Unia Europejska, demokratyzacja, społeczeństwo obywatelskie, Mołdawia

Conditionality is one of the main instruments for international actors to influence the democratization process in target states. However, in the research on EU conditionality, there has been an inattention to the study of political conditionality without accession prospects. Moreover, one European country has been structurally forgotten or ignored. This country is the Republic of Moldova. This thesis analyses the impact of EU conditionality on the democratization process of Moldova. Moldova provides us with an interesting case study of how EU democratic conditionality works in a country that is in the process of democratization, but has not been offered accession prospects. In order to limit the scope of research, the focus will be on civil society participation. The research has led to three conclusions. First, a change has occurred in EU conditionality in Moldova. The EU conditionality has changed to association conditionality, due to a change in external incentives and credibility that the EU offers. Secondly, the situation in Moldova with regards to democratization has improved since 2009. This leads to the third conclusion, that this change can be linked to the impact of EU conditionality.