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Transnationalization and Regulatory Change in the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood: Ukraine between Brussels and Moscow

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Abstract

Regulatory reforms in the EU's Eastern neighbourhood countries are not as sluggish as often perceived. Rule enforcement is happening despite the presence of domestic veto players who favour the status quo, the lack of EU membership perspective and the presence of Russia as an alternative governance provider. Using Ukraine as a primary case study, this bookexamines why convergence with transnational market rules varies across different policy sectors within the Eastern neighbourhood countries. It analyzes the drivers of regulatory change and explores the conditions under which post-Soviet economies integrate with international markets. In doing so, it argues that the impetus for regulatory change in the Eastern neighbourhood lies in specific strategies of domestic empowerment applied by external actors. Furthermore, through the study of the impact of Western and Russian transnational actors, the book concludes that Russia's presence does not necessarily hinder the integration of the EU's Eastern neighbours with international markets. Instead, Russia both weakens and strengthens domestic support for convergence with transnational market rules in the region. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of European/EU studies and international relations, especially in the areas of regulatory politics, transnational governance, public policy, and post-Soviet transitions.

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... The main underlying logic behind EU external governance has been reliance on functional policy spill-over. Such spill-overs range from policy fields such as trade (Delcour 2016;Langbein 2015), migration and mobility Guérin and Rittberger 2020), and antidiscrimination (Axyonova, Cenuşa, and Gawrich 2020), to environmental or energy policies (Buzogány 2018b;Buzogány and Costa 2009;Kurze and Göler 2020;Mišić and Obydenkova 2021;Nazarov and Obydenkova 2021;Nizhnikau 2018;Shyrokykh 2021a;Wolczuk 2016). ...
... EU policies might alter domestic power equilibria by empowering some groups over others. For instance, exportoriented Ukrainian business actors interested in accessing the EU internal market became important bottom-up forces supporting convergence toward EU rules (Langbein 2015). ...
... Finally, the deployment of EU policies also takes place through networks of non-state actors. The emphasis in the literature has been on networks of business actors interested in regulatory harmonization (Langbein 2015;Turkina and Postnikov 2014) or their reliance on private governance schemes (Buzogány 2016). ...
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Civil society networks have received little attention when it comes to sectoral analysis of adaptation of EU rules beyond borders. This article offers a remedy by conceptualizing EU influence as an opportunity structure, a resource, and a discursive frame used by civil society organizations. Empirically, it describes how EU rules are used to support environmental reforms by civil society networks in Georgia and Ukraine. Civil society activism and mobilization can lead to high levels of policy approximation despite weak sectoral conditionality, entrenched domestic interests, and low public salience.
... These growing bodies of literature suggest that external actors can both support and undermine transformations. We know that the EU or the US do not always promote and protect OAO transitions, while illiberal powers, such as Russia or China, do not necessarily oppose and impair such changes (Börzel 2015;Langbein 2015;Obydenkova and Libman 2015). This insight is key for analysing the EU's transformative power in the Eastern neighbourhood, since the EU is not the only game in town, as it used to be in the context of the Eastern enlargement. ...
... Their domestic embeddedness in personal clientelist networks is likely to prevent them from perceiving the adaptation of their markets and political institutions to European standards as a benefit. On the contrary, from their perspective, greater transparency and accountability may undermine opportunities for rent-seeking and threaten their power and wealth (Dimitrova and Dragneva 2013;Langbein 2015;Solonenko and Shapovalova 2011). ...
... On the one hand, political and economic integration with the EU imposes costs, which not all public and private actors are likely to embrace given their limited capacity either to implement and comply with EU rules or reap the benefits of living by them (Delcour and Wolczuk 2013;Langbein 2015). On the other hand, closer relations with the EU have been undermined by an increasingly illiberal and hostile Russia whose leadership is manipulating economic, security and societal interdependencies with the EaP to undermine their rapprochement to the EU (Delcour and Wolczuk 2013; Dragneva and Wolczuk 2014; Dragneva-Lewers and Wolczuk 2015). ...
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This article introduces a special issue that investigates the interplay between domestic socio-political orders and changing external influences – of the EU, Russia, Turkey and other external actors in the region. In this introduction, we lay the conceptual framework and propose theoretical mechanisms linking state capacity and the actions of external actors to the likelihood of transformations from limited to open access orders. Previewing the findings, we note a fundamental asymmetry: while external actors have many levers to undermine the establishment of an open access order, they are more limited in how they can support reforms towards liberal democracy and free-market economy.
... Asymmetrical trade liberalisation between the EU and Ukraine started as early as 1993 when Ukraine became a beneficiary of the Generalized System of Preferences. As a result, the EU massively reduced import tariffs on Ukrainian machinery and most industrial goods (Langbein 2015). Trade liberalisation between the EU and Ukraine took pace when Ukraine became a member of the WTO in 2008. ...
... Slow liberalisation of EU-Ukraine trade in dairy following Ukraine's WTO accession did hardly incentivise Ukrainian dairy plants to comply with EU food safety standards. 11 Ukraine's dairy exports to the EU were thus close to zero until 2014 (Langbein 2015). Yet, following an abrupt contraction of dairy exports to Russia and other CIS countries after 2014 and a further decline in EU tariffs and quotas imposed on Ukrainian dairy imports in the course of the DCFTA, growing approximation of Ukrainian food quality legislation to the relevant EU acquis made the re-orientation to the EU market possible. ...
... 11. While in 2000, the EU imposed an import tariff of 93% on Ukrainian dairy products, the tariff was reduced to 25% following Ukraine's accession to the WTO (Langbein 2015). 12. Notably, Ukraine's dairy market is not highly concentrated: The top-10 large companies share did not exceed 10% each in 2017 (Latifundist.com ...
Article
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How does trade liberalisation shape post-Soviet Limited Access Orders (LAOs) where dominant elites restrict access to political and economic resources for the sake of private gains? By drawing on the case of trade liberalisation between the EU and Ukraine, this paper argues that in post-Soviet LAOs the effect of trade liberalisation largely depends on the quality of the pre-existing alliance between political and economic elites in exporting sectors. The findings imply that external trading partners wishing to promote economic and political opening must not ignore the ownership structure of key exporting sectors and the involvement of these key owners in rent-seeking practices. Otherwise, trade liberalisation helps to ensure the durability of LAOs.
... The literature (Börzel and Schimmelfennig 2016) has consistently confirmed the importance of EU membership as a necessary, yet insufficient, condition for triggering substantial change on a polity level, i.e. in democracy and governance in particular. Research on policy level change is scarce, but offers a more optimistic prospect (Ademmer 2015;Delcour 2017;Langbein 2015). This was reinforced by the findings of the MAXCAP project 2 regarding compliance (Börzel and Sedelmeier 2016): Domestic change may take place if consistent compliance monitoring is applied, even when, in the absence of a membership perspective for EaP countries, the rewards for compliance from the EU are limited. ...
... The recent literature on acquis implementation in this area, in line with the Europeanization approach, underlines the importance of a 'fit' or resonance with domestic structure, which would include the preferences and interests of domestic actors (Langbein, 2015;Delcour 2017;Batory et al. 2018). Delcour (2017), for example, argues that domestic congruence was the main factor beyond Armenia's compliance with food safety and visa facilitation regulations. ...
... However, we also note that the combined effects of strong policy-specific conditionality and encompassing capacity building targeting state and non-state actors can result in an encompassing adoption and implementation of EU rules, even if domestic incentives for law harmonization are low (Langbein 2015).Low domestic resonance and high costs, combined with limited EU rewards and weak EU conditionality are expected to translate into very selective adoption and implementation of the EU acquis. However, monitoring reports (especially those conducted by the European Commission) highlight significant progress in these areas (even if the progress varies across countries and sub-sectors). ...
