Geoffrey Pridham

University of Bristol | UB · School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies

The European Union has a unique opportunity to develop a positive strategy towards Ukraine. A pro-EU government is now in power in Kyiv, there is a revived civil society pressing for democratic reforms and the actions by Russia have both reinforced Ukraine’s pro-West line and led to the priority given Moscow being questioned by some member states....

The activity of the Europarties in promoting party development in post-Communist Europe has been viewed as their most impressive achievement to date. This article sets out and applies a comparative framework for analysing this activity, looking at both the general scope for party-building in new democracies and their actual record in Central and Ea...

Recent political developments in Ukraine call into question its democratisation process. For this reason, it is important to consider EU relations with that country as offering a possible protection against full democratic inversion. Two problems are considered: the continuity of EU policy towards Kyiv; and, the scope for EU influence in furthering...

Recent developments in post-communist Europe and Latvia in particular have raised questions about political stability in new democracies there. This article argues for taking a long-term perspective on this problem in place of short-term judgments. In doing so, it makes special reference to the EU's political conditionality and its impacts on Latvi...

The state of democracy in post-communist Europe has been subject to some debate in recent years; but it needs to take account of longer-term trends. The focus here is on how far the EU's political conditionality has contributed to democratic consolidation using an in-depth case study of post-Soviet Latvia. The record of the impacts of conditionalit...

What is special about twenty years in national political history? It is of course fashionable in historical circles to divide national development into decades which are a convenient slice of time, although the accompanying tendency to characterise each decade as having a particular character does run the risk of exaggeration in distinguishing one...

The European Union faces unprecedented difficulties in its integration of the Western Balkans in terms of the requirements for change by countries in that region wishing to join. In order to meet this challenge, the EU’s political conditionality has moved significantly beyond its demands made on the post-Communist entrants of 2004 and 2007. But its...

The EU's political conditions have been a consistent and at times salient element in the accession process, since Brussels enlarged their scope and tightened procedures from the mid-1990s. But so far little attention has been given to post-accession compliance with these conditions. This is important, for while the European Commission no longer mon...

The EU's political conditionality during the 2004 enlargement process recorded significant progress but imperfect implementation. But what has happened since post-Communist countries joined the EU three years ago now that the leverage of Brussels has ceased? This article develops an analytical approach to answer this question and applies it to the...

Political elites are a crucial explanatory factor in European integration, as may be seen especially in the area of EU accession, as the case of Romania reveals. The deployment of political conditionality by the EU – indicating that the country would not be admitted to EU membership unless certain political conditions were met, evoked positive resp...

European Union (EU) enlargement to Central & Eastern Europe is commonly, and to a large extent rightly, seen as an asymmetrical process. And, as with the EU's political conditions, the dynamics of accession are decisive in driving forward compliance by candidate countries. However, the limitations on Brussels over this conditionality are less notic...

There is growing attention to problems of European Union (EU) legitimacy and, in particular, the lack of affective links between the political elites engaged in integration and public opinion. Political parties are in an influential position for helping to solve this problem. With the EU's largest ever enlargement in May 2004, it is important to es...

Post-accession compliance is addressed with respect to the EU's political conditions which were monitored regularly during the accession process. The satisfaction of these was crucial to both opening negotiations and eventually granting membership. The case of Romania is significant for various reasons, for it was commonly regarded as the ‘laggard’...

The EU's political conditionality has been a powerful although not always effective instrument for promoting democratic standards in accession countries. It has exploited the leverage that Brussels enjoys over them because a failure to comply can call EU entry into question. However, because of domestic constraints the implementation of the conditi...

The EU's political conditionality has acquired increasing importance with successive enlargements; this also goes for the period since 2004 compared with that before. The focus here is on change and continuity in conditionality policy with respect to its aims, approach, and priorities. The article presents and applies a three-dimensional analysis c...

ELECTIONINS THE FEDERAL STATES ( Länder ) OF WEST GERMANY are frequently interpreted as indicators of national political opinion in much the same way as by-elections in Britain are examined for pointers to trends in the fortunes of the major political parties. Similar factors seem to operate in both cases: a general swing against the party in offic...

To what extent has environmental administration in Europe been shaped by common secular forces or by distinctive national contexts? Middle range theories of the policy process suggest competing answers to this question, with some implying the likelihood of convergence in administrative structures and others suggesting persistent national distinctiv...

Democratic Transition and Consolidation in Southern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia, edited by Diane Ethier. Macmillan, Basingstoke and London, 1990. xii+280 pp. £37.50. ISBN 0–333–52128–5.

