The South Caucasus - Security, Energy and Europeanization


Book Description

This book explores developments in the countries of the South Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – since the EU included the region in the European Neighbourhood Policy in 2003. It considers issues related to energy, ethnic conflict, steps towards regional integration, and, above all, security – including the involvement of Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United States. It assesses the key importance of energy, argues that the prospects for regional integration are weak, and contends that while the approach of Europe and the United States has been confused and weak, not holding out great hope of EU or NATO membership, Russia’s interest and involvement in the region is strong, and growing.




Experiencing Europeanization in the Black Sea and South Caucasus


Book Description

The book series European Studies in the Caucasus offers innovative perspectives on regional studies of the Caucasus. By embracing the South Caucasus as well as Turkey and Russia, it moves away from a traditional viewpoint of European Studies that considers the countries of the region as objects of Europeanization. This second volume demonstrates this by looking into forms of inter-regionalism in the Black Sea–South Caucasus area in fields of economic cooperation, Europeanization of energy and environmental policies, discussing how the region is addressed in the elaboration of a new German Eastern Policy. In the section on norm diffusion, the contributors assess the normative power strategy of the EU and its paradoxes in the region, its impact on civil society development in Armenia, and democracy promotion in Georgia. In the section on legal approximation, issues of a global climate change regime and competition law in Georgia as well as penitentiary governance reform in the South Caucasus according to EU standards and policies are analyzed. All contributions also review regional or local contestations for the topics discussed here.




Turkiye in the MENA Region


Book Description

In recent years, Türkiye's foreign policy has been driven by efforts to reset relations with regional competitors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Against a backdrop of disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the redefinition of the US role in the region, Ankara's renewed diplomatic activism has been guided by the willingness to break from regional isolation, as well as the need to relieve Türkiye's deteriorating economy. How did Türkiye ditch its ideological approach in the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings to adopt a more pragmatic stance? And how is the process of rapprochement with other key actors in the MENA region playing out – namely Gulf monarchies, Israel and Egypt?




Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa


Book Description

Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa is the first book to examine issue-driven antagonisms within groups of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states and their impact on relations within the region. The volume also considers how shock events, such as internal revolts and regional wars, can alter interstate tensions and the trajectory of conflict. MENA has experienced more internal rivalries than any other region, making a detailed analysis vital to understanding the region’s complex political, cultural, and economic history. The state groupings studied in this volume include Israel and Iran; Iran and Saudi Arabia; Iran and Turkey; Iran, Iraq, and Syria; Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and Algeria and Morocco. Essays are theoretically driven, breaking the MENA region down into a collection of systems that exemplify how state and nonstate actors interact around certain issues. Through this approach, contributors shed rare light on the origins, persistence, escalation, and resolution of MENA rivalries and trace significant patterns of regional change. Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa makes a major contribution to scholarship on MENA antagonisms. It not only addresses an understudied phenomenon in the international relations of the MENA region, it also expands our knowledge of rivalry dynamics in global politics.




Gangsters and Other Statesmen


Book Description

How global organized crime shapes the politics of borders in modern conflicts Separatism has been on the rise across the world since the end of the Cold War, dividing countries through political strife, ethnic conflict, and civil war, and redrawing the political map. Gangsters and Other Statesmen examines the role transnational mafias play in the success and failure of separatist movements, challenging conventional wisdom about the interrelation of organized crime with peacebuilding, nationalism, and state making. Danilo Mandić conducted fieldwork in the disputed territories of Kosovo and South Ossetia, talking to mobsters, separatists, and policymakers in war zones and along major smuggling routes. In this timely and provocative book, he demonstrates how globalized mafias shape the politics of borders in torn states, shedding critical light on an autonomous nonstate actor that has been largely sidelined by considerations of geopolitics, state-centered agency, and ethnonationalism. Blending extensive archival sleuthing and original ethnographic data with insights from sociology and other disciplines, Mandić argues that organized crime can be a fateful determinant of state capacity, separatist success, and ethnic conflict. Putting mafias at the center of global processes of separatism and territorial consolidation, Gangsters and Other Statesmen raises vital questions and urges reconsideration of a host of separatist cases in West Africa, the Middle East, and East Europe.