Conference Paper
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In our paper we look at the conditions for a successful transfer of the EU rules in the associated EaP countries in the areas of transport, environment and energy. We assume that in these areas there are fewer indirect external benefits of implementing EU rules than in the areas of trade and visa free regime, and that the adoption of these rules should depend more on their direct relevance to the governments of associated countries. Our review of law harmonization in all three countries is complemented by three in-depth case studies in all three areas. They offer an in-depth analysis of how EU standards and templates travel to this neighbourhood by delving into their adoption and implementation and assessing to degree to which they fit with governmental priorities. The first case study considers transport and the implementation of road safety directive (2009/40/EC) in just one country, Georgia, where this implementation proved challenging. Another case concerns two countries and focuses on the role of an environmental impact assessment regulation in a discussion between Ukraine and Moldova regarding the possible construction of hydropower plants on the Dniester river. In the area of energy, we focus on unbundling in the electricity sector in all three associated countries. Our main finding is that transposition and implementation in these areas is patchy, but better than expected. It is mainly because there is an on-going informal adjustment of the AA, reducing the scope of the commitments taken. While this informal adjustment helps to lighten the burden of law harmonization and facilitates transfer of the EU acquis, it does not seem to follow any blueprint, and thus creates uncertainty over future regulation among different stakeholders.
... This paper introduces a distinction between shallow and deep EU integration regimes. The adjectives 'deep' and 'shallow' refer to differences in the goals and means of integration (on deep and shallow integration see also Stark et al. 2006;Bohle/Greskovits 2007;Langbein 2015a). In the deep mode of integration, trade liberalization is combined with encompassing regulatory integration in a large number of interlinked policy fields that extends to the transformation of economic state capacities buttressed by encompassing support programs targeting the capacities of diverse public and private actors. ...
... The first one is a passive one and constant across all the peripheries of the EU: the pull of the EU market ('Brussels effect' in Bradford 2012 (Bradford 2012;Langbein 2015a). It may also activate multinationals to become agents for rule convergence if that helps them to reap the benefits of opening production facilities in peripheral markets, exploit lower production costs and thereby increase their competitiveness on the EU market. ...
... The Developmental Impact of the EU Integration Regime | 11 regulatory norms. While hierarchical imposition of non-negotiable policies and rules is encompassing visà-vis actual and aspiring member states and covers all the rules and policies that are mandatory for the members of the EU, the negotiated integration used to be selective and partial vis-à-vis the neighbourhood countries (Langbein/Wolczuk 2012;Langbein/Börzel 2013;Langbein 2015a). ...
Technical Report
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How do diverse EU strategies used to integrate less developed economies in the Eastern peripheries of Europe effect local development? Introducing the distinction between ‘shallow’ and ‘deep’ EU integration regimes, we compare the evolution of the automotive sectors in four European countries (Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and Turkey). We show that diverse EU modes of integrating potential member states and economies without the clear prospect of membership create very different constraints and opportunities for developmental pathways. The shallow mode of integration used for countries lacking a (credible) membership perspective combines trade liberalization and selective rule imposition with very little assistance. It results in rather divergent developmental pathways for the EU ‘outsiders’ – depending on the stronger or weaker capacities of the domestic public and private actors. In contrast, we found that the deep mode of integration used for would be member states created more opportunities for convergence towards competitive industries, even in countries with weak initial domestic capacities. Our insights imply that encompassing deep integration may yield not only superior developmental results, but may also increase the potential for further economic integration. In the shallow mode of integration the EU may, however, loose support for European integration among rule taking countries once citizens realize they cannot count on measures mitigating and/or compensating for present economic hardships. In countries like Ukraine, the EU therefore risks to become a factor of economic and political destabilization.
... Bargained and limited trade liberalization was combined in this mode of integration with some progress in regulatory integration in selected policy fields without any considerable assistance for capacity building among public and private actors. As the states of the ENC were controlled by rent-seeking groups and were weak in terms of their regulatory capacities, the actual scope of market integration was slow and selective reflecting the interests of the strongest players and stabilizing their power position (Dimitrova and Dragneva 2013;Langbein 2015Langbein , 2016. ...
... All in all, the flexibility offered under the shallow mode of integration was first and foremost beneficial for rent-seeking ruling elites in the ENC for whom á la carte integration served as an opportunity to stabilize their power base. For example, starting in the mid-2000s Ukrainian oligarchs supported the adoption of EU conform shareholder rights to get access to stock markets in the EU (Langbein 2015), but strongly opposed the adoption of EU state aid regulation as the latter would undermine rent-extraction in the form of direct payments, state guarantees for loans or tax incentives in sectors, such as coal mining, gas or steel, owned by various oligarchic groups (Dimitrova and Dragneva 2013). ...
... The EU financed Twinning and technical assistance programs to support state restructuring but without much consideration for assisting state bureaucrats in developing mid-or long-term strategies to prepare their economies for free trade with the EU (Langbein 2016). Moreover, as Langbein (2015) has shown for Ukraine, state restructuring efforts were not flanked by corresponding firm-level assistance to support local industries with the adjustment. ...
Article
In contrast to the post-1945 integration of Western Europe in the global economic system, coined by John Ruggie as embedded liberalism, the integration of the Eastern peripheries happens in the framework of a new liberal regional settlement. The latter takes large parts of the management of the economy out of the hands of the states and compensates the dis-embedding of markets from national control to various degrees. This paper compares the European Union's integration approach taken during the Eastern enlargement with the EU approach towards Eastern neighborhood countries. We argue that the EU has different goals and means for the management of its different peripheries resulting in deep, deep-light and shallow modes of economic integration. We show that differences in political and economic interdependencies between the EU and the two Eastern peripheries explain the variation in integration strategies, and that each of them has its own weaknesses in terms of developmental effects.
... Russia's policies may inadvertently support policy changes as advocated by the EU, even under conditions of high interdependence (Ademmer forthcoming; Delcour and Wolczuk 2015a;Langbein 2015). Our findings strongly indicate that Russia and the EU jointly shape various sectoral outcomes in NCs. ...
... Recent research has shown that EU policy conditionality and its Russian functional equivalent canjointly with the policy preferences of incumbent elitesexplain a decent amount of formal and de facto policy changes in some policy areas and selected NCs (Ademmer forthcoming). In addition, Russiabased companies can also provide further capacity and incentives to domestic actors in NCs in support of convergence with EU standards (Langbein 2015). It has also been argued that some forms of Russian pressure increase the need for domestic changes and hence incentivize the adoption of EU templates (Ademmer 2015;Hagemann 2013;Langbein 2013). ...
... They find that domestic incumbents cherry-pick and use multiple offers by external state or state-connected actors to further their domestic agendas; for example, in sovereigntysensitive areas in Georgia and Armenia (Ademmer forthcoming) and in Moldova(Hagemann 2013). Others also find that strategies pursued by both EU and Russia are crucial in empowering domestic state and non-state actors for enacting sectoral change in Ukraine in "low politics" areas, such as economic, trade-related or social affairs(Langbein 2015).The results of this special issue corroborate these findings for a variety of additional issue areas and shed further light on the importance and the diversity of domestic actors that are not only passive recipients, but active creators of domestic change, notwithstanding any geopolitical rivalry between the external actors. Vested business actors and their political affiliations matter especially in the areas of trade and natural resources. ...
