Tracing both economic and political developments through the prism of history as well as more recent developments, this book casts new light on the role of communist history in setting the different regional successes in post-communist transition.

Belarus is one of the least studied European states to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In fact, few Western specialists paid much attention to its affairs during the Soviet era. Nevertheless, Belarus constitutes an important and sensitive border region between Russia and the western part of the continent. In Postcommunist Belarus, a stellar group of contributors examines the issues and the search for identity that Belarus has confronted in the period leading up to and following independence. The country is run in an authoritarian fashion by President Alexander Lukashenko and many observers, both inside and outside Belarus, would use the term "dictatorship" to describe his rule. Belarusian authorities prefer to emphasize the strong support of the people for the president and his cautious approach to economic reform. It seems unlikely that the country can hold out permanently against the wider pressures of democratization and economic reform that are transforming its neighbors. The country's situation offers political scientists many facets for comparison with established models. Belarus is grappling with challenges that are conceptual and psychological as much as they are political, economic, and social. Through new research, the contributors to Postcommunist Belarus offer an important, coherent, and comparative perspective on this little-known country.

This book offers a legal analysis of the European Neighbourhood Policy (the ENP) as it applies to developing relations with the EU's neighbours. It explores the legal aspects of this policy, including ENP competence matters, institutional arrangements and substantive policy issues, using international relations theory as the starting point in defining the EU's role as a political actor. The book focuses on the adequacy of the ENP legal framework for transposing the EU's democratic values and upholding its political image. In this connection, the book also features an analysis of EU democratic values as they are intended to be understood by its neighbours. The relevant legal framework of this policy and its implementation in the states of the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) is evaluated, revealing the effects of the ENP in their democratic processes and the shortfalls of the ENP conditionality.

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.

This book examines the substance of European Union (EU) democracy promotion by comparing it with norms of governance that other international actors promote, among them the United Nations, the United States, the Central and East European EU member states, Russia, China and non-governmental organizations. It aims is to gain a better understanding of the EU’s democracy promotion agenda and to learn more about the (in)distinctiveness of the norms diffused by the EU. Building on a common conceptual chapter, the contributions follow different theoretical approaches and research designs, and focus on a diversity of case studies. The book concludes that in comparison with other international actors, the EU’s conceptual approach to democracy promotion is diffuse, which in turn makes the EU a particularly flexible but also ‘technical’ democracy promoter when it comes to implementation. At the same time, there are limits to flexibility at the level of concepts and frames. This indicates a distinct character of the substance of EU democracy promotion, which can be linked to the nature of the EU polity. This book was published as a special issue of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

This book explores the exportation and application of European Union legislation beyond EU borders. It clarifies the means and instruments of the voluntary application of the EU’s norms by third countries and analyses in detail the process of legislative approximation between the EU and its East European neighbours. It also assesses the extent to which the EU is successful in promoting its legal standards abroad. The first part of the book addresses the EU’s mechanisms and instruments promoting the export of its own laws and practices to other countries. Key issues include the post-Lisbon constitutional basis for the EU’s engagement with its Eastern neighbours (Art. 8 TEU); the different methods of acquis export and the impact of a new generation of Association Agreements providing for the establishment of Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) and, ultimately, a Neighbourhood Economic Community (NEC) between the EU and its Eastern partners. The second part of the book includes substantive country reports that analyse the process of legislative approximation and application of EU law in the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia, authored by leading academics from the countries concerned. While currently these countries are not working towards full EU membership, the EU encourages them to approximate and converge their legislation with the EU acquis. The book also offers a unique picture of current practice of the application of EU law by judiciaries in the countries of the Eastern Partnership and Russia. The book concludes with reflections on the multi-faceted character of legislative approximation and the challenges surrounding the application of EU law in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood. The conclusions reached are highly informative as to the effectiveness of present and future EU external regional policies aimed at the promotion of EU common values and EU legislation into the legal orders of third countries.

The book investigates the substance of the European Union's (EU) democracy promotion policy. It focuses on elections, civil and political rights, horizontal accountability, effective power to govern, stateness, state administrative capacity, civil society, and socio-economic context as components of embedded liberal democracy.

At first, it was believed that accession to the EU would have a positive effect on the process of democratization in former communist countries. However, over time it became clear that difficulties with the democratic system endured in a number of these countries. This book reconsiders the results of the process of democratization in Central and Eastern Europe and evaluates the nature and effectiveness of the Europeanization process. It comparatively explores the process of democratic consolidation and accession to the European Union in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Using these case studies, the book assesses the impact of the EU on the accountability and integrity of governments in this part of Europe. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of democratization studies, European studies, EU studies, transition studies, area studies, and international relations.

Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu examine the relationship between religion and politics in ten former communist Eastern European countries. Contrary to widespread theories of increasing secularization, Stan and Turcescu argue that in most of these countries, the populations have shown themselves to remain religious even as they embrace modernization and democratization. Church-state relations in the new EU member states can be seen in political representation for church leaders, governmental subsidies, registration of religions by the state, and religious instruction in public schools. Stan and Turcescu outline three major models: the Czech church-state separation model, in which religion is private and the government secular; the pluralist model of Hungary, Bulgaria and Latvia, which views society as a group of complementary but autonomous spheres - for example, education, the family, and religion - each of which is worthy of recognition and support from the state; and the dominant religion model that exists in Poland, Romania, Estonia, and Lithuania, in which the government maintains informal ties to the religious majority. Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe offers critical tools for understanding church-state relations in an increasingly modern and democratic Eastern Europe.

This book explores the implications of European and Eurasian integration projects for the constitutional orders of post-Soviet countries. On the one hand, the process of Eurasian integration, culminating in the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), led to the creation of new institutions and mechanisms influencing the domestic legal order of the participating countries. On the other hand, the process of European integration, epitomised through the European Union (EU), constitutes an important source of reference for domestic constitutional developments in the countries which recently concluded a new generation of Association Agreements with the EU. This book analyses the implications of both processes. The book addresses the relevant experience of the countries from Central and Eastern Europe with transitional constitutionalism, mapping out the significance of European and Eurasian integration for protecting the rule of law in the post-Soviet space and identifying the constitutional implications and challenges of the EAEU and the new generation of Association Agreements. It also provides detailed country reports on national constitutional orders in the post-Soviet space and their adaptability to regional integration projects, authored by leading academics from the countries concerned, providing a number of general reflections about the evolution of post-Soviet constitutions in light of European and Eurasian integration projects.