Geopolitics and Energy Diplomacy in the Caspian Region


Book Description

Could the Caspian Region replace Russia's or the Persian Gulf's immense energy potential with their energy resources? Yunis Gurbanov explores the strategic importance of the region in post-USSR Eurasian policies of major global actors, namely China, the EU, the USA, and Russia, and examines Azerbaijan's, Kazakhstan's, and Turkmenistan's oil and gas resources as alternatives to conventional suppliers. He shows that the Caspian region's resources could serve as alternative energy sources on a global level, mitigating dependence on traditional suppliers and stabilizing energy prices.




The EU’s Neighbourhood Policy towards the South Caucasus


Book Description

This book addresses the potential and limitations of the European Union Neighbourhood Policy in sustaining the expansion of the European security community towards the South Caucasus. The Caucasus’ complex regional security dynamics are a hard test for regional security community building and showcase both the challenges of security provision through liberal reforms and integration and of the interaction between security communities and balance of power. The author begins by conceptualizing security community expansion and then considers the ENP through this perspective, before moving on to individual case studies on Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The book will appeal to both scholars and practitioners interested in European security, the European Union external action, and the post-Soviet space.




European Energy Policy


Book Description

'This book analyses a highly important topic. It is based on a comprehensive and empirically rich assessment of European energy policy, including both internal and external determinants. Its encompassing approach and the thoughtful combination of different analytical perspectives makes the book an important and fresh contribution to the field.' Christoph Knill, University of Konstanz, Germany 'Energy was one of the founding pillars of European integration, while environmental concerns have become an identity sign of today's European Union energy policy. However, notwithstanding the obvious links between both issues, little attention has been devoted to the complex relationship between the EU's environmental performance and the Europeanization of its energy policy. This book, carefully edited by Morata and Solorio, has come to fill this gap becoming a "must" to understand the interactions between these two fundamental drivers of EU policies.' José María Marín-Quemada, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, and Member of the Governing Council of the Spanish Central Bank, Spain This path-breaking book explores the new European energy policy, highlighting the significance of environmental policy concerns, instruments, and objectives vis-à-vis competing security and market dimensions in order to achieve an all-embracing EU energy policy perspective for the future. While the past years have witnessed unprecedented development of EU energy policy, the understanding of this process has lagged behind. Alongside the scarce literature on this emergent policy, there is also a gap regarding the attention paid to its different components. The study stems from the perception of a mismatch between the valuable debate that certain dimensions of energy policy namely, energy security and the market and competition framework have triggered and the neglect of its environmental and climate change dimensions. European Energy Policy will prove to be insightful for academics and postgraduate students interested in European integration, political science, international relations, public policy and environmental science. Energy stakeholders and governmental policymakers will also find plenty of invaluable information in this enriching resource.




Post-Soviet Armenia


Book Description

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia has struggled to establish itself, with a faltering economy, emigration of the intelligentsia and the weakening of civil society. This book explores how a new national elite has emerged and how it has constructed a new national narrative to suit Armenia’s new circumstances. The book examines the importance of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan, considers the impact of fraught relations with Turkey and the impact of relations with other neighbouring states including Russia, and discusses the poorly-developed role of the very large Armenian diaspora. Overall, the book provides a key overview to understanding the forces shaping all aspects of present-day Armenia.




Russia's Economy in an Epoch of Turbulence


Book Description

Over the course of the last thirty years post-communist Russia has either been struggling with crises, discussing the lessons learned from past crises, or attempting to trace the contours of future crises. Based on the author’s own experiences and his research over this long period, this book traces the logic of the development of the crises and the anti-crisis policies, and shows the continuity, or discontinuity, in determining particular solutions. It demonstrates how perceptions of the priorities for economic policy, and the problems of economic growth and the formation of a new model and its alternatives were formed and how they changed. It also outlines the evolution of ideas about the role of social politics and human capital sectors in addressing anti-crisis and modernization issues, and discusses the changing views on the institutional and structural priorities for Russia’s development. This is an important book on an economic subject of crucial global significance by a leading participant.