The Eastern Enlargement of the European Union: Challenges to Democracy? 1 (original) (raw)
2004
Although the European Union (EU) has in many ways supported democratization in Central and Eastern Europe, it has also imposed new constraints on the functioning of democracy. The article explores the indirect impact of EU integration on the Eastern applicant countries by exposing the underlying logic of enlargement and analyzing the implications of that logic for democratic politics. The empirical analysis focuses on the preaccession process of one of the new member states, Estonia, but it also examines the overall EU policy toward Eastern candidates, pointing to the limits of enlargement as a form of democracy promotion. It highlights that the principles and norms that dominated enlargement-most notably inevitability, speed, efficiency, and expertise-constrained democratic politics in the applicant countries and limited their EU accession to a narrow sphere of elites and experts. The author links the findings with the democratic deficit in the EU and draws some conclusions concerning future prospects of democracy in and democracy promotion by the enlarged EU.
Democratic Conditionality in Eastern Enlargement: Ambitious Window Dressing
16 European Foreign Affairs Review, 2011, pp. 589–605, 2011
This article addresses the promotion of democracy in the enlargement process of the Central and Eastern European countries. We start by outlining EU democracy promotion during accession, with a particular focus on political conditionality. In a subsequent part we argue that the European Commission did not make a clear substantive distinction between the concepts of rule of law and democracy. In addition various drawbacks are identified which demonstrate the vagueness and inconsistencies which characterize the EU’s application of democratic conditionality. A final part illustrates these points by focusing on the EU’s democratic conditionality towards the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The conclusion reads that the EU did not have a well-defined view and approach to the promotion of democracy and the rule of law in the Eastern enlargement.
2011
Although the European Union was an ingredient in the processes of democratisation and marketisation in Central and Eastern Europe in the two decades following the 1989 revolutions, recent scholarly contributions to the debate on EU conditionality and post-accession conditionality raise doubts about the transformative power of the European Union and the explanatory power of the rational incentives model. Nonetheless, the very process of joining the club has left an indelible mark on the quality and functioning of democracy in the region.
Enforcing consensus? The hidden bias in EU democracy promotion in Central and Eastern Europe
Democracy is a primary export norm of the European Union (EU). It has also played a key role in the conditionalities that have governed the accession processes of new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The EU has often been accused of offering little guidance regarding the specifics of desirable democracy models and the means of their consolidation. But are these accusations justified? In the first part of this article a detailed examination of European Commission opinions and reports reveals that it has consistently promoted a specific model of democracy in future member states. It shows a strong bias in favour of Lijphart’s model of consensus democracy, which is indiscriminately advocated for prospective member states. The second part of the article draws attention to the serious obstacles which exist in the region to the realization of this model. We question the wisdom of the Commission’s one-size-fits-all democratic model given these obstacles and the real-life diversity of political contexts in the region.
This paper provides evidence that at present we encounter intense and heated academic controversies over the EU enlargement pre- and post-accession conditionalities because the phenomenon under observation is extraordinary controversial in itself. The debates concern not only the predominantly positive or negative effect of the implementation of EU enlargement conditionality, but also its essential political nature: whether it is just an element of the EU enlargement policy or the character of this policy; whether it is one among many instruments for implementing the EU approach towards its enlargement or the central one in the toolbox; whether it is continuity or qualitative transformation that prevails in the implementation of conditionality; whether the whole of the EU stands unambiguously behind conditionality as a principle of the enlargement policy or it is a much favored approach of the European Commission for managing the enlargement; whether the implementation of conditionality is really changing candidate countries or their change is mostly superficial, formal and temporary. After tracing the logic of evolution in understanding of EU enlargement conditionality the analysis provides an explanation of the inevitable failure of post-accession conditionality applied in Bulgaria and Romania by two main arguments: a) it is a continuation, in a worsen context, of the pre-accession conditionality which had failed to achieve the due Europeanization effects under much more favorable conditions; a) the conditionality is based mainly on acquis transposition and it is inappropriate for the goals of democracy and rule of law promotion which redefine the power balance in post-communist societies. The paper ends with a list of eventual remedies of the EU enlargement policy in the long run.
W.Sadurski, Accession’s Democracy Dividend: The Impact of the EU
2006
One of the important motives that has inclined many in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to favour strongly accession to the EU has been the conviction that, once in the Union, their own states will become more robustly democratic. The hope has been that the EU will provide extra protection against authoritarian or totalitarian temptations, that it will help fight corruption, and that it will improve the quality of public administration and the system of justice – put simply, that accession to the Union will help improve and consolidate democracy, the protection of human rights, and the rule of law. At the very least, it is expected that the accession will make new member states more resilient against crises and potential upheavals; that it will add extra protections against a possible slide into chaos so that, even if it will not add any positive features per se, it will at least help cushion democratic institutions against the worst threats should a crisis situation arise – that it...
The European Integration and the Democratization in Eastern Europe (Working paper)
Is the international diffusion of democratic norms and institutions protecting young democracies from undemocratic backlash? The literature gives a loud and a predominantly affirmative answer. The political experience in some post-communist countries, however, shows that the model of democratic diffusion centered on the European union, isn’t going without problems. This West-East diffusion, after the end of the communism, doesn’t automatically lead toward a stable and good quality democracy. This research as part of my on-going PhD program questions the traditional approach of the democratic diffusion based on the neo-institutionalism of rational choice. Inspired by the works of Max Weber and Norbert Elias, it offers an alternative view of the democracy: configurational, dynamic and interpretative. The democracy isn’t just an outcome of a list of formal prerequisites, but a dynamic process of social relations between actors on different, both on national and international, levels. The European integration may contribute toward more or less democracy only when the dialogues constructed under its influence work toward construction of democratic norms of behavior. Two main cases, Bulgaria and Macedonia, allow me to follow diachronically the process of political norms construction before and after their formal adherence to the Union.