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Journal of European Public Policy
ISSN: 1350-1763 (Print) 1466-4429 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpp20
Money, power, glory: the linkages between EU
conditionality and state capture in the Western
Balkans
Solveig Richter & Natasha Wunsch
To cite this article: Solveig Richter & Natasha Wunsch (2019): Money, power, glory: the linkages
between EU conditionality and state capture in the Western Balkans, Journal of European Public
Policy, DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2019.1578815
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2019.1578815
© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa
UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group
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Money, power, glory: the linkages between EU
conditionality and state capture in the Western
Balkans
Solveig Richter
a
*and Natasha Wunsch
b
*
a
Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany;
b
European Politics
Group, Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
ABSTRACT
The Western Balkan countries are stuck in a hybrid status quo on their way to
democracy. Traditional arguments related to cost–benefit calculations,
national identity or conflicting objectives fail to explain the observed
decoupling between gradual improvements in formal compliance with
membership criteria and stagnating, if not declining, democratic performance.
We explain the limited impact of the EU’s political conditionality in the
Western Balkans with rampant state capture and proceed to unpack how EU
conditionality has effectively contributed to the consolidation of such
detrimental governance patterns. First, EU pressure for simultaneous
economic and political reforms opened opportunities for business actors to
build powerful clientelist networks that reach into politics. Second, top-down
conditionality has weakened political competition and mechanisms of internal
accountability and deliberation. Finally, formal progress towards membership
and high-level interactions with EU and member state officials legitimize
corrupt elites. A congruence analysis of the Serbian case provides empirical
evidence for the hypothesised linkages between EU conditionality and state
capture.
KEYWORDS Conditionality; democracy promotion; EU enlargement; informal politics; state capture;
Western Balkans
Introduction
Political conditionality is the major instrument through which the European
Union (EU) has sought to foster democratic reforms in the Western Balkans.
The strict application of ‘carrots and sticks’with the membership perspective
at its core yielded major steps forwards, confirmed not least by Croatia’s
© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDer-
ivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distri-
bution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered,
transformed, or built upon in any way.
CONTACT Natasha Wunsch natasha.wunsch@eup.gess.ethz.ch
*Both authors contributed equally to this manuscript.
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2019.1578815
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY
https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2019.1578815
accession to the EU in July 2013. Still, the EU has not been able to reproduce
its success story from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) enlargement in
the Western Balkans. Governance effectiveness has increased under the
influence of EU conditionality, but the level of democracy in the region is stag-
nating at best (see also Börzel and Schimmelfennig 2017). Although the
Western Balkan countries display partial compliance with membership
requirements, profound political reform remains elusive, making it unlikely
any of them will be able to fully meet accession requirements in the near
future (Böhmelt and Freyburg 2018). Instead, we observe an effective decou-
pling between formal advancement towards EU membership and a lack of
progress in democratisation, which casts a shadow over the EU’s transforma-
tive power. Our article addresses this theoretical and empirical puzzle by
asking: how can we explain the decoupling between formal compliance and
democratic transformation in the Western Balkans?
Prominent explanations of the limited effects of accession conditionality
that centre on cost–benefit calculations (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier
2004), national identity (Freyburg and Richter 2010) or conflicting objectives
(Richter 2012; Töglhofer and Wunsch 2011) cannot fully account for the
EU’s struggle to forge long-term democratisation in the Western Balkans. A
limited body of work acknowledges so-called ‘pathological effects’of Eur-
opeanisation, especially in the rule of law area (Börzel and Pamuk 2012; Men-
delski 2016; Mungiu-Pippidi 2007,2014). However, existing studies tend to
focus on specific empirical findings and fall short of offering an overarching
approach to studying such detrimental EU effects.
Our article puts forward a comprehensive theoretical argument that sys-
tematically factors informal domestic politics into the analysis of potential
(unintended) negative effects of conditionality. Bringing together the study
of EU external governance and approaches from comparative politics, we
identify state capture as a key explanatory factor for the observed decoupling
between formal compliance and democratic performance in the Western
Balkans. The term ‘state capture’refers to processes whereby state institutions
and intermediary actors, such as political parties or parliaments, become
hijacked or infiltrated by clientelist networks who lend their informal ways
of decision making, including corrupt practices, a formal mantle (see Richter
2017). Captured institutions have been recognised as a major impediment
to democratic consolidation in the CEE region (Innes 2014).
