Overlap with contestation? Comparing norms and policies of regional organizations in the post-Soviet space

Two sets of regional organizations contribute to the overlapping regionalism in the former Soviet space. On one side we find the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe (COE), whose original ‘Cold War agenda’ was to enhance the political dialogue across the East–West divide in Europe. On the other side is a kaleidoscopic group of organizations which have been established in the framework of (re-)emerging ambitions of regional leadership, if not hegemony, whose creation has been often interpreted in ‘reactive’ terms, to counterbalance Western influences and projects in the Eurasian geopolitical theatre. The article aims at conceptualizing these regional overlaps, focusing on drivers and effects in terms of regional governance in the post-Soviet region. The authors investigate the similarities and contradictions among four organizations (OSCE, COE, Commonwealth of Independent States and Shanghai Cooperation Organization) from the two different organizational sets, regarding leading norms and policies that address both human and security dimensions.