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This book studies transnational influences on political parties. The author takes on the momentous task of studying why, how and with what effects political parties in Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Moldova) and the South Caucasus (Georgia) cooperate with Europarties.

As such, the book addresses three under-researched dimensions. First, it examines political parties in the post-Soviet countries in order to then understand the Europeanisation of political parties in the Eastern neighbourhood. At present there is hardly any literature on cooperation between national parties and Europarties. Second, the study is particularly important because there is relatively little written on political parties in the post-Soviet countries. Third, there is hardly any comparative literature on political parties across the post-Soviet space because most academic literature deals with single countries. The author therefore faced the formidable challenge of simultaneously researching parties themselves in order to gain an insight into the extent to which their cooperation with the Europarties impacted on them and how the impact differed across the countries, thereby developing comparative insights. In doing so, the book delivers on its promise to provide “cross-national, cross-partisan and cross-dimensional perspectives”. This is a new research pathway in European Studies as it analyses “Europeanisation beyond enlargement” with a new set of EU and domestic actors.

Rather than a “blanket” change, the study can observe gradual forms of change in the process of selective and strategic engagement of domestic actors with external actors leads to a non-systemic impact. These complex modalities of change pose a considerable challenge for gauging the actual extent of, and mechanisms accounting for, “Europeanisation beyond enlargement”. Cooperation with Europarties seems to enhance domestic processes but cannot compensate for the weakness of the domestic parties and volatility of the party system as such.

This book encompasses a great deal of research and delivers a set of strong and well-documented findings. To her credit, Maria Shagina does not shy away from a full recognition of the complexity of the findings and embraces it with a scholarly scrutiny. This is an ambitious, extensive and original study, which—despite or rather its sobering findings—pushes the frontiers of the debates on Europeanisation.

Kataryna Wolczuk

University of Birmingham, May 2017