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Dilemmas of Europeanization : Eastern and Central Europe after the EU Enlargement
Abstract
The EU enlargement, completed in 2004, has been hailed as one of the most significant EU accomplishments. It has also been called the most effective democracy promotion mechanism ever developed and applied. There is a lot of truth in such claims. The eight Central and East European countries that joined the EU have been the most successful examples of democratic consolidation and transition to a market economy in the entire postcommunist region. This paper examines the impact of the EU accession process on democratic consolidation and the consequences of EU membership on the quality of new democratic regimes in these countries. In the first part of the paper, I will review empirical evidence showing the diverging trajectories of postcommunist transformations and the deepening split between two parts of the former Soviet bloc. In the second part, I will sketch five dilemmas faced by the new, postcommunist members of the EU. These dilemmas reveal the tension between the requirements of EU membership and continuation of postcommunist transformations aimed at improving the quality of democracy and securing faster economic growth.
... But, second, this particular, unprecedented topic is also very important in terms of the EU political innovation 9 , whereby the Union implements its enlargement policies. For instance, the works of Grzegorz Ekiert, head of the Harvard Center for European Studies, provide serious causes to believe that the successive waves of EU enlargement have comprised typologically different cases (see Ekiert 2008). This is an important point, as the rules for admission of new member states to the Union imply the application of universal criteria and of the same recurring approach. ...
... Also, we should point out that, apart from the predominantly euphoric assessments about Europeanization as a source of democracy and stability in the countries that have undertaken it, there are also some sober estimates in literature, about the process of preparation for EU membership as a crash course in political irresponsibility (Ekiert 2008, see in particular pages 8-21 regarding the many different ways in which the political irresponsibility of the local governments is taught/encouraged by the very scope and way of conducting the pre-accession preparation of the member states. For a brief but fair overview of the many interpretations of the concept of "Europeanization", see Sedelmeier 2011 andDîrzu 2011. ...
... When democracy is defined in reference to elections and elite compliance, the EU has indeed been successful at promoting democracy. The EU is often cited as the IO with the greatest ability to influence regime outcomes by providing incentives for institutional reform (Schimmelfennig, 2005;Vachudova, 2005), with a particular emphasis on its role in Spain, Portugal, and Greece (Smith, 2001) and post-communist Europe (Ekiert, 2008;Levitz and Pop-Eleches, 2010;Noutcheva, 2016). Nevertheless, some argue the EU's role in promoting democracy in post-communist countries was limited to pre-accession institution building; following accession, the EU lost the leverage needed to continue to influence domestic politics (Pridham, 2007;Vachudova, 2008;Ugur, 2013;Grabbe, 2014). ...
Although the European Union (EU) is considered unrivaled in its democracy promoting abilities, democracy is being challenged within its borders. Over the last decade, Hungary’s ruling party has debilitated or eliminated liberal democratic institutions; similar trends have emerged in Poland and other new democracies in the EU. What explains these surprising cases of democratic backsliding? Researchers have identified the limits of conditionality and the EU’s inability to counteract backsliding. However, given the EU’s extensive role in democracy building in its member states, it is critical to also consider the EU as an initial source of backsliding. This paper argues that the EU’s post-Maastricht policy structure, accession process, and membership requirements have made democratic backsliding more likely in new democracies by simultaneously increasing executive power and limiting states’ domestic policy space, which stunts institutional development. This combination of factors creates opportunities for executives to manipulate already weak institutions to increase their power, and democratic backsliding becomes more likely. A comparative analysis that combines typical and control cases provides support for this argument. These findings extend beyond the EU to contribute to emerging research on the limits of international democracy promotion and the related long-term effects that international organizations have on domestic democratic institutional development.
... The first aspect refers to the technocratic approach adopted by the European Commission. Executive agencies played a major role in the implementation of the acquis, while national legislative bodies were reduced to 'rubber stamp' parliaments (Ekiert, 2008). As a result, the prestige of the already weak parliamentary oversight dropped sharply and the acquis took on the shape of an imposed foreign legislation (Holmes, 2003). ...