Our analysis goes a step further: we claim that EU conditionality is not only
unable to effectively counter state capture, but that it has involuntarily
entrenched informal networks in the Western Balkans and enabled them to
strengthen their grip on power. It is important to underline that we do not
suggest that EU conditionality caused state capture in the first place. State
capture is a multi-causal process that tends to emerge across a range of tran-
sition contexts (Grzymala-Busse 2008). In consequence, we do not make any
2S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
counterfactual claim that state capture would not have occurred in the
absence of EU conditionality, nor do we claim to isolate the effect of EU con-
ditionality in comparison to other factors driving state capture. Instead, our
argument focuses on showing that EU conditionality has not only triggered
positive developments in the Western Balkans, even where it is applied in a
correct manner. We maintain that in the specific context of post-conflict
democratic transition prevalent in the region, where the challenge of simul-
taneous economic and political transition observed in the broader Post-Com-
munist region is compounded by ongoing processes of state-building and
tense regional relations, conditionality has effectively enabled the consolida-
tion of pathological political developments.
We identify three distinct linkages connecting EU conditionality to the con-
solidation of state capture. First, pressure for the liberalisation of markets in the
absence of a comprehensive legal framework allowed a small economic elite to
realise private gains and build powerful networks that influence political
decision-making (money). Second, strong top-down conditionality stifles dom-
estic deliberation and weakens internal mechanisms of accountability, allowing
ruling elites to silence domestic opponents (power). Finally, progress towards
EU membership and frequent interactions with high-ranking EU and member
state officials serve to legitimize ruling elites (glory). As a result, the countries
of the Western Balkans are stuck in a ‘state capture trap’that leads to stagnating
democratisation and the inability to implement deep reforms.
Our article makes three main contributions to the debate. First, we offer a
theoretical model that explains the multiple effects of conditionality in tran-
sition contexts, including its harmful influence on domestic politics. In doing
so, we provide a conceptual underpinning to the debate on ‘pathological
effects’of conditionality (Börzel and Pamuk 2012; Mendelski 2016). Second,
by highlighting the importance of informal politics in candidate countries, we
add an important dimension to the recognised temporal limitations of condi-
tionality (Böhmelt and Freyburg 2013; Steunenberg and Dimitrova 2007)and
feed into the literature on the importance of domestic politics as an intermedi-
ary of EU pressures (Dimitrova 2010; Mungiu-Pippidi 2010). Finally, we provide
an explanation for our empirical puzzle by showing how EU conditionality
strengthened state capture even as it triggered compliance with formal mem-
bership requirements. Our findings contribute to the debate on the limits of the
EU’s transformative power in the Western Balkans and speak to research on the
effectiveness and functioning of external democracy promotion more broadly.
We begin with an empirical demonstration of the puzzle that underpins our
theoretical argument, contrasting the evolution of compliance levels with EU
membership criteria and democratic performance in the Western Balkans. The
following section outlines our theoretical argument regarding the linkages
between EU conditionality and state capture and contrasts it with existing
approaches. We proceed to describe our research design and justify our
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 3
case selection. We then illustrate the plausibility of our theoretical argument
through a congruence analysis in the case of Serbia and demonstrate its
broader applicability by highlighting the prevalence of state capture across
the region and providing further evidence from individual countries. The con-
clusion highlights the broader implications of our findings in both theoretical
and practical terms.
Decoupling of compliance and democracy levels in the Western
Balkans
The lower responsiveness of the Western Balkan candidate countries to EU
accession conditionality is a long-standing concern among EU enlargement
scholars (Elbasani and Šelo Šabić2017; Grabbe 2014; Noutcheva 2012).
Drawing on fresh empirical evidence, we contend that the root of the
problem lies not, in fact, in a sluggish reform pace and a higher degree of
domestic resistance to the sweeping adjustments required throughout the
EU accession process. Based on an update of compliance data collected
through a detailed analysis of the European Commission’s country reports
(Böhmelt and Freyburg 2018), we show that contrary to common perception,
the Western Balkan candidates overall are making gradual progress in their
fulfilment of membership conditions.
1
Improved levels of formal compliance,
however, do not translate into positive developments with regards to demo-
cratic performance, which is instead in decline at the regional level. Figure 1
Figure 1. Decoupling of compliance and democracy levels in the Western Balkans.
Source: authors’compilation based on Böhmelt and Freyburg 2018 and own coding
for compliance data and the V-Dem liberal democracy index.
2
4S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
illustrates the effective decoupling of compliance and democracy levels in the
Western Balkans that forms the central puzzle around which we articulate our
theoretical argument.
We submit that the effective decoupling between the levels of formal com-
pliance and liberal democracy in the region is due to widespread state capture,
which has been recognised as a key challenge in the Western Balkans (Keil
2018). Most recently, the EU has picked up on state capture as a major impedi-
ment to deep reforms in the Western Balkans (European Commission 2018a:3),
and is seeking to counter such tendencies by engaging more actively in moni-
toring state capture across the region.
