| Author (Person) | Tartes, Annika |
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| Publisher | College of Europe |
| Series Title | EU Diplomacy Papers |
| Series Details | No.9, December 2015 |
| Publication Date | December 2015 |
| Content Type | Journal | Series | Blog |
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The EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies department of the College of Europe publishes a series of working papers dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the European Union’s external relations and external aspects of EU internal policies. The EU Diplomacy Papers offer a platform for debate to visiting professors, staff and students as well as external contributors.This paper seeks to explain why the European Union (EU) has had limited influence in Armenia and Azerbaijan in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Combining approaches from external governance, norm diffusion and structural foreign policy, it offers an explanation based on domestic factors in the two countries: the political regime, state capacity, political structures, domestic incentives and the perceived legitimacy of EU rules. Although willingness to reform appears to exist in Armenia, such willingness remains constrained by the country’s vulnerable geopolitical location and high dependence on Russia. By contrast, none of the domestic preconditions for EU influence identified by the analytical framework were found in Azerbaijan. The author argues that the Eastern Partnership has not properly addressed the extent to which the clan structures feed into informal political practices and enforce the sustainability of an existing regime in both countries, and that, in addition, the EU has underestimated the multipolar environment which the two countries have to operate in, making it unlikely that the current policy can reach its objectives in Armenia and Azerbaijan. |
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| Source Link | https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/edp-9-2015_tartes_0.pdf?download=1 |
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| Countries / Regions | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Eastern Europe |
