EU Conditionality and Democracy Promotion after the Fifth Enlargement

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EU Conditionality and Democracy Promotion after
the Fifth Enlargement

• Comenius University
• Frank Schimmelfennig
• European Politics
• ETH Zurich
• schimmelfennig_at_eup.gess.ethz.ch

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Background

• Political situation after the Fifth Enlargement
• Enlargement fatigue in the EU
• Domestic problems in remaining accession
  countries (legacies of ethnopolitical conflict,
  governance)
• Partial or temporary suspension of negotiations
  with Croatia, Serbia and Turkey
• European Neighborhood Policy instead of
  enlargement
• ? change in EU enlargement policy?
• ? change in consistency and effectiveness of
  political conditionality?
• ? problems for theory?

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EU political conditionality theory

• When is EU political conditionality effective?
  Mix of international and domestic conditions
• . Political conditionality main instrument of
  EU democracy and human rights promotion
• Size and kind of external incentives credible
  conditional accession perspective
• Ineffective non-material incentives
• Ineffective material incentives below membership
• Credibility of threat to exclude in case of
  non-compliance
• Credibility of promise to admit after compliance
• Normative consistency (conformance with liberal
  democratic norms)
• Low power costs of compliance
• No regime change
• Government stability
• Partial exception endgame of negotiations

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EU political conditionality implications

• Potential causes of ineffectiveness
• lt incentives short of credible membership
  perspective
• lt normative inconsistency of the EU,
  discrimination
• lt high costs of compliance in remaining
  non-member countries

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1.1. Conditionality and Democracy set-up

• What is the impact of political conditionality on
  democratization? How relevant is a credible
  membership perspective for its effectiveness?
• Panel study of 36 countries of the European
  neighborhood from 1988-2004 (with Hanno Scholtz,
  University of Zurich)
• Value-added?
• Control for other causes of democratization
  economic development and transnational exchange
• Beyond accession countries
• ? overcomes potential omitted-variable bias and
  limited generality in existing studies

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1.2 Conditionality and Democracy variables

• Dependent Freedom House political rights
  (reversed from 0 to 6)
• Political Conditionality size and credibility of
  incentives

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Size and credibility of incentives
Credibility of incentives
0 1 2
Size of incentives 0 No tangible incentives Relations with Central and Eastern Europe before 1989 No tangible incentives Relations with Central and Eastern Europe before 1989 No tangible incentives Relations with Central and Eastern Europe before 1989
Size of incentives 1 Partnership (minor economic and financial incentives) without political conditionality Relations with Mediterranean countries before 1995 Conditional partnership with low credibility of threats and/or promises Partnership and Cooperation Agreements with post-Soviet states Conditional partnership with high credibility of threats and/or promises Trade and Cooperation Agreements with Central European and Balkan countries
Size of incentives 2 Conditional association with low credibility of threats and/or promises Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements Conditional association with high credibility of threats and/or promises Europe Agreements, Stabilization and Association Agreements
Size of incentives 3 Conditional membership with low credibility of promise General enlargement promise without candidate status Conditional membership with high credibility of promise Enlargement candidacy, opening of accession negotiations
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1.2 Conditionality and Democracy variables

• Dependent Freedom House political rights
  (reversed from 0 to 6)
• Political Conditionality size and credibility of
  incentives
• Economic development income (GDP per capita)
  life expectancy
• Transnational exchange trade with EU
  geographical proximity to democratic countries
  (distance gravity democratic-neighbors ratio)
• Others time region (Muslim Mediterranean)

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1.3. Conditionality and Democracy the model

• Random-effects ordered-probit estimation
• Cross-country variation
• Censored and ordinal dependent variable
• Statas GLLAMM module
• Four-year lag change through elections, change
  in government
• Plus many robustness/sensitivity tests