3
So far however, we argue that EU con-
ditionality has unintentionally contributed to consolidating, rather than
disabling, patterns of state capture in the enlargement region. We develop
this argument further in the following theoretical section, which addresses
competing explanations and then outlines our own alternative model.
Theoretical argument: explaining the adverse impact of EU
conditionality
The dominant external incentives models explains the underlying logic of pol-
itical conditionality as one of top-down incentives, whereby candidate
countries have to fulfil certain criteria and are rewarded for compliance
(Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004). It singles out three key conditions
for the effectiveness of conditionality: a credible membership perspective,
the consistent application of conditionality, and an acceptable level of dom-
estic costs incurred for compliance with accession requirements. Candidate
state governments are the EU’s primary interlocutor and mostly treated as a
unitary actor. Despite several studies demonstrating how EU conditionality
might empower certain local actors differentially by providing them with
legitimacy, resources and bargaining power (Dimitrova and Buzogany 2014;
Vachudova 2005; Wunsch 2016), domestic politics generally figure in accounts
of compliance only in terms of adaptation costs.
The external incentives model was initially formulated in the context of the
CEE accession negotiations and its continued relevance in the Western
Balkans region has been subject to debate (Epstein and Sedelmeier 2008;
Schimmelfennig 2008). For one, its proponents have repeatedly acknowl-
edged the lower effectiveness of democratic conditionality in comparison
to more technical accession requirements (Dimitrova and Pridham 2004;
Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004). Furthermore, the credibility of condi-
tionality has been shown to differ over time, increasing as membership
approaches, but dropping sharply once an accession date has been set
(Böhmelt and Freyburg 2013; Steunenberg and Dimitrova 2007). These limit-
ations have resulted in two extensions of the initial external incentives model.
One highlights how the perceived legitimacy of membership requirements by
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 5
the target country supersedes purely rationalist cost–benefit calculations
where core issues of national identity and sovereignty are concerned, result-
ing in partial or imposed compliance for specific contested accession con-
ditions (Freyburg and Richter 2010; Noutcheva 2009). Another suggests that
the EU’s simultaneous attempts to stabilise and integrate the Western
Balkans has led to an inconsistent application of conditionality that has
thwarted its effectiveness, resulting in lower overall degrees of compliance
(Richter 2012; Töglhofer and Wunsch 2011). A recent discussion of the endur-
ing effectiveness of EU enlargement as a driver of domestic change in the
Western Balkans highlighted that the ‘accession process is moving much
more slowly and the feedback loop between accession prospects, domestic
reforms and economic improvements is not functioning positively’(Grabbe
2014: 41). However, neither the original external incentives model nor its
extensions offer a convincing explanation for the observed generalised
decoupling of compliance and democracy levels in the Western Balkans.
What we do find in the existing literature are suggestions that EU enlarge-
ment policy is producing ‘pathological effects’in third countries. Jacoby has
pointed to ‘Potemkin-village organizational structures’(Jacoby 1999: 3),
whereby elites adapt their behaviour in short-term as a façade to hide
deep-rooted informal practices of decision making. Regional experts have
expressed doubt on the enduring positive effect of the EU accession
process in Post-Communist countries (Mungiu-Pippidi 2007,2010). Finally,
specific detrimental effects of EU conditionality were shown to result from
the selective implementation of anti-corruption policies in the South Caucasus
(Börzel and Pamuk 2012) and a deficient approach to rule of law promotion in
Romania (Mendelski 2016). Still, these studies remain largely empirically
driven and fall short of providing a broader explanatory framework.
Our proposed explanation for the adverse effects of EU conditionality
places domestic politics at its core. Domestic actors –be they political
parties, elites or interest groups –are part of a continuous struggle over pol-
itical decision-making power and influence in the country, both in formal and
informal institutions. We contend that compliance with political conditionality
depends not only on adaptation costs for the government or the level of
appropriateness of criteria in specific policy issues, but rests crucially on pat-
terns of (informal) power politics. To fully grasp the EU’s impact on the dom-
estic level, we therefore need to look more systematically at how
conditionality affects such informal politics. It is here that linkages between
EU conditionality and state capture come into play.
The concept of state capture originated from the work of the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank on transition
economies in Eastern Europe to describe a particularly destructive form of
structurally entrenched corruption (Rijkers et al. 2014). Where informal ways
of decision-making, previously important to ensure continuity and stability,
6S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
fail to become smoothly integrated into formal, democratic processes, there is
a high risk of state capture (Grzymala-Busse 2008). Once the legislature,
administration and judiciary are fully subordinated to private interests, the
state is neither able to effectively fight corruption nor to act as the legitimate
representative of the citizens (Pech 2009). This results in the selective appli-
cation of rules, resource allocation based on private rather than public inter-
ests, and biased decision-making processes. Eventually, such processes lead
states into a state capture trap, a stagnating status quo during which govern-
ance structured are unable to reform and highly resilient to any change.