This article investigates the roots of populism in Poland in its current traditionalist-conservative fashion. In contrast with the liberal hegemony and, more specifically, with its ‘true European values’, right-wing populists in Poland claim to speak in the name of those people who refuse this external system of values and who experienced a ‘cultural displacement’. The article examines whether the consensual process of European Union (EU) integration has created room for a populist moment. Particular emphasis is given to the importance of culture in the construction of an alternative neo-traditionalist project. While the post-structuralist literature on populism has mostly focused on Western Europe and socio-economic demands, the concept of neo-traditionalism reveals the confrontation between two different blocs also in Central-Eastern Europe. The author analyses the neo-traditionalist discourse in Poland, most notably produced by the conservative party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS), as a counter-hegemonic project. Opposing mainstream EU values, PiS appealed to ‘ordinary Poles’ and adopted a traditionalist-conservative narrative. The article will show how the neglect of a neo-traditionalist world view by the European elite and the threat to identity posed by liberal and individualistic values have been exploited by right-wing populists to forge a new common sense.
... European enlargement has predominantly been seen as one of the most successful policy objectives of the EU (Ekiert 2008). The collapse of communist regimes across the Central and Eastern European region provided a gate-way for the extension of freedom and democratic ideas, beyond the borders of the Iron Curtain (ibid.). ...
Over the past three decades, the Visegrad Four (V4) shifted from normative conformity with the West to pursue a counter-hegemonic strategy in relation to the EU. Explaining the ‘why’s’ behind the non-conformity stance, the paper adopts discourse analysis to explain the rise of modern-day sub-regionalism within the political borders of the EU. The European migration crisis catalyzed a discursive clash between members of the V4 on one hand and actors within the European Institutions on the other. This has led to an identity redefinition within the V4, igniting a process of sub-regional reaffirmation. Other than being a complementary sub-regional grouping, the paper finds and coins a new category of sub-regionalism, ‘opportunistic sub-regionalism’ to explain the dialectic relationship between the EU and V4. We find that this alternative form of sub-regionalist grouping is linked to observable attempts at achieving a level of sub-regional actorship to influence decision making in the EU.
... While it is important to identify cross-national illiberal strategies and understand networks of illiberal learning, this should not blind us to alternative "playbooks" and differences in local institutional arrangements, but also -and most crucially -to deeper shifts and continuities in the economic, social and political arrangements of CEE societies. These have to do -for example -with the extent and patterns of civil society involvement in democratic processes; 11 with how deeply liberal democratic norms are entrenched among society and the political elites (Dawson 2018;Dawson andHanley 2016, 2019); with the relations between public and private interests (Dimitrova 2018); with underlying tensions between varieties of democratic and capitalist development (Bohle 2018;Bohle and Greskovits 2012) as well as between democratisation and Europeanisation (Ekiert 2008); and with mechanisms of societal exclusion (especially ethnic) that have underpinned state-and institution-building in many CEE countries (Cianetti 2018(Cianetti , 2019Agarin 2020). ...
This paper critiques some of the underlying assumptions of what we call the “backsliding paradigm”. Mirroring Thomas Carothers’s (2002a) famous critique of the “transition paradigm”, we argue that the current debate on democratic regression in Central and Eastern Europe runs the risk of becoming a “reverse transition paradigm” as it presents some of the same limitations. We discuss five such limitations as an invitation for other scholars to engage in debate on how we can study (un) democratic developments in the region in a broader way, accounting for the range of different, complex and even paradoxical trajectories its countries display.
... European enlargement has predominantly been seen as one of the most successful policy objectives of the EU (Ekiert, 2008). The collapse of communist regimes across the Central and Eastern European region provided a gate-way for the extension of freedom and democratic ideas, beyond the borders of the Iron Curtain (ibid.). ...
Over the past three decades, the V4 shifted from a normative conformity with the West to pursuing a counter-hegemonic strategy in relation to the EU following the adoption of the Council Decision on resettlement quotas. What becomes apparent in this context is that questions regarding the European migration and refugee policies became a defining issue for EU’s politics as well as its future. Thus, explaining the “why’s” behind the stance of the Visegrad Group and by extension that of Central and Eastern Europe is relevant to understanding the particular sensitivity associated with the issue and its impact on the further development of Europe. The study argues that there are evident inconsistencies in the theoretical approaches proposed for the study of the relationship between macro-entities such as the European Union and meso-level formations such as the Visegrad Four. Hence, as part of the argument, this study suggests that events such as the migration crisis have served as a catalyst for a discursive clash between members of the V4 on the one hand and actors within the European Institutions on the other. In turn, this led to an identity redefinition within the V4, igniting thus a process of sub-regional reaffirmation. In addition, following the same line of argumentation, this study suggests that the V4 evolved into a new form of sub-regionalism. Regarding the latter, this study argues for a new category of sub-regionalism, namely that of “opportunistic sub-regionalism”. This alternative form of sub-regionalist grouping implies that there are observable attempts at achieving a level of actorship without formal institutionalization. Lastly, it is suggested that (sub)regional groupings such as the Visegrad Four can be sui generis and exist outside normative arguments of convergence and formal institutionalization.
