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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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?