Russian Federation and Russian - Oriented Institutionalism in Central Asia

After the collapse of the USSR and the development of new Russia, the areas that impacted directly on Russia’s security, came into a higher significance. The dominance of geopolitical discourse in Russia and a reliance on historical visions made the near abroad doctrine a priority in Russia’s foreign policy. Russia’s new security strategy also shifted from a global strategy with restrictive approach to a regional one applying an unrestrictive approach. In order to secure its security in the new era, Russia has defined three security circles which respectively are a) Russia; b) Russian Federation (Russia plus the autonomous but dependent Republics); c) near abroad (Central Asia). The present paper tries assess the role and nature of Russian – oriented institutionalism in its policy makings in Central Asia, using Volker Rittberger’s theory. The authors argue that the three cognitive, hegemonic and question oriented factors of the mentioned theory are all applied in Russian institutionalism in Central Asia, each with a different weight and effectiveness. In other words, Russia had mostly been focused on the latter two. Using explanatory - analytical methodology and library resources, the authors try to tell why the research findings provide an answer for the mentioned question.