Capturing Contestation in Caspian Energy: Regime Complexity and EU Eurasian Energy Governance

Energy governance in the Caspian region is characterised by a nexus of multiple, partially competing institutional structures initiated and promoted by different regional powers. This article provides a conceptualisation and explanation of this intricate energy picture based on the concept of regime complexity. The notion of regime complexity, particularly when combined with a critical understanding of regime formation, provides a useful heuristic model that explains the fragmented and partially conflicting nature of energy governance in the region. This article has two broad objectives. Firstly it seeks to demonstrate how the fragmented energy governance picture in the Caspian region can be conceptualised as an
energy governance regime complex. Secondly, utilising a modified, critical vision of regime complex formation, the article seeks to explicate this complexity based on an account of the distributional problems of energy governance in the Caspian, the contested normative and material position of the region at the centre of contemporary Eurasia and the institutional multi-vector balancing of Caspian Sea states.