Eurasian Regionalism as a Research Agenda. Interview with Dr. Mikhail A. Molchanov, University of Salamanca, Spain

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Molchanov is a prominent Canadian political scholar, professor and publicist. He has worked as a senior policy analyst for the Government of Canada and a professor of political science at several Canadian universities. He held a visiting professor appointment at the American University of Sharjah, UAE, and several visiting research appointments at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, Waseda University and Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan, and at the United Nations University Institute of Comparative Regional Studies (UNU-CRIS) in Brugge, Belgium. Dr. Molchanov’s research focuses on international relations in Eurasia and international political economy of regional integration. His research projects have been supported by the United States Institute of Peace, The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS), the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), Japan Foundation, Soros Foundations, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. In 2011, he was awarded the Japan Foundation’s prestigious Japanese Studies Fellowship, and in 2012, elected Foreign Member of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine. He is the winner of the inaugural Robert H. Donaldson prize of the International Studies Association for the best paper study of the post-communist region. He sits on the Board of the Global and International Studies Program, University of Salamanca, Spain. Dr. Molchanov has published extensively on comparative politics and international relations of the post-communist states. He has authored and co-authored 7 books and nearly 120 articles and book chapters, including, most recently, Eurasian Regionalisms and Russian Foreign Policy [Molchanov 2016a], and Management Theory for Economic Systems [Molchanov, Molchanova 2018], as well as Eurasian Regionalism: Ideas and Practices [Molchanov 2015], Russia’s Leadership of Regional Integration in Eurasia [Molchanov 2016b], The Eurasian Economic Union [Molchanov 2018a], New Regionalism and Eurasia [Molchanov 2018b], Russian Security Strategy and the Geopolitics of Energy in Eurasia [Molchanov 2019], and Eurasian Regionalisms and Russia’s Pivot to the East: The Role of ASEAN [Molchanov 2014]. In his interview Dr. Molchanov talks about the formation of Eurasian studies in the U.S., Europe and the post-Soviet states, leading scientists in this area and periodicals. Special attention is paid to the perception of the Eurasian space in Western countries, to the prospects for further institutionalization of the Eurasian Economic Union, to the partnership between Russia and China and to Russia - EU relations.