... First, the studies focused on EU enlargement policy through conditionality (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2005;Ekiert, 2008;Sedelmeier, 2011;Toshkov, 2012;Gateva, 2015) fail to explain the way in which that policy is formed and established as an essential instrument of the Europeanisation of central and eastern Europe. In these works, the enlargement approach of the EU appears as a natural self-evident fact. ...
This article aims to present a clear picture of the attempts towards the normalisation of relations in the western Balkans between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia via the process of the dialogue, facilitated by the UN General Assembly and mediated by the EU, which began more than eight years ago. The dialogue has produced different results for both countries so far, including various consequences and implications which have a constitutional nature. Taking this into account, this article offers an analysis of the perspective and the constitutional dimensions of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, drawing on the legal and factual actions that have been undertaken by the parties in the process thus far. The article analyses this dialogue and draws conclusions regarding the ending of the process and, in practice, how the final normalisation of relations should look, including the drawing up of a final agreement of reconciliation between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The constitutional consequences which can be the product of such an agreement are also examined.
... For more on cvm see: Alegre et al. 2009; Vachudova/Spendzharova 2012; Tanasoiu, C. and M. Racovita 2012. The critical literature on the eu's transformative power is really vast (for example: Mungiu-Pippidi 2011; Racovita 2011; Tanasoiu 2011; Tanasoiu/Racovita 2012; Ganev 2012; Ivanov 2012; Gateva 2013; Buzogany 2012; Papakostas 2012;Andreev 2009;Trauner 2009;Kochenov 2009;Cirtautas/Schimmelfennig 2010;Dîrzu 2011;Ekiert 2008;Grabbe 2006;Johnson 2005; Manioka 2004;Mendelski 2012Mendelski , 2010Mendelski , 2009Papadimitriou/Gateva. 2009.). ...
... "When the EU began post-communist enlargement in the mid-1990s, the goal was not to export democracy; instead, it was to import a buffer of well-functioning democracies with growing economies and strong state capacity." (Vachudova, 2014) European integration has been from the start a framework for democratization process, promoting liberal democracy (Ekiert, 2008). ...
This paper investigates the contribution of the European Union accession process to the democratization of post-communist states of Southeast Europe. By examining the role of the European Union in the region, based on the course of EU accession process of Southeastern Europe and the progress made by the Southeast European countries and how the compliance with democratic conditionality affects the actual democratization process in Southeastern Europe.
... The problem of corruption in its turn appears as a universal one, as a problem that could be solved by the legal, institutional, and penal instruments that work in Western societies. The unproductiveness of such an approached could be foreseen in advance (Ágh 2008;Alegre et al. 2009;Andreev 2009;Börzel 2011;Buzogány 2012;Dąbrowski 2012;Dimitrov et al. 2014;Dimitrova 2010;Ekiert 2008;Ganev 2012;Gateva 2013;Kavrakova 2009;Mungiu-Pippidi 2011;Papadimitriou 2009;Papakostas 2012;Tanasoiu 2012;Toneva-Metodieva 2014;Toshkov 2012;Trauner 2009). the accession of the candidate member states of Southeast Europe is imperative, regardless of how long it takes. ...
In the context of the ongoing crisis, the eu must re-evaluate why enlargement has been successful in the past and understand the obstacles facing it today. Only then will the eu be able to reconceptualise enlargement for a new era and revive its foundering soft power. Luc-André Brunet … The rule of law promises to move countries past the first, relatively easy phase of political and economic liberalization to a deeper level of reform. But that promise is proving difficult to fulfill.
... 3 The acute misbalances formulated between these two dimensions were rotten in a substantial different historical legacy. Western European core of civilization and the continental peripheries of the East Europe did not share the same constitutive prospects 4 in the field of societal structure, political culture nor even in collective benchmarks and values. ...
This research proposal intends to analyze the process of reconstructing the European identity through the intervention of a set of key factors such as the globalization process and its subsidiary effect, the glocalization response. The new politics of borderlands is strongly marked by the presence of a dual phenomenon. The reconfiguration of the European cartography was conditioned by the presence of multiple identities and alternative societal models. In this context, the study is build around two major hypotheses. The first one sustains the fact that European identity supported an essential influence under the process of East European integration, while the second work hypothesis claims that East European members are confronting with some unfinished political processes, which transformed them in periphery actors. The study uses the term of " border " in a metaphorical sense and remains essentially connected with the dimension of a conceptual reconstruction. Assuming the existence of some symbolic limitations inside the European identity is an intermediary step in explaining the presence of multiple shades and frames inside a complex construction, which generates some unexpected contemporary dilemmas.
