1. The European Union and the Promotion of Good Governance in Its Near Abroad - One Size Fits All?
- Author
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Boerzel, Tanja A., Pamuk, Yasemin, and Stahn, Andreas
- Subjects
- *
COLD War, 1945-1991 , *HUMAN rights , *ECONOMIC history - Abstract
With the end of the Cold War, states and international organizations have systematically mainstreamed good governance in their development strategies for third countries. The European Union is no exception. In fact, the EU has been among the first to include good governance, together with human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in its cooperation agreements with external partners. The promotion of these principles ranks particularly high in the emerging European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the foreign policy framework that organizes its relations with former Soviet countries. This paper seeks to systematically compare the EU's good governance promotion approaches in the Southern Caucasus. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are equally marked by bad governance. Arbitrary rule and pervasive corruption are common in all three countries. Nonetheless, they significantly vary with regard to the degree of statehood, the quality of the political regime, and their economic conditions. Our aim is to explore to what extent these variations cause the EU to adapt its strategies in promoting good governance. Looking at a rather recent policy framework, such as the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), we seek to give some answers to the question whether the EU sticks to its "one size fits all" approach, or whether it has started to practice some differential treatment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008