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The momentous 'Arab Spring' uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have frequently been likened to the 1989 uprisings in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU), which resulted in the subsequent collapse of Communism throughout almost all of Europe. Whilst the scope and depth of the political transformation in the MENA region continues to unfold, comparing the role of a key external actor, the European Union (EU), in both historic processes, can help give an idea of how the Arab Spring might develop. This chapter will argue that the two sets of uprisings are only partially analogous, and that the EU, the major external actor involved in the political and economic transformation of CEEs, is likely to play only a partial and limited role in the transitions in most MENA countries. ; peer-reviewed

AbstractThe institutions of patronage, clientelism and nepotism are resilient and obstruct political liberalisation and democratic consolidation. This paper draws on historical (neo)institutionalism, democratisation research and studies in economic history to understand the reproduction mechanisms of informal institutions in EU's Eastern neighbourhood, and to propose a policy response, which could have the potential to disrupt these mechanisms. Outsourcing national judiciary systems from EU's Eastern neighbourhood to external rule of law missions might offer one solution as long as they satisfy at least two conditions: (1) they need to have a targeted executive mandate; and (2) they must be deployed with the support of an authoritative international actor, such as the EU or UN, under conditions of concerted international efforts and significant financial assistance. Local actors might oppose this infringement of national sovereignty. External rule of law missions should therefore be proposed during a democratic transition when reformers rely on external support.

During the three administrations of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany has become an unquestioned leader of the European Union. Owing to its enormous economic capacity and the weaknesses of its main partners – France and the United Kingdom – Germany managed to enforce its own solutions to the financial crisis in the eurozone and resolving the conflict in Ukraine. It was highly problematic, however, to Europeanize the problem of immigrants, and the Euroconstitution and the implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy should be viewed as failures. ; W okresie rządów trzech gabinetów kanclerz A. Merkel Niemcy stały się niekwestionowanym liderem Unii Europejskiej. Dzięki olbrzymiemu potencjałowi gospodarczemu i słabości najważniejszych partnerów – Francji i Wielkiej Brytanii udało się im narzucić swoje rozwiązania w kwestii wyjścia z kryzysu strefy euro i rozwiązania konfliktu na Ukrainie. Z dużą trudnością przyszło im jednak doprowadzenie do europeizacji problemu uchodźców. Raczej o porażkach można było mówić w kwestii Eurokonstytucji i realizacji Europejskiej Polityki Sąsiedztwa.

During the three administrations of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany has become an unquestioned leader of the European Union. Owing to its enormous economic capacity and the weaknesses of its main partners – France and the United Kingdom – Germany managed to enforce its own solutions to the financial crisis in the eurozone and resolving the conflict in Ukraine. It was highly problematic, however, to Europeanize the problem of immigrants, and the Euroconstitution and the implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy should be viewed as failures. ; W okresie rządów trzech gabinetów kanclerz A. Merkel Niemcy stały się niekwestionowanym liderem Unii Europejskiej. Dzięki olbrzymiemu potencjałowi gospodarczemu i słabości najważniejszych partnerów Francji i Wielkiej Brytanii udało się im narzucić swoje rozwiązania w kwestii wyjścia z kryzysu strefy euro i rozwiązania konfliktu na Ukrainie. Z dużą trudnością przyszło im jednak doprowadzenie do europeizacji problemu uchodźców. Raczej o porażkach można było mówić w kwestii Eurokonstytucji i realizacji Europejskiej Polityki Sąsiedztwa.

Since the last enlargement of the European Union (EU) in January 2007, the South Caucasus has become a region of direct concern to the EU's strategy in its wider neighbourhood. This article examines the trends affecting EU policies in the South Caucasus, with a specific focus on EU–Azerbaijan relations. It argues that in the three main areas in which Azerbaijan affects Europe's interests – cooperation in the energy sector, democratization and conflict resolution – so far the EU has engaged well on a regional energy strategy; but less so on democratic reforms, and almost not at all on conflict settlement in Nagorno Karabakh. Keywords: European neighbourhood policy; EU-Azerbaijan relations; EU energy security