... Some have argued that that European Union integration and pressure encourages transition and discourages backsliding (Raunio 2002, Ishiyama 2006, Ekiert 2008, Gryzmala-Busse and Innes 2003, Rupnik 2002, while studies of US democracy promotion efforts -particularly vis-à-vis military intervention -have been less optimistic. Others have argued that European-Russian competition over influence on Eastern European states has hurt democratic transition efforts and increased the probability of backsliding, with Ukraine as an illustrative (and timely) example (Levitsky and Way 2006). ...
Conflict scholarship has long identified the growth of a disproportionately large demographic cohort of young men as a significant driver of armed conflict, a finding that has recently been replicated in predictive models of coups and autocratic backsliding as well. This paper incorporates youth bulge dynamics into a study of the deleterious effects of factionalism in emerging democracies. Specifically, the paper uses a macro-comparative design to test whether findings of youth bulge effects on governance are robust when controlling for factional participation dynamics, and whether the combination of factionalism and a youth bulge is particularly destructive to young democracies. The authors conclude by considering the utility of youth political participation, encouraged by government outreach and investment, as a mechanism for harnessing the energy and power of youth bulge for constructive purposes.
... It is also clear that the pressures of pre-accession adaptation and conditionality led to speedy adoption of many new policies and institutional rules without serious political and societal debate in CEE (Dimitrova 2004;. Despite this imbalance, and based on the arguments listed above, one has to agree with analysts who have noted that the countries where democratisation, however imperfect, has endured are the ones that have attained EU membership (Ekiert 2008). ...
This article highlights the lessons from the European Union's (EU's) eastern enlargement relevant for Turkey. The EU's approach to candidates, developed during the last enlargement, was founded on asymmetry, objectivity and conditionality, with the latter evolving as the key policy tool. Clearly, some of the tools and rules of the previous enlargement cannot work as well with Turkey. The article examines the mechanisms underlying the success of conditionality and sketches some of the scope conditions needed for it to work in Turkey's case. Ultimately, the success of conditionality will depend on EU credibility and the preferences of domestic actors, which are more heterogeneous than in Central and Eastern European states.
This paper analyzes the relationship between institutions, foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in the Western Balkans region. We use a difference-indifference method to evaluate the impact of institutions on attracting FDI and promoting economic growth and we find evidence, which support that quality of institutions is an important policy variable. The research shows that institutions play a key role in determining economic growth and attracting foreign investment. This highlights the importance of creating and maintaining inclusive institutions that promote the rule of law, control of corruption, and regulatory quality, which can lead to increased economic development and investment.
Throughout the decade following the launch of the “16+1” initiative,
cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries has
faced many objective challenges and constructed obstructions. The initiative
marks its 10th anniversary in a demanding phase, which is characterized by a
negative strategic narrative from Western stakeholders and reflected in the
creeping disengagement of several CEE partners. The paper seeks to analyse
the strategic frames employed to construct this narrative.
Sovyetler Birliği dağıldıktan sonra klasik karşılaştırmalı siyaset bilimciler liberalizm ve otoriteryanizm savaşında bir kazanan ilan ederken, bugün 1990 sonrası bu iddiaların çürütüldüğü yeni tartışma alanları meydana gelmektedir. Türkiye literatürü ise bu yeni tartışma sahalarını yakalamakta zorlanmıştır. Türkiye’de belli kısıtlıklar içeren Doğu Avrupa karşılaştırmalı siyasal çalışmaları, uluslararası yayınlarda ortaya atılan yeni kavramsal çeşitliliği anlamak ve yeni ampirik tanımlar üretmek için geç kalmaktadır. Uluslararası yayınlara göz atıldığında özellikle Avrupa Birliği üyeliği sonrası siyasal rejimlerinden kurumsal sistemlerine kadar değişim gösteren ya da değişimde zorlanan Doğu Avrupa devletlerinin ağırlık kazandığı bir literatürün meydana geldiğini görmek mümkündür. Bu devletler yeni yönetim biçimleri, çıkmaza giren siyasal pratikleri ve reform süreçlerindeki başarı düzeyleri ile modern siyaset bilimcilerin dikkatini çekmiştir. Bu çalışmanın ilk bölümü bu tartışmaların merkezindeki ülkelerden biri olan Çekya’nın Avrupa Birliği üyeliği sonrası siyasal değişimlerini tartışmaya açarken ikinci bölümü uluslararası akademi dünyasındaki kavramsal çeşitliliğe dair bir literatür taramasına Çekya özelinde yer vererek teorik kavramlarla arka planı güçlendirecektir.