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While the geopolitical rivalry between the European Union (EU) and Russia over their common neighborhood has increasingly attracted academic and public attention, relatively little is known of its actual influence on domestic institutions and policies. This special issue aims to address this deficit by investigating the joint impact of the EU and Russia on the domestic dynamics of sectoral reform in neighboring countries (NCs) – a key declared goal of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) – in the areas of trade, natural resources, and migration and mobility. It examines the nature of the instruments deployed by the EU and Russia to change domestic reform processes and their impact on domestic actors in the post-Soviet space. This introductory article outlines the key research questions to which answers have been sought by experts in their respective fields and summarizes their key empirical findings in the context of broader conceptual debates. Overall, the contributions to this special issue find a strong disconnect between participation in the EU’s or Russia’s macro-frameworks for regional integration and domestic sectoral reforms. We show that despite the increasing external competition over the post-Soviet space, domestic actors remain the key agents to account for the pattern of change in the contested neighborhood.
... The two country cases show the impact of EU regulation both within and outside the Union. Both countries are often regarded as weak, captured states and weak societies in the literature (Langbein 2015;Buzogány 2013;. In our case studies, we focus on explaining why illegal forest activities go unchecked and investigate the role played by administrative capacity and levels of compliance with regulations. ...
... Transnational coalitions and networks play an important role in this process as they can provide financial capital and technological innovation, offer access and attention or teach new norms or standards. International business networks promoting regulatory change and common standards often influence domestic government-business relations (Langbein 2015). Similarly, as highlighted in the literature on transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998), civil society can exert pressure on governments by reaching out to transnational networks of like-minded organisations or filing complaints at higher levels of governance that circumvent the national level. ...
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The European Union’s (EU) Green Deal gives increased attention to the sustainability of international product cycles by implementing ‘due diligence’ requirements. We examine the difficulties in the implementation of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) in two countries with weak management capacities such as Romania and Ukraine. We find that domestic and transnational civil society actors can support the implementation of due diligence requirements mainly by challenging the dominant position of private and state actors engaged in cutting deals with the EU-based wood industry, as well as contributing to increasing politicisation, raising awareness and public mobilisation.
... The aim of this article is to answer this question by combining the theoretical assumptions of LAO theory with insights from external democracy promotion and Europeanization research. By drawing on extensive research providing insights into the mechanisms and conditions of external influence and pointing to the evidence of the differential and sometimes unintended effects of promoting or undermining transformation reforms (see among others Dragneva-Lewers and Wolczuk 2015;Freyburg et al. 2011;Langbein 2015;Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2011;Levitsky and Way 2006;Schimmelfennig 2012;Tolstrup 2013), we seek to fill a gap in the academic literature regarding the obstacles that the EU's transformative agenda encounters in LAOs. In particular, we look at the susceptibility of domestic elites in EaP countries to transformation incentives, depending on the type of social order and its interplay with external actors with their particular strategies and patterns of interdependence. ...
... The analysis would be incomplete, however, without considering other external actors with interests in Belarus and Ukraine, as the EU is not the only actor that shapes policy change in the region (Langbein and Börzel 2013, 577). A considerable number of studies have been done on the effect of the competing external actors' influence on the promotion of the EU acquis in EaP countries (see among others Benkova, Rihtarić, and Tchakarova 2018;Dragneva-Lewers and Wolczuk 2015;Langbein 2015). The object of discussion is most often Russia (Jonavičius et al. 2019), although other players such as China are also considered to have significant interests (Popescu and Secrieru 2018). ...
Article
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We scrutinise key domestic actors in Belarus and Ukraine investigating under what conditions they are susceptible to external influences promoting opening. Although both countries can be characterised as limited access orders, they differ in their domestic structures as well as external relations. Compared to Belarus, Ukraine is characterised by more intense political and economic competition, significantly more active opposition groups, and more developed institutionalised relations with the EU. Notwithstanding, we find that Ukrainian actors have not always been more susceptible to external actors promoting open access institutions, while Belarusian actors are more susceptible to external actors promoting economic competition than assumed.
... Ukraine's movement toward European integration emphasized cross-border cooperation (CBC). This referred to joint action aimed at developing economic, social, scientific, technical, environmental, cultural and other relations between local communities and their representative bodies, local executive authorities and relevant authorities of neighboring states within competences defined by respective national legislation (Law of Ukraine 2004, 2015. The Law of Ukraine on CBC defines its basic concepts, purposes and principles, as well as organisational and governmental forms of support. ...
... According to scholarly research, the greater the density of interaction, the more likely it will generate behavioral change on the part of domestic actors, with outsiders working through informal coalitions and acting as the glue that brings together the domestic players that shape their reform preferences ( Schimmelefennig and Sedelmeier 2005;Langbein 2015). There is no shortage of regional cooperation initiatives in the Carpathian Euroregion. ...
Article
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Cross-border cooperation among the Eastern neighbours of the European Union can be understood as a new approach to public policy and border governance in the region. There was no border cooperation strategy between communist and European countries during Soviet times. The question of the management of the Eastern border of the EU, especially with Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, came on the agenda in 1997, when accession to the union was finally opened to Eastern and Southern European candidates. With the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement that came into force in 1998, Ukraine signalled its foreign policy orientation as European, asserting that Western integration would help modernize its economy, increase living standards, and strengthen democracy and rule of law. The European Commission required “good neighbourly relations” as a further condition for accession and in conjunction, the concept of “Wider Europe” was proposed to set up border-transcending tasks. The Carpathian Euroregion was established to contribute to strengthening the friendship and prosperity of the countries of this region. However, the model was not fully understood and had only limited support of the national governments. This article uses the Carpathian Euroregion as a case study to show that overall Ukraine and the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood presents more opportunities for effective cooperation with the EU rather than barriers or risks.
... They prove to be dyadic: Either by choice or by bad luck, many states share some kind of affiliations in different regional integrations projects at the same time. While the issue of overlapping integration has received substantial attention in the economic study of integration (Chacha 2014), different branches of political science, such as international relations (Panke and Stapel 2018), security policy (Mayer 2017) or political economy (Langbein 2015; have discovered the relevance of this question only recently, partly triggered by the negative implications of such overlaps as witnessed in the case of Ukraine after 2013 (Ademmer, Delcour, and Wolczuk 2016;Tulmets, Vieira, and Ferreira-Pereira 2018). ...
... At the same time, the variety of approaches used by Russia and the EU to promote RIPs might cloud our view on the common traits of the two concurring Eurasian regional integrations projects (Vinokurov and Libman 2013). Adding to this, policy experts suggest that overlapping RIPs do not need to be a zero-sum games and show that in some cases Russia was helpful in bringing Western norms into the post-soviet periphery (Langbein 2015). This paper analyses one aspect of overlapping regional integration which received relatively little attention: public opinion regarding different RIPs. ...
Article
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Political elites often construct dichotomous images of foreign policy choices. This paper is interested in how overlapping regional integration projects such as the European Union or the Russia-initiated Eurasian Economic Union are regarded by the larger public. Based on survey data, the paper analyses foreign policy orientations in Georgia, a country that has been considered as one of the most strongly pro-Western nations in the post-soviet world. The paper finds that despite having idealistic pro-European foreign policy elites, a substantial part of the Georgian population does in fact pragmatically supports closer ties with Russia and with the European Union at the same time. Several explanatory factors for the different foreign policy choices are proposed, of which identity- and interest-based ones prove to be most important.
... This study develops two EU ideal type strategies combining studies of EU impact on proliferation of transnational rules and their effect on transformation of domestic organisations (Langbein 2015;Bruszt and McDermott 2014) with studies of the political economy problem in the developing countries (see , Jacoby 2000;Easterly 2006) to identify how the external policies engage with domestic institutions. These strategies are defined as 'outcome-oriented' and 'process-oriented', based on the degree of access to rulemaking and extent of empowerment of various stakeholders. ...
