The four chapters in this section are all fascinating insights into the democratic transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. They also widen our understanding of how the transitions in Eastern and Central Europe have interacted with any democratic deficit, balance or surplus that is to be found in the wider process of European integration.

Indeed each of the four chapters demonstrates in its different way just how interdependent is the quality of democracy in the national and European arenas (Lord and Harris 2006). Given that the quality of representation any one national public receives at the European level depends in the first instance on the quality of electoral and party systems in its own member state, as well as the qualities of its own national elites, the domestic political system of each member state contributes to the micro-foundations of the European Union's own system of representation. Even allowing for ways in which Union institutions operate according to norms, alignments and constraints of their own, there is still something to the argument that the Union is partly reinvented as a somewhat different polity every time it admits new member states. This is especially so when member states are in some way qualitatively different to the existing membership in the ways in which they organise and practise democracy.

Almost two decades after the fall of communism, the political landscape of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is marked by vivid contrasts. The good news is that ten former Soviet-bloc countries are now firmly anchored within the European Union, the democratic club established by West European democracies half a century ago. Moreover, a recent wave of democratic change from Ukraine to the Balkans suggests that even those countries which initially failed to achieve a democratic transition may get a second chance. The bad news is that several CEE countries in which democracy is allegedly consolidated have recently displayed signs of backsliding (even if these are not captured in their still very good Freedom House ratings). Meanwhile, the complexions of the Rose and Orange revolutions are looking less rosy, and the new dispensations in Ukraine and Georgia sometimes seem not so different from the old ones.

To be sure, such generalisations need to be qualified. Eastern Europe in the old sense is no more, and we see a variety of different trajectories of democratisation in post-communist countries. Still, it is possible to identify certain common patterns and issues. The real question is not “Is democracy facing an imminent threat?” Instead, we should ask “What kinds of democracies are emerging after the transitions in East Central Europe, and what are their vulnerabilities?” and “What is the significance of their troubles from a Europe-wide perspective?”

Just twenty years ago still members of the Warsaw Pact, having been locked against the popular will within the Eastern Bloc, with restrictively limited sovereignty to act in international relations, the countries from Central and Eastern Europe had a long way to go before membership in NATO and the EU. Nowadays active players in the European foreign policy (EFP) and strong promoters of developing common European defence structures, the countries are a fascinating object of analysis. In terms of both international systemic reality and the domestic political setting for formulating foreign policy the CEE countries are in a different world today.

As Chris Brown has observed, foreign policy connects two worlds: the world of domestic bureaucracy and administration and that of international relations (2001). These worlds are of a different nature, but in Central and Eastern Europe both have undergone significant changes. One of the major tasks of the newly independent CEE states was to secure their existence via a redefined and reformulated new foreign policy. A predominantly existential foreign policy was drafted by the CEE states, with the main goal of securing the survival and later wellbeing of each nation in an environment which is ever changing and extremely difficult to predict. The major decisions on the fundamental orientation of foreign policy were, for the first time after the long communist period, based on the national interest.

Abstract: Europe is grounded, from all sides, in traces of old inter-state and ethnic conflicts. Experience has proved that they can still be reactivated in spite of various forms of resolution in the past. History is welcome in the present, and we can observe mobilisation among agents, populations of victims, or despoiled groups, which have been forgotten or forced into silence through post-conflictual issues. Various interest groups, political parties, or states, build up memorial resources that they incorporate in their actions list of historicist strategies, with the aim of “recycling” the representations of the symbolic pasts into contemporary political games. These mobilisations meet the reconciliation trends coming from society (for example, informal groups, NGOs, and so on), or are taken in charge by national and international institutions – which are becoming more and more routine – especially under the influence of the circulation of “good” models of the pacification of resentments, containing a highly normative tone. The question is whether, in spite of the apparent heterogeneity of this phenomenon, the historicist games do constitute a common indicator of the state of political regimes, especially democracies, and also of the strength of that supranational construction called the EU. This question necessitates the revisiting of the dominant concepts in the field of the political sociology of memory.

Abstract: The new members of the European Union have embraced many characteristics of the Union's older members. In respect to what might be described as conceptions of the nation, one senses persistent differences. These come out most apparently in attitudes and policies towards both traditional and immigrant minorities. The new EU members have displayed extreme reluctance to countenance state-wide multilingualism, federalist arrangements, or, indeed, any form of territorial autonomy for historic minorities, in contrast to recent accommodation patterns in the old EU. This article argues that this reluctance may be attributed to state fragility, historically founded on the relatively brief and, in most cases, interrupted state-hood of the new EU members.

The article further suggests that isolation in the communist period and the absence of an overseas imperial legacy have left the new EU members without the experience of a non-European minority immigrant population. As a result, these countries' sense of national identity has not yet been challenged by the need to position themselves vis-à-vis non-Europeans. In the face of such inevitable future challenges, these countries may be expected to resist multicultural claims and to re-affirm their commitment to national homogeneity, thus demarcating themselves further from older EU members.

