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Tag: Azerbaijan

Who is leading and lagging on democracy and reforms in the EU’s Eastern Partnership?

The 2025 Eastern Partnership Index tracks the democratic transformation and European integration in the countries that participated in the initiative.

July 16, 2025 - Kerry Longhurst Yana Brovdiy

Europe’s complex relationship with Azerbaijan

Relations between Brussels and Baku have largely been based around continued shipments of oil and gas from the Caspian Sea. However, such links obscure a delicate human rights situation in Azerbaijan that ultimately challenges Europe’s ability to both bolster and promote its liberal democratic values in the wider region.

Four years ago, Günel Hasanli was secretly filmed at home having consensual sex with her boyfriend. The video of the 38-year-old Azerbaijani woman later went viral on social media. Hasanli was publicly humiliated, it seems, for being the daughter of Jamil Hasanli: a prominent Azerbaijani historian, author and opposition politician.

July 8, 2025 - JP O'Malley

Armenia’s precarious position on Iran

Armenia faces heightened security challenges and increased complexity in its foreign policy amid the recent Iran–Israel conflict and the active involvement of the United States. Navigating this volatile environment requires Armenia to be neutral and preserve a balanced position, which may become difficult if tensions continue, an increasingly challenging task if regional tensions flare up again.

June 26, 2025 - Sossi Tatikyan

Repression in Azerbaijan

An interview with Cesare Figari Barberis, a postdoctoral researcher focused on the politics of the South Caucasus. Interviewer: Aleksej Tilman.

June 24, 2025 - Aleksej Tilman Cesare Figari Barberis

Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe: a return through the back door?

It has been over a year since the Azerbaijani delegation was suspended from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Although its full return appears highly unlikely for the moment, Baku has managed to transform the crisis into a partial success.

April 16, 2025 - Anna Zamejc

The complexity of the peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan

A deal between Yerevan and Baku appears within reach after decades of tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite this, many issues still remain before any document will be signed by the two neighbours. Such uncertainty will naturally have consequences for more than just the South Caucasus.

April 9, 2025 - Nino Lezhava

Azerbaijan’s foray into “anti-colonial” advocacy

Over the past year, Azerbaijan has increasingly cast itself as a liberating force for the overseas territories under French control. What can Azerbaijan gain from leading the charge against “French colonialism in Mayotte”, an island that could hardly be further from its territory?

Relations between France and Azerbaijan have soured dramatically, with a recent series of diplomatic escalations culminating in several controversial conferences organized by Baku. The conference on the “illegal French occupation of the island of Mayotte” is not the first conference they have organized that is dedicated to the subject of the French Overseas Departments and Regions. As early as May 2024, the Milli Majlis, the Azerbaijan National Assembly, hosted a conference entitled “French Polynesia’s Right to Decolonization: Problems and Prospects”.

February 28, 2025 - Svenja Petersen

Foreign agent laws in the authoritarian playbook

From Russia to Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia to Hungary, “foreign agent” style laws have become a preferred instrument for authoritarians to extinguish critical voices, shield their rule from scrutiny and strengthen their hold on power.

By stigmatizing independent civil society, media and other dissenting voices as “trojan horses”, “foreign agent” laws have offered a convenient framing to delegitimize and isolate them. In addition, they have also helped to impose harsh monitoring and reporting requirements and shut critics out of public life. As the promotion of democratic practices and human rights threatens authoritarians’ grip on power, foreign agent laws offer a handy tool to discredit these activities by equating them with promoting the interests of a foreign power.

September 17, 2024 - Iskra Kirova

Giving a voice to those who can no longer speak

There is an ongoing "total purge" to cleanse the world of sensitive people capable of love. It is my conscious choice to engage in socio-political art. This is my feeble attempt to make a change.

September 11, 2024 - Darya (Cemra) Siamchuk

Dark clouds over Azerbaijan

A decade after the times of “Caviar Diplomacy” when Azerbaijan would buy up support from the delegates of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the mood among European politicians has turned a full 180 degrees. The Azerbaijani delegation was excluded from the sessions for a year by a clear majority of the votes for the “persistent violation of norms and standards of the institution” and a lack of cooperation with PACE. Is this the beginning of the end of Baku’s participation in the Council of Europe?

April 17, 2024 - Anna Zamejc

Issue 3/2024: South Caucasus out of balance

How the region struggles to break free from the shadow of conflict. Issue 3/2024 is now available for purchase and download!

April 11, 2024 - New Eastern Europe

The legacy of the displaced in the South Caucasus: from yesterday till today

The South Caucasus is no stranger to the plight of displaced persons. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, refugees and internally displaced persons have numbered in the hundreds of thousands due to conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Recent geopolitical shifts, such as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Azerbaijan’s 24-hour military offensive, have reignited concerns about this unresolved issue and the ongoing challenges faced by displaced persons in the region.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 was heralded by many western politicians, academics and others as a largely peaceful event. For many Central Asians and South Caucasians, however, it was far from tranquil. Tajikistan experienced a devastating civil war (1992-97). Georgia fought two wars with Russia over the regions of Abkhazia (1992-93) and South Ossetia (1991-92), while Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh (1992-94). Both Georgia and Azerbaijan were left with large internally displaced person (IDP) populations, the vast majority of whom are still displaced today.

April 11, 2024 - Jennifer S. Wistrand

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