Читать книгу Joining a Prestigious Club - Maria Shagina - Страница 7

In 2003, a new framework for relations with Eastern and Southern European Union’s (EU) neighbours was developed by the European Commission. Reflected in Prodi’s speech “A Wider Europe—A Proximity Policy as the key to stability”, the initiative aimed to develop a zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood, offering “everything but institutions”.1 Promising no EU membership perspective, in return, the EU has offered an attractive and effective framework for closer co-operation with its neighbouring countries. In its attempt to become “a real global player”2, the EU provided new opportunities for stable and sustainable political and economic environment. The “wider Europe” initiative emphasized the importance of mutual interests existing between the EU and its neighbours and the need for sharing common values. Aimed at the promotion of the EU values beyond the Union’s borders, the new framework claimed that the scope of EU impact is not necessarily limited to the EU member states and can also take place beyond the EU borders.

Being a gravity model of democracy promotion, the EU and its institutions provide a credible blueprint for transformations for its neighbouring countries. One of the avenues through which the EU norms and values are channelled is the Europarties. Being umbrella organisations at the EU level, the Europarties provide a template for the European party-building for immature post-communist parties. Based on the evidence from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, the Europarties had a substantial impact on CEE parties by providing ideological and material support.3 Whereas the Europarties had rather a limited impact on party systems in established democracies4, their involvement in new democracies proved to be more pronounced.5 Cultural and historical rapprochement to Europe (i.e. “return to Europe” narrative) facilitated the penetration of the EU impact into the domestic arena, by demonstrating dynamics and responsiveness. For example, the Slovakian case showed that transnational links contributed to democratic consolidation and party system stabilisation. In the process of interaction with the Europarties, the Slovak parties experienced programmatic influence and reinforced their party identities, which led to the gradual standardisation of the political spectrum. Staying under a European observation, the Slovak democratic forces benefited from external solidarity and democracy-building, competing against the Mečiar government. Furthermore, the Slovak elites used transnational links as a platform for networking and unofficial lobbying in favour of EU accession.6

Whereas in CEE countries the cooperation with the Europarties took place under the mechanism of conditionality—the EU membership perspective, the interaction between the Europarties and East European parties from non-candidate countries is deprived of this leverage. However, despite the lack of EU membership perspective, these countries have high aspirations for European integration, while the non-EU parties are willing to initiate cooperation and actively participate in the Europarties’ joint activities. In fact, the affi-liation with the Europarties is often seen by Georgian, Moldovan, and Ukrai-nian parties as an opportunity to be accepted among European party elites and, therefore, is perceived as joining a prestigious club.7

This factor of prestige makes parties more exposed to the Europarties’ influences, what could potentially lead to a more discernible impact on their party development. As a result of their interaction, which occurs through institutionalised programs of mutual visits, joint seminars, training, and political consulting, the non-EU party elites become exposed to the Europarties’ norms and values, gradually absorbing the EU rules and practices. During this process of socialisation, the Europarties have the potential to “teach” the non-EU party elites the EU rules and norms, whereas the non-EU parties have an opportunity to adjust their party manifestos, approximate their organisational structure, and alter their political behavior in line with European party-building.

Driven by shifting the focus from CEE countries to non-EU countries, this research tackles the phenomenon of cooperation in which immediate tangible rewards are absent. It is the absence of rewards for both parties that makes their cooperation so perplexing. On the one hand, the Europarties do not obtain any additional votes in the European Parliament (EP), by incorporating newcomers from the non-EU member states. On the other hand, the non-EU parties are deprived of votes and initiative rights and have no influence within the Europarties’ decision-making bodies, which makes their cooperation limited. Nevertheless, the non-EU parties willingly initiate the cooperation and participate in the Europarties’ activities, whereas the Europarties compete in their network expansion and are eager to have sister parties outside of Europe.

Research questions

The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of cooperation on party development in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine through an affiliation with the Europarties. Applying the socialisation approach, there are two main research questions to be answered: what are the incentives for the Europarties and the non-EU parties to cooperate with each other? and what impact does cooperation with the Europarties have on party development in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine?

Looking at cooperation with the Europarties, the first research question aims to envisage the rationale that drives this cooperation. Applying both the “logic of consequences” and the “logic of appropriateness”, the research examines the incentive structures of both the Europarties and the non-EU parties.

