Greater deployment of non-hydropower renewable energy sources in Central Asia appears to be a rational solution to energy security in the region. However, renewable energy diffusion in Central Asia is at an incipient stage. Moreover, the utilization of renewable energy sources varies substantially across the region. Whereas fossil fuel-rich, more developed Central Asian economies pursue the deployment of non-hydropower renewable energy sources, water-rich, lower-income countries retain their reliance on large-scale hydropower. This article argues that wider deployment of non-hydropower renewable energy sources is critical for Central Asian countries’ sustainability and attempts to explain the double paradox of plenty through the specifics of institutional environments in energy-poor and rent-dependent Central Asian economies.

One piece of evidence of the inefficiency of the spatial economy of modern Russia presented in the seminal work of Hill and Gaddy (2004) is that Russian urban agglomerations are non-viable. This was demonstrated using Zipf’s rank-size distribution, which does not hold for Russian urban systems. Hill and Gaddy explained this through the legacy of the Soviet command-administrative planning. Having constructed an original dataset, which incorporated comprehensive historical data for all the cities in the former Soviet Union republics and tested the rank-size distributions for the respective years, the study yielded more nuanced findings. First, unlike the modern Russian hierarchical urban systems, the Soviet ones followed rank-size distribution fairly well. Second, the Soviet urban systems were evolving. In the late Imperial era and early Soviet period, they followed the Zipf’s law prediction. However, between 1939 and 1959, the rank-size distribution diverged from the predicted one. Yet again, the Soviet hierarchical urban systems revealed a trend of convergence toward the traditional rank-size distribution in the late Soviet era. A corollary to such evidence from data trajectory appears that the evolution of the Soviet hierarchical urban systems was not necessarily the ultimate product of the urban development policies of the command-administrative system. It can be thus presumed that, contrary to the established belief, command administrative urban development might be ineffectual even in centrally planned socialist economies.

Despite globally progressing energy transition, the deployment of non-hydropower renewable energy (NHRE) in Central Asia is moderate and varies by country. This paper aims to explain why Central Asian countries with significant challenges in the energy sector are least engaged in NHRE development. In doing so, the paper first reviews scholarly work on renewable energy (RE) deployment in developing countries. For assessing the NHRE development status in Central Asian countries, the paper adopts a two-stage analytical framework. First, it assesses the current situation in these states' energy sectors in connection to their economic growth and development, environmental sustainability and energy security. Then, it analyses the preparedness of the national energy sectors for NHRE diffiusion in six dimensions: Structure of energy sector, RE regulation, institutions and governance, capital and investment, infrastructure and business environment, and human capital. Based on the results of the two-stage analysis, the paper argues that more advanced economically and institutionally countries are more likely to commence NHRE development.

This paper addresses the evolution of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), focusing in particular on newly endorsed institutional provisions for the common gas market (CGM) of the EAEU. The article is organized as follows. First, it outlines a conceptual framework informed by institutional theory. Second, it incorporates necessary insight into manifold developments related to integration among those post-Soviet economies which up to this point have been less definite in setting their agenda for formal economic association with the EU and examines the determinants for Eurasian integration. Third, it explains the principal institutions and model for the proposed CGM. Fourth, the paper discusses institutional complementarity and institutional change as they relate to the process of the CGM’s formation. The study demonstrates that institutionally homogeneous EAEU economies display their intention to model the CGM by exploiting their existing complementarity in the gas sector, but assume the necessity of some institutional changes. The article concludes that institutional conversion and institutional drift (as they relate to market structure and pricing, respectively) will be the types of changes required to enforce complementarity in the process of materialization of the proposed CGM.

The chapter addresses some of the aspects of the ongoing institutionalisation in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Having briefly overviewed the history of the EAEU formation, it describes the overall institutional environment of the EAEU and characterises the contemporary stage of the EAEU’s economic integration depicting the impediments and the opportunities for the latter. The rest of the chapter is devoted to exploring the common gas market (CGM) recently endorsed by the institutional provisions of the EAEU. In doing so, it analyses contemporary gas relations within the EAEU with application of the most recent data published by the Eurasian Economic Commission, examines the CGM’s model and its principal institutions as they are envisioned. This chapter discusses potential benefits and concerns of the economies engaging in the CGM, as well as speculates on possible developments involving third parties. It concretises those through the analysis of the most salient issues of the CGM’s formation as they relate to gas price, pricing, competition and others. The chapter argues that despite long existing constraints for integration in the EAEU due to mainly the factor of the member states economies’ structural similarity, institutionally compatible economies display their intention to progress beyond supranational institution-building to include sectoral initiatives, within which the studied example of the CGM falls. The chapter demonstrates that the CGM exploits the existing institutional complementarity among the respective national gas sectors and extends Russia’s somewhat more advanced institutional arrangements to the projected common gas market.