In the Western Balkans, we submit that state capture emerged in a highly
volatile context of simultaneous democratisation and market liberalisation
coupled with post-conflict state-building, which offered multiple opportu-
nities for illicit economic activity and the creation of informal networks.
Unlike in CEE, where certain crucial political reforms were adopted prior to
the onset of EU conditionality (Bodnar 2010), a conditional membership per-
spective was offered to the Western Balkans immediately upon their transition
from authoritarian rule in 2000. Following the early conflation of democratisa-
tion and Europeanisation processes, we argue that state capture became
further entrenched and consolidated due to the workings of EU conditionality.
Whereas previous studies suggest that new rules adopted under the pressure
of conditionality remain ‘empty shells’(Dimitrova 2010)or‘Potemkin villages’
(Kmezić2014; Mikulova 2014), we suggest instead that new institutions have
been captured by existing clientelist networks, thus becoming a mantle for
informal practices. We contend that the EU accession process further conso-
lidated this process by unintentionally providing informal networks with
opportunities for corruption and by boosting their authority and legitimacy.
We identify three distinct linkages between conditionality and state
capture, which we label money,power, and glory. Although intertwined,
these three mechanisms account for different dimensions in the state
capture model, as illustrated by Figure 2.
Money
Market liberalisation lies at the core of both the SAP and the EU accession
process. Yet whereas deregulation, privatisation and the introduction of the
European single market occurred gradually in Western European countries,
the Western Balkans faced a particularly challenging ‘dilemma of simultaneity’
(Offe1991). They were required not only to tackle the parallel implementation
of political and market reforms, but in addition to undertake comprehensive
state-building processes that further enhanced the new political systems’vul-
nerability to state capture. The absence of well-developed regulatory frame-
works enabled a small elite of economic actors to secure considerable
private monetary gains, build up strong clientelist networks and systemati-
cally increase their influence on politics. By pushing for liberalisation and
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 7
privatisation at an early stage of political transition and in a fragile post-
conflict context, the EU –jointly with international financial institutions
such as the International Monetary Fund –inadvertently facilitated the emer-
gence of informal networks with political clout.
Power
EU membership tends to become an overriding priority for domestic policy-
making in candidate countries and offers an important boost to domestic
actors supporting a liberal-democratic agenda. Yet, strong top-down EU con-
ditionality also reduces the space for political competition and domestic delib-
eration and empowers executive actors to impose their preferences by
referring to external constraints (Grabbe 2001; Grzymala-Busse and Innes
2003). By overloading the political agenda with strict deadlines and detailed
criteria, EU conditionality enables dominant parties to justify the absence of
internal mechanisms of accountability. Such dominant parties then proceed
to shape the laws and rules, including those on party financing and conflict
of interests, often legalising the exploitation of the state (Fazekas and Tóth
2016). The resulting dominance of party over public interests undermines
the effective functioning of democratic processes.
Glory
Captured states operate as hybrid regimes that exhibit a high level of political
stability, but a low level of legitimacy. At the same time, the EU’s interest in
stability in the Western Balkans has led it to knowingly pursue negotiations
with governments that have been infiltrated by clientelist networks (Bieber
2018). Given the high salience of EU membership in public opinion, any
formal progress towards accession as well as high-level interactions with EU
or member state officials can be construed by government representatives
Figure 2. EU conditionality and the state capture model. Source: authors’compilation.
8S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
as endorsements of their actions towards the local population. The EU’s focus
on formal and legal compliance moreover facilitates strategies of ‘window
dressing’(Ridder and Kochenov 2011). This allows local elites to bolster
their legitimacy despite low levels of accountability and transparency, while
simultaneously undermining critical domestic voices.
Research design and methods
We use a two-stage congruence analysis to assess the plausibility of our pro-
posed state capture model. Congruence analysis serves to ‘provide empirical
evidence for the explanatory relevance or relative strength of one theoretical
approach in comparison to other theoretical approaches’(Blatter and Haver-
land 2012: 144). This focus on arbitrating between rival theories is what dis-
tinguishes congruence analysis from causal process tracing, where the main
interest lies in accounting for the temporal sequence of events producing a
specific outcome in a given case (Blatter and Blume 2008: 334). Instead, con-
gruence analysis strives to link empirical observations back to more abstract
theoretical concepts to assess their relative explanatory power. The objective
is therefore not statistical generalisation towards a wider universe of cases,
but analytic generalisation towards a broader theory (Yin 2009: 43).