The broad theme is the relationship between the EU accession process up to 2004 and democratic consolidation in Central & Eastern Europe. The particular focus is on the EU's political conditions for candidate countries and their systemic impacts on the new democracies of CEE. This theme is explored applying theoretical and comparative lessons from...

The role of political elites is an important theme in the study of EU enlargement; but how this relates to domestic politics is often neglected. This theme is applied to Romania, with a focus on the problems of implementing the EU’s political conditions. Firstly, attention is given to the conditionality policy adopted by Brussels with respect to Ro...

EU influence in encouraging and promoting democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe has been extensive, though in a wide rather than deep sense. But, as shown by the enlargement process up to 2004, accession dynamics are the crucial force driving governments in the region to meet the EU's political conditionality. Despite the latter's...

Conventional coalition theories have applied only to formal or executive coalitions and have tended to be very one-dimensional in their approach. They do not do justice to the strongly informal element in Italian coalitional behaviour, where a multi-dimensional framework of analysis is required. Because of Italy's system as a partitocrazia the key...

Designing Democracy is the first systematic and in-depth study of the effects of the EU's democratic conditionality, originally set out in the Copenhagen conditions of 1993, on the new political systems of Central and Eastern Europe. Using new material drawn from extensive elite interviews in several of these countries as well as in Brussels, the b...

The period since the early 1990s has proved to be a new era in democratic conditionality (DC) across the world. A wide range of different international organisations and agencies have adopted or developed it further. And there is the influential role played by some of these organisations but also international non-governmental organisations (NGOs)...

While national governments in candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been the key gatekeepers in determining the implementation of the EU’s democratic conditionality, they have nevertheless acted under domestic constraints while subject to direct pressure from Brussels. Within this interactive dynamic, the filtering role of intermed...

It is sometimes maintained that distinguishing between Europeanisation and democratisation is really impossible.1 But that overstates the problem if one accepts that: (a) the two processes are autonomous and originally separate for post-Communist democratisation commenced in 1989-90 before integration impinged seriously over accession; and (b) a di...

It has for long been held that European integration facilitates, encourages and promotes democratic consolidation in countries engaging with it and undergoing regime change. This belief is widely held in EU institutions and among governments and parties of member states as well as among political and economic elites in states seeking admission to t...

The ‘triumph of democracy’ is a contested term when applied to the changed global environment from the early 1990s, suggesting a somewhat simplistic and arrogant view of events; but in one way it is perhaps applicable. The undoubted growth in democracy promotion (DP) and democratic conditionality (DC) in this recent and current period underlines th...

This article focuses on the key influence of international organizations, and specifically the European Union, in the process of democratization in central and eastern European (CEE) states. It argues that the process of accession to the EU by these post-communist states undergoing regime change, including the pressure to conform to the EU's pre-me...

There are two salient features of the referendums on EU membership in Estonia and Latvia. Firstly, the results with decisive pro-EU majorities went easily beyond expectations based on previous opinion poll trends, where these two Baltic states had shown less public enthusiasm for integration than other Central and East European countries. This fact...

The Concept of ‘Critical Elections’ is Justifiably Used in Two eventualities: when there is a significant turning-point arising from a particular election, such as dramatic changes in party strengths which are subsequently consolidated and affect the structure of the party system (e.g. the replacement of one party by another as major opposition or...

Coalition behaviour in new democracies is an unexplored area of investigation despite much rich material in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Established coalition theory is relevant to such research, but it needs to adapt to special problems found in new regimes undergoing transition and not yet consolidated. In general, coalition politic...

Developments over the past two-and-a-half years since the change of power in Slovakia in 1998 indeed suggest this event was a turning-point both in the country's relations with the EU and in its own democratisation path. It is clear, too, that these two basic questions are closely linked and that Brussels' demands of democratic conditionality have...

European integration's impact on democratization in post-authoritarian societies has usually been considered in the academic literature to be of significance in the long term, in helping to firm up regime consolidation. It is important, however, to consider impacts which come earlier through the accession process. This is shown by focusing on the i...

Over the last thirty years, the European Union has created a system of environmental governance in Europe. With a large number of legislative measures, the EU's environmental policy is broad in scope, extensive in detail and often stringent in effect. Environmental governance also extends to the ways in which decision making on environmental policy...

The importance of international factors is generally underrated in the study of political parties. At the same time, there is a case for considering they are especially influential in new democracies, as opportunities often open up for outside involvement. The paper applies the concepts of "convergence" and "conditionality" to European Union relati...