This article explores Russia’s engagement with Northeast Asia (NEA) in the area of oil and gas and examines the sustainability of Russia’s energy policy vis-à-vis Asia. The study argues that: (1) Russia’s eastward shift is a pragmatic choice to escape the evolution of the EU’s energy-governance institutions to establish a uniformly regulated European energy market, which has become increasingly incompatible with Russia’s state-capitalism mode of energy governance (2) Russia’s region-specific (Eastern Siberia and Far East) and sector-specific (oil and gas) arrangements prove to be an expedient means to forge Russia’s energy ties with the geopolitically complex region of NEA (3) to succeed in the long-term, Russia needs to replace its reactive energy policy towards Asia with a proactive attitude vis-à-vis both the evolving individual energy policies of NEA countries and the ongoing institutionalization of the energy markets in the region as a whole.

The article examines the institutional dimensions of Russia's gas policy toward Northeast Asia (NEA(1) During the liberal economic reforms of the 1990s, development of natural gas deposits in the Russian Far East was made possible under the scheme of production sharing agreements (PSA). However, new PSAs were banned in Russia even before the advent of state capitalism in the early 2000s. This was, to a large extent, the result of strong anti-PSA lobbying led by the domestic energy business elite. Consequently, Russia's gas policy in the east began evolving from being project-specific toward being region-specific. Contemporary Russian gas policy toward NEA relies upon domestic (national and regional) and external institutions. In 2009, following the completion of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Sakhalin, Russia entered NEA gas markets. Transformations in the international gas markets facilitated the establishment of a two-pattern gas export policy in Russia in 2013. Under this policy, Russia's EU-oriented pipeline gas export remains monopolised by Gazprom, while Asia-oriented LNG export is partially liberalised. Russia has not been experiencing institutional discrepancy in NEA gas markets. However, as the markets evolve toward greater coordination, a rational option for Russia is to genuinely liberalise its gas policy. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Tokyo-based economist and a noted western economic geographer, both specializing in the hydrocarbon resources of Russia, apply the framework of governance studies in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the recent changes in the country's energy policy-making. The authors argue that, unlike the international relations paradigm prevailing in studies of Russia's energy policy, the country's multiple roles in the international energy arena (as producer, consumer, exporter, importer, and transit state) warrant a more nuanced approach, reflecting Russian energy policy's flexibility over time and diversity across space. This paper endeavors, therefore, to apply a political economy and governance perspective to an understanding of the significant changes in Russia's energy policy-making regarding its dynamic energy relations with the Northeast Asia (NEA; China, Japan, and South Korea). In exploring the complex interactions between Russia's internal energy policy-making and its emerging energy relations in NEA, the authors addresses three key questions, namely: (1) how Russia's Asian energy policy corresponds to its domestic needs, (2) how much coherence in energy governance and cooperation exists between Russia and the Northeast Asian states at the institutional and organizational levels, and (3) the extent to which Russia's expectations for increased energy cooperation with the Northeast Asian states are likely to materialize.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster is a special case: a major twin natural disaster (earthquake and tsunami) incited a large-scale technological disaster, which resulted in a serious nuclear accident. Because the various costs are so tremendous, this triple disaster has had a pervasive impact on all aspects of life in Japan. This article describes nuclear energy policy transformation in the aftermath of the Fukushim a disaster. The study draws on theoretical propositions of governance and disaster risk governance, and demonstrates that a vested interest perspective is important to understanding the results of Japan's energy policy before Fukushima. Safety, democracy, and openness were the fundamental principles of Japan's nuclear energy policy when the country decided to diversify its energy sources in the 1950s. But these basic premises were undermined by the vested interests that controlled policy administration and implementation as the nuclear energy industry developed. Analysis of Japan's recent nuclear energy policy transformation covers such dimensions as policy targets, policy issues such as safety, the fuel cycle, waste disposal, administrative structure, public awareness, and national and local policy considerations. The study identifies process deficiencies in Japan's post-Fukushima nuclear energy policy transformation and evaluates possible ways to eliminate defects through administrative reorganization and independent safety oversight.

Throughout the latter half of the past century, almost every academic and policy paper addressing cooperation in Northeast Asia (NEA) has been developed upon the principle of the regional economies' complementarity. This very feature was anticipated to generate a robust stimulus for strengthening cooperation among the NEA countries (NEAs). Indeed, intra-regional cooperation has been expanding, but the interchange was mainly occurring in segments driven by market forces. On the flip side, in such spheres as finance, transport, and energy that require inter-governmental dialogue and official arrangements, joint initiatives were unfolding at a modest rate. Nowadays, given that the energy demand of the NEA economies is soaring despite the tightening of the world energy market, it seems rather unsound to continue neglecting the region's resource generation potential. Furthermore, the improving politico-diplomatic relations among the NEA states have created a favorable environment for regional energy partnership. The current paper is focused on the organizational aspect of energy cooperation in NEA. The study examines the barriers and prerequisites for energy cooperation among the NEA states, overviews principal schemes for regional energy partnership, and speculates about prospective patterns of energy cooperation frameworks for NEA.