The second research question aims to shed some light on the causal mechanism of this puzzling cooperation and explain the “black box” of the Europarties’ impact on party development. It aims to examine whether there is an impact and, if yes, to what extent cooperation with the Europarties impacts non-EU party development. The research is interested in identifying “the cogs and wheels” of cooperation that trigger the process of socialisation and transformational changes. The Europarties’ impact is analysed in terms of ideological, organisational, and behavioural changes. Dealing with EU outsiders, the research is driven by looking at different faces of Europeanisation, not necessarily positive ones.

The main implications of this contribution are to analyse whether this cooperation leads to transformations in party-building and whether these reforms lead to transformations on the party system level. The decrease in ideological polarisation, increase in organisational capacity, and stability of inter-party relationships might spill over into the party system level and lead to its stabilisation, consolidation, and democratisation. In this way, the research aims to contribute to the nascent studies of Europeanisation beyond Europe and to conduct systematic cross-country, cross-partisan, and cross-dimensional comparisons of the Europarties’ influence on domestic parties outside of the EU.

Europeanisation of party politics: locating the research

In a broader context, this research is deeply embedded in the realm of democracy promotion and particularly into the field of international party assistance.8 The point of departure of this research is, however, the Europeanisation of party politics. In his seminal work, Ladrech conceptualised a theoretical framework for the analysis of the Europeanisation of political parties.9 The Europeanisation was defined through five dimensions, namely party programmes, organisational structure, patterns of party competition, party–government relations, and relations beyond the national party system. Following his analytical framework, various studies have examined some of those dimensions.10

Overall, the EU’s direct impact on the format and mechanics of Western party systems was rather limited, as there was no effect on domestic party competition. The explanation for this insignificant impact is rooted in the underdeveloped character of the European party system. The European-level elections still remain second-order elections, with blurred and weak party competition that prevents the spill-over effect into the national arena.11 Moreover, national party systems operate as gatekeepers and define electoral agendas. Finally, the national and European political arenas are strictly divided along policy issues. While national politics seems to be the arena for contestation over European issues, European politics is becoming a playground for day-to-day decision-making.12

Focusing on CEE and Balkan countries, a series of studies were conducted, analysing the Europeanisation of party politics, including the influence of the Europarties on their member parties. The findings vary, depending on the assessment of the degree of Europeanisation. While some studies find a substantial impact on domestic party politics, other literature claims EU influences had no impact. The first strand of literature establishes that domestic party politics underwent significant changes under the EU impact. Thus, in his pivotal study, Pridham finds the evidence of the impact on CEE party systems after cooperation with transnational party federations. Aspiring to join the EU, unsettled CEE party systems were exposed to systemic pressure and underwent transformations on different levels such as “identity and ideology, programme, organisation, electoral politics and personnel”.13 Cooperation with transnational actors had several observable results. Firstly, cooperating with “standard” parties only, a line of demarcation was drawn by the Europarties to exclude extremist and nationalist parties. As a result, it led to standardisation of the CEE political spectrum. Secondly, lacking experience and self-confidence, the European links helped CEE parties build up political and electoral experience by boosting the party elites’ confidence. Finally, cooperation was employed by non-EU parties as an unofficial channel for networking to speed up the EU accession process.14

In the same vein, Delsoldato argued that transnational party cooperation influenced EU candidate countries’ parties. The Europarties impacted post-communist parties by transferring their own models of organisation, action, and thinking.15 Moreover, the Europarties operated as interlocutors between domestic and European levels to build personal trust. However, due to the lack of knowledge about post-communist parties, the process of affiliation quickly started to turn into a superficial affiliation rather than a close ideological match in which the larger parties were easily recognised.16 Dakowska’s research corroborated the abovementioned observations. It found out that, driven by rational calculations, CEE parties opted for the larger and more powerful Europarties in order to achieve international recognition, domestic legitimacy, and social proof. On the other hand, facing the realities of a post-communist landscape, the Europarties lowered their expectations for close ideological matches and favoured the admission of stronger parties in order to improve their bargaining power once the enlargement was finalised.17 The German party foundations played a crucial role in the intermediation, socialisation, and persuasion of post-communist parties. Operating as “norm entrepreneurs”, they proved to be the channels for transmitting norms, values, and political contacts to CEE countries. Nevertheless, although some CEE parties adopted general discourses of European values, norm transfer via the Europarties proved to be rather intricate.18

