Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Europeanization must mean that Georgia becomes an attractive market in terms of human and infrastructural resources, a country which is a reliable contract guarantor and, thereby, a hub and a model for the region as a whole.
To paraphrase Tolstoy, “All democracies are alike, all non-democratic regimes are unhappy in their own way.” This is what should be borne in mind, looking ahead into 2014 in the Caucasus region.
By pretty much any historical standards, the wider Europe at the dawn of 2014 is incredibly peaceful. However, peace in Europe should be a signal not for Panglossian optimism but for redoubled Europeans to be vigilant against the risk of new conflicts, large and small.
Stuttering efforts to promote democracy and human rights in Europe’s neighborhood show why the European Endowment for Democracy is so badly needed.
The Armenians can use Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to vent some of their frustrations with Turkey—and then get back to talking again.
Putin has always flirted with the new Russian nationalism, never embracing it outright. Now he faces a dilemma as the phenomenon he helped create weakens the basis of his Eurasian Union project.
Ilham Aliyev is attempting modernization without wholesale political reform. Most of the veterans of the Azerbaijani elite remain in their jobs, including the elderly prime minister and presidential chief of staff. The skyline is changing in Baku, but so far the street-plan remains the same.
Fethullah Gülen’s Islamic movement in Azerbaijan engages solely and uniquely through secular and modern education, which allows it to promote Islamic philosophy and ethics.
Ilham Aliyev has won reelection for a third term. As he begins his eleventh year as president of Azerbaijan, the huge shadow of his father and predecessor inevitably begins to recede and this is the moment for him to set a new political agenda for the country—if he wants too.
It has been two decades since post-Soviet states gained independence, but democracy fails to emerge and shake autocratic regimes, although they have the educated and intellectual elites it takes to develop it.