... Broad empowerment offers opportunity to create non-elite organisations, build broader coalitions of domestic (and external) reformers and mutually monitor new rules (Aspinwall 2009(Aspinwall , 2013Jacoby 2008). As underlined by Langbein (2015), most domestic actors lack capacity to pursue and defend their interests. They also lack resources to engage in problem-solving. ...
Book
This book analyses the role of the European Union in the process of institutional change in its Eastern neighbourhood and explains why EU policies arrive at contradictory outcomes at the sectoral level. Combining EU studies approaches with insights from the fields of new institutionalism, international development studies and transnationalisation, it explains how the EU policies contribute to rule persistence or lead to institutional change. Highlighting the importance of investigating how the policies of external intervention interact with domestic institutions, the book also provides a coherent presentation of the political and economic problems of Ukraine and Moldova and a comparative analysis in key areas at critical junctures of their development. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European Union politics and more broadly to International Relations, post-Soviet and Russian studies.
... The aim of this article is to answer this question by combining the theoretical assumptions of LAO theory with insights from external democracy promotion and Europeanization research. By drawing on extensive research providing insights into the mechanisms and conditions of external influence and pointing to the evidence of the differential and sometimes unintended effects of promoting or undermining transformation reforms (see among others Dragneva-Lewers and Wolczuk 2015;Freyburg et al. 2011;Langbein 2015;Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2011;Levitsky and Way 2006;Schimmelfennig 2012;Tolstrup 2013), we seek to fill a gap in the academic literature regarding the obstacles that the EU's transformative agenda encounters in LAOs. In particular, we look at the susceptibility of domestic elites in EaP countries to transformation incentives, depending on the type of social order and its interplay with external actors with their particular strategies and patterns of interdependence. ...
... The analysis would be incomplete, however, without considering other external actors with interests in Belarus and Ukraine, as the EU is not the only actor that shapes policy change in the region (Langbein and Börzel 2013, 577). A considerable number of studies have been done on the effect of the competing external actors' influence on the promotion of the EU acquis in EaP countries (see among others Benkova, Rihtarić, and Tchakarova 2018;Dragneva-Lewers and Wolczuk 2015;Langbein 2015). The object of discussion is most often Russia (Jonavičius et al. 2019), although other players such as China are also considered to have significant interests (Popescu and Secrieru 2018). ...
... When analysing the involvement of external actors, the scholarly debate has mostly drawn on the domestic changes triggered by such actors. For instance, there is a large body of literature that assesses the impact of Europeanisation on various domestic policy sectors (Dimitrova & Dragneva 2013;Langbein 2015;Shyrokykh 2017aShyrokykh , 2017b. Meanwhile, Area Studies emphasise the crucial role of Russia in shaping domestic politics (Tolstrup 2009(Tolstrup , 2014(Tolstrup , 2015Way 2015;Risse & Babayan 2015). ...
... In fact, big business has often been the main driver of Europeanisation (Melnykovska & Schweickert 2008;Puglisi 2008). It is nevertheless important to note that some fragments of the Ukrainian business community acted as the most significant obstructers of Europeanisation, especially those representing sectors perceived to be negatively impacted by Europeanisation, and more in particular industries that usually relied on cheap Russian oil and gas (Dimitrova & Dragneva 2013;Langbein 2015). While various interest groups received substantive scholarly attention, the role of norms and values in shaping Ukraine's foreign policy has been explored less frequently. ...
Article
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By focusing on the role of, and interplay between, external actors and domestic factors, the present essay explores the evolution of Ukraine’s foreign policy. It argues that this policy has been shaped to a significant degree by positive and negative externalities, being a response to domestic developments as well as external challenges and opportunities. Acknowledging the importance of cost–benefit calculations by domestic actors, the essay does furthermore explore the role of norms and values in forming Ukraine’s foreign policy preferences.
... Such variation is accounted for both by resistance from domestic actors (rent-seeking practices in Ukraine, incompatible policy preferences in Georgia) and, to a lesser level, "disjunctures" between sector-specific EU demands and macro-level relations of those countries with Russia (i.e. the impact of Armenia's accession to the Eurasian Economic Union in the food safety area). Consequently, both studies assume that unsuccessful implementation is mainly voluntary (path dependencies or incompatible domestic interests) and tend to overshadow the involuntary side of non-implementation, something that has been examined in the case of EU candidate countries that lacked sufficient administrative capacity to comply with EU law (Hille and Knill 2006;Phinnemore 2003, 2004), and to a lesser extent in non-candidate countries (Delcour 2016;Langbein 2015;Langbein and Wolczuk 2012). Nevertheless, the Europeanization research agenda still has not proposed a systematic and comprehensive theoretical framework for factors affecting EU law implementation. ...
... At the same time, existing institutional settings for corporate transparency in transition countries, such as corporate governance laws and regulations or independent audits, are neither strong enough nor led by the public interest (Langbein, 2015;Love and Rachinsky, 2015;Mycyk et al., 2007). Furthermore, local public perceptions of agroholdings in transition economies are not necessarily negative (Mamonova, 2015;Stepanenko, 2006). ...
Article
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Large firms operating in underdeveloped institutional environments of transition economies tend to invest in seemingly unrewarded corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. To explain this phenomenon, we extend the literature on the motives behind CSR disclosure in agribusiness from the institutional perspective on organizational legitimacy. The thesis is that self-interest rationales for CSR disclosure, as advocated by the strategic-legitimacy perspective, fall short of explaining the full scope of instrumental motivations for the proactive and excessive transparency initiatives of agribusiness companies. Using the example of internationally listed Ukrainian agroholdings, we show that firms faced with institutions that do not appropriately support access to market transactions not only adapt to fluctuations in the business environment but also proactively address key institutional bottlenecks by engaging in higher transparency and nonmarket initiatives. The case study analysis of the voluntary CSR disclosure of four agroholdings is conducted based on in-depth interviews with corporate managers and complemented with information from corporate reports and websites. This analysis offers insights into the development of corporate farming and its economic and social repercussions in Ukraine and, more generally, expanding the concept of CSR itself.
... Some of those who research transfer have criticized this apparent EU-centrism, focusing their investigations on a single policy area in order to uncover non-EU influences in the Eastern neighborhood (Delcour 2017;Langbein 2015;Plugaru 2015). Other scholars have occasionally highlighted the "multilateral approach" of EU action, with the EU benefiting from support on the part of other international actors (Franke et al. 2010). ...
Chapter
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While most scholars studying Europeanization and transfer focus on the policy developments of the recent years, mostly when the European Union was actively involved in the transfer, this chapter begins the analysis with the independence of the Ukrainian state and the emergence of asylum policies and laws. Thanks to this longitudinal approach, the seemingly predominant role of the EU in the transfer of policies to its neighbors can be qualified, as it is shown that until 2010, the EU had only a weak influence on asylum policies in Ukraine – in contrast to UNHCR. However, during the sectoral (VLAP) conditionality of the EU between 2010 and 2015, the EU was the major driver of asylum reforms in Ukraine. This chapter further reveals the interrelatedness of the transfer activities of the EU and a UN agency, which has so far received little scholarly attention. Indeed, the EU depended on UNHCR for its monitoring of policy change, whereas UNHCR benefited from and encouraged the EU insistence on asylum reforms under the conditionality. Complementing the existing predominantly institutionalist analyses to transfer, this research underlines the role of international actors’ strategies and relations among themselves.
