DRIIE-European studies

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Browsing DRIIE-European studies by Subject "Civil society"

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    Assessing the Involvement/ Development of Civil Society as Part of the European Integration Process of the Eastern Partnership States
    (Civil Szemle Foundation, 2023-12) Costea, Ana Maria; Melenciuc Ioan, Ioana Roxana
    2023 marks 14 years since the European Union (EU) launched the Eastern Partnership (EaP) Program, an instrument that was designed to respond to the vulnerabilities and threats specific to the six Eastern European countries that were not part of the EU (the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Armenia). After several series of critics, the EaP was revised in 2017 in order to break the one size fits all policy and, thus, to be more adaptable to each specific case. Although the Program was not designed and still is not a platform for future accession, two out of six states are currently candidate countries to the EU (Moldova and Ukraine), fact that emphasizes even more the importance of the EaP as a platform used to start the integration process. On the other side, one critic that still stands is represented by the fact that it does not offer any security guaranties against external threats, fact that was seen in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and in 2022 when the war in Ukraine started. In terms of tangible evaluation of its results, the EaP indexes were launched in 2011 and the European Commission's reports regarding the 2020 deliverables represent ones of the most important tools for measuring the integration level of each country. Since the war threatens the stability and the security of the entire region, if not of the entire continent, one aspect that tends to be overlooked is represented by the importance of civil society and active citizenship. The present research aims to assess the level of development and involvement of the civil society between 2011-2022 throughout all six EaP countries. It is also emphasized the role of the civil society and its development during the periods of crisis, as well as the link between external funding and the sustainability of the activities performed by the civil society.
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    Civil Society as the Arena of the New European Climate Hegemony: A neo-Gramscian Approach to European Green Transition
    (Civil Szemle Foundation, 2024-07-30) Caradaică, Mihail
    Using a neo-Gramscian approach, this paper explores the concept of civil society as an arena where European climate hegemony is built. The EU's green transition, which involves deep social and economic transformations, needs extensive popular support to avoid social instability and the rise of populist parties. To achieve this, the European Com-mission is trying to construct a counter-hegemonic discourse that challenges the traditional modes of a fossil fuel-based economy by creating an alliance of actors around the ideology of just transition. Therefore, the study addresses the following research question: who are the change agents within European civil society that have aligned with the alliance, and how is fostering a counter-hegemonic discourse against the traditional economic model? By employing a qualitative methodological approach, the study explores the crucial function of civil society in the European green transition, exposing the most important agents and how these agents facilitate the formation of a new climate hegemony.
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    Perceptions of Civil Society in Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Context of the Nagorno–Karabakh Conflict
    (Civil Szemle Foundation, 2023-06) Brie, Mircea; Costea, Ana Maria; Petrila, Laurențiu
    This paper aims to be a contextual, conceptual and factual analysis of the complicated relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and what are the main perceptions of civil society in these countries in the context of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a dispute over the province’s status as a major source of tension between the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan and the leadership of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the mediation of which other international actors got involved, such as OSCE, the Minsk group consisting of France, the Russian Federation and the USA. Overall, whereas Armenia tends to be on a progressive scale with some concerns over the possibility to return to a non-democratic regime, Azerbaijan is already placed on a regressive scale. Given the topic of the paper, we had a closer attention to the 2020-2021 period of time since the Nagorno Karabakh war took place in the autumn of 2020 – thus, 2011 being the first year when the European Commission launched the European Integration Index for the Eastern Partnership states and 2022 being the year with the most recent data regarding the topic. In what regards the results of our research, both civil societies have been involved in the conflict resolution, but with various degrees, taking into consideration the different national ex-ante conditions. Armenia proved to be more resilient over the years, thus, although facing mass protests ending with the Parliament building being temporally seized, with a general feeling of fear towards the possibility of regressing, the democratic level remained the same, in 2021-2022 being declared as a partly fee country, whereas in the case of Azerbaijan it fell under the regressive paradigm with: a practically non-existent independent media, very limited tools to hold the state accountable, measures that were taken against the activists that declared themselves against the war and civil society organizations that do not have access to foreign funding.