Reviewing European Union Accession

Reviewing European Union Accession
Author: Tom Hashimoto
Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004352074

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.

Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century

Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century
Author: R. Kanet
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2010-10-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230293166

After the collapse of the Soviet Union expectations were high that a 'new world order' was emerging in which Russia and the other former Soviet republics would join the Western community of nations. That has not occurred. This volume explains the reasons for this failure and assesses likely future developments in that relationship

The EU and Russia in Their 'Contested Neighbourhood'

The EU and Russia in Their 'Contested Neighbourhood'
Author: Laure Delcour
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2016-12-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317288823

The literature on the European Union influence’s in its Eastern neighbourhood has tended to focus on EU-level policies and prioritize EU-related variables. This book seeks to overcome this EU-centric approach by connecting EU policy transfer to the domestic and regional environment in which it unfolds. It looks at the way in which the EU seeks to influence domestic change in the post-Soviet countries participating in the European Neighbourhood Policy/Eastern Partnership and domestic receptivity to EU policies and templates. It seeks to disentangle the various dynamics behind domestic change (or lack thereof) in Eastern Partnership countries, including EU policy mechanisms, domestic elites’ preferences and strategies, regional interdependences and Russia’s policies. Based upon extensive empirical investigation on EU policies in four countries; Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – and in two pivotal policy sectors - the book provides systematic and nuanced understanding of complex forces at work in the policy transfer process. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of international relations, European studies, democratization studies, and East European Politics and area studies, particularly post-Soviet/Eurasian studies.

The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours

The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours
Author: Elena Korosteleva
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1136471790

This book explores the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbours. Based on extensive original research – including surveys, focus-groups, a study of school essays and in-depth interviews with key people in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia and in Brussels – it assesses why the EU’s initiatives have received limited legitimacy in the neighbourhood. The European Neighbourhood Policy of 2004, and the subsequent Eastern Partnership of 2009 heralded a new form of relations with the EU’s neighbours – partnership based on joint ownership and shared values – which would complement if not entirely replace the EU’s traditional governance framework used for enlargement. These initiatives have, however, received a mixed response from the EU’s eastern neighbours. The book shows how the key elements of partnership have been forged mainly by the EU, rather than jointly, and examines the idea and application of external governance, and how this has been over-prescriptive and confusing.

The Integration Policies of Belarus and Ukraine Vis-à-Vis the EU and Russia

The Integration Policies of Belarus and Ukraine Vis-à-Vis the EU and Russia
Author: Alla Leukavets
Publisher: Ibidem Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9783838212470

The escalating rivalry between the EU and Russia in their shared neighborhood creates important economic, political, and legal challenges for the lands in between. Belarus and Ukraine have received proposals of integration from both the EU and Russia. However, the extents to which they accepted these offers differ and result from a multitude of factors as well as their interplay affecting the policy choices of their governments. International integration is a foreign policy question, but it has a strong domestic dimension too. Explaining various integration stances demands considering a country's foreign and internal affairs. Alla Leukavets applies here Putnam's two-level game-theoretical approach in combination with findings from comparative neighborhood Europeanization and democracy promotion studies, as well as Levitsky/Way's linkages-and-leverage-model. She develops various actor-centered and structural explanatory variables and applies them in the subsequent empirical analysis. Her research results benefit from triangulation through primary documents analysis and semi-structured interviews with elites and experts in Minsk, Moscow, Brussels, and Washington, DC. The book analyses how the simultaneity of European and Eurasian integration challenged the two countries to make a major strategic integration choice. The study sheds light on the reasons for and genesis of the Ukraine crisis, and on how external actors, such as the EU, can succeed in facilitating domestic reforms in Eastern Partnership countries.

Security in Shared Neighbourhoods

Security in Shared Neighbourhoods
Author: Licínia Simão
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2016-02-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137499109

This edited volume addresses the foreign policy approaches demonstrated by the European Union (EU), Russia and Turkey towards their shared neighbourhood. These three geopolitical players promote active foreign and security policies towards the Black and Caspian Seas, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and determine stability in these regions.

