Russia, EU and the Post-Soviet Democratic Failure
Russia, EU and the Post-Soviet Democratic Failure

Author: Bidzina Lebanidze

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-05-22

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 3658264462

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

By studying the influence of the two main external actors in post-Soviet space, the EU and Russia, this study contributes to the increasing body of literature that studies the causes of democratic recession and authoritarian backlash in post-Soviet states and the role of regional actors in these processes. Empirically, the study finds the EU to be both a democracy-promoting and democracy-hindering actor in post-Soviet states. Russia’s impact, on the other hand, is far more negative than the literature on democratization and autocracy promotion typically suggests. It negatively affects both the quality of democracy of post-Soviet states and limits the EU's options for promoting democracy in its neighborhood.

The CIS, the EU and Russia
The CIS, the EU and Russia

Author: K. Malfliet

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-05-10

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0230210996

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book focuses on the difficulties facing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus with regard to their integration into both the CIS and the encroaching EU. It analyzes the links between the integration mechanisms of the CIS and EU and the various state policies towards, and the elite interests in, the territory of the former Soviet Union.

EU Induced Institutional Change in Post-Soviet Space
EU Induced Institutional Change in Post-Soviet Space

Author: Ryhor Nizhnikau

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-07-24

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1351337173

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book analyses the role of the European Union in the process of institutional change in its Eastern neighbourhood and explains why EU policies arrive at contradictory outcomes at the sectoral level. Combining EU studies approaches with insights from the fields of new institutionalism, international development studies and transnationalisation, it explains how the EU policies contribute to rule persistence or lead to institutional change. Highlighting the importance of investigating how the policies of external intervention interact with domestic institutions, the book also provides a coherent presentation of the political and economic problems of Ukraine and Moldova and a comparative analysis in key areas at critical junctures of their development. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European Union politics and more broadly to International Relations, post-Soviet and Russian studies.

Shaping the Post-Soviet Space?
Shaping the Post-Soviet Space?

Author: Laure Delcour

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9781409402244

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on a wealth of sources and extensive fieldwork conducted in the Commonwealth of Independent States and interested in exposing why the EU has not pursued a strategy of 'region-building' in the post-Soviet area, Delcour examines the disintegration dynamics affecting the area following the collapse of the USSR.

The European Union, Russia and the Post-Soviet Space
The European Union, Russia and the Post-Soviet Space

Author: Viktoria Akchurina

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-08-01

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 1000630234

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is an exploration of how the European Union (EU) and other regional actors construct, understand and use different forms of power in a political space that is increasingly referred to as "Greater Eurasia". The contributors examine the extent that the understanding of power shapes how states and the EU act on a range of questions from energy to the balance of power in Eurasia. They explore how the EU’s and other regional actors’, primarily Russia’s, understanding of power determines whether the post-Soviet space is a neighbourhood, a battleground or an arena for geopolitical and geostrategic confrontation. The chapters deal with a range of issues from negotiations between the EU and Azerbaijan, to how the EU and Russia are trying to shape relations in Central Asia. The volume represents an innovative way of understanding the changing dynamics of the relationship between Russia and the EU, with some original empirical data, and presents these dynamics within a broader conceptual and geographic framework. It also contributes to emerging debates about how the ideational construction of political space may provide insight into how actors behave. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Europe-Asia Studies.

Russia and the Right to Self-Determination in the Post-Soviet Space
Russia and the Right to Self-Determination in the Post-Soviet Space

Author: Johannes Socher

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-06-17

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0192651722

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The right to self-determination is renowned for its lack of clear interpretation. Broadly speaking, one can differentiate between a 'classic' and a 'romantic' tradition. In modern international law, the balance between these two opposing traditions is sought in an attempt to contain or 'domesticate' the romantic version by limiting it to 'abnormal' situations, that is cases of 'alien subjugation, domination and exploitation'. This book situates Russia's engagement with the right to self-determination in this debate. It shows that Russia follows a distinct approach to self-determination that diverges significantly from the consensus view in international state practice and scholarship, partly due to a lasting legacy of the former Soviet doctrine of international law. Against the background of the Soviet Union's role in the evolution of the right to self-determination, the bulk of the study analyses Russia's relevant state practice in the post-Soviet space through the prisms of sovereignty, secession, and annexation. Drawing on analysis of all seven major secessionist conflicts in the former Soviet space and a detailed study of Russian sources and scholarship, it traces how Russian engagement with self-determination has changed over the past three decades. Ultimately, the book argues that Russia's approach to the right of peoples to self-determination should not only be understood in terms of power politics disguised as legal rhetoric but in terms of a continuously assumed regional hegemony and exceptionalism, based on balance-of-power considerations.

