Convergence without membership? The impact of the European Union in the neighbourhood: evidence from Ukraine

Abstract

How does the European Union (EU) affect change in neighbouring countries? The article explores this question, using Ukraine as a case study. So far Ukraine has attracted contradictory assessments of the impact of the EU on the country's domestic transformation. To explain this puzzle, the process of Ukraine's convergence with EU rules is analysed in terms of rule selection, adoption and application. The article focuses on the mechanisms which the EU uses to shape domestic actors' incentives and capacities for taking on EU rules in each of the three dimensions. In the case of technical regulation, EU mechanisms affect domestic actors differently in the three dimensions, resulting in comprehensive rule selection but only selective rule adoption and application. The process of convergence occurs, but in a non-synchronized and highly idiosyncratic way, thereby indicating the patchy impact of the EU on its neighbours, even in the core economic field.

EU Rules Beyond its Borders: The Policy‐specific Effects of Transgovernmental Networks and EU Agencies in the European Neighbourhood

“…Cross‐border networks have been recognized as being capable of spreading ‘know‐how’ expertise, shaping democratic attitudes and transferring new practices even in non‐democratic environments (Freyburg, ; Shyrokykh, ; Turkina and Kourtikakis, ). Some also suggest that the inclusion of local actors in transgovernmental networks results in growing support for convergence with the acquis among state officials (Langbein and Wolczuk, ). Therefore, we expect that intensive co‐operation in transgovernmental networks is likely to be positively associated with the subsequent improvements across various policy sectors in the ENP countries:H1 The more intensive co‐operation is, the more likely it is to positively influence the subsequent practices of a state in the corresponding policy sector .…”

The Role of EU Agencies in the Acquis Transfer: The Case of the European Neighbourhood Policy Countries

“…The economic leverage is, in fact, significant, since the EU is a prominent economic actor. More recent literate, however, started to pay attention to the fact that the EU may wield influence not just by leverage, but also by disseminating practices, norms, and ideas (e.g., Langbein and Wolczuk 2012;Lavenex 2008;Freyburg et al 2011;Freyburg 2011). Existing works demonstrate that EU's technical assistance via various capacity building instruments is an effective tool to promote legislative convergence and diffuse best practices, it can also impact the democratic attitudes of public servants and, in turn, foster democratic change (Shyrokykh, forthcoming, Freyburg et al 2011, Freyburg, 2015.…”

Beyond geopolitics: exploring the impact of the EU and Russia in the “contested neighborhood”

“…The impact of the EU and Russia on domestic change is limited, selective, and often shallow. In general, rule selection -defined as the rules that an NC formally subscribes to in international negotiations or agreements with external actors (Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2009) -tends to be driven by integration aspirations (Langbein and Wolczuk 2012). Nevertheless, participation in these macro-frameworks shapes domestic changes only to a limited and selective extent.…”

“…While this only seems natural for the EU as a sui generis and multi-level system of governance, this also applies to some degree to Russia (Langbein and Börzel 2013;Lo 2002): Russia's foreign policy is not without tensions between different concepts and narratives (Laruelle 2015). In the "borrowing" context, together with domestic governments that play a crucial role (Ademmer and Börzel 2013), midlevel bureaucrats (Freyburg 2015;Wolczuk 2009), further veto players (Buzogány 2013;Langbein and Wolczuk 2012), transnational civil society (Beichelt et al 2014;Buzogány 2013;Rommens 2014), and business actors (Gawrich, melnykovska, and Schweickert 2010;Langbein 2014;Turkina and Postnikov 2012) have been identified as actors facilitating or hindering sectoral change in response to EU policy transfer. Parts of the political elites, business actors, political parties, civil society organizations, and churches have also been identified as actors upon which Russia can rely to maintain its influence in post-Soviet countries (Bogomolov and Lytvynenko 2012;Wilson 2014).…”