Elena Baracani | Università di Bologna (original) (raw)
Papers by Elena Baracani
This chapter focuses on the mechanism of conditionality in the framework of the European Neighbou... more This chapter focuses on the mechanism of conditionality in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), in order to assess the prospects for democratic reforms in two ENP partners, Morocco and Ukraine. These case studies have been selected on the basis of two criteria. First, they belong to different geographical areas at the borders of the European Union (EU). Second, while Morocco’s proposed EU membership was rejected in the 1980s, in the case of Ukraine, the question of membership has not been raised to date.
Geopolitics, 2019
Ten years after Kosovo's controversial declaration of independence, this article seeks to analyse... more Ten years after Kosovo's controversial declaration of independence, this article seeks to analyse how the European Union has gradually become the main external actor in the facilitation of the statebuilding process in Kosovo, how its approach to state-building has evolved in the period 2008-2018 and how the state contestation issue has shaped its actorness in this domain. The empirical analysis shows that while the EU initially adopted a state-building through conditionality approach, modelled on its enlargement policy, after 2008, the EU complemented its conditionality approach with additional tools, which made Kosovo into a key test case for its comprehensive approach to conflicts. Finally, in recent years, the EU has prioritized the normalization of relations with Belgrade in its statebuilding approach. The analysis also presents some examples of how EU actorness as a state-builder is shaped by the state contestation issue. The lack of recognition of Kosovo by five of its member states induced the EU to devise creative institutional and legal solutions in order to overcome its internal division, but it also strongly reduced its leverage. The lack of effective government induced the EU to make Kosovo become the recipient of the largest amount of EU aid per capita in the world since 1999, but the country's weak state apparatus constrained the effectiveness of such assistance. Finally, the lack of territorial control over the north by the Pristina-based Kosovo authorities constrained EU actorness because it found implementing its policies impossible or very difficult in that part of the country.
The International Spectator, 2014
This book aims to contribute to increasing our understanding of European Union (EU) foreign polic... more This book aims to contribute to increasing our understanding of European Union (EU) foreign policy by uncovering how the EU's main institutional actors and the structural context affected its conceptualization of relations with a specific target country, Turkey, and the main foreign policy decisions made in the timeframe 2014-2019, which corresponds to the EU political cycle which started with the 2014 European elections. Unlike most studies on EU foreign policy vis-à-vis Turkey, which focus on the Union's enlargement policy and analyse the impact of EU norms, or the lack thereof, on the transformation of the country (external Europeanization and de-Europeanization studies) 1 and/or more recently on the transactional nature of the bilateral relationship, no longer framed only in the enlargement policy, and its direction 2 (external differentiated integration studies), this book adopts an institutional focus and investigates in a systematic way how the main political institutions (Commission, European Council, Council of Ministers 3 and Parliament) and their bureaucratic bodies contributed in the period examined, in both crisis and day-today foreign policy making, to this process, to the substance of the decisions taken (the outputs), and to the implementation of these decisions. It also investigates the extent to which these decisions were influenced by the structural context at both the EU level and the Turkey level. In order to do this, it adopts an original foreign policy analysis framework, which com-1
Journal of Contemporary European Research, 2007
Societamutamentopolitica, 2012
The case of Cyprus shows that modalities of state-building and decisions taken at the beginning o... more The case of Cyprus shows that modalities of state-building and decisions taken at the beginning of this process may favor the politicization of ethnicity, and thus the emergence of a political conflict. This happens especially when other factors are present, such as certain ethnic characteristics of the social tissue. This essay aims at reconstructing the main phases of state-building until the accession of the island to the European Union, while showing how state-building, ethnicity, and external factors interact and influence each other. The essay also presents some socio-demographic and political attitudes data of young Cypriots in order to reconstruct their perceptions of national political institutions and of the process of European integration.
... opposition demanded the King to cancel the elections, but Hassan II refused and appointed a t... more ... opposition demanded the King to cancel the elections, but Hassan II refused and appointed a technocratic government headed by Mohamed Karim Lamrani. ... to power a coalition of the USFP and the Istiqlal, however the king, decided to appoint as prime minister Driss Jettou, a ...
Books by Elena Baracani
ALTERNATIVES TO DEMOCRACY Non–Democratic Regimes and the Limits to Democracy Diffusion in Eurasia, 2013
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, liberal democracy remained the only ideal model of a pol... more When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, liberal democracy remained the only ideal model of a political regime applicable worldwide. Then, various students and politicians saw the end of communism as the final and definitive victory of democratic ideology and imagined a future in which democracy would spread everywhere. Democracy spread widely during the 1990s and the early 2000s. The fall of various South American dictatorships and the European Union enlargement caused a transition to democracy in many countries. However, important areas in Eurasia, in particular Russia, China and Iran, resisted democratization and reformed authoritarian regimes rose and consolidated in the region. These regimes proved their ability to survive and influenced their neighbours proposing political models that attracted neighbouring countries’ leaders. Thus, new kinds of authoritarian regimes challenged the idea of the unavoidability of the spread of democracy. Today, the international economic crisis and wide economic growth in authoritarian countries such as Russia and China have renewed the relevance of questions about the democratic model’s superiority, its unavoidable diffusion and the existence of alternative regimes. To answer this question, we need to understand if at least one of these regimes is a model. Furthermore, we may discover if it is based on well–defined values, is replicable elsewhere, economically sustainable and able to consolidate and survive.
