Differential Europeanization in Eastern Europe: The Impact of Diverse EU Regulatory Governance Patterns

Abstract

When analysing processes of domestic institutional and political change in Central and Eastern Europe, political scientists frequently refer to the concept of Europeanization. This article focuses the policy-analytical framework as one central Europeanization approach and addresses the question of whether this approach is applicable to explain domestic change beyond the core of EU member states. The policyanalytical approach systematically analyses the impact of different modes of EU governance on process and outcome of national institutional and policy change. The article demonstrates that in distinguishing the different potential of compliance, competition and communication to trigger domestic adjustments, the policy-analytical approach proves to be a useful tool for predicting domestic change in states outside the EU. It helps generate differentiated hypotheses about the potential impacts of EU policies in Central and Eastern European candidate countries that are likely to join the EU in the foreseeable future and in non-member states with only minimal or no accession prospects.

EU rules beyond EU borders: theorizing external governance in European politics

“…This 'governance by externalization' is most obviously produced by the EU's internal market and competition policies: firms interested in participating in the EU market need to follow the EU's rules. This is in line with the competition mode of governance described by Bauer et al (2007). It may affect societal actors (such as firms and business associations) as well as governments (induced to change their own rules and policies in line with the EU's).…”

“…The existence of precise rules, formal procedures, monitoring and sanctioning associated with hierarchy are also necessary prerequisites for the effective exercise of conditionality as a mode of top-down policy transfer on the basis of external incentives (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004: 664-5;Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005). Other authors have referred to such formalized forms of external impact as 'compulsory impact' (Diez et al 2006: 572 -3) or 'compliance' (Bauer et al 2007).…”

“…Given their voluntary basis and their process orientation, network constellations provide a favourable context for mechanisms of influence based on socialization, social learning and communication (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005;Bauer et al 2007). As Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005) point out, network qualities such as deliberative processes, co-ownership, and density of interaction are likely to enhance the legitimacy of rules and are thus conducive to their expansion.…”

Hierarchy, networks, or markets: how does the EU shape environmental policy adoptions within and beyond its borders?

“…governance through hierarchy, networks, and markets (see, for example, Knill and Lehmkuhl 2002;Lavenex 2004;Lavenex and Uçarer 2004;Knill and Lenschow 2005;Bauer et al 2007;Lavenex and Schimmelfennig, this issue). These three mechanisms relate the causal relationship between the dependent variable (i.e.…”

Turkey-EU Relations: The Limitations of Europeanisation Studies

“…For instance, EU candidate states are deeply embedded in the EU network through accession negotiations and thus, prone to be influenced by the EU conditionality. 76 Additionally, several Europeanisation works focus on the transformative power of the EU in terms of democracy, human rights, liberal market economy in the non-EU areas of the world. However, Europeanisation studies have also attracted strong criticisms.…”