Domestic Preferences and EU Cooperation. Explaining Foreign Policies in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova: A Two-Level-Game Analysis

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The paramount objective of this research project is to perform a comprehensive Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) of the foreign policy choices in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova vis-à-vis the EU. Hence, the project focuses on those countries, which have signed an Association Agreement with the EU, despite pressure from Russia, and are to be regarded as frontrunners among the six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. However, approximation to EU legal standards demonstrates a high degree of variance throughout various phases of EaP implementation in these three countries, which will be explained in a comprehensive analysis of domestic preference building. The innovative contribution of this project consists in, first, (partly) filling the research gap of theory based and methodologically sound FPA on post-Soviet states. Second, in adapting suitable FPA approaches (principally the Two-Level-Game approach), which had previously been applied to consolidated democracies, to the analysis of non-consolidated democratic or hybrid regimes, thus advancing FPA on such regime types. Third, in expanding the scope of EaP country studies by undertaking a substantial analysis of domestic preference building in the three countries foreign policies, instead of focusing solely on the EUs policies vis-à-vis these states.