From ambitious goals to improper fit: hybrid performance of Phare pre-accession programme for civil society development in Bulgaria

ABSTRACT

Focused on the performance of the Poland and Hungary Assistance for Restructuring of the Economy (Phare) pre-accession programme for civil society development (CSD) in Bulgaria as a case-study of EU performance, the article examines the interplay between outcome and process-based performance by analysing Phare’s design and objectives and the domestic players and factors in its implementation. The article combines document research and qualitative data, as well as analysis on the current state of development of the civil society organisations in Bulgaria. It contributes to the study of EU performance in Central and Eastern Europe through drawing conclusions on how the Phare programme contributed to Bulgaria’s pre-accession process. The article argues that inappropriate and incomplete policy transfers hinder the performance of EU in domestic CSD. Delivery bottlenecks coupled with centralisation of the design and management structures, and ambivalence in the objectives-setting in CSD lead to a mixed overall performance.

KEYWORDS:

• EU performance
• civil society development
• Phare
• Bulgaria
• Europeanisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dessislava Hristova has an MA in EU Studies from Sofia University and was a Visiting Graduate Scholar at the University of Oxford. Currently finishing her Ph.D. in Political Studies of the EU, focusing on civil society development in Bulgaria after the fall of communism, her academic interests lie in the transition of Central and Eastern European States and their accession to the EU. Focus on civil society development, public policies, electoral and democratisation processes, and the management of EU funds. She is author of the last Civil Society Index for Bulgaria, and articles on the principle of partnership in the EU funds, and democratisation in Bulgaria.

ORCID

Dessislava Hristova http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9979-8603

Notes

1 Civil society organisations: CSOs and NGOs are used interchangeably for the purposes of this article.

2 Europeanisation:

… consists of processes of a) construction, b) diffusion and c) institutionalisation of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, “ways of doing things” and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated in the logic of domestic (national and subnational) discourse, political structures and public policies. (Radaelli 2003, 30)