In post-Cold War international relations, strategic partnerships are an emerging and distinct analytical and political category critical in understanding the dynamics of contemporary strategic cooperation between states and International Organizations. However, the idea of strategic partnerships has remained under-theorized and overshadowed by the alliance theory. Addressing this clear-cut gap in the International Relations/Foreign Policy Analysis literature, this book originally endeavors to theorize and empirically test the analytical model of strategic partnerships as a new form of sustainable international cooperation in times of globalized interdependence and turbulence. Framed by the mixed-methods research strategy as well as essentially drawing on software-supported content analysis and statistical hypothesis testing, this book empirically explores fourteen of the most-diverse case studies of strategic partnerships forged by the European Union, NATO, ASEAN and the Andean Community. It challenges and tests a number of advanced scholarly propositions on the notion of these partnerships and succeeds in confirming the allegedly most salient assumptions -strategic partnerships are innately goal-driven and trust-based frameworks of sustainable bilateral alignment and structured international engagement in twenty-first century world politics. This edited volume addresses topical issues for both theory and practice of international relations, for it will enjoy a broad appeal among three major audiences and markets: academics and policy analysts, policy professionals and graduate and postgraduate students. 'An outstanding comparative tour de force on strategic partnerships across the world. It differs from previous research due to a thorough, well thought out, innovative theoretical framework used consistently throughout the 14 case studies. It includes well-documented studies on the major countries of the world and their relationships with the European Union, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Andean Community (CAN) and the North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO). The innovative, quantitative and qualitative methodology used is extensively explained and based on a database on strategic partnerships. An indispensable tool and deserving a special place in any library.' - Jose M. Magone, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany

This edited volume brings together some of the most important scholarly perspectives – in the form of both journal article reprints and original contributions – on the structure and dynamics of the EU’s multi-layered relations with its Eastern neighbours within the Eastern Partnership (EaP) framework and beyond. In May 2019, the EU’s EaP – an ambitious and sophisticated policy framework, conjoining elements of cooperation and integration, with the EU’s six eastern neighbours, i.e. Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – turned ten years. This anniversary, in conjunction with repeatedly voiced critique by scholars and policy-makers alike regarding the framework’s effectiveness and utility, led the EU to submit the EaP to a fundamental auditing and revision. Structured around both enduring and emerging issues in the broader EU-Eastern neighbourhood framework, this book provides a retrospective analysis of key structural and relational challenges, unfolding regional dynamics, distinctive forms of bilateral/multilateral engagement, whilst also offering a critical perspective on the contested future relations between the EU and its Eastern neighbours. Looking backwards and providing a critical and thorough assessment of the first ten years of the EaP in practice, this book thinks forward and gauges its many potential future avenues. This comes at a crucial moment, as the EU and its six Eastern neighbours are in search of new and mutually acceptable forms of association.

This edited volume brings together some of the most important scholarly perspectives - in the form of both journal article reprints and original contributions - on the structure and dynamics of the EU's multi-layered relations with its Eastern neighbours within the Eastern Partnership (EaP) framework and beyond. In May 2019, the EU's EaP - an ambitious and sophisticated policy framework, conjoining elements of cooperation and integration, with the EU's six eastern neighbours, i.e. Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - turned ten years. This anniversary, in conjunction with repeatedly voiced critique by scholars and policy-makers alike regarding the framework's effectiveness and utility, led the EU to submit the EaP to a fundamental auditing and revision. Structured around both enduring and emerging issues in the broader EU-Eastern neighbourhood framework, this book provides a retrospective analysis of key structural and relational challenges, unfolding regional dynamics, distinctive forms of bilateral/multilateral engagement, whilst also offering a critical perspective on the contested future relations between the EU and its Eastern neighbours. Looking backwards and providing a critical and thorough assessment of the first ten years of the EaP in practice, this book thinks forward and gauges its many potential future avenues. This comes at a crucial moment, as the EU and its six Eastern neighbours are in search of new and mutually acceptable forms of association.

Having explicitly demonstrated its potential in stabilization and regulation, the European Union copes nowadays with followed consequences of its own attractiveness - a membership queue permanently increases in spite of announced "no more cakes" agenda. It comes therefore at no surprise that the need and, actually, inner pressure to explore the ways to affiliate membership aspiring and, in particular, neighboring countries beneath (thus, not far beyond) the level of a full-fledged membership in the European Union has recently impressively increased. A junior, partial or limited membership in the EU, as well as association plus and membership minus strategies are the modest examples of newly- made membership alternative "cakes." In case of Ukraine, the question is not limited to "geographical" and "culturological" discussions on whether or not Ukraine is a part of EUrope. Rather, the question is whether Ukraine has a realistic chance of claiming membership in the EU in a foreseeable future, what real steps have been already made towards it, which actions are currently expected and what alternative there may be to the membership vs. exclusion dichotomy?

Nimmt man die Frage nach der Legalitat jeweiliger Macht in Betracht, scheint diese immer weniger Rolle bei Handlungen der Nordatlantischen Allianz zu spielen, insbesondere wenn man derer Intervention im Kosovo3 und teilweise auch im Irak rechtgemass als contra legem actio qualifiziert. Somit lasst es sich feststellen, dass das Vorhandensein legaler Grundlagen fur die Ausubung einer legalen Politik kaum entscheidend ist, deswegen geht es umso mehr um die strikte Einhaltung solcher Legalitatsbasis. Im Falle der Europaischen Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik (ESVP) sind diese Materien noch nicht komplett greifbar, aus dem Grunde braucht man auf beide Elemente, namlich auf die Legalitat und die Legitimitat, naher einzugehen, umso mehr als seit den Einsatzen in Mazedonien, Bosnien und im Kongo die Europaaische Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik keine integrationspolitische Utopie mehr ist, sondern eine politische Realitat darstellt, die auf legalen Grundlagen unionalen Rechtscharakters beruht. Die Frage nach ihrer demokratischen Legitimation stellt sich daher mit besonderem Nachdruck, zumal sie im Extremfall auch die Zumutung beinhaltet, das Leben europaischer Burger in Uniform aufs Spiel zu setzen. Die Frage nach der Legalitat des Letztgenannten lasse sich als echt juristische Frage durch die dokumentierten Rechtsgrundlagen beantworten, seien diese primar- oder sekundarrechtlichen Herkunft. Dagegen ist das Problem der Legitimitat der Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspoli vornehmlich soziologisch zu behandeln, indem man unterschiedliche Dimensionen dieser rechts-soziologischen Qualitat der Unionspolitik zu erforschen hat, um das gesamte Bild zu bekommen. Methodologisch sei es dabei davon hervorgegangen, dass die demokratische Legitimitat der Europaischen Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik wie in anderen Feldern europaischer Politik auf denselben Grundlagen ruht: erstens auf der Zustimmung der europaischen Burgerinnen und Burger ( ergebnisorientierte Legitimation")