One of the challenges to EU's Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy relates to structuring cooperation with countries that have opted for membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), such as Belarus and Armenia, while avoiding the problems faced in the Ukraine crisis of 2013-2014. Acting on its revised European Neighbourhood Policy, the EU has sought to develop differentiated and flexible tools of engagement with the EaP countries, including a new type of agreement with Armenia, the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Delivering on this agenda, however, requires clarity on the constraints and limits imposed by membership in the EAEU. The EU has tended to establish such limits by reliance on the technocratic analysis of current obligations contained in formal legal agreements. Yet, as revealed by the Ukraine crisis, this approach has not necessarily reflected the geopolitical realities in the region and Russia's view of integration and its compatibility with EU's policies, in particular. This paper argues that establishing the limits imposed by EAEU membership requires an assessment of the range of legal as well as non-legal levers at play in individual member states in relation to Russia's integration projects. What matters is how Russia as well as its Eurasian partners play the 'integration game', and the degree to which political elites in Belarus and Armenia can manoeuvre a space for independent engagement with the EU. This is necessary because of the particular nature of the EAEU, defined by a mixture between current and future commitments, problematic institutional boundaries between delegated powers and members' commitments, and the prevalence of power relations within a highly asymmetric hub-and-spoke context. In this context, Russia has a continued ability to interpret the nature of the commitments undertaken and their compatibility with overlapping international agreements, and enforce it using critical interdependencies of the members. We examine how the 'compatibility space' is ...

Participation in neighbourhoods is a highly valued phenomenon. Participation is the basis of a shared social life, but it also makes everyday life, and the lived experience of people participating in it, political. From a public administration perspective, governance and formal policy-making are increasingly reaching out to citizens, instead of drawing solely on representative mechanisms of local government. This paper investigates how practitioners working in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Dutch cities enhance participation. Using empirical data from research in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in The Netherlands, the paper shows that these practitioners either start projects that connect people in their own life world or connect policy-makers and policy to initiatives on the ground. As a result, they create the opportunity for many to develop their citizenship and become a more active participant in their local communities.

The EU has recently launched the European Neighbourhood Policy, aimed at fostering integration with countries located close to its borders. This article proposes a liberal intergovernmentalist framework for the analysis of Ukraine's prospects of integration with the EU and apply it to evaluate the main economic and political benefits and costs associated to three possible scenarios: free trade area, fully developed European Neighbourhood Policy and EU accession. Two main conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, gains from integration would be asymmetrically distributed and would mostly accrue to Ukraine, whilst the main obstacles to integration would not be economic, but political. Secondly, the European Neighbourhood Policy does not represent a credible long-term alternative to EU membership for Ukraine; thus the outcome of the integration process should probably consist either in the mere creation of a free trade area or in EU accession.

The paper aims to answer the question why the process of institutionalization of the EU's external relations with its six neighboring countries, representing the Eastern dimension of European Neighbourhood Policy (i.e., Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), has failed to perform its stabilization role. The study is exploratory and descriptive in nature. Its results indicate three main reasons for which the aforementioned institutionalization process has not been successful, and thus – the EU's neighbourhood has become even more unstable than it was over a decade before. The first reason is rooted in the applied integration model. The model expected the EU's neighbours to undergo deep reforms, without offering them the EU membership 'reward'. In this regard, the EU's offer not only failed to meet the expectations of the neighbours in question, but also appeared to be partly misunderstood. In consequence, the Eastern ENP countries considered the decision on their potential EU membership to be exclusively political, as well as underestimated the importance of the previously agreed reforms. As regards the second reason for the unsuccessful development of the institutionalization process, the Eastern ENP countries found it very difficult to reach a high level of 'embeddedness' of the transferred formal institutions in their socio-economic environment. Finally, the institutionalisation process has also faced difficulties due to the geopolitical rivalry between the EU and Russia over the region. The actions and policies undertaken by Russia not only influenced the (political and economic) decisions of the EU's Eastern neighbours, but also clearly showed that the institutionalisation of their relations with the EU neither provided for them protection nor guaranteed defence. According to the presented theoretical approach, this serves as an explanations why the stabilisation function of the institutionalization process was not able to perform its role.DOI: ...