No abstract

This article looks into Armenia's and Belarus' engagement with the European Union's (EU) and Russia's conditionalities, the two EU Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries that are also members of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). While paying attention to political, economic (including energy and technical) as well as security dimensions of the EU's and Russia's approaches, as proposed in the present special section, the article demonstrates that the conditionalities extended by the EU and Russia to the two countries in question have differed. In their turn, Armenia and Belarus have reacted differently to Russia's and the EU's conditionalities. Against the backdrop of the changing significance ascribed to both the EU's and Russia's policies towards their common neighbourhood since the 1990s, the present contribution identifies and analyses factors that account for the diverging positions of Armenia and Belarus, including the type of regime, the geopolitical considerations, the stakes in the economic and energy spheres and the predisposition to integration. The article shows that in the resulting complex context, Armenia and Belarus have been able to influence the shape and content of the EU's and Russia's conditionalities, although in a different way and to a different extent.

No abstract

To my late grandparents Misak Vasilyan, Siranush Vasilyan, Gohar Movsisyan and Zaven Gasparyan who, having lived through wars and peace, transmitted intellectual stamina and configured my curiosity in politics and international relations vii Acknowledgements The venture of writing "'Moral Power' of the European Union in the South Caucasus" has been intriguing and laborious. The roots of my academic interest in political science were formed due to the political instability, economic devastation and conflict-ridden environment on the former Soviet terrain in the 1990s, while my inquisitiveness in international relations was framed as an exchange student in the USA in 1999-2000 with the competitive scholarship awarded by the United States Department of State. My academic advisor Professor Dr. Alan Cooper at Otterbein College-renamed into Otterbein University-played a major role in shaping and helping to sustain that scholarly drive. The internship at the Embassy of Armenia in Washington, DC in 2000 was instrumental for "sculpting" my vocation in politics and diplomacy. The research on issues, notably, security and regional cooperation, pertaining to the case study-South Caucasus-was triggered when I was based at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office in Yerevan in 2000 and the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg in 2003, respectively. Academic papers were written on democracy and conflicts when I was an M.A. student at the Central European University (CEU) in 2002-2003. My interest in the EU's history and decision-making and the undertaken analysis of EU's policy was incepted during my second M.A. studies with the prestigious Praesidium Libertatis scholarship and the research on the thesis submitted to Leiden University in 2005. Being lured by morality, the conceptual framework of "moral power" was devised in 2007-2008 when I was a 157 6 "Moral Power" of the EU through its Conflict Resolution Policy in the South Caucasus 207 7 "Moral Power" of the EU through its Democracy Promotion Policy in the South Caucasus 251 8 Conclusion 305 Index 313 xv

No abstract