has proved remarkably insensitive to external pressure, giving rise to policy dilemmas for external actors wishing to encourage political liberalization and promote democratic norms in Belarus. By all accounts, the West’s attempts to promote democratic norms in Belarus have failed. The considerable popular legitimacy of the Belarusian president, despite his authoritarian style of government, poses the questions of whether Belarusian society actually espouses democratic norms and, if not, to what extent it may be receptive to them.

This paper examines the notion of othering and its role in the development of cooperative regional orders, prioritised by the EU Global Security Strategy. It argues that the conceptual underpinnings of the relationship between the inside and the outside, the established Self and the emergent Other, are too often taken for granted, and in an increasingly fragmenting global order require urgent re-conceptualisation. Hitherto, excessive emphasis has been placed on the Self, at the expense or even ignorance of the Other, leading to the production and endurance of hegemonic power structures, reinforced and maintained by the exclusionary ‘regimes of truth’, to which the EU-Russia relations in the ‘shared’ neighbourhood presently testify. Drawing on post-structuralist and Freudian work, the paper argues that while living in an increasingly complex and contested world, it is imperative to develop a more nuanced understanding of a changing global order as relational and interdependent. This would require a new conceptualisation of othering as a reciprocal nexus (rather than an opposition or even juxtaposition) between the Self and the Other, to ensure that cooperative orders would form and become sustainable.