Similarly, Lewis detected particular transformations in government coalitions, party-system structure, and party organisations. In line with Pridham, he observed a tendency towards the marginalisation of radical parties and its subsequent moderation in CEE countries, resulting in the changes in coalition formats. The mainstream parties tended to exclude extremist parties from the coalition-building process. In particular, the Slovak case was the most illustrative, when the Party of European Socialists (PES) used its leverage to affect the coalition format by excluding extremist and EU-noncompatible “Movement for a Democratic Slovakia” (HZDS) from their family. The HZDS underwent significant changes to be considered compatible for the PES again. Although it is difficult to identify any profound impact on the consolidation of CEE party systems, as a result of the EU’s adaptive pressure, domestic parties became limited in their exploitation of populism. Secondly, the EU’s impact on party ideology and party organisation found its evidence in terms of the introduction of gender quotas, adoption of the European party symbols and alternation of party names.19

Likewise, Spirova found evidence of the Europarties’ impact on domestic electoral strategies in Bulgaria through the Europarties’ encouragement of forging alliances and mergers. For example, the PES actively supported the creation of a new, leftist force—the Bulgarian European Left (BEL). However, observing how the BEL was gradually losing their popularity, the PES opted for the consolidation of Bulgarian social-democratic forces. The main driving force behind the engagement of the PES was electoral support rather than ideology. Due to the strong personalisation of Bulgarian party politics, the consolidation of left forces failed. In a similar case, the European People’s Party (EPP) made an attempt to encourage the unification of the Bulgarian right, but also failed to achieve any success. In fact, the Europarties’ encouragement for consolidation sometimes led to friction within the party, proving the Europarties’ impact to be rather counterproductive.20

In contrast, some studies in CEE countries found that Europeanisation had little to no impact on party systems. Thus, Szczerbiak and Bil established very little evidence of EU impact on the Polish party system due to the domestic factors.21 In a similar vein, Haughton et al. detected limited impact on party organisations and programmes in CEE countries after the accession. In fact, CEE parties used the links with the European level as a “badge of approval” to enhance their significance and standing for the domestic electorate.22 Examining the role of the PES in shaping social democracy in CEE countries, Holmes and Lightfoot established “very little evidence of any impact”.23 The evidence of genuine ideological and behavioural change was absent, whereas the level of internalisation was shallow without any degree of reflection. CEE parties used the PES affiliation as an external validation of their distinction from unreformed post-communist parties and therefore indulged in role-playing.24

In the non-EU member states, cooperation with the Europarties has drawn very little attention and up until now was investigated based on a single case study. The first scholarly study of the Europarties’ influence on non-EU parties was conducted by Timus.25 Focusing on Ukraine, Timus investigated the affiliation of Ukrainian parties with the EPP. The main focus was on the admission process and the ideological match between the Europarty and its Ukrainian sister parties. The main findings revealed strategic incentives for cooperation, emanating from both the Europarty and domestic parties. While in domestic arena, parties used engagement with the Europarties for domestic legitimacy and international recognition, for the Europarties the cooperation represented an opportunity to strengthen their positions in the neighbourhood.26

Only recently has there been an attempt to elaborate a comparative framework to investigate the activity of the Europarties regarding party-building in CEE democracies.27 When examining transnational party activity, it is important to integrate such aspects as the complementary activity of the internationals and party foundations, bilateral links between the EU parties and individual parties within the Europarties, the ongoing process of democratisation and consolidation of party systems, the European integration process, and the EU’s own democratic conditionality.28

Significance of the research

The review of previous studies points out existing research gaps within the Europeanisation studies. Whereas the abovementioned contributions are limited to a single case study, this research, in contrast, is driven by a comparative approach. It pursues the conduction of a systematic analysis of the Europarties’ impact beyond the EU from cross-national, cross-partisan, and cross-dimensional perspectives. Aiming to increase the generalisability of the findings, the research includes Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in the analysis to establish any cross-regional patterns and similarities. Secondly, to increase the scope of analysis, the research encompasses all mainstream Europarties and relevant domestic parties. By including both strong and weak Europarties and domestic parties, the research aims at party variation in political weight. On the one hand, this allows an examination of whether there is a difference between stronger and weaker Europarties in establishing cooperation and in their potential to influence non-EU parties. On the other hand, incorporating strong and weak domestic parties allows the analysis of whether there are some commonalities in their incentive structures and whether there is a difference in susceptibility to the Europarties’ impact. Finally, the examination of the Europarties’ impact on three dimensions is inclusive and encompasses party development from its main standpoints: identity and party ideology, organisational structure, and inter-party relationships. This kind of research design allows comparisons of the significance of ideological, organisational, and behavioural changes both within and across parties, and across countries.

