Emergence of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and its Relevance in 21st Century: A Constructivist Perspective

Regional integration has been the most pronounced phenomenon of the last decade of the 20th century. The end of the cold war witnessed the emergence of many regional organizations. The Asian continent also didn’t lag behind rather follow suit and established several regional organizations. The then Shanghai Five also emerged in order to discuss and deal with the border issues of the member states but with the changing scenario at the international level, it has evolved and broadened its agenda to include extra-regional affairs which are directly or indirectly hampering the progress of the region. This paper is an attempt to analyze the relevance and evolution of the contemporary Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) through the analytical prism of constructivism. The paper takes into account the constructivist paradigm for regional integration and uses qualitative means to measure the relevance of the organization in an age of regionalization.