This chapter adopts both a historical and a comparative approach in studying EU enlargement. The aim here is to identify ‘whether' and ‘when' a country joins the Union, with an emphasis on the currently ongoing enlargement process in the Western Balkans. It starts with an overview of the conceptual and theoretical framework for studying and explaining EU enlargement. It then reviews how EU enlargement has proceeded over time by looking at its successful and unsuccessful cases, with a particular focus on the motivations and explanations associated with each of them. The chapter considers the successful rounds of enlargement, the reluctant and the awkward cases, and the ongoing (laggard) Southeastern Enlargement round. It discusses the main EU enlargement dilemmas and their implications for the current (unfinished) enlargement round in the Western Balkans in detail.
Cilj ovog rada je pregled do sada najveće izvedenog međunarodnog projekta, GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) projekta, čije nepoznavanje danas označava analfabetizam u teoriji liderstva. Posle elaboriranja osnovnih doprinosa i otkrića projekta GLOBE, akcenat u radu stavljamo na diskusiju interakcija između liderstva, nacionalne i organizacione kulture u istočnoevropskom klasteru projekta, kao najrelevatnijem za domaću teoriju i praksu.
Studies on process of European integration to take a political appearance, mainly focused on pressure of public debate on EU institutions, competition between EU institutions and governance dimensions. This research will be focused on whether politicisation of EU as a political and institutional structure (polity) means de-politicisation of member states' politicisation. Problematic will be examined in the context of causality and with help of multi-dimension quantitative data over hypothesis that "Politicisation of the EU causes de-politicisation of member states". Analysis will be carried out in the sample of Eastern European member countries and framework of the public's imagination in 2019. De-politicization in Eastern European member countries is obviously in majority of countries in sample compared to the rest of EU, this phenomenon is invalid for Czech Republic and has a fluctuating appearance for Slovenia and Baltic countries.
This article contributes to the growing debate on democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), by expanding on Béla Greskovits’s distinction between backsliding and hollowness, suggesting ways to broaden and specify the concept of hollowness, and discussing the relationship between hollowness and backsliding. Estonia and Latvia provide illustrations of two stable democracies, which nevertheless have consolidated tendencies for an elite-driven and ethnic-majority-driven democratic process hollowed out of its democratic contestation. This is what I call “technocratic” and “ethnic” hollowness. This double hollowness consolidated during EU accession, which created a favourable context for well-positioned ethnic majority elites to push forward ethnocentric and neoliberal agendas while restricting the space for debating them. However, far from a symptom of backsliding in the sense of a regression into authoritarianism, double hollowness is in fact central to these democracies’ stability. Such stability will have to be destabilised in order to improve their democratic quality.
The research project entitled “Maximizing the integration capacity of the European Union: Lessons and prospects for enlargement and beyond” (MAXCAP) aimed to evaluate the European Union (EU)’s enlargement to the East. The consortium of nine high profile European Universities and think tanks was led by the idea that evaluating the EU’s approach and mode of integration in the Eastern enlargement would help to assess the current enlargement process encompassing candidates and aspirant countries from the Western Balkans as well as Turkey. This broad evaluation was intended to provide grounds for policy proposals how the EU could improve its integration capacity for the future. By presenting research findings together with interventions and discussions from the international workshop in Sofia, we hope to continue the productive dialogue between academia and policy makers which has been the core of the MAXCAP project and to contribute to better understanding of what the Union can achieve in the region.
The perspectives for future EU enlargements must be sensitive to the differences and distinctions between societies in Eastern and Southeastern Europe – they are not necessarily and only negative, as the debate in Sofia has shown. This calls for novel research instruments that can register the significant differences between national cases, including the variety of changing public attitudes to EU enlargement. The texts presented in this volume are primarily oriented to solving such methodological tasks.
Based on a review of Europeanization approaches in general, and Turkey’s Europeanization in particular, it may be found that both suffer from theoretical and methodological limitations associated with a dual tendency to overemphasize EU conditionality at the expense of domestic and global factors, and resort to dichotomous thinking in explaining domestic motivations for compliance. This study suggests following an alternative approach that takes the domestic and the global more seriously. Furthermore, it assumes that there is a need to move beyond the conventional either/or debates in Europeanization studies that are based on binary oppositions, including agent versus structure, cultural logic versus calculus logic, appropriateness versus consequentiality, top-down versus bottom-up, and Rational Choice versus Sociological institutionalism, amongst others.