In a first stage, we assess the concrete functioning of our proposed state
capture model by applying it to the observed pattern of decoupling in
Serbia. Case selection for congruence analysis strives not for variation
among or within cases, but is instead theory-driven, with the general advice
to select a crucial case that is expected to conform to the dominant theory
(Blatter and Blume 2008: 346). We argue that an examination of decoupling
in Serbia is doubly relevant as a case study. In theoretical terms, Serbia is a
most likely case for the external incentives model given the country’s promi-
nence in the region and its continuous engagement with the EU, and has
been previously used to argue for the model’s continued relevance following
the completion of the CEE enlargement (Schimmelfennig 2008). Yet along
with Macedonia and Montenegro
4
, Serbia also presents the most obvious
pattern of decoupling, thus contradicting the assumptions of the external
incentives model that predicts gradual progress with regards to both formal
compliance and democratic transformation. In practical terms, Serbia is a fron-
trunner among the current accession candidates and, as the largest state in
the Western Balkans, key to the region’s stability. Explaining the failure of con-
ditionality to foster long-term democratisation in this context can therefore
also yield relevant policy insights when it comes to reformulating the EU’s
approach to democracy promotion in its neighbourhood. Our empirical analy-
sis is based on primary sources in the form of 18 semi-structured interviews
5
conducted principally face-to-face between April 2017 and May 2018 with
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 9
Serbian and EU actors as well as secondary literature from international organ-
isations, local media, and civil society groups.
In a second stage, we extend our analysis to the regional level. By establish-
ing the prevalence of state capture across the Western Balkans region and by
pinpointing the presence of our hypothesised mechanisms in certain individ-
ual countries, we demonstrate the broader generalisability of our argument to
the Western Balkans and, more cautiously, to the broader Eastern European
region.
Conditionality and state capture in Serbia
The emergence of state capture patterns is well documented during Serbia’s
early transition process (Pešić2007). Ruling political parties act as main agents
of state capture, with the regular replacement of civil servants following gov-
ernment turnover resulting in a highly politicised state administration (Djolai
and Stratulat 2017). Indicating the extent of party-based clientelist structures,
membership in the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) amounts to 700’000
persons or ten per cent of the overall population, despite surveys regularly
showing that only ten per cent of the electorate trust political parties in
general.
6
Furthermore, state resources to the non-governmental sector are
generally distributed to organisations close to the party in power, including
blatant cases in which these were created only months before the opening
of a call for proposals.
7
The European Commission is well aware of the widespread presence of
state capture across the region.
8
The term was first introduced in the
annual report on Macedonia in 2016 and local EU Delegation stafffrom all
Western Balkans countries received a dedicated training in October 2017 on
how to recognise and measure state capture.
9
Yet, our proposed model con-
tends that conditionality effectively contributes to state capture by strength-
ening clientelist networks and allowing them to consolidate their grip on
power. In the following, we provide empirical evidence that the identified
mechanisms –money, power, and glory –are important contributing
factors to the consolidation of state capture. Our intention is not to trace
the entire process of Serbian transition, but rather to establish the empirical
plausibility of our theoretical argument.
Money
The money mechanism presumes that pressures for a parallel implementation
of political reforms and market liberalisation under the EU accession frame-
work created opportunities for business elites not only to make often ques-
tionable privatisation gains, but also to wage political influence via informal
networks and political party financing. Privatisation was a key priority
already under the SAP (European Commission 2005), with EU officials
10 S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
emphasising the importance of a swift privatisation of large state-owned com-
panies to avoid further strains on public finances (Priebe 2004). However, the
absence of a consolidated legal framework and sufficient judiciary and police
capacities facilitated large-scale privatisation corruption and ‘close tie[s]
between tycoons and state bodies’(Baraćquoted in Jovanović2011). Trans-
parency International’s latest report on the region highlights political parties
as the ‘least transparent players’with breaches of electoral and campaign
laws allowing ‘those with money [to] influence elections’(Transparency Inter-
national 2016). Whereas local sources argued that strict regulations make it
hard for politicians in power to directly abuse EU money
10
, the prevalence
of clientelism suggests that external funding serves as a displacement,
freeing up local sources to nurture informal networks. In sum, while EU con-
ditionality is certainly not the only factor explaining widespread corruption
in Serbia, early pressures for simultaneous economic and political transform-
ation clearly facilitated the emergence of clientelist structures that are at the
origin of the ‘state capture trap’we observe today.
