EU Conditionality and Democracy Promotion after the Fifth Enlargement

1. Comenius University Frank Schimmelfennig European Politics ETH Zurich schimmelfennig@eup.gess.ethz.ch EU Conditionality and Democracy Promotion after the Fifth Enlargement

2. 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?

3. EU political conditionality: theory Whenis EU politicalconditionalityeffective? Mix of international and domesticconditions . Political conditionality: maininstrument of EU democracy and human rightspromotion • Size and kind of externalincentives: credibleconditionalaccessionperspective • Ineffective non-material incentives • Ineffective material incentivesbelowmembership • Credibility of threattoexclude in case of non-compliance • Credibility of promisetoadmit after compliance • Normative consistency (conformancewith liberal democraticnorms) • Low power costsof compliance • Noregimechange • Governmentstability • Partial exception: endgame of negotiations

4. EU political conditionality: implications • Potential causes of ineffectiveness • < incentives short of credible membership perspective • < normative inconsistency of the EU, discrimination • < high costs of compliance in remaining non-member countries

5. 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

6. 1.2 Conditionality and Democracy: variables • Dependent: Freedom House political rights (reversed from 0 to 6) • Political Conditionality: size and credibility of incentives

7. Size and credibility of incentives

8. 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)

9. 1.3. Conditionality and Democracy: the model • Random-effects ordered-probit estimation • Cross-country variation • Censored and ordinal dependent variable • Stata‘s GLLAMM module • Four-year lag: change through elections, change in government • Plus many robustness/sensitivity tests

10. 1.4 Conditionality and democracy: main results

11. 1.5 Conditionality and Democracy: comparativestatics • 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

12. 1.6 Conditionality and Democracy: Findings International and domesticconditions of external EU effects on democraticconsolidationconfirmed • Robust and strong effects of membershipincentives • But only on unconsolidateddemocracies • Effectscannotbereducedtoeconomicdevelopment and transnational exchange • Impact duringconsolidationphase; democratizationas such isexogenous •  considerable potential impact on remainingunconsolidateddemocracies outside the EU ifcrediblemembershipperspectiveoffered and upheld •  but then: whyproblems in remainingcandidate countries?

13. 2. Discrimination • Inconsistenttreatment of eligible countries • Eligibility • European country • Democratic country (Freedom House rating of 3.0 orbetter) • Eligibilityratio • # eligible countries/# European countries (not associatedor not in theprocess of accessionnegotiations) • Discrimination • Empiricalbaseline: FH of 3.0 orbetterfor 2 years • Number of countries thatdeviatefromthisbaseline/eligibile countries (positive and negative discrimination)

14. 2.1 Discrimination: eligibility

15. 2.2 Discrimination: eligibility ratios

16. 2.3 Discrimination: association

17. 2.4 Discrimination: accession

18. 2.5 Discrimination: FH ratings at time of institutional decisions

19. 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

20. 3.1 Domestic costs • Whythecurrentproblemswithcandidates? • Strong incentives • Normative consistency • Domesticconditions: identitypoliticsproducepotentiallyhighpoliticalcosts • Croatia and Serbia: cooperationwith ICTY • Serbia: Kosovo • Turkey: Cyprus • Conditionsforovercomingthesecosts • Endgame of pre-accessionoraccessionnegotiations • Strong identificationwith EU

21. 3.2 Overcoming the costs of identity issues

22. Conclusions • Political conditionality after enlargementconformstopreviouslyestablishedtheory • size and credibility of incentives • lowdomestic power costs • Goodnewsfortheoryisbadnewsforpolicy • ENP unlikelytobeeffectivebecause of weakincentives • Enlargement in Western Balkans and Turkey incurshighdomesticcosts in spite of strong incentives and high normative consistency • The end of a success story?