| Abstrakt: |
This article investigates the performance of the EU in its Eastern neighbourhood. Whereas there is a developed repository of legal, institutional and power-based explanations on the performance of the EU's policies, research dedicated to understanding how third countries take on these policies is scarce. Thus, by employing process tracing we, first, assess the EU's involvement in Moldova over a 10-year interval (2009–2019). Second, by looking at the data drawn from a longitudinal study based on annual opinion polls conducted in the EU's six Eastern partner countries since 2016 and on a questionnaire-based survey conducted at the national level in the Republic of Moldova in autumn 2019, we explore how EU's performance is perceived at the societal level in Moldova. Our findings show the degree the EU, through the EaP, meets the needs of Moldova across time (relevance) and whether the EaP mitigates Moldova's democratization challenges (impact). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
Full text from SpringerLink