Democracy promotion in Azerbaijan: an EU-topia?

Abstract

Although academics and scholars have largely dealt with the ways in which the European Union has managed democracy promotion, particularly towards its Neighborhood, little consideration has been conceded to “lagging” countries in terms of human rights and democracy, including Azerbaijan. What has emerged is that, especially since the 2014 crackdown on the Civil Society, Azerbaijan’s human rights record is increasingly worrisome and worsening, despite the EU’s alleged and self-proclaimed interest in promoting its core values outside its territories.

Through the analysis of the concept of Normative Power Europe and the use of qualitative interviews with representatives of the Azerbaijani Civil Society, this thesis questions the degree to which the EU acts as a normative power in Azerbaijan, taking into consideration both the substantial accomplishments the Union achieved on the ground and how successful delegates of the civil society evaluate those efforts. It is, in fact, of vital importance to take into account the recipients’ perspective for the analysis of democracy promotion since it can add different points of view to the already widely studied subject and give a concrete sense of how the EU is perceived in the country. The following research reveals that the EU’s democracy and human rights promotion agenda is not characterized by a “one-size-fits-all” kind of approach, since EU institutions and the EU delegation in Azerbaijan favor distinct instruments to foster democratization. At the end of the day, what has emerged from the interviews is that Azerbaijani local civil society, together with local democracy promoters, awaits for more commitment and more implementation, advocating for a more grounded position from the EU through the use of stronger conditionality mechanisms and sanctions.

The study has been structured as followed: the first chapter will deal with the analysis of how the European Union has been defined by different scholarships of International Relations – starting from the notions of Civilian, Soft and Normative Power Europe and then presenting more recent and different perspectives which see the European Union as an Empire of sort – taking into account the main critics that have been raised, particularly from the Neorealist outlook, too. The following section will give an historical, cultural, political and economic overview of Azerbaijan, giving particular attention to the human rights and democracy situation in the country. The third chapter will combine the previous ones, focusing on the tools used by the European Union to achieve its aim of fostering human rights and democracy on the ground. Lastly, the final chapter will give voice to the recipients’ perspective through the analysis of qualitative interviews to local civil society representatives.