The European Union’s “Normative Power” and the European Eastern Partnership: spreading values in Azerbaijan, an EU-topia?

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the performance of the Normative Power Europe in Azerbaijan, in order to understand if the objectives of the European Union can be achieved in this country, if the methods used are effective, or if the road that has been taken so far must be changed. The first chapter will present an in-depth analysis of the concept of Normative Power Europe: from the origins of the notion drawn by Joseph S. Nye as Soft Power in the late 1980s, through the concept of Civilian Power introduced by Francois Duchêne with exclusive reference to the European Union, until the most popular definition, still alive in the current debates among the scholars, presented by Ian Manners. The second chapter will focus on the European Normative Power in action with the Eastern Partners; first, an overview of the European Neighborhood Policy will be presented: the genesis of it and the gradual development of the European Policies towards the post-soviet area, in order to create a “ring of friends” outside the borders of the EU. The third and final chapter will investigate in detail the case of Azerbaijan: it aims to understand why the diffusion of democracy is not efficient in the country and which are the main divergences between Baku and Brussels. In order to do so, we will take into account the role of Civil Society: how it can be an ally in the diffusion of norms and what is its current state in Azerbaijan. On the basis of the arguments expressed above, this thesis aims to answer to the following question: why is the Normative Power of the European Union not efficient in Azerbaijan?