Given the extensive fieldwork data, the main contribution of the research is first-hand insights into the motives driving cooperation and into the precise mechanism of the admission of non-EU parties. Having international party assistance as a control variable, the research aims to single out the Europarties’ net impact on non-EU party development. Rooted in domestic politics, the cases reveal publicly inaccessible storylines behind each party’s cooperation and the factors that informally influence it. Extending beyond the party level, the research pursues the analysis of whether the Europarties’ influence contributes to the standardisation, consolidation, and democratisation of party systems in Eastern Europe. Last but not least, considering constant party system instability in East Europe, the research indirectly uncovers the effectiveness and sustainability of the Europarties’ engagement and points out the potential shortcomings and limitations of the Europarties’ activities in the region.

Itinerary of the book

Chapter 2 describes the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of the research. In particular, it starts with the concepts of socialisation and norm diffusion and continues with the introduction of the explanatory model of the Europarties’ impact on party development and its scope conditions that may trigger socialisation. The second half of the chapter engages with the methodology, operationalisation and data gathering.

Chapter 3 explains the historical context and institutional development of both the Europarties and the non-EU parties. The first part of the chapter introduces the historical and institutional development of the Europarties, their functions and organisational structure. The second part focuses on the particularities of party development in post-communist countries. It starts with a discussion of different cleavage structures, public distrust, and high electoral volatility and continues with the excessive personalisation of party politics, and the lack of internal party democracy.

Chapter 4 highlights the selection and application process for the non-EU parties. Based on the EPP example, the chapter sheds some light on the formal steps of application and, more importantly, identifies the informal factors which influence the chances of being accepted into the Europarty. This chapter will help to understand how the Europarties find their potential partners and which criteria they use to identify a proper match.

Chapter 5 examines the motivational structures of both the Europarties and the non-EU parties which trigger cooperation between them. This chapter constitutes a crucial part of the analysis, as it touches upon the core of the puzzling phenomenon of cooperation: why do the Europarties and the non-EU parties cooperate with each other if tangible rewards are absent? It identifies a set of motives for both Europarties and non-EU parties and illustrates it in practice by analysing each case of cooperation in greater detail.

Chapter 6 assesses the ideological match between the Europarties’ and the non-EU parties’ profiles. Firstly, the chapter identifies the Europarties’ fundamental ideological principles. Secondly, using this “ideological checklist”, the ideological congruence between the Europarties and their sister parties is measured on economic, social, and European dimensions. It aims to evaluate to what extent the affiliated non-EU parties fit into their chosen European party families.

Chapter 7 focuses on the organisational approximation between the Europarties and the non-EU parties. It estimates the degree of organisational changes the non-EU mother parties and its youth and women’s branches introduced after cooperation the Europarties. The evaluation of the impact is examined in terms of changes in internal decision-making, transfer of know-how, promotion of youth to the mother party, introduction of gender quotas on the electoral lists, and female political empowerment.

Chapter 8 examines the behavioural changes of the non-EU parties after cooperation, particularly analysing the cases of cooperation between domestic sister parties. It aims to assess to what extent the Europarties’ endorsement of cooperation influenced the non-EU parties’ behaviour and led to coalition-building, government formation, or party mergers.

Chapter 9 summarises the key findings revealed from the analysis of cooperation. Moreover, it draws a systematic comparative analysis from cross- and within-dimensional, cross-partisan, and cross-national perspectives. It analyses which dimension—ideological, organisational or behavioural—proved to be the most susceptible to the Europarties’ norms and values, which parties—strong or weak—proved to be the most successful in implementing changes and which country—Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine—proved to be the most influenced by the cooperation with the Europarties. Subsequently, it discusses the implications on the party system level and reflects on the implications for the Europarties.

1 Romano Prodi, “A Wider Europe—A Proximity Policy as the key to stability,” “Peace, Security and Stability—International Dialogue and the Role of the EU,” Sixth ECSA-World Conference. Jean Monnet Project, Brussels, 5–6 December 2002.

