What makes authoritarian regimes sweat? Linkage, leverage and democratization in post-Soviet South Caucasus

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate the role of the international environment in the democratic transition process in the post-Soviet South Caucasus states. Based on the famous theoretical model of linkage and leverage, the influence of two main regional actors, Russia and the West (In this paper, ‘the West’ is conceptualized as the sum of influences stemming from the EU, the US and the multinational institutions dominated by the Western states (e.g. NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, and EBRD).), are explained and conceptualized. The paper argues that competitive authoritarianism, the form of political regime that is believed to be predominant in the region, is the result of the flawed democratization strategy pursued by the EU and the US on the one hand and the influence of Russia, the counter-hegemonic power, on the other hand, which explicitly or implicitly decreases the transformative power of the West.