Beschreibung

"The popular uprisings in the EU's Southern neighbourhood in early 2011 and election violence in Belarus in December 2010 tested the EU's policy towards non-democratic regimes and those in the grey zone between democracy and autocracy.1 The potential of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) to promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in Eastern Europe has so far mainly been analysed by the example of most likely cases, Ukraine and Moldova being the most prominent ones in the EU's Eastern neighbourhood (Solonenko 2010; Wichmann 2010; Gawrich et al. 2009; Freyburg et al. 2009). By analysing the EU's policy towards Azerbaijan, this paper contributes to the debate about the EU's engagement with authoritarian regimes in its Eastern neighbourhood and thus the study of least likely cases." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))