This chapter focuses on the mechanism of conditionality in the framework of the European Neighbou... more This chapter focuses on the mechanism of conditionality in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), in order to assess the prospects for democratic reforms in two ENP partners, Morocco and Ukraine. These case studies have been selected on the basis of two criteria. First, they belong to different geographical areas at the borders of the European Union (EU). Second, while Morocco’s proposed EU membership was rejected in the 1980s, in the case of Ukraine, the question of membership has not been raised to date.
Geopolitics, 2019
Ten years after Kosovo's controversial declaration of independence, this article seeks to analyse... more Ten years after Kosovo's controversial declaration of independence, this article seeks to analyse how the European Union has gradually become the main external actor in the facilitation of the statebuilding process in Kosovo, how its approach to state-building has evolved in the period 2008-2018 and how the state contestation issue has shaped its actorness in this domain. The empirical analysis shows that while the EU initially adopted a state-building through conditionality approach, modelled on its enlargement policy, after 2008, the EU complemented its conditionality approach with additional tools, which made Kosovo into a key test case for its comprehensive approach to conflicts. Finally, in recent years, the EU has prioritized the normalization of relations with Belgrade in its statebuilding approach. The analysis also presents some examples of how EU actorness as a state-builder is shaped by the state contestation issue. The lack of recognition of Kosovo by five of its member states induced the EU to devise creative institutional and legal solutions in order to overcome its internal division, but it also strongly reduced its leverage. The lack of effective government induced the EU to make Kosovo become the recipient of the largest amount of EU aid per capita in the world since 1999, but the country's weak state apparatus constrained the effectiveness of such assistance. Finally, the lack of territorial control over the north by the Pristina-based Kosovo authorities constrained EU actorness because it found implementing its policies impossible or very difficult in that part of the country.
The International Spectator, 2014
This book aims to contribute to increasing our understanding of European Union (EU) foreign polic... more This book aims to contribute to increasing our understanding of European Union (EU) foreign policy by uncovering how the EU's main institutional actors and the structural context affected its conceptualization of relations with a specific target country, Turkey, and the main foreign policy decisions made in the timeframe 2014-2019, which corresponds to the EU political cycle which started with the 2014 European elections. Unlike most studies on EU foreign policy vis-à-vis Turkey, which focus on the Union's enlargement policy and analyse the impact of EU norms, or the lack thereof, on the transformation of the country (external Europeanization and de-Europeanization studies) 1 and/or more recently on the transactional nature of the bilateral relationship, no longer framed only in the enlargement policy, and its direction 2 (external differentiated integration studies), this book adopts an institutional focus and investigates in a systematic way how the main political institutions (Commission, European Council, Council of Ministers 3 and Parliament) and their bureaucratic bodies contributed in the period examined, in both crisis and day-today foreign policy making, to this process, to the substance of the decisions taken (the outputs), and to the implementation of these decisions. It also investigates the extent to which these decisions were influenced by the structural context at both the EU level and the Turkey level. In order to do this, it adopts an original foreign policy analysis framework, which com-1
Journal of Contemporary European Research, 2007
Societamutamentopolitica, 2012
The case of Cyprus shows that modalities of state-building and decisions taken at the beginning o... more The case of Cyprus shows that modalities of state-building and decisions taken at the beginning of this process may favor the politicization of ethnicity, and thus the emergence of a political conflict. This happens especially when other factors are present, such as certain ethnic characteristics of the social tissue. This essay aims at reconstructing the main phases of state-building until the accession of the island to the European Union, while showing how state-building, ethnicity, and external factors interact and influence each other. The essay also presents some socio-demographic and political attitudes data of young Cypriots in order to reconstruct their perceptions of national political institutions and of the process of European integration.
... opposition demanded the King to cancel the elections, but Hassan II refused and appointed a t... more ... opposition demanded the King to cancel the elections, but Hassan II refused and appointed a technocratic government headed by Mohamed Karim Lamrani. ... to power a coalition of the USFP and the Istiqlal, however the king, decided to appoint as prime minister Driss Jettou, a ...
ALTERNATIVES TO DEMOCRACY Non–Democratic Regimes and the Limits to Democracy Diffusion in Eurasia, 2013
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, liberal democracy remained the only ideal model of a pol... more When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, liberal democracy remained the only ideal model of a political regime applicable worldwide. Then, various students and politicians saw the end of communism as the final and definitive victory of democratic ideology and imagined a future in which democracy would spread everywhere. Democracy spread widely during the 1990s and the early 2000s. The fall of various South American dictatorships and the European Union enlargement caused a transition to democracy in many countries. However, important areas in Eurasia, in particular Russia, China and Iran, resisted democratization and reformed authoritarian regimes rose and consolidated in the region. These regimes proved their ability to survive and influenced their neighbours proposing political models that attracted neighbouring countries’ leaders. Thus, new kinds of authoritarian regimes challenged the idea of the unavoidability of the spread of democracy. Today, the international economic crisis and wide economic growth in authoritarian countries such as Russia and China have renewed the relevance of questions about the democratic model’s superiority, its unavoidable diffusion and the existence of alternative regimes. To answer this question, we need to understand if at least one of these regimes is a model. Furthermore, we may discover if it is based on well–defined values, is replicable elsewhere, economically sustainable and able to consolidate and survive.