... In fact, 13 specific Russian actors may even work toward facilitating the adoption of EU templates. For instance, Russia's businesses and private actors sometimes support the adoption of EU templates if this serves their own interests (Langbein 2013(Langbein , 2015. Russia can also inadvertently push for the adoption of EU templates (Delcour and Wolczuk 2015b). ...
... External assistance has also been considered a horizontal participatory relationship between external and domestic actors. Criticising the study of vertical interactions between external and domestic actors that separated external and domestic decision-making arenas, political economy researchers stress the importance of horizontal cooperation between external and domestic actors (Bruszt/Holzhacker 2009;Langbein 2015). For political economists, domestic actors are not 'exogenous factors' of rule transfer, but play an active role in the implementation of externallydefined rules by being involved in transnational networks (for example, see Andonova/Tuta 2013), or cooperating with international companies within the enlarged European market (for example, see Blomström/Kokko 1993). ...
Article
In the late 1990s, European experts feared a stalemate in the EU accession negotiations with Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries because of the expected high costs of their compliance with the EU’s environmental legislation. This fear was not borne out, however, and it is now undoubted that EU assistance has enhanced environmental capacity-building and knowledge in these countries. Nevertheless, some reports have emphasised misallocations, planning failures and mismanagement of EU funds, characterised as the unsustainability of EU-funded environmental projects in a number of CEE countries. Why have some EU-funded projects been more sustainable than others? Which features have had an effect on their sustainability? The article investigates the relationship between European and domestic actors involved in EU-funded projects in municipal waste management in Hungary and Poland in the years 1998–2013. The main findings show that when decision-making participation was horizontal and cooperative between the EU and domestic actors, EU assistance to municipal waste projects was more successful and long-lasting in helping them comply with EU legislation.
... The success of the EU as a transformative power depends on a number of conditions, such as the possibility to include a membership perspective for the countries it tries to influence and the fit with preferences of local elites(Börzel and Ademmer 2013;Börzel and Lebanidze 2016;Dimitrova 2016). Even for candidate states, the power of the EU to induce domestic reforms is limited by domestic factors and in the case of the EU's Eastern neighbourhood, by Russia(Dimitrova and Dragneva 2009;Langbein 2015). ...
... To overcome this potentially biased perspective, it is important to evaluate alternative explanations that could account for the chosen outcome. While some attention has been given to transnational actors enabling local organisations (Bomberg 2007;Parau 2009;Langbein 2015), these relations are in general similarly unequal to those with the EU, consisting of experienced networks transferring their practice to domestic civil society actors and acting as powerful multipliers of their message. The relationship therefore remains one-sided, with an emphasis on capacity-building over lesson-sharing. ...
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This article investigates a particular form of civil society mobilisation in the EU accession process. Despite widely varying models of civil society inclusion across the Western Balkans, monitoring coalitions focused on rule of law issues have emerged in a majority of countries. Comparing the cases of Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, the article suggests that this phenomenon cannot be explained by external EU incentives alone, but is significantly shaped by the dynamics of transnational diffusion. The findings offer a fuller picture of the forces shaping civil society mobilisation in accession countries and hold important lessons for the EU's involvement in strengthening non-governmental organisations on the ground.
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This chapter summarises the contribution of this book to research on asylum policies, NGO-state relations, post-communist administration, and transfer. Diverse actors shape international transfer processes and outcomes. Some actors shift their role from norm addressees to norm promoters, and vice versa. As norm promoters they select, translate, and disseminate norms, choosing transfer methods, allies, and targets. As norm addressees, they express contestation or approval, resist or support, use and translate the norms. Engaging in multi-scalar activities, these transfer actors construct and renegotiate relations and scales, changing society and state beyond the normative effects of transfer. The practical effects of norm transfer are heterogeneous and unstable for several reasons. First, transfer involves numerous transfer actors who all enjoy leeway. Second, many of the multiple transfer approaches target individuals. Finally, top-down control over policy implementation is limited.KeywordsAsylumNGO-state relationsUkraineTransferScalesLeewayDiscretionResistanceBrokersInstabilityInformality
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This chapter analyses the main links of the multi-scalar transfer chain. International organisations transferred norms and delegated transfer tasks to Ukrainian non-governmental organisations, constructing an international scale as superior to the NGOs’ national a local scale. NGOs and IOs tried to transfer norms to domestic authorities. NGOs’ and IOs’ scalar relations with state authorities were complex and constantly renegotiated. Norm promoters interacted formally and informally with the state norm addressees, benefitting from their resources to build up personalised and increasingly informal contacts with officials. Some of these officials became brokers who transferred asylum norms to other officials. International transfer undertakings produced new transfer actors and networks and affected relations between NGOs and authorities. Normative effects of transfer were heterogeneous across actors and space and proved unstable over time. This is why norm promoters tried to use their contacts among decision makers to influence the production of formal rules.KeywordsDelegationUNHCRNGOsDonorsInteractionsSocialisationSeminarsInstabilityTurnoverInformalityFormal Rules
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ProZorro’s experience shows how state-of-the-art systemic reform can take place in a neopatrimonial setting. Politics matter for the establishment of a new institution but to function efficiently, the new institution must attain legitimacy. ProZorro’s ability to demonstrate early results lowered uncertainty and legitimized the new institutional solution. Its subsequent fine-tuning and expansion was a result of co-productive efforts between state and non-state stakeholders, which helped to maintain its functional superiority. The ProZorro case is juxtaposed with a brief analysis of key anti-corruption reforms that were launched in similar conditions, and yet either backslid or brought partial results.
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The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics. Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably. Instead, this collection advances the concept of ‘state transformation’ as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ most important foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the wider field in IR.
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Fifteen years have passed since the European Union launched the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Despite the EU’s attempts to reload the ENP, first in 2011 and later in 2015, in response to challenges in the neighbourhood, the ENP continues to suffer from a credibility-expectations gap. This article argues that understanding neighbour perceptions of the ENP offers useful insights about the ENP. Supported by twenty-five interviews with Georgian and Ukrainian public officials, the article unveils the EU’s credibility challenge in the Eastern neighbourhood caused by a gap between the EU’s own perception of its role and the role expectations held by the ENP partners, as well as a gap between partners’ expectations and the EU’s performance on the ground. The lack of coherence, legitimacy and consistency has undermined the credibility of the ENP in the eyes of its Eastern partners. The latest review of the ENP does not seem to address the credibility challenge.
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This book examines the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in the context of internal functions performed with regard to the European Union (EU) political system and its key actors. It argues that the ENP has been formulated not only in reaction to external challenges and threats, but also in response to EU internal legitimacy needs at systemic, institutional and actor level. Looking beyond governance approaches and the power of norms, this book follows a sociological approach to the politics of legitimation. Using Bourdieu's field theory, it bridges the rationalist-constructivist divide inherent in much of ENP scholarship. While analyzing articulations of EU institutions in terms of narrative production, reproduction and reconstruction, it sheds valuable light on where the conflicting goals, ambiguity and incoherence stem from. By highlighting Developing Nations' responses and usages of ENP narratives for domestic and international legitimacy-seeking, the book calls for a more outside-in perspective on EU foreign policy. With the European integration project being increasingly contested, both internally and externally, this book provides a timely focus on the topic of legitimation and delegitimation dynamics with regard to EU foreign policy. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European integration and EU foreign policy, and, more broadly, EU Studies and International Relations.
