Regional Organizations and Sustainable Development: Diffusion of Environmental Agenda in Eurasia

The role of regional international organizations in sustainable development gained the attention of scholars mainly focusing on the democracies-composed organizations (such as for example, the European Union or the Arctic Council). Yet, the influence of regional organizations with mixed political regimes (e.g., authoritarian regionalism) is less studied in this respect. This study aims to fill in this gap through focusing on both types of regional organizations comparatively and their addressing the challenges of sustainable development. Specifically, this paper studies the diffusion of environmental values across regional international organizations in Eurasia. It analyzes a few regional organizations, such as the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). It focuses on the study of their (overlapping) sustainable development agendas through the analysis of their legal documents and social media. The analysis builds on the theory of “authoritarian regionalism” and “authoritarian environmentalism”. The study raises the following questions: Is there any diffusion of environmental agenda across these three organizations? If yes, why and how does it take place? Finally, what are the causal mechanisms of the diffusion of environmental agenda across regional organizations? The paper aims to answer these questions through discourse analysis of legal documents and analysis of social media over the Pandemic 2020. Preliminary results indicate that the EBRD and the AIIB have a clear consistent and detailed environmental agenda, this is not so for the EDB. Yet, increasing China´s influence on Eurasia seems to have increased new concerns for sustainability. The paper advances our understanding of the role of these organizations in sustainable development, identifying areas for further research on global environmental challenges and aspires to identify the best strategies for promoting sustainable development in Eurasia.