Vol 2 N0 22 October 2007 - Article 1
Print Version
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The European Union and the Limits of Accession:
Romania and Poland in Comparative Perspective
In May 2004, ten countries joined the European Union (EU). What effect if any
has the process of joining this organization had upon the domestic politics of these
countries? Before joining the EU these countries were required to alter their form of
government, adjusted their economies and changed their domestic practices to conform to
the standards of the European community. These accession countries have become full
members of the European Union. In principle this means they have joined the European
community of liberal democratic states with complementary formal rules and appropriate
political behavior. Recent research suggests their political behavior may be lagging
behind their adopted laws (Grabbe 2001; Sissenich 2005). If the accession countries have
become liberal democratic states, what is the role in the EU in producing this outcome?
How extensive are these changes? What are the limitations of the EU’s influence on the
newly acceded countries? Determining how the accession countries became members of
the community of European states can help illuminate the role of international actors in
promoting domestic change. Identifying the conditions under which intergovernmental
organizations have influence over the domestic politics of member countries contributes
and understanding of the causal processes of international-domestic interactions.
Additionally, clarifying the theoretical issues surrounding the accession to the EU,
this paper promotes a greater understanding of the current and future politics between
“old” and “new” Europe. This paper takes a look at the differences between the Polish
and Romanian experiences with accession. This comparison highlights the differences
between these two cases in light of how the European Union has interacted with each.
The role of the European Union makes the crucial difference in the outcome of In May 2004, ten countries joined the European Union (EU). What effect if any
has the process of joining this organization had upon the domestic politics of these
countries? Before joining the EU these countries were required to alter their form of
government, adjusted their economies and changed their domestic practices to conform to
the standards of the European community. These accession countries have become full
members of the European Union. In principle this means they have joined the European
community of liberal democratic states with complementary formal rules and appropriate
political behavior. Recent research suggests their political behavior may be lagging
behind their adopted laws (Grabbe 2001; Sissenich 2005). If the accession countries have
become liberal democratic states, what is the role in the EU in producing this outcome?
How extensive are these changes? What are the limitations of the EU’s influence on the
newly acceded countries? Determining how the accession countries became members of
the community of European states can help illuminate the role of international actors in
promoting domestic change. Identifying the conditions under which intergovernmental
organizations have influence over the domestic politics of member countries contributes
and understanding of the causal processes of international-domestic interactions.
Additionally, clarifying the theoretical issues surrounding the accession to the EU,
this paper promotes a greater understanding of the current and future politics between
“old” and “new” Europe. This paper takes a look at the differences between the Polish
and Romanian experiences with accession. This comparison highlights the differences
between these two cases in light of how the European Union has interacted with each.
The role of the European Union makes the crucial difference in the outcome of
democratic consolidation in each case. For Poland, the formation of external support
provided an environment within which the nascent democratic domestic impulses could
find fertile ground to bloom. In Romania, the opposite seems to have taken place. The
absence of external support has allowed the domestic elites to manipulate their rhetoric to
perpetuate authoritarian politics within a formal democratic setting. The lack of EU
support in this instance has made all the difference in transferring the regional norms of
the European liberal democratic community.
Poland easily joined the liberal democratic order in Western Europe while
Romania has lagged behind (see Graph 1). The EU has played a role in the
democratization of Central and Eastern Europe (Dimitrova and Pridham 2004). For
Romania the failure to secure EU membership in the first round of enlargement has hurt
support for democratic institutions (Ciobanu 2003). One major difference between these
two countries was the degree of support provided by the EU in the lead up to the 2004
accession (see Graph 2). This paper aims to explore the differences between these two
countries in light of the impact of accession on their democratization efforts.
There are two primary paths that the EU can influence democracy through the
accession process. Based on the logics of social action (March and Olsen 1998) the EU
can influence the instrumental motivations of the domestic population of the potential
members through the logic of consequences or it can appeal to the normative concerns
based on the logic of appropriateness. The latter is a form of normative change that is
based on the socialization of a target country to become part of the “in-group”
community of Western Europe (Adler and Barnett 1998; Flockhart 2005). The difference
between these two cases should be apparent in the motivation for adopting the rules and
democratic consolidation in each case. For Poland, the formation of external support
provided an environment within which the nascent democratic domestic impulses could
find fertile ground to bloom. In Romania, the opposite seems to have taken place. The
absence of external support has allowed the domestic elites to manipulate their rhetoric to
perpetuate authoritarian politics within a formal democratic setting. The lack of EU
support in this instance has made all the difference in transferring the regional norms of
the European liberal democratic community.
Poland easily joined the liberal democratic order in Western Europe while
Romania has lagged behind (see Graph 1). The EU has played a role in the
democratization of Central and Eastern Europe (Dimitrova and Pridham 2004). For
Romania the failure to secure EU membership in the first round of enlargement has hurt
support for democratic institutions (Ciobanu 2003). One major difference between these
two countries was the degree of support provided by the EU in the lead up to the 2004
accession (see Graph 2). This paper aims to explore the differences between these two
countries in light of the impact of accession on their democratization efforts.
There are two primary paths that the EU can influence democracy through the
accession process. Based on the logics of social action (March and Olsen 1998) the EU
can influence the instrumental motivations of the domestic population of the potential
members through the logic of consequences or it can appeal to the normative concerns
based on the logic of appropriateness. The latter is a form of normative change that is
based on the socialization of a target country to become part of the “in-group”
community of Western Europe (Adler and Barnett 1998; Flockhart 2005). The difference
between these two cases should be apparent in the motivation for adopting the rules and
political behaviors of the EU. In Poland, the expectation is that the support for
democracy is based on notion of what is “right” and normative concerns based on liberal
democratic behavior. In Romania, the expectation is for the basis for political decisions
including the attempt to join the EU to be based on instrumental concerns of the costs and
benefits of integration.