In the context of the ongoing crisis, the EU must re-evaluate why enlargement has been successful in the past and understand the obstacles facing it today. Only then will the EU be able to reconceptualise enlargement for a new era and revive its foundering soft power.
This chapter introduces a theoretical reflection on the origin and the nature of Europeanization. Attention will be focused on the path leading to Europeanization, its original structure and its pattern, from the beginning of European construction until today. These stages will be examined through comparative discourse analysis of past European enlargements, regarded as vital manifestations of the Europeanization process.
After almost a decade since the enlargement of the European Union to Central and Eastern Europe, history can be read with the clarity that time offers. The context, strategies and negotiation methods of 1997-2004 can be analysed more carefully now, because the consequences of those negotiations are felt even today. Cov-ering under the mask of enlargement, we notice the fear of the westerners towards the new Member States which brought in a different history and risked disturbing a system that has been painfully set up since the 1950s. But at the same time, we notice the desire for moral revenge of the candidate countries towards the old EU members. In this study, I analyse the merit of Günter Verheugen, the technocrat who found the right language and strategy to reconcile these two perspectives and who adapted to the present interests of the two parties,
This paper discusses a conceptual relationship between Europeanization and communication-development. It analyses the theories and methods of diffusion of knowledge and information in Europeanizing and developing societies. More precisely,it focuses on the exact elements of communication-development which coincide with Europeanization, and to what extent they could be extrapolated to the studies on internalization of the EU-driven social change. In this regard, the article aims to identify the focal points for possible application of such a perspective and sanction further analyses of communication as a consolidating factor in the process of Europeanization
Questioning the EU and European IntegrationCultures and Power in EU InstitutionsPolicies in Places, Experiencing EuropeFrom Policies to Politics and Societies: Fears in the Imaginings of EuropeConclusion
References
Anthropology, especially of the Europeanist variety, has been under tremendous pressure recently to live up to two major challenges: first, to understand and describe worldwide transformations resulting from the movement of capital and peoples together with regime changes and transnational reconfigurations of former identities and, second, to grapple with the way in which scholars must live up to standards set by both the international academic community and its national variants. The bulk of contemporary analysis focuses on the former cloaked under a Western/non-Western divide in what can be termed as identity-studies, while the latter is being relegated largely to marginal national schools of knowledge production. In this paper, however, I argue that we must continue to critique the way anthropological analysis continues to depend on Western cultural categories, and the need to raise questions that may in the end lead to a very different notion of anthropology than that which we have been familiar with over the past two decades.
The European Union (EU) considers the spread of economic prosperity and democracy to countries emerging from dictatorship among its primary goals when considering countries as candidates for membership. The standard argument suggests that EU membership confers significant benefits on the accession countries, and these countries are willing to undergo costly and difficult reforms to reap these benefits. Through strict membership conditions, member states force accession countries to commit to democracy. This argument, however, downplays the difficulties accession countries face in implementing the changes required of them. This paper seeks to challenge the conventional wisdom that enlargement is always good for the enlargement country. Drawing on theoretical work in the fields of law and economics, we will argue that, under certain conditions, the reforms required of would-be members could actually have the perverse effect of undermining the establishment of legitimate law in transitional democracies. The "rule of law'' is undermined by placing laws on the books that create perverse incentives or are near impossible to implement.
The collapse of the communist regime in 1990 and the establishment of political pluralism marked the beginning of a new era for Albania, one of transition from communism to democracy. In addition to undertaking domestic political and economic reforms, Albania began to establish political and economic relations with European and Euro-Atlantic organizations as a means of making the transition to democracy irreversible. Membership in these organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Union (EU), was a long-term objective of Albania's new political leadership. This thesis examines their important roles in helping the country to democratize, carry out democratic reforms, and meet membership criteria. It also analyzes their impact in shaping the country's domestic political development, and their role in the promotion of stability, security and prosperity. It concludes that the involvement of these organizations has enhanced not only the quality of the reforms, but also the sustainability of democratic achievements in Albania. Finally, the thesis considers the prospects for Albania's future democratic development, the OSCE's probable future role in the country, challenges beyond NATO membership, and above all, further reforms to be accomplished in light of prospective EU membership.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the postcommunist transformation is the tremendous variation in rates of economic growth across countries. To account for these differences, this article develops an alternative to the J-curve and partial reform views that currently dominate discussions of the politics of economic reform. This approach treats economic performance as a political struggle between ex-communist and anticommunist factions engaged in a war of attrition over economic and political resources. Using a pooled time-series analysis of economic growth across twenty-five postcommunist countries for the period 1990-98, it finds that political polarization between ex-communist and anticommunist factions has had a devastating effect on economic growth. Where these competing factions have had roughly equal power and have struggled over the economic rules of the game--as in Bulgaria or Ukraine--economic growth has been slow. In contrast, where either ex-communist or anticommunist factions have dominated the political scene--as in Estonia or Uzbekistan--economic performance has been much better. In addition, economic growth has followed the electoral calendar in polarized countries. As elections approach and the odds of a change in economic policy increase, growth rates have plummeted in polarized countries. These findings have implications for studies of the postcommunist transformation, the political business cycle, and the politics of economic reform more generally.
NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS ARE CENTRAL ACTORS IN THE SCRUTINY AND implementation of European Union (EU) legislation. Member state legislatures provide a channel for incorporating public opinion into the governance of the Union. Their importance has become more evident during the 1990s as debate has focused on the democratic deficit and deparliamentarization of European governance.
National parliaments are involved in EU decision-making in three ways: they 1) participate in national policy formulation on Union legislation; 2) monitor the behaviour of member state representatives in the Council of Ministers and the European Council; and 3) have functions specifically regulated in the treaties, such as ratification of treaty amendments and implementation of directives. The third function differs from the first two as the treaties impose rights and duties on the national parliaments, whereas there is no EU law on national policy formulation on Union legislation or on the scrutiny of ministers. During the 1996-97 Intergovernmental Conference (ICC) the member states saw no need for such European-level regulation. Thus it is up to each national parliament – within the limits set by member state constitutions and other constraints – to decide how it deals with the challenges brought by EU membership.
The imminent large-scale EU enlargement raises important questions regarding the success of Phare as one of the Pre-Accession Funds in preparing candidate countries' institutions for Structural Funding, the need to reform EU regional policy itself, and to what extent the Commission is using Phare to build regional-level institutions and shift an enlarged EU towards multi-level governance. Despite some successes, Phare will not be able to deliver everything it was set up for, and a coherent set of post-accession transition policies will need to be set up as part of the next reform of the Structural Funds to ensure that the process of learning and adjustment leading to the adoption of the "acquis" does not stall with the new membership. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.
The policies of President Vladimir Putin have undermined Russia's fledging democratic institutions but have also failed to generate any sort of coherent authoritarianism to take their place. Thus, fifteen years after the collapse of the USSR, the country still lacks any consensus about its basic principles of state legitimacy. To explain this, we must understand the ways in which the Soviet Union's institutional legacies have short-circuited all three historically effective types of legitimate rule—traditional, rational-legal, and charismatic— resulting in a highly corrupt state that still cannot fully control its borders, monopolize the legal means of violence, or clearly articulate its role in the contemporary world. If energy prices drop suddenly, leadership transition problems prove unmanageable, and/or economic inequalities provoke more widespread and sustained public protest, the growing mood of resentful nationalism could transform Russia from an unsteady and distrusted “strategic partner” of the West into something far more hostile.
This article tests the assumption that the European Union has forced the potential new members from Eastern Europe to adhere to standards regarding the treatment of national minorities current member states do not meet. The article examines the treatment of the Russian minorities in Latvia and Estonia and the Roma population in Slovakia compared to the treatment of the Turks in Germany and the Roma in Italy. Using EU accession reports, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) recommendations, and the Minorities at Risk data set, a double standard becomes apparent. The newly democratized states of Eastern Europe are being forced to choose between the economic advantages of membership in the EU and legislation designed to protect the language and culture of the majority group. The article concludes with an examination of the histories of Estonia and Latvia to illustrate why being forced into altering laws concerning culture and citizenship is so difficult.
Numerous Central and Eastern European countries have restructured their regional level of public administration in the context of their accession to the European Union. Focusing on the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the article studies how the EU has influenced the institutionalization of regions and regional self-government. Regionalization may have been driven mainly by EU conditionality or, as a competing explanation suggests, more by domestic factors. The article argues that the EU altered the opportunity structure faced by domestic actors but that its role was more complementary than decisive. Czech and Slovak governments instrumentalized a perceived EU conditionality to promote their own political objectives. These findings demonstrate that a top-down concept of conditionality lends itself to fallacies and should be substantiated by reconstructing the domestic politics of Europeanization.
