With the end of the Cold War, states and international organisations have
systematically mainstreamed good governance in their development strategies
for third countries. The European Union is no exception. The promotion of good
governance ranks particularly high in the EU’s “near abroad”, which has become
a focal point for EU foreign policy making since the 2004/2006 enlargement
rounds. This paper seeks to systematically compare the EU’s approach to
promoting good governance in the Southern Caucasus. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and
Georgia are equally marked by bad governance. Arbitrary rule and pervasive
corruption are common in all three countries. Nonetheless, they significantly
vary with regard to the degree of statehood, and the quality of the political
regime. Our aim is to explore to what extent these variations have affected
the EU’s strategy of promoting good governance. Looking at the European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), a rather recent policy framework, we seek to give
some answers to the question whether the EU sticks to a “one-size-fits-all”
approach, or whether it has started to practice some differential treatment