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How do transnational integration regimes (TIRs) shape domestic developmental capacities to benefit from trade integration? Some scholars acknowledge the passive influence TIRs can have on domestic capacities to spur development. Others conceive of TIRs as active agents of change but disagree as to whether their effects are positive or negative. This paper takes issue with some of these approaches and reveals important caveats of others by investigating how the shallow mode of transnational market integration shapes domestic developmental capacities. The paper uses the developmental pathway of Ukraine’s automotive industry as a case study. Strikingly, the sector maintained its peripheral position despite initial developmental features that made it as good an investment destination for multinationals as automotive sectors in other peripheral economies that eventually became more integrated in transnational value chains. I argue that it needs strong states being able to use the opportunities offered by the shallow mode of integration for development. By contrast, weak states can hardly shield themselves against capture by rent-seeking networks, since TIRs only provide limited assistance for building developmental capacities in the context of shallow integration.
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Des acteurs internationaux tels que l’Union européenne cherchent à diffuser leurs normes et pratiques à des États comme l’Ukraine en finançant des projets portés par des organisations internationales et mis en oeuvre par des ONG nationales. Cette contribution analyse l’usage que font les acteurs du secteur non étatique relatif à l’asile en Ukraine des financements internationaux. Elle questionne le concept d’ empowerment et montre que les ONG financées par des bailleurs de fonds internationaux gagnent en accès et en influence dans les politiques publiques et que leurs membres acquièrent des compétences, notamment dans la levée de fonds et la gestion de projets internationaux. Les financements communautaires n’atteignent cependant pas les réseaux de solidarité de migrants, et très peu les organisations d’activistes engagés depuis plus longtemps. Ils concourent plutôt à l’émergence de « DONGO », à savoir des ONG fondées grâce à des financements internationaux ou ayant su adapter leurs activités aux opportunités de fonds disponibles. Du fait de leur dépendance, ces ONG se conforment aux attentes de leurs bailleurs de fonds, ce qui tend à standardiser leurs pratiques et à asseoir le pouvoir des acteurs internationaux. Par ailleurs, cette situation accroît les différences entre les organisations dont le financement est institutionnalisé et celles dont le financement est instable. Les premières disposent de moyens substantiels pour fournir une aide juridique et matérielle aux demandeurs d’asile, et ont aussi plus de facilité à entrer en contact avec les autorités locales. Ce sont elles qui adoptent, appliquent et diffusent les normes internationales sur l’asile. Les secondes ne s’y réfèrent pas ; elles sont aussi moins dotées, et contraintes à l’improvisation pour leurs différentes activités.
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In the framework of its enlargement policy, the EU has placed considerable emphasis on supporting civil society organisations (CSOs) both as domestic drivers of change and as a means to foster new, more participatory modes of governance. Our research examines the impact of the EU accession process on state–civil society relations in the Western Balkans and assesses the extent to which new forms of interaction are becoming institutionalised. Comparing minority rights and environmental regulation in Serbia, we find that enlargement negotiations lead to increased dialogue and more formalised interactions between government and CSOs. However, the institutionalisation of state–CSO cooperation remains partial and is hampered by a lack of political will. Whereas civil servants are generally open to civil society input, political officials frequently resort to façade cooperation in response to external pressures. We conclude that the emerging governance model is nothing like the ‘double weakness’ or agency capture found in earlier studies, but instead consists of strong hierarchy and a narrow group of highly professional CSOs engaged at the margins.
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The book analizes European Neighborhood Policy in its Eastern and Southern dimensions. The publication covers launching and evolution of the ENP of 2011 and 2015, shows the advantages of the applied solutions and their weaknesses. It gives also some fresh view on what can be done in order to revitalize the policy by coordinating the policy and its financing tools with other partners engaged in the region.
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This article analyzes the impact of the EU on reform outcomes in Moldova. It looks at the EU strategies in two sectors with varying outcomes in order to study how they reinforce or help to mitigate domestic problems. It focuses on the interplay of external and domestic factors and highlights the importance of empowerment of non-state domestic actors/civil society and flexibility in rule-making in order to prevent institutional monocropping and to level the playing field to limit the power of entrenched elites.
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The Ukraine crisis and Russia’s contribution to it have raised numerous concerns regarding the possible emergence of a new ‘Cold War’ in Europe. At the same time, Ukraine’s popular choice and enthusiasm for European integration expressed clearly on the streets of Kyiv seem to have caused Russia to adopt a (neo)revisionist attitude. In this context, relations between Russia and the EU (and the West for that matter) have been limited, frozen and directed on path towards conflict. This article analyses how the traditional dichotomy between conflict and cooperation in EU–Russia relations was replaced by conflict in the context of the Ukraine crisis. The article contends that the breakdown of the symbolic and peaceful cohabitation between the EU and Russia has been influenced by the fact that both actors have chosen to ignore key tensions that characterized their post-Cold War interactions. The article identifies three such tensions: the first emphasizes divisions between EU member states and their impact on coagulating a common EU approach towards Russia; the second (geopolitical) tension highlights the almost mutually exclusive way in which the EU and Russia’s security interests have developed in the post-Soviet space; finally, the third contends that a clash of values and worldviews between the EU and Russia makes conflict virtually unavoidable.
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The European Union (EU) and Ukraine have cooperated on asylum policy for many years with the aim of introducing EU and international standards in Ukraine. Reforms, however, were developing slowly and have accelerated only after 2010. This timing represents a puzzle because the reforms advanced most significantly in a situation when Ukraine’s orientation toward the EU became more reluctant again while it increased toward the Russian Federation. The latter in turn became increasingly hostile toward EU activities in Ukraine and eager to pull Ukraine toward the Eurasian Customs Union as an alternative integration project. The timing of reforms can be explained by paying more attention to domestic forces. On the one hand, these forces operate with some degree of independence from the country’s geo-strategic orientation, responding to sector-specific costs and benefits, and in particular, sector-specific conditionality. On the other hand, the more autocratic rule under former President Yanukovych ended a period of unproductive political muddle and facilitated the adoption of EU rules. Russian influence did not play a role in this particular policy sector, which was thus de-coupled from the broader macro-level developments.
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How do the politics of economic integration pursued by the European Union (EU) and Russia in their shared neighborhood affect domestic change in these countries? Do the two external powers further economic integration with one or the other, and how do their strategies shape the survival of rent-seeking domestic elites? Examining the case of Ukraine’s car industry, the paper reveals a considerable degree of disengagement by both the EU and Russia. Both external actors offer domestic elites surprisingly few opportunities for economic integration but rather pursue a “policy” of de facto exclusiveness that caters to the domestic interests of the EU and Russia. So far, the EU has strongly promoted trade liberalization to facilitate market access for European car producers but has not created opportunities for foreign-led restructuring of Ukraine’s car industry, thereby leaving the sector without a chance to benefit from liberalization. Russia, in turn, compromised existing trade linkages with Ukraine to protect its own domestic car industry. What is more, the strategies of both the EU and Russia even provided opportunities for Ukrainian oligarchs with stakes in the domestic car industry, who were not interested in transparent forms of economic interaction in the first place, to pursue rent-seeking strategies that undermined any chance for sustainable development of the industry. While Russia’s disengagement has caused trade disintegration that may have contributed to Ukraine’s reluctance to join Russia-led integration regimes, the EU is well advised to create opportunities for sustainable integration if it does not want to become a factor of further destabilization in Ukraine.
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The European Union may well be presiding over the most successful democracy-promotion program ever implemented by an international actor. All of the states that have become credible future EU members over the last decade are making progress toward liberal democracy and more transparent market economies. The puzzle is one of causation: Does the EU only accept liberal democracies? Or does the condition of being a credible future EU member create incentives for political actors to make their political agendas compatible with liberal democracy and the state’s bid for EU membership? The convergence that we see toward liberal democracy today is all the more puzzling given the divergence in regimes in the region some fifteen years ago. In some postcommunist states, democratically elected governments began laying the foundations of liberal democracy and implementing comprehensive economic reforms immediately after the collapse of the communist regime. By liberal democracy, I mean a political system where state institutions and democratically elected rulers respect juridical limits on their powers and political liberties. They uphold the rule of law, a separation of powers, and boundaries between the state and the economy. They also uphold basic liberties, such as speech, assembly, religion, and property. Important for our cases, they do not violate the limits on their powers or the political liberties of citizens in order to suppress rival political parties or groups.