The Obsolescence of the European Neighbourhood Policy

The Obsolescence of the European Neighbourhood Policy
Author: Steven Blockmans
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1786606453

The idealism that engendered the European ​​Neighbourhood Policy in 2004, later codified in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, has since been reviewed to adapt to the turbulence that has befallen the EU and its neighbourhood. The ENP is now little more than an elegantly crafted fig leaf that purports to take a soft power approach to the EU’s outer periphery, argues the author, but in effect it inclines more towards Realpolitik. By prioritising security interests over liberal values in increasingly transactional partnerships, the EU is atomising relations with its neighbouring countries. And without the political will and a strategic vision to guide relations with the neighbours of the EU’s neighbours, the ENP remains in suspended animation.

European-Russian Power Relations in Turbulent Times

European-Russian Power Relations in Turbulent Times
Author: Mai'a Cross
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: HISTORY
ISBN: 0472132288

The Russia-Europe relationship is deteriorating, signaling the darkest era yet in security on the continent since the end of the Cold War. In addition, the growing influence of the Trump administration has destabilized the transatlantic security community, compelling Europe—especially the European Union—to rethink its relations with Russia. The volume editors’ primary goal is to illuminate the nature of the deteriorating security relationship between Europe and Russia, and the key implications for its future. While the book is timely, the editors and contributors also draw out long-term lessons from this era of diplomatic degeneration to show how increasing cooperation between two regions can devolve into rapidly escalating conflict. While it is possible that the relationship between Russia and Europe can ultimately be restored, it is also necessary to understand why it was undermined in the first place. The fact that these transformations occur under the backdrop of an uncertain transatlantic relationship makes this investigation all the more pressing. Each chapter in this volume addresses three dimensions of the problem: first, how and why the power status quo that had existed since the end of the Cold War has changed in recent years, as evidenced by Russia’s newly aggressive posturing; second, the extent to which the EU’s power has been enabled or constrained in light of Russia’s actions; and third, the risks entailed in Europe’s reactive power—that is, the tendency to act after-the-fact instead of proactively toward Russia—in light of the transatlantic divide under Trump.

Russia's Impact on EU Policy Transfer to the Post-Soviet Space

Russia's Impact on EU Policy Transfer to the Post-Soviet Space
Author: Esther Ademmer
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317371860

Russia's impact on EU policy transfer to the post-Soviet space has not been as negative as often perceived. EU policies have traveled to countries and issue areas, in which the dependence on Russia is high and Russian foreign policy is increasingly assertive. This book explores Russia's impact on the transfer of EU policies in the area of Justice, Liberty, and Security and energy policy - two policy areas in which countries in the EU's Eastern neighborhood are traditionally strongly bound to Russia. Focusing especially on Armenia and Georgia, it examines whether it is the structural condition of interdependence, the various institutional ties and similarities of neighboring countries with the EU and Russia, or their concrete foreign policy actions that have the greatest impact on domestic policy change in the region. The book also investigates how important these factors are in relation to domestic ones. It identifies conditions under which different degrees of EU policy transfer occur and the circumstances under which Russia exerts either supportive or constraining effects on this process. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of EU and European politics, international relations and comparative politics.

The European Union and Russia

The European Union and Russia
Author: Tuomas Forsberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2016-07-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137355352

This important text provides readers with a systematic and comprehensive overview of the historic and ever-evolving relationship between Russia and the European Union, and on that basis discusses what the future of relations could look like. The EU's policy towards Russia can be regarded as one of the toughest tests of the credibility of its external relations, and in examining the dynamics of the relationship, this book poses essential questions about the EU's ability to sustain itself as a meaningful entity in world politics. Written by two experts in the field, it analyses the political and institutional development of EU-Russia relations from three perspectives: European studies, Russian studies and International Relations, including Foreign Policy Analysis. The relationship between the European Union and Russia is of considerable importance to both partners, but whilst there have been many moments of co-operation between the two, tensions have never been far from the surface and the conflict over Ukraine brought it to a historical nadir. Both have taken steps to strengthen their relationship, but diplomatic stagnation and the challenge of furthering common economic, political, social, and environmental objectives have proved increasingly testing to relations over time. This important text provides readers with a systematic and comprehensive overview of the historic and ever-evolving relationship between Russia and the European Union, suitable for students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in European Studies, Russian Studies and International Relations theory.