The European Neighborhood Policy

The greatest enlargement of the European Union on May 1, 2004 reshaped the borders of the European Union and stirred up the EU to redefine and reinvent its policy towards its new neighbors and their place in its “pyramid of privileges.” As a result, the European Neighborhood Policy was born. The book aims at understanding the nature of the ENP with a particular emphasis on the South Caucasus region, a part of the ENP Eastern Dimension. The notion of “empire” serves as the theoretical frame of analysis. The work provides a new conceptualization of the ENP as a “soft empire's” policy of security creation through periphery stabilization. The ENP dynamics inspires parallels with empire organized in concentric circles, where core protects itself by stabilizing the periphery through exporting its values, norms, laws and modes of governance beyond its immediate borders, which can no longer be understood through a linear concept of border. The analysis should be helpful to scholars interested in International/European Studies as well as any professional working on European integration related issues in national, European or international agencies.