The (re)building of the post-communist states offers new perspectives both on the state and on the multiple transitions that followed communism. Specifically, it shifts our analytical focus from states as consolidated outcomes and unitary actors to the process by which states come into being and into action in the modern era. This pro- cess consists of elite competition over policy-making authority, which is shaped and constrained by existing institutional resources, the pacing of transformation, and the international context. The four ideal types of state-building that result are exem- plified by the post-communist experience: democratic, autocratic, fractious, and personalistic. One of the more curious, and persistent, missed opportunities in comparative politics is a productive dialogue between scholars of post-communist transitions and of the state. In their analyses of the rapid transformations that followed the collapse of communist regimes after 1989, scholars of post-communism have
This article takes a critical view of EU enlargement as thus far undertaken. First, it suggests that there are parallels between the diplomacy applied by Brussels toward Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and that of medieval Byzantium vis-à-vis its hinterland. Second, and by turning to the contemporary process of EU expansion, it explores structural reasons for CEE states, legally and politically, rarely being treated as subjects. Third, it argues that the mere prospect of eastward enlargement already has brought about significant democratization and institutionalization of the rule of law, outside as well as within the EU. Nevertheless, this article concludes by cautioning that the double challenge of entrenched West European interests and neglect of CEE problems and sensitivities on the part of Brussels might still disrupt the process.
Why has the rate of expansion of postcommunist state administrations varied so widely among countries that are at comparable stages of economic transition, have similar formal institutions, and have been equally exposed to the dynamics of EU integration? Based on a close comparison of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, the author argues that the critical factor in postcommunist state building is the robustness of party competition. The legacy of communism creates strong pressures for patronage politics, which swells the administration, but it is party competition that determines whether the predisposition to patronage politics in fact becomes the practice of patronage politics. The number of state administrative personnel has expanded significantly more in countries where party system development has stalled, and party competition has failed to constrain the party(ies) of government.
In the past decade, political elites in Central and Eastern Europe have often sought to imitate Western organizational and institutional models, while organizations like the EU and NATO have often acted as “institutional tutors” in the region. Using evidence from Hungary and the Czech Republic, this paper demonstrates why imitating Western structures has been both administratively expedient and useful in building political coalitions. It also stresses that the short-term benefits of doing so are followed by longer-term costs. The paper answers four questions: How have certain models been held up to CEE elites? Why might some such models be targets for elites to imitate? How does such imitation occur? And what results from imitation? Contrary to expectations that institutional modeling would be merely technocratic and used only yearly in the transformation, the paper's threefold heuristic of templates, thresholds, and adjustments shows that the process is both politically contentious and sustained.
European integration's impact on democratization in post-authoritarian societies has usually been considered in the academic literature to be of significance in the long term, in helping to firm up regime consolidation. It is important, however, to consider impacts which come earlier through the accession process. This is shown by focusing on the implementation of the EU's political conditions by new democracies in post-communist Europe. The two case studies of Slovakia and Romania show the different salience in accession countries of problems related to the political conditions, but common to both is the dynamic created by the advance of negotiations for membership. At the same time, negative effects may be present, coming from the intense pressure to join. Overall, integration effects vary between levels of democratic consolidation, being greater at the institutional than the societal level.
This article examines the impact of EU enlargement on regionalization in the Czech Republic. It asks whether pre-accession preparations for EU regional policy have promoted regionalization and governmental decentralization in the Czech Republic, a question prompted by the debate about EU regional policy and regionalization in the current Member States. After reviewing Czech preparations for EU regional policy and the administration of pre-accession structural aid programmes, it concludes that the EU's impact on regionalization in the Czech Republic has been both limited and highly ambivalent. The article thus confirms the findings of previous research on EU enlargement and regionalization in the candidate countries.
Since 1957, a far-reaching transformation of politics within the Member States, commonly described as Europeanization, is said to have taken place. This article contributes to the literature on this phenomenon by focusing on the impact of integration on the democratic polity - that is, the constellation of institutions, procedures and rules of parliamentary democracy, and the political dynamics that flow from them. The empirical analysis is based on Arend Lijphart's path-breaking research on democracy. I discover that core features of the democratic polity across Europe have proved strikingly resilient in the face of the transformational effects of integration. An exception can be found among the newest democracies in the EU, which exhibit signs of modest convergence. Both of these findings are consistent with institutionalist theory. My conclusions suggest the presence of tangible limits to the reach of integration, and give cause for optimism about the continuing relevance of democratic institutions at the national level.