Russia and the EU
Russia and the EU

Author: Thomas Hoffmann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-07-27

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1351398369

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Russia’s support for military insurgency in eastern Ukraine undermined two decades of cooperation between Russia and the EU leaving both sides in a situation of reciprocal economic sanctions and political alienation. What is left of previous positive experiences and mutually beneficial interactions between the two parties? And, what new communication practices and strategies might Russia and Europe use? Previously coherent and institutionalized spaces of communication and dialogue between Moscow and Brussels have fragmented into relations that, while certainly not cooperative, are also not necessarily adversarial. Exploring these spaces, contributors consider how this indeterminacy makes cooperation problematic, though not impossible, and examine the shrunken, yet still existent, expanse of interaction between Russia and the EU. Analysing to what extent Russian foreign policy philosophy is compatible with European ideas of democracy, and whether Russia might pragmatically profit from the liberal democratic order, the volume also focuses on the practical implementation of these discourses and conceptualizations as policy instruments. This book is an important resource for researchers in Russian and Soviet Politics, Eastern European Politics and the policy, politics and expansion of the European Union.

Elites and Identities in Post-Soviet Space
Elites and Identities in Post-Soviet Space

Author: David Lane

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1135697884

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The dissolution of the communist system led to the creation of new states and the formation of new concepts of citizenship in the post-Soviet states of Central and Eastern Europe. The formation of national identity also occurred in the context of the process of increasing economic and political globalisation, particularly the widening of the European Union to include the central European post-socialist and Baltic States. Internationally, Russia sought to establish a new identity either as a European or as a Eurasian society and had to accommodate the interests of a wider Russian Diaspora in the ‘near abroad’. This book addresses how domestic elites (regional, political and economic) influenced the formation of national identities and the ways in which citizenship has been defined. A second component considers the external dimensions: the ways in which foreign elites influenced either directly or indirectly the concept of identity and the interaction with internal elites. The essays consider the role of the European Union in attempting to form a European identity. Moreover, the growing internationalisation of economies (privatisation, monetary harmonisation, dependence on trade) also had effects on the kind of ‘national identity’ sought by the new nation states as well as the defining by them of ‘the other’. The collection focuses on the interrelations between social identity, state and citizenship formation, and the role of elites in defining the content of concepts in different post-communist societies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

Reviewing European Union Accession
Reviewing European Union Accession

Author: Tom Hashimoto

Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

Published: 2017-09-25

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9004352074

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The year 2017 has been an uneasy one for the EU, with so-called Brexit on the horizon and the rise of populist euroskepticism in a number of Member States. This year, with the tenth anniversary of the Romanian and Bulgarian accession to the Union, is a good year to pause and reflect over the life and future of the Union. In this work, we envision the next decade with Europe 2020 strategy and review the fruits of the 2004 accession in Central and Eastern Europe. What has the Union achieved? Which policy areas are likely to change and how? How successful, and by what measure, has the accession of the 10 Member States in 2004 been? Reviewing European Union Accession addresses a wide range of issues, deliberately without any thematic constraints, in order to explore EU enlargement from a variety of perspectives, both scientific and geographical, internal and external. In contrast to the major works in this field, we highlight the interrelated, and often unexpected, nature of the integration process – hence the subtitle, unexpected results, spillover effects and externalities.

The Eastern Question
The Eastern Question

Author: Daniel Sheldon Hamilton

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780990772095

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The future of Europe's east is open. Can the societies of this vast region become more democratic and secure and integrate into the European mainstream? Or are they destined to become failed, fractured lands of grey mired in the stagnation and turbulence historically characteristic of Europe's borderlands? How and why is Russia seeking to influence these developments, and what is the future of Russia itself? How should the West engage?