Power
The power mechanism supposes that ruling elites use conditionality to under-
cut domestic debates and push through their own political programme. An
issue of particular concern is the misuse of the urgent procedure to pass
laws in the Serbian National Assembly
11
, which undermines both the transpar-
ency and the quality of legislation (Dragojlo 2015). The locally organised Open
Parliament initiative has documented a significant rise in the proportion of
laws adopted under this procedure since democratic changes were intro-
duced in Serbia in 2000 (Otvoreni Parliament 2018). According to the
Council of Europe’s GRECO group, over 57 per cent of parliamentary acts in
2015 were adopted under the urgent procedure, with the required harmoni-
sation of domestic legislation with the EU acquis used as prime excuse to side-
line parliamentarians and avoid wider consultations (GRECO 2017: 3).
A similar instrumentalisation of EU conditionality by ruling elites drives the
pervasive rejection of input by civil society actors. Illustrating the problematic
role of ‘window dressing,’interactions between Serbian state officials and
NGOs often take the form of façade cooperation, especially where high-
ranking political appointees are involved (Fagan and Wunsch 2018). Critical
assessments of government performance are framed as unduly delaying
the membership negotiations
12
, and their authors increasingly portrayed as
national traitors seeking to taint Serbia’s image in Brussels.
13
Before the mar-
ginalisation of non-executive actors and interested third parties in policy
debates, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights qualifies the political situation
in Serbia as one of ‘democracy without dialogue’(2018: 234).
Finally, the incumbent party frequently refers to the need for stability
during the EU accession process to justify prolonging its stay in power. A
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 11
television advertisement launched by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in
the run-up to the April 2017 presidential elections used the metaphor of a
plane with two pilots to emphasise the destabilising potential of co-habitation
(Stojanovski 2017). To avoid this risk, former Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić
eventually ran for the Presidency himself, securing the position during the first
round of voting, while international observers raised concerns over a tilted
playing field and a lack of separation between state and party activities
during the electoral campaign (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe 2017). Overall, EU conditionality thus serves to stifle domestic criticism
and expand the ruling elites’hold on power.
Glory
The glory mechanism surmises that ruling elites use contacts with EU and
member state officials as well as formal progress in the accession negotiations
to bolster their legitimacy and boost public support. This pattern already
became obvious during the time in office of Boris Tadić, who served as
Serbian President from 2004 to 2012. Despite a sluggish record of improving
living conditions for Serbian citizens throughout his mandate, his reputation
as ‘Western darling’allowed him to secure voters’support for his Democratic
Party (DS) multiple times up to the breaking point of the April 2012 parliamen-
tary elections. Since the SNS arrived in power, EU-level endorsements and pro-
gress towards EU accession have continued to function as a crucial source of
external legitimacy for the ruling party. Initially an offshoot of the discredited
Serbian Radical Party (SRS), the SNS has been actively seeking to garner inter-
national support to build a more positive image both abroad and domesti-
cally. In March 2013, it joined the European People’s Party’s (EPP) group in
the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (B92 2013), and was accepted
as an associate member of the EPP in November 2016 (European People’s
Party 2016). The same EPP counts Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party in its ranks
and has repeatedly shielded it from all-to-vocal criticism by the European Par-
liament (EP) (Sedelmeier 2016).
The SNS party deliberately seeks to build a reputation of effective negotia-
tors towards EU accession to boost its voter base. An interviewed party official
described EP Rapporteur David McAllister as ‘our good friend’and presented
party leader Vučić’s ten meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over
the course of three years as an endorsement of the SNS’European creden-
tials.
14
Fuelled by the desire to resolve the disputed status of Kosovo, EU
and member state officials tend to play along, disregarding Serbia’s proble-
matic rule of law record for the sake of progress in the dialogue between Bel-
grade and Pristina.
15
This very same attitude has driven opposition leaders to
avoid meeting with high-ranking EU officials, whom they believe are betray-
ing their values.
16
During his visit to Serbia in April 2018, European Council
President Tusk hailed President Vučićas a ‘soul mate’and ‘strong patriot,’
12 S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
claiming that ‘to be more Serbian than him is impossible’(Tusk 2018). Only
days before the publication of the EU’s latest rather critical report on
Serbia’s progress towards EU accession (European Commission 2018b),
Angela Merkel praised Vučić’s‘very good reform record’in a joint press con-
ference (Merkel 2018). Since public endorsements resonate much more
widely with citizens than the detailed reports issued by the EU, these
instances have allowed the SNS to deflect domestic criticism of its actions,
enabling a further consolidation of its dominant position (Kmezić2017).
In sum, our analysis of decoupling in Serbia contains evidence for the oper-
ation of all three proposed linkages between EU conditionality and state
capture. State capture is not connected to any particular party or network
but has instead persisted over time. Given the regular replacement of govern-
ing elites, Serbia therefore illustrates well our concept of ‘state capture trap’
and the adverse effects of EU accession policy. In the following section, we
discuss to what extent these findings may be generalisable beyond the
Serbian case.