The politics of tourism is hardly developed as an area of academic and specialist concern. In political science, tourism rarely if ever makes its presence felt as a serious scholarly subject even though the role of government in tourism is vital involving coordination, planning, regulation, stimulation and also that of entrepreneur (Hall 1994: chap...

The study of EU enlargement has not paid sufficient attention to domestic impacts in accession countries and how these might complicate the process. The arguments for looking at this problem are greater than ever before given the EU is more demanding of such countries over prior conditions and the scope and degree of European policy implementation...

Historical factors have more often been assumed than explored in democratization studies. Their importance has been acknowledged broadly in reference to matters of change and continuity, including the effects of predecessor dictatorships on transition trajectories. But historical factors can have varied and sometimes persistent influences on the de...

Since entry to the EU is a lengthy and elaborate process, it allows ample time to observe the practice of democratic conditions in what must be still unconsolidated new regimes. This period invariably lasts around a decade, although conceivably in the case of some countries from Central and Eastern Europe more time may elapse before accession is ac...

The European Union's Fifth Environmental Action Programme of 1992 was a significant step in promoting sustainable development. The EAP's effect on national governmental policies is examined in three Mediterranean member states where tourism is a major industry ‐ Italy, Spain and Greece. These countries' embrace of the concept of sustainable develop...

The southern European member states of the European Union have acquired a reputation for being ‘laggards’ in the implementation of environmental legislation. This is to some extent justified, but it is also exaggerated. Such a view, which poses a North/South dichotomy, ignores general problems of implementation in the EU and takes little notice of...

Greece has been criticised for having ‘no environmental policy’. This is not true, and has not been for over a decade. Clearly, EU membership since 1981 is a major reason for this change. But Greek environmental policy is in many ways flawed, and it is still deeply affected by not only the inheritance of serious environmental degradation but also p...

The significance of factionalism for democratization is established by starting with the general importance of political parties in that process. It follows that any positive or negative influence by factionalism on their performance at this formative stage is likely to affect the prospects for democratization. The problem is approached three‐dimen...

The Greek coalitions of 1989–90 were unusual by comparative European standards, given their political composition and ideological span. But, above all, they were significant as an historical departure in Greek politics, however much political expediency lay behind their formation. Coalitions are as such almost unknown in postwar Greece, and one‐par...

There is a revived and increasing interest in the explanatory power of the ‘linkage politics’ approach, an approach that focuses on the relationship and particularly the interaction between domestic political processes and foreign or defence policy-making. It also reflects what Hanrieder has called ‘a new convergence of international and domestic p...

While it is assumed that the new regimes in Spain, Greece and Portugal are fully liberal democratic, the question of their consolidation remains to be assessed. Although this raises problems about the nature of that process, focusing on the role of political parties provides a crucial means for determining the extent to which democratic consolidati...

List of illustrations List of tables Notes on the contributors Preface 1. An inductive theoretical framework for coalitional behaviour: political parties in multi-dimensional perspective in Western Europe Geoffrey Pridham 2. Between theoretical elegance and political reality: deductive models and cabinet coalitions in Europe Michael Laver 3. Changi...

There is a paradox in Italy’s position towards the EC. While she has long been one of the most pro-European — if not the most pro-European — member states, as measured by polls on attitudes to European integration and by views of political élites, the concerns behind this pro-Europeanism are at least on the part of the latter first and foremost dom...

Western European Party Systems: Continuity and Change. Edited by Hans Daalder and Peter Mair. London: Sage Publications, 1983. Pp.465. £22.95.Modelli di partito: organizzazione e potere nei partiti politici. By Angelo Panebianco. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982. Pp.505. L.25,000.Die Volkspartei: Typus und Wirklichkeit. By Alf Mintzel. Opladen: Westdeutsch...

The Centre-Right and International Affairs - Morgan Roger and Silvestri Stefano (eds) : Moderates and Conservatives in Western Europe: Political Parties, the European Community and the Atlantic Alliance, London, Heinemann Educational Books, 1982, 280 pp., £14.50. - Volume 19 Issue 1 - Geoffrey Pridham

The term ‘transnational party cooperation’ is that commonly applied to the activity in the European Economic Community (EEC), whereby political parties of the same ideological tendency from different member countries seek to harmonise and present their European-policy positions.1 It is understood that this activity is conducted within the framework...

The DCs development from the mid‐1970s is examined in the light of its overall characteristics as a political party. A sceptical viewpoint is expressed about its prospects for change, in spite of talk of party reform since 1975 under Zaccagnini's secretaryship, if only because the ‘historic compromise’ confirms the DCs governing role even though in...