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This article explores how the study of post-communism has transformed comparative politics by adding a substantial role for external actors to existing theories of democratization. The big, overarching finding is dramatic: external actors can, under certain conditions, tip the balance in favor of democracy by offering strong rewards to elites, conditional on complying with tough requirements. External actors can also influence the performance of the state—and how the state treats its citizens. The main causal player is the European Union. This simple finding is consequential for all three major strands of democratization theory. The article goes on to explore how the leverage of the European Union has shaped the trajectories of political change in the new and credible future EU members in East Central and South Eastern Europe. The great variation among existing and candidate members can be largely explained by different domestic conditions, even though there are many areas where the EU’s use of its leverage could have been improved.
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Since 1990, both the U.S. and Germany have substantially reformed their corporate governance regimes as part of an emerging paradigm of international finance capitalism increasingly dependent on securities markets and private shareholding. Corporate governance reform and the emergence of finance capitalism, however, present a double paradox. First, the development of financial markets and the increasing importance of market relations, often linked to the diminution of state power, have been accompanied by a substantial and ongoing expansion of law and regulatory capacity into the private sphere to boost shareholder protections. Second, center- left parties in both countries took advantage of economic crises to press for pro-shareholder reforms against center-right opposition allied with managerial elites. This article explains these developments by analyzing reform processes in United States and Germany over the past decade. It argues that changing economic conditions empowered reformist state actors, and that they have played a central and largely autonomous role in driving the substantial institutional change underway in contemporary capitalism. The analysis also suggests that political conflict over corporate governance is likely to intensify, on the right and the left, as it impinges on the basic allocation of power within corporations and thus the political economy.
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European countries’ political‐economic policies, practices, and discourses have changed profoundly in response to Europeanization, even more so than in response to globalization, but they have not converged. National policies may now be more similar, especially where they follow from common European policies, but they are not the same. National practices, although moving in the same general direction toward greater market orientation continue to be distinguishable into not just one or even two but three varieties of capitalism. And national discourses that generate and legitimize changes in policies and practices not only remain distinct, they matter. The book spans fields and combines theoretical insights with innovative methods to show that European countries have followed very different pathways of economic adjustment, and will continue to do so into the future. Of the three cases used in illustration, France is shown to have undergone the greatest amount of adjustment, having largely abandoned its interventionist policies and transformed its state‐led capitalism in response to both globalization and Europeanization, but without the benefits of a fully legitimizing discourse. Britain, by contrast, adjusted mainly in response to globalization while anticipating many of the pressures of Europeanization, and came up with a transformative discourse that largely legitimized its neo‐liberal policies and its move toward greater market capitalism. Germany, finally, felt global and European pressures latest, not until the 1990s, at which point it slowly began to alter its social market policies and to make its managed capitalism more competitive, also without the benefits of a fully legitimizing discourse.
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This book suggests that the scope and breadth of regulatory reforms since the mid-1980s and particularly during the 1990s, are so striking that they necessitate a reappraisal of current approaches to the study of the politics of regulation. The authors call for the adoption of different and fresh perspectives to examine this area.
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The autonomous regulatory agency has recently become the "appropriate model" of governance across countries and sectors. The dynamics of this process are captured in the authors' data set, which covers the establishment of agencies in 48 countries and 15 sectors for the period 1966-2007. Adopting a diffusion approach to explain this broad process of institutional change, the authors explore the role of countries and sectors as sources of institutional transfer at different stages of the diffusion process. They demonstrate how the restructuring of national bureaucracies unfolds via four different channels of institutional transfer. The results challenge theoretical approaches that overemphasize the national dimension in global diffusion and are insensitive to the stages of the diffusion process. Further advance in study of diffusion depends, the authors assert, on the ability to apply both cross-sectoral and cross-national analysis to the same research design and to incorporate channels of transfer with different causal mechanisms for different stages of the diffusion process.
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This book explores the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbours. Based on extensive original research – including surveys, focus-groups, a study of school essays and in-depth interviews with key people in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia and in Brussels - it assesses why the EU’s initiatives have received limited legitimacy in the neighbourhood.been so poorly received. The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) of 2004, and the subsequent Eastern Partnership (EaP) of 2009 heralded a new form of relations with the EU’s neighbours - partnership based on joint ownership and shared values - which would complement if not entirely replace the EU’s traditional governance framework used for enlargement. These initiatives, however, have received a mixed response from the EU’s eastern neighbours. It shows how the key elements of "partnership" have been forged mainly by the EU, rather than jointly, and examines the idea and application of external governance, and how this has been over-prescriptive and confusing.
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Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier are political scientists who use comparative historical research to discover and evaluate patterns and sources of political change. Their work is an overall analysis of Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, and Mexico, plus case studies of four distinct pairs in that group: Chile/Brazil, Uruguay/Colombia, Argentina/Peru, and Venezuela/Mexico. In addition, the Colliers meticulously describe and discuss their methods for the study including the limitations of their approach. The authors specifically focus on why and how organized labor movements in the first half of the twentieth century were incorporated into the political process in the eight Latin American countries they study. They analyze the role played by political parties, central government control, worker mobilization, and conflict between radical vs. centrist political philosophies and activities.
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We present case studies of the evolution of regulatory independence in practice in the telecommunications industry for 23 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Based on these studies, we construct two realistic indices of regulatory independence, which improve upon the measures of independence that have been used so far in the empirical regulation literature. We show that legal indices may give a partially distorted picture of the commitment ability of institutions. Basic illustrative econometrics suggests that the combination of de facto and de jure independence has a positive and significant impact on network penetration.
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We present case studies of the evolution of regulatory independence in practice in the telecommunications industry for 23 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Based on these studies, we construct two realistic indices of regulatory independence, which improve upon the measures of independence that have been used so far in the empirical regulation literature. We show that legal indices may give a partially distorted picture of the commitment ability of institutions. Basic illustrative econometrics suggests that the combination of de facto and de jure independence has a positive and significant impact on network penetration.
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The emergence and diffusion of new modes of governance in Europe has to be seen both in a wider context of more distant factors and a narrower context of more proximate factors. The wider context is defined by the continuing economic liberalization/deregulation and political enlargement of the European Union. The liberalization and deregulation of markets initiated in the late 1970s and continued until very recently has been of sustained importance and — under stricter political control — will be so in the future. The change in the political economy of most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries that accompanied this development has been described as a shift from interventionist to regulatory policies. It aimed at dismantling state monopolies in the provision of network services of various kinds and the creation of markets by allowing for the access of new market entrants. This development at the national level was actively promoted by European policies: the Commission pursued a policy of liberalization and deregulation. Simultaneously, though, the focus of European policies also included policies that aimed at correcting the negative external effects that markets and productive activity produce for the environment and human health (Héritier et al. 1996; Majone 1996; Eberlein 2005).