Beyond Serbia: money, power, glory in the Western Balkans and
Eastern Europe
A comprehensive tracing of the three mechanisms underpinning our state
capture model in additional countries is beyond the scope of this article.
However, both macro-level patterns as well as case study findings from pre-
vious studies lead us to expect our findings to be relevant throughout, and
more cautiously beyond, the Western Balkans region. In the absence of a
direct indicator for state capture (Fazekas and Tóth 2016), we empirically
demonstrate its prevalence through a series of proxy measures. For one, we
observe a gap between governance effectiveness and political participation.
Whereas state institutions globally preserved or even increased their level
of governance effectiveness (Figure 3), levels of political participation and
accountability have stagnated following initial improvements during the
early 2000s (Figure 4). This discrepancy is consistent with the theoretical litera-
ture on state capture and competitive particularism, which holds that compe-
tition occurs between few oligarchic networks (or parties) at the expense of
open deliberation and access to power for outsiders (Mungiu-Pippidi 2007).
Furthermore, data on the level of control of corruption (Figure 5) shows
that increases in government effectiveness do not correspond to a more
effective fight against corruption. To the contrary: scores have stagnated or
decreased, especially in those countries with decreasing levels of voice and
accountability, suggesting that regional governments have increasing
capacities but lack the political will to curb corruption. Overall, these macro-
empirical trends confirm that following positive developments during early
transition, the countries of the region remain stuck in a hybrid status quo,
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 13
with limited competition and low levels of vertical accountability signalling
the enduring presence of state capture.
Besides evidence for region-wide state capture, findings reported in earlier
studies also provide plausible evidence that the three mechanisms are at work
in other Western Balkan countries. In Macedonia, the EU criticised state
capture in general terms but nonetheless continued to acknowledge the gov-
ernment’sefforts in the fight against corruption in the regular progress
reports and to support the country’s progress towards EU accession. This
approach allowed the ruling party to override the pro-democratic opposition
and to boost its legitimacy in the voters’eyes (Popetrevski 2017), signalling
both the mechanisms of ‘power’and ‘glory’. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the
EU’s conditionality policy and its continued cooperation with the ruling
parties bolstered their power positions through ‘glory’and eventually
Figure 3. Government effectiveness in the Western Balkans. Source: World Bank 2017.
Figure 4. Voice and Accountability in the Balkans. Source: World Bank 2017.
14 S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
contributed to a strong legitimacy crisis of state institutions (Bojicic-Dzelilovic
and Kostovicova 2013; Richter 2018). When it comes to the money mechan-
ism, there is widespread evidence that the Republika Srpska government
‘lives offEU funds’used to remunerate loyal members of clientelist networks
hired as public officials (Deutsche Welle 2016). Overall, it therefore appears
that our state capture model holds across the Western Balkans region.
Beyond the Western Balkans, the generalisability of our model is less clear.
The phenomenon of state capture itself, despite diverging specific patterns, is
prevalent across Eastern Europe both in more consolidated democracies such
as the Czech Republic and in Post-Soviet countries such as Moldova (Innes
2014; Tudoroiu 2015). However, the EU’s policy largely differs in these con-
texts, with conditionality largely absent both among member states which
have successfully completed the accession process and in the European
neighbourhood countries that do not have any official membership perspec-
tive. Nonetheless, we argue that certain elements of our theoretical model
have explanatory power in these contexts as well. Notably, even after EU
accession, the new member states have been exposed to widespread
pressure from Brussels to adjust legislation at the expense of internal delibera-
tion. This external pressure has fostered executive empowerment at the
expense of the parliament and the judiciary in a way that is similar to the
power mechanism described above. While we thus do not observe the
same generalised weakening of state institutions as in the captured states
of the Western Balkans, EU-induced executive domination has emerged as
one of the drivers of democratic backsliding in the post-accession context
(Grabbe 2014; Sedelmeier 2017). This suggests a different form of detrimental
EU impact via the power mechanism. In the European neighbourhood, econ-
omic liberalisation in the absence of strong state institutions proved to be a
Figure 5. Control of Corruption in the Balkans. Source: World Bank 2017.
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 15
fertile ground for the emergence of state capture, suggesting the operation of
the money mechanism. However, the case of Moldova demonstrates that
entrenched informal power networks capture state institutions also in the
absence of conditionality (Tudoroiu 2015), thus underlining the multi-causal
nature of state capture that calls for an in-depth study of its roots in
different empirical contexts.
