How you arrived at your research question gap in literature

Research Proposal

How you arrived at your research question i.e. gap in literature, emerging area of practice, issue currently facing the visual arts sector, a question posed by a professional in the field. • Why your research is important? Why your research is timely? What it will achieve – the so what? Factor. • This will be helpful when you come to write the introduction to your project. • This should be approximately 1500 words. •

The research aims to understand what Azerbaijan ought to accomplish to be eligible for the European Union 'EU' membership. The consequent question address that how likely Baku can make these challenges if it strives to do so. The preliminary research identifies three areas of integration challenge. One of them is the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The recent changes in the power shift between Russia and Turkey show that the research topic is timely in the region.

The empirical and qualitative research with an inductive approach aims to answer the question that ‘Can Azerbaijan achieve EU integration/membership in the foreseeable future?’ There are some associations between Brussels and Baku, but democratising Azerbaijan is a different level of goal. I aim to develop the research through ontological assumption. For instance, the country is fundamentally potential to earn an EU membership. The Azeri regime proves that, authoritarian governance is a barrier between civil society and access to a free liberal world. I believe that, our world and the structure of what we have been living is changing unexpectedly over the period of time. The research pays attention to a tendency of development progress in Caucasian countries.

Baku implements the foreign policy in multi-vector orientation. It considers several fields such as geographical, strategic and cultural. The multi-vector foreign commitment makes it more complex to investigate the positional arrangements between the West and East. I fit the constructivist angle to examine the societal identity and future interest in the new generation aspect. The process of building up a theory may be more efficient than that of testifying existing ones.

Nevertheless, the research design is flexible and it allows overlapping some theories. For instance, there is post-colonialism, critical and regionalism. Post-colonialism questions the acceptance of third world people by modern Western societies. The Azerbaijani nation assimilates with an indigenous community in the European orthodox perspective. The question addresses the challenge of equality.

There is another obstacle to gain the EU membership. The critical theory is relevant to its suggestion that society examination is possible from their government and economic structure. The concept enables to assess Azeri national capacity for EU integration. The absolutist regime presence deeply affects socio-economic circumstances. The regionalism concept shows that, territory will be more politically integrated into a union, if its economic relation intensifies with the same union. One of the pieces of evidence is the European community. My research can fit with Azerbaijani integration. The Empiricist view supports my research purpose. My analysis further considers excluding the social construction of the world and it focuses on the Azerbaijani perspective independently. The research revisits the EU values in foreign policy to examine their coherence in Azerbaijani integration.

The country is located in the Caucasus region on Eurasia next to the Caspian Sea. It has a uniquely border with Russia, Iran, and Turkey (Makili-Aliyev, 2013). Turkey has already failed to negotiate a step-change to join the EU. There is a drastic consequence of Turkish participation in the Syrian civil war. The sceptical approach generates the provocation by refugee migration through the Turkish border to Europe. Ankara is not motivated about European integration anymore. The state interest seems to contradict European politics in the future. Whereas Brussels has an explicit strategy and view, Turkey presents an opposition.

However, the Turkish state outlook and governance model are more imperialistic than the Azerbaijani counterpart. Baku does not intimidate neighbours to rebuild the Osman Empire. Geopolitical flexibility is an advantage for EU membership in future, and Baku can pursue it. Wherefore (Duchatel, 2016), Azerbaijan can develop a more intensive relationship with a few other significant global players. Firstly, It can engage more dynamically in the Russian sphere. Secondly, it can be more open to Turkey or Iran.

On the other hand, the country does not rely on others in the region. This positional strategy calls attention from Brussels and Washington as well. Russia, Turkey and Iran have a negative relationship with Western democracies, and if the EU fails to build a more reliable link to Azerbaijan, someone else will do in the region. This compromise further addresses relevant clash points over the European values and integration capacity from a muslin country perspective. In this sense, the research considers the European Union as a modern Western democracy.

Therefore, I aim to ascertain what prospect Azerbaijan can assume to move forward to EU integration and membership. The outcome of the research should identify the significant common currencies and features, where this integration is conceivable. Simultaneously, I also address questions. What challenges does the country face to accomplish future integration? What traditions does the EU promote beyond its borderline? How the EU would imagine the integration process. Does the European conflict resolution indicate an unambiguous preparation for Azeri integration in the South Caucasus (Jafarova, 2011)? The EU could force the termination of hostility better between Armenia and Azerbaijan, namely the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Brussels could implement a more convincible dispute management. The performance ought to enrich the EU profile in the region. The political approach can set a more open domestic policy in Azerbaijan for further consideration of EU membership.

However, there is the argument that, the E.U. foreign policy is in decline regarding the integration principles (Kobzova and Alieva, 2012). Azerbaijan has no finalised EU statement to consider further efforts for a relationship step change.

The EU integration plan allegedly proceeds to the East. The EU enlargement has been processed every ten years since 1970, and the tendency keeps the course towards Western Balkan states (Balazs, 2013). The expansion has a beneficial economic prospect, because established EU member states seek new markets for export trading. Inescapably, the EU market moves toward the Eastern side. The outsider country faces future opportunities for European politics. The Caucasian regions are geographically a future chapter of the EU expansion umbrella after the Balkans states join the economic zone. On the other hand, Russia seeks an opportunity to reconnect itself with the former republics of the USSR informally.

There are several recent literature and EU neighbourhood policy reports (Alieva: 2017; Van Gils, 2019; Kobzova and Alieva, 2012). The most investigation focuses on the modern and independent Baku position between European democracies and Russia. There is literature by Mikhelidze (2013) that analyses the governmental development in the South Caucasian region, including the Azerbaijani state understanding of governance culture. Some external policy reports shed light on comprehensive agreements between Baku and Brussels. These agreements further indicate that, the EU does some influence on shaping Azerbaijani domestic politics. Other literature Van Gils, (2018) approves the relevance of my chosen topic that the country will undergo a positive transformation, if the EU initiates implementing its foreign policy more forcefully against the current totalitarian state in Azerbaijan. Some scholarships in Van Gils (2019) intend to predict scenarios of how this relationship will progress further.

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