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This chapter considers how the process of European integration is shaping various dimensions of corporate governance in Central Europe. The literature on corporate governance in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has so far made little connection with that on EU integration, and this chapter aims to open a research agenda on exploring how and where the accession process is influencing the development of corporate governance in the CEE region. In this chapter, corporate governance is construed very broadly, as both regulation of the activities of firms and also the relations between firms, the state, and trade unions. Systematic comparison of emerging corporate governance patterns in CEE has long been constrained by lack of consistent and comparable data across CEE countries, particularly at the micro level, and by the dynamic nature of institutional reform in post-communist transformation. Nevertheless, it is clear that a major external constraint on the development of corporate governance is the socioeconomic order created by EU integration, which is now starting to govern the CEE economies as well.
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Conventional models of the politics of economic reform tend to be based on an assumption about the costs and benefits of reform, known informally as the J-curve. Reforms are expected to make things worse before they get better. This presents a classic rime inconsistency dilemma for reformist governments forced to demand severe sacrifices from the public in the short term for the mere promise of future gains. In response, political economy models of the reform process have tended to stress the importance of insulating governments from the pressures of the shortterm losers until a sufficient constituency of winners has been created with a stake in supporting and enhancing the reforms. Based on evidence from the postcommunist transitions, this article suggests that the most serious political obstacles to the process of economic reform have come not from the short-term losers but from the short-term winners. Groups that gain substantial rents from the early distortions of a partially reformed economy have a stake in maintaining a partial reform equilibrium that generates high private gains, but at a considerable social cost. In these countries, the main political challenge has been, not to marginalize the losers, but to restrain the winners. This explains the paradoxical outcome of the postcommunist transitions: that political systems which are more inclusive of the losers have been able to adopt and sustain more comprehensive economic reforms than states insulated from popular pressures.
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This volume investigates the relationship between economic globalization and institutions, or global governance, challenging the common assumption that globalization and institutionalization are essentially processes which exclude each other. Instead, the contributors to this book show that globalization is better perceived as a dual process of institutional change at the national level, and institution building at the transnational level. Rich, supporting empirical evidence is provided along with a theoretical conceptualization of the main actors, mechanisms and conditions involved in trickle-up and trickle-down trajectories through which national institutional systems are being transformed and transnational rules emerge.
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Ukraine is negotiating with the EU on a comprehensive free-trade agreement. The east European country is to adopt the regulations of the EU internal market; in exchange, trade barriers such as tariffs will be dismantled. Those opposed to this include all those who profit from an opaque and corruptionridden economics policy and those who could be exposed to greater competitive pressure. In the administrative apparatus, opposition is enormous. The interests of big business by contrast are manifold. Their position on the free-trade agreement is therefore ambivalent, like that of Ukraine's political parties.
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The transition from communism in Europe and the former Soviet Union has only sometimes led to democracy. Since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, twenty-eight mostly new states have abandoned communism. But only eight - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, and just last year, Croatia - have entered the ranks of liberal democracies. The remaining majority of new postcommunist states are various shades of dictatorships or unconsolidated “transitional” regimes. Why? Why did some states abandon communism for democracy, while others for authoritarian rule? Why are some states stuck in between? The answers to these questions should be easy for political science. Simultaneous regime change in two dozen countries - all beginning from roughly similar places, but moving along very different trajectories over ten years - provides the perfect parameters to test extant theories and develop new hypotheses about regime change. Clear variation on the dependent variable with a finite set of independent variables offered up a unique laboratory to isolate causal patterns. A decade since the collapse of European communism, however, theory development regarding regime change has advanced only slightly. At the beginning of the decade, Adam Przeworski pointed to the inability to predict communism’s collapse as a “dismal failure of political science.” Yet, the paucity of plausible explanations for regime patterns in the postcommunist world ten years later stands as an even greater indictment.
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This book poses the question: how and why do institutions change? Institutions, understood as rules of behaviour constraining and facilitating social interaction, are subject to different forms and processes of change. A change may be designed intentionally on a large scale and then be followed by a period of only incremental adjustments to new conditions. But institutions may also emerge as informal rules, persist for a long time and only be formalized later. The causes, processes, and outcomes of institutional change raise a number of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical questions. While we know a lot about the creation of institutions, relatively little research has been conducted about their transformation once they have been put into place. Attention has focused on politically salient events of change, such as the Intergovernmental Conferences of Treaty reform. In focusing on such grand events, it is easy overlook inconspicuous changes in European institutional rules that are occurring on a daily basis. Thus, the European Parliament has gradually acquired a right of investing individual Commissioners. This has never been an issue in the negotiations of formal treaty revisions. Or, the decision-making rule(s) under which the European Parliament participates in the legislative process have drastically changed over the last decades starting from a modest consultation ending up with codecision. The book discusses various theories accounting for long-term institutional change, and explores them on the basis of five important institutional rules in the European Union. It proposes typical sequences of long-term institutional change and their theorization which hold for other contexts as well, if the number of actors and their goals are clearly defined, and interaction takes place under the 'shadow of the future'.
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Over a decade has passed since the collapse of communism, yet citizens of post-communist countries are still far less likely to join voluntary organizations than people from other countries and regions of the world. Why do post-communist citizens mistrust and avoid public organizations? What explains this distinctive pattern of weak civil society? And what does it mean for the future of democracy in post-communist Europe? In this engaging study, Marc Morjé Howard addresses these questions by developing a provocative argument about the powerful and enduring impact of the communist experience on its countries and citizens. Howard argues that the legacy of the communist experience of mandatory participation in state-controlled organizations, the development and persistence of vibrant private networks, and the tremendous disappointment with developments since the collapse of communism have left most post-communist citizens with a lasting aversion to public activities. In addition to analyzing data from over 30 democratic and democratizing countries in the World Values Survey, Howard presents extensive and original evidence from his own research in Eastern Germany and Russia, including in-depth interviews with ordinary citizens and an original representative survey.
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Over the past two decades, governments have delegated extensive regulatory authority to international private-sector organizations. This internationalization and privatization of rule making has been motivated not only by the economic benefits of common rules for global markets, but also by the realization that government regulators often lack the expertise and resources to deal with increasingly complex and urgent regulatory tasks.The New Global Rulersexamines who writes the rules in international private organizations, as well as who wins, who loses--and why.Tim B the and Walter Mattli examine three powerful global private regulators: the International Accounting Standards Board, which develops financial reporting rules used by corporations in more than a hundred countries; and the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission, which account for 85 percent of all international product standards. B the and Mattli offer both a new framework for understanding global private regulation and detailed empirical analyses of such regulation based on multi-country, multi-industry business surveys. They find that global rule making by technical experts is highly political, and that even though rule making has shifted to the international level, domestic institutions remain crucial. Influence in this form of global private governance is not a function of the economic power of states, but of the ability of domestic standard-setters to provide timely information and speak with a single voice. B the and Mattli show how domestic institutions' abilities differ, particularly between the two main standardization players, the United States and Europe.
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Articles Private Political Authority and Public Responsibility: Transnational Politics, Transnational Firms, and Human Rights • Article author query • kobrin sj [Google Scholar] Stephen J. Kobrin ABSTRACT Transnational corporations have become actors with significant political power and authority which should entail responsibility and liability, specifically direct liability for complicity in human rights violations. Holding TNCs liable for human rights violations is complicated by the discontinuity between the fragmented legal/political structure of the TNC and its integrated strategic reality and the international state system which privileges sovereignty and non-intervention over the protection of individual rights. However, the post-Westphalian transition—the emergence of multiple authorities, increasing ambiguity of borders and jurisdiction and blurring of the line between the public and private spheres—should facilitate imposing direct responsibility on transnational firms. Mechanisms for imposing direct responsibility on TNCs are considered including voluntary agreements and international law. However, I conclude that a hybrid public-private regime which relies on non-hierarchical compliance mechanisms is likely to be both more effective and consistent with the structure of the emerging transnational order.