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1.4 Conditionality and democracy main results
Partnership, no credibility -1.663 (1.634)
Partnership, low credibility .0085 (0.103)
Partnership, high credibility 1.085 (1.361)
Association, low credibility -1.953 (1.701)
Association, high credibility 1.942 (2.207)
Membership, low credibility 3.436 (3.416)
Membership, high credibility 5.926 (5.057)
GDP p.c., ppp, log 1.553 (2.989)
Life expectancy at birth 0.340 (6.113)
Muslim Mediterranean country 0.036 (0.053)
Democratic neighborhood 3.291 (4.548)
EU imports, share of total imports 4.789 (2.804)
EU exports, share of total exports -3.319 (-0.078)
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1.5 Conditionality and Democracy comparative
statics

• Unstandardized regression coefficients of
  ordered-probit model difficult to interpret
• Effects strongest for partly-free countries
  smaller impact of conditionality for not free
  and free countries
• For partly free countries
• Effect of low to high credibility membership
  perspective 0.9 points
• Effect of No incentive to high credibility
  membership perspective almost 2 points

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1.6 Conditionality and Democracy Findings

• International and domestic conditions of external
  EU effects on democratic consolidation confirmed
• Robust and strong effects of membership
  incentives
• But only on unconsolidated democracies
• Effects cannot be reduced to economic development
  and transnational exchange
• Impact during consolidation phase
  democratization as such is exogenous
• ? considerable potential impact on remaining
  unconsolidated democracies outside the EU if
  credible membership perspective offered and
  upheld
• ? but then why problems in remaining candidate
  countries?

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2. Discrimination

• Inconsistent treatment of eligible countries
• Eligibility
• European country
• Democratic country (Freedom House rating of 3.0
  or better)
• Eligibility ratio
• eligible countries/ European countries (not
  associated or not in the process of accession
  negotiations)
• Discrimination
• Empirical baseline FH of 3.0 or better for 2
  years
• Number of countries that deviate from this
  baseline/eligibile countries (positive and
  negative discrimination)

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2.1 Discrimination eligibility
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2.2 Discrimination eligibility ratios
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2.3 Discrimination association
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2.4 Discrimination accession
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2.5 Discrimination FH ratings at time of
institutional decisions
Year Association negotiations Association treaty Accession negotiations Accession treaty
1990 2
1991 2
1992 3.25
1993 2.75 1
1994 2.3 1
1995 1.5 1.8
1996 1.5
1997 1.4
1999 1.7
2000 3
2001 3
2003 3 1.35
2005 3 2.5 1.75
2006 3 3
Average 2.6 2.3 1.5 1.3
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2.6 Discrimination results

• Eligibility and discrimination reflect two waves
  of democratization in Eastern Europe
• No increase in negative discrimination after the
  Fifth Enlargement
• Overall normative consistency

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3.1 Domestic costs

• Why the current problems with candidates?
• Strong incentives
• Normative consistency
• Domestic conditions identity politics produce
  potentially high political costs
• Croatia and Serbia cooperation with ICTY
• Serbia Kosovo
• Turkey Cyprus
• Conditions for overcoming these costs
• Endgame of pre-accession or accession
  negotiations
• Strong identification with EU

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3.2 Overcoming the costs of identity issues
Case Endgame Political costs Identity Outcome
Estonia (naturalization language) Before conclusion of accession negotiations Split government -- Western
Latvia (language) Before opening of accession negotiations No support in parliament -- Western
Croatia (ICTY) Before opening of accession negotiations no threat to survival of government, rift in party /-- Western
Serbia (ICTY) Before conclusion of association negotiations -- Minority govt dependent on extremists -- Nationalist -- --
Turkey (Cyprus) Just after opening of accession negotiations -- Military opposed, upcoming elections -- Western --
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Conclusions

• Political conditionality after enlargement
  conforms to previously established theory
• size and credibility of incentives
• low domestic power costs
• Good news for theory is bad news for policy
• ENP unlikely to be effective because of weak
  incentives
• Enlargement in Western Balkans and Turkey incurs
  high domestic costs in spite of strong incentives
  and high normative consistency
• The end of a success story?