2 Ibid.

3 Geoffrey Pridham, “Patterns of Europeanization and Transnational Party Cooperation: Party Development in Central and Eastern Europe.” Paper for Workshop on European Aspects of Post-Communist Party Development, ECPR Sessions, Mannheim, University of Mannheim (1999); Geoffrey Pridham, “The European Union's Democratic Conditionality and Domestic Politics in Slovakia: The Meciar and Dzurinda Governments Compared,” Europe-Asia Studies 54:2 (2002); Giorgia Delsoldato, “Eastward Enlargement by the European Union and Transnational Parties,” International Political Science Review 23:3 (2002); Paul Lewis, “Changes in the Party Politics of the New EU Member States in Central Europe: Patterns of Europeanization and Democratization,” Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans Online 10:2 (2008).

4 See, for example, Peter Mair, “The Limited Impact of Europe on National Party Systems,” West European Politics 23:4 (2000): 27–28.

5 Pridham, “Patterns of Europeanization”; Pridham, “The European Union's Democratic Conditionality,”; Delsoldato, “Eastward Enlargement”; Paul Lewis, “Changes in the Party Politics”; Maria Spirova, “Europarties and Party Development in EU-Candidate States: The Case of Bulgaria,” Europe-Asia Studies 60:5 (2008).

6 Pridham, “Patterns of Europeanization.”

7 Dorota Dakowska, “Beyond Conditionality: EU Enlargement, European Party Federations and the Transnational Activity of German Political Foundations,” Perspectives on European Politics and Society 3:2 (2002).

8 See, for example, Peter Burnell, “Democracy Assistance: Origins and Organizations,” in Democracy Assistance: International Cooperation for Democratization, ed. P. Burnell (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 34–66; Peter Burnell, “Promoting Democracy Backwards,” FRIDE Working Paper 28, 2006; Thomas Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996); Thomas Carothers, Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006); Thomas Carothers, “Examining Political Party Aid,” in Globalising Democracy, ed. P. Burnell (London: Routledge Publishers, 2006); Thomas Carothers, “Democracy Support and Development Aid: The Elusive Synthesis,” Journal of Democracy 21:4 (2010).

9 Robert Ladrech, “Europeanization and Political Parties: Towards a Framework of Analysis,” Party Politics 8:4 (2002).

10 See, for example, Thomas Poguntke et al., “Europeanisation of National Party Organisations: A Conceptual Analysis,” European Journal of Political Research 46:6 (2007): 20; Paul Pennings, “An Empirical Analysis of the Europeanization of National Party Manifestos, 1960–2003,” European Union Politics 7:2 (2008); Alex Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart (Eds.), Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

11 Mair, “The Limited Impact,” 27–28.

12 Ibid., 45–46.

13 Pridham, “Patterns of Europeanization and Transnational Party Cooperation,” 7.

14 Pridham, “Patterns of Europeanization and Transnational Party Cooper-ation,” 14.

15 Delsoldato, “Eastward Enlargement,” 277.

16 Ibid., 281.

17 Dakowska, “Beyond Conditionality,” 284.

18 Ibid., 288, 290.

19 Lewis, “Changes in the Party Politics,” 158–159.

20 Spirova, “Europarties and Party,” 802.

21 Alex Szczerbiak and Monika Bil, “When in Doubt, (re-) Turn to Domestic Politics? The (non-) Impact of the EU on Party Politics in Poland,” SEI Working Paper No 103, EPERN Working Paper No 20 (2008): 8.

22 Tim Haughton, “Driver, Conductor or Fellow Passenger? EU Membership and Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 25:4 (2009): 421–423.

23 Michael Holmes and Simon Lightfoot, “Limited Influence? The Role of the Party of European Socialists in Shaping Social Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe,” Government and Opposition 46:1 (2011): 54.

24 Holmes and Lightfoot, “Limited Influence,” 42, 46.

25 Natalia Timus, “Coming Closer to Europe: Transnational Cooperation between EPFs and Post-Soviet Parties,” GARNET Working Paper No 72/09, November 2009; Natalia Timus, “Transnational Party Europeanization: EPP and Ukrainian Parties,” Acta Politica 49:1 (2014).

26 Timus, “Coming Closer”.

27 See, for example, Benjamin von dem Berge and Thomas Poguntke, “The Influence of Europarties on Central and Eastern European Partner Parties: A Theoretical and Analytical Model,” European Political Science Review 5:2 (2013).

28 Geoffrey Pridham, “Comparative Perspectives on Transnational Party-Building in New Democracies: The Case of Central and Eastern Europe,” Acta Politica 49:1 (2014): 32–37.