Democratic Transformation and Obstruction

Although democracy promotion has become a popular term for policy makers and scholars democratization is rarely a smooth or linear transition. While some countries quickly democratize others lag behind despite a long period of democracy promotion activities. Furthermore while democracy promotion itself has been widely studied there is a paucity of literature available assessing the outcome or the impact of democracy promotion. This book investigates democracy promotion by the European Union and the United States of America and seeks to uncover why intensive democracy promotion has resulted in limited democratic progress. Exploring case studies of Armenia Azerbaijan and Georgia this book examines the conditions in which democracy promotion is more likely to result in democratic transformation. In addition it introduces the concept of the democracy blocker a powerful authoritarian regional actor that is capable of blocking democratization in other countries. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Political Science Democracy Democratization EU Studies US Politics Comparative Politics and Foreign Policy. . Language: English