Conclusion
Moving beyond the traditional dichotomy between interest- and identity-
based explanations for the limited effectiveness of EU conditionality as a
driver of domestic change, this article has identified state capture as the
key structural reason for the observed decoupling between formal compli-
ance and democratic performance in the Western Balkans. The presence of
informal networks that capture formal institutions and impede deep demo-
cratisation explains why the EU has been able to induce partial compliance
with membership criteria, but has not had a profound democratising
impact in the region. We demonstrated not only that the presence of state
capture inhibits the operation of conditionality as a trigger for democratic
transformation, but that conditionality unintentionally enables informal net-
works to consolidate their power, creating a dynamic that durably under-
mines any progress towards sustainable democratisation. We proposed and
empirically verified three distinct mechanisms through which we claim the
EU accession process is strengthening informal networks and corrupt elites,
which in turn block further democratisation and cement hybrid regimes.
Our findings hold important theoretical implications. First, they confirm the
relevance of systematically incorporating informal domestic politics to explain
the impact of EU accession conditionality. By specifying the linkages between
EU conditionality and state capture, we go beyond earlier observations of so-
called pathological effects of the EU’sefforts to bolster the rule of law in third
countries to provide a theoretical model that explains unintended negative
consequences of EU conditionality. While we do not question the general rel-
evance of external incentives, our alternative state capture model allows us to
explain the observed decoupling of compliance and democracy levels, which
the external incentives model fails to account for. Second, the deliberate
misuse of EU conditionality by domestic ruling elites to stifle political
debate and consolidate their power represents the negative mirror image
in the debate on differential empowerment of reform-minded actors in the
enlargement context (Dimitrova and Buzogany 2014; Wunsch 2015,2018). It
therefore highlights how crucial domestic usages of EU conditionality are to
understanding the EU’s eventual impact upon enlargement countries.
When it comes to practical implications, our findings suggest that the
current approach towards enlargement risks enabling and reinforcing informal
16 S. RICHTER AND N. WUNSCH
networks by providing them with the resources to capture state institutions,
undermine domestic mechanisms of accountability, and maintain their
countries in a state of permanent hybridity. Therefore, the mere refinement
and expansion of conditionality is not a promising approach to tackle demo-
cratic backsliding in the enlargement region. The EU’s current reengagement
in the Western Balkans region may send an important signal to boost the credi-
bility of the membership perspective as a driver of domestic transformation, but
conditionality alone will remain insufficient to achieve deep democratisation. If
thorough democratic transformation still remains the EU’s goal in the region,
conditionality needs to be complemented with a more comprehensive and
deliberate empowerment of domestic parliaments and civil society actors as
a counterweight to dominant executives. Favouring domestic deliberation
rather than incentive-driven compliance should go a long way in ensuring
the sustainability of rule of law and democratic reforms even once the
Western Balkan countries have eventually become EU members.
Notes
1. See online appendix for further details on data collection, coding procedure and
reliability tests for the empirical update.
2. See online appendix for robustness checks against alternative democracy
measures.
3. Interview with EU official, Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlarge-
ment Negotiations, November 2017.
4. See online appendix
5. See online appendix for list of interviewees.
6. Interview with Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID), September
2017.
7. Interview with Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP), April 2017.
8. Interview with Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Nego-
tiations (DG NEAR), November 2017.
9. Ibid., December 2017.
10. Interview with BCSP and International Study and Affairs Centre, May 2018.
11. Interview with Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence (BFPE), April 2017.
12. Interview with civil society activist, September 2017.
13. Interview with Government Office for Cooperation with Civil Society, April 2017.
14. Interview with SNS party official, September 2017.
15. Interview with European External Action Service, November 2017; Balkan Inves-
tigative Reporting Network, September 2017.
16. Interview with CeSID, September 2017.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Frank Schimmelfennig, Tina Freyburg, Gergana
Noutcheva, as well as the members of the European Politics Group at ETH Zurich for
their valuable feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. They are also grateful
for the helpful feedback provided by three anonymous reviewers. Markus Wehrmann
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY 17
provided valuable research assistance. The research of Solveig Richter was financially
supported by the Leibniz foundation within the framework of the Research Network
‘External Democracy Promotion’. Natasha Wunsch gratefully acknowledges support
through the ETH Zurich Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and the Marie Curie
Actions for People COFUND Program.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The research of Solveig Richter was financially supported by the Leibniz foundation
within the framework of the Research Network ‘External Democracy Promotion ’.
Natasha Wunsch gratefully acknowledges support through the ETH Zurich Postdoc-
toral Fellowship/Marie Curie Action for People COFUND Program.
Notes on contributors
Solveig Richter Junior Professor, Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of
Erfurt, Germany E-Mail: solveig.richter@uni-erfurt.de
Natasha Wunsch Postdoctoral Researcher, European Politics Group, Center for Com-
parative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, Haldeneggsteig 4, 8092 Zurich, Switzer-
land. Email: natasha.wunsch@eup.gess.ethz.ch
ORCID
Natasha Wunsch http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8715-1335
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