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Abstract
The EU is one of the most prominent democracy promoters in the world today. It has played an especially important role in the democratization of its Eastern European member states. Given the acknowledged success and legitimacy of EU democracy promotion in these countries, it could be expected that when they themselves began promoting democracy, they would borrow from the EU's democracy promotion model. Yet this paper finds that the EU's model has not played a defining role for the substantive priorities of the Eastern European democracy promoters. They have instead borrowed from their own democratization models practices that they understand to fit the needs of recipients. This article not only adds to the literature on the Europeanization of member state policies but also contributes both empirically and theoretically to the literature on the foreign policy of democracy promotion. The article theorizes the factors shaping the substance of democracy promotion—how important international ‘best practices’ are and how they interact and compete with donor-level domestic models and recipient democratization needs. Also, this study sheds light on the activities of little-studied regional democracy promoters—the Eastern European members of the EU.
Notes
1 Interview with GG, Polish activist, 13 October 2008; interview with JS, Polish dissident and foreign policymaker, 8 August 2008; interview with PW, Polish foreign policy analyst, 16 October 2008.
2 Interview with AD, Slovak foreign policy analyst, 27 July 2007; interview with MJ, Slovak foreign policymaker, 18 November 2008; interview with MH, Slovak foreign policymaker, 14 November 2008.
3 While it is difficult to formulate an a priori expectation about what Poland and Slovakia might perceive as the democratization needs of Ukraine and Belarus, these recipients' different regime types provide sufficient analytical leverage to assess the importance of this explanatory factor because none of the other explanatory factors considered here suggest differing donor priorities in Ukraine and in Belarus.
4 All interviews were conducted in confidentiality and the names of the interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement. The 57 interviewees for the Polish case study included all key relevant foreign policy elites from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its relevant embassies, PolishAid, the President's Office, the Prime Minister's Office and Parliament. The 36 interviewees for the Slovak case study included key relevant foreign policy elites from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its relevant embassies, SlovakAid, the Prime Minister's Office and Parliament. All interviewees were asked to describe in detail the nature, duration and budget of the democracy promotion programmes of the state institution they represent.
5 Joint Declaration on the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement, EU–Ukraine Summit, Paris, 9 September 2008.
6 Ukraine was one of the biggest recipients of funds from the European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights from 2002 to 2004 (Brunner Citation2007/2008; Piccone and Youngs Citation2006).
7 Interview with MM, Polish foreign policymaker, 13 October 2008; interview with PT, EU foreign policymaker, 25 July 2010.
8 This case study is based on Solonenko and Jarabik (2008), Kramer and Wilson (2010), Potocki (Citation2011) and Stewart (Citation2012).
9 Interview with KJ, EU foreign policymaker, 17 March 2009; interview with KR, EU foreign policymaker, 15 March 2009.
10 Interview with PT, EU foreign policymaker, 11 July 2007; interview with RS, EU foreign policymaker, 13 July 2009.
11 Interview with LA, Polish foreign policy analyst, 26 October 2008; interview with MS, Polish foreign policymaker, 28 October 2008.
12 Interview with MJ, Polish foreign policymaker, 27 October 2008.
13 Interview with MS, Polish foreign policymaker, 13 October 2008.
14 Interview with JS-W, Polish diplomat to the EU, 17 March 2009.
15 Note that in 2008, the year with the smallest budget for Ukraine, the total democracy aid funding for Ukraine's civil society was only about $100,000.
16 Interview with MK, Slovak embassy official, 27 February 2013.
17 Interview with IB, Slovak foreign policymaker, 26 November 2008.
18 Note that in 2007, the year with the smallest budget for Belarus, the total democracy aid funding for Belarus's civil society was only about $100,000.
19 Interview with JK, Slovak activist, 27 November 2008.
20 On the shallowness of this transfer of transition experience through development aid, see Horky (Citation2012); note, however, that the assistance discussed in this paper covers also other/diplomatic initiatives, overlooked in Horky's analysis.
21 Some donors and recipients have remarked on the ‘confidence’ of the Eastern EU democracy promoters in their democratization and democracy promotion models and even on their ‘arrogance’ as democracy promoters (interview with LL, US donor representative, 18 June 2010; interview with RP, US donor representative, 19 October 2008; interview with AU, Ukrainian activist, 20 February 2013; interview with BL, Belarusian activist, 18 October 2012). This confidence is one of the main reasons behind EEMS reliance on their domestic models and behind the limited influence of the EU model (and EU change agents, such as the European Commission).
22 The close correspondence between their democratization and democracy promotion models provides evidence against the speculation that these EEMS have limited financial and administrative capacity and are thus focusing on civil society because it requires fewer resources and outputs are easier to demonstrate.
23 Also, Polish and Slovak support to recipient civil societies provides evidence against the speculation that these EEMS might be channelling aid to strategically important regimes and justifying it in morally acceptable ways.
24 Note that they have often acted individually or in small subsets rather than as an EEMS bloc.
25 Interview with PT, EU foreign policymaker, 25 July 2010; see also Dangerfield (Citation2009).
26 Interview with JS-W, Polish diplomat to the EU, 17 March 2009.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Tsveta Petrova
Tsveta Petrova is an associate research fellow at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. She gained her PhD from Cornell University and has published various papers in academic journals as well as authoring Exporting democracy (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press). Email: [email protected]