Abstract: This article presents a critical discourse analysis of the Baltic states' self-positioning within European foreign policy. It argues that, despite certain relief in their immediate security concerns after the dual enlargement of the EU and NATO, the shift from existential politics to normal politics by the Baltic states is far from being accomplished. The way in which the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have responded to the construction of their identity as “Europe but not Europe” throughout the enlargement processes of the EU and NATO has been largely neglected in empirical studies on their post-Cold War self-conceptualisations in the European arena. Yet, the experience of being framed as simultaneously in Europe and not quite European has left a constitutive imprint on the current security imaginary of the Baltic states. William Connolly's concept of the politics of becoming is thus applied to analyse the Baltic version of becoming a subject in the field of common European foreign policy.

Introduction

The analytical premise of this article is a Sartrean dictum: “We are what we make of what others have made of us”. Since its inception in the age of Enlightenment, the notion of Eastern Europe has been the embodiment of liminality, of the state “betwixt and between” (see Turner 1969) in Europe's self-image.

Abstract: The political developments in Eastern Central Europe (ECE) question the political achievements connected to Europeanisation. This paper outlines the reasons for the growing populism and nationalism of ECE political elites. The author argues that political elite behaviour is one of the main causes of populist and nationalist developments. ECE political elites have internalised a “negative political culture” including unethical behaviour and an egoistic struggle for political power contradicting the principles of liberal democracy. Within a democratic framework, elites prefer populist and polarising power strategies and do not care that these undermine democratic national institutions. The article examines why political elites have turned away from the positive Europeanisation that culminated in EU accession. While political elites cooperated readily to become part of the European Union, they now increasingly oppose further political integration and tend to nationalise and polarise political issues, thus turning to a “negative Europeanisation” of their countries.

Introduction

The transformation of state and society in Eastern Central Europe (ECE) – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – toward democracy and Europeanisation seems to be a success story. These countries have overcome state socialism by founding pluralistic regimes, restructuring their economies and integrating into European structures.

Introduction

Civil society has become of prime interest for students and scholars of international politics and governance. The prominence of civil society is related to the constructivist and normative turn in the study of International Relations (IR). A new generation of IR scholars has recognised that state actors are no longer the sole players in international politics. Power is increasingly embedded in international regimes, in which state and non-state actors cooperate under the umbrella of international organisations and law. The new emphasis is on the role of norms and global discourses (like justice, peace or economic sustainability) in shaping state actors' preferences and behaviour. Especially civil society organisations have stepped forward as the normative backbone of the emerging global order. There are numerous examples of how the entry of non-state actors as participants in the international political arena has changed the agenda of international politics addressing social concerns, mediating conflicts and promoting development and democracy (Castells 2008; Glasius et al. 2003; Keane 2003).

In Europe, this research agenda of civil society as the stabiliser of the international order can be narrowed down by reference to the unique setting of political authority that is constituted by the European Union (EU). A new politics of civil society has come to the fore in the wake of the spectacular changes that the European Union has experienced over the past decade (Liebert and Trenz 2010).

Abstract: Recent scholarship assesses the impact of the European Union's conditionality on democracy in Central and Eastern Europe in a contradictory way. On the one hand, the EU is perceived as a key agent of successful democratic consolidation, and on the other, the return of nationalist and populist politics in the new member states has been explored in the context of the negative consequences of the hasty accession that undermined government accountability and constrained public debate over policy alternatives. This article explains this puzzle of the ambiguous effects of the EU's politics of conditionality, which promoted institutions stabilising the horizontal division of powers, rule of law, human and minority rights protection, but which neglected norms and rules of participatory and/or popular democracy.

Introduction

It is taken for granted that the so-called eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) has supported the establishment of democracy in the candidate countries. The EU has often been perceived as the key agency that promoted and strengthened democracy in the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). However, the most recent developments in several CEECs, namely the return of nationalist and populist politics to the core of several governments in several countries, has cast doubts on the state and the quality of democracy in these countries.

Abstract: This paper seeks to assess the degree to which Poland exercises power and influence in the European Union. It employs Poland's policy towards its eastern neighbours as a case study, and, in doing so, contributes to two wider scholarly debates on how EU policy towards Russia, Ukraine and Belarus is made, and also the broader question of the evolving nature of the relationship between the European Union and its member states. In doing so, it employs a synthetic framework that brings together the approaches for studying the power and influence of a given member state that were developed by Wallace et al. (2005), Tallberg (2008) and Moravcsik (1991, 1993, 1998). It concludes that Polish influence has been low.

Introduction

Poland is the largest of the member states that joined the European Union (EU) in the enlargements of 2004 and 2007. With half the total population and economic weight of the accession countries, in some respects the eastern enlargement of the European Union was a “Polish enlargement”. It could be hypothesised that this significant expansion of the Union from a predominantly West European club of 15 member states to a pan-European Union of 27 diverse member states would have a major impact on the governance, politics, policies and overall agenda of the European Union.

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to analyse the impact the EU has had on Czech women's groups since the 1990s. Drawing on both Europeanisation and social movement theories, the first section defines the theoretical framework of the paper. The second section is focused on the impact of changes in the funding of women's groups which, since the end of the 1990s, have relied more than before on European funding. The third section analyses the shift in the political context and the domestic political opportunity structure in the Czech Republic that has occurred in connection with the accession process. The fourth section looks at transnational cooperation for which new opportunities have appeared with the EU's eastward expansion. The paper concludes by summarising its main findings.

Introduction

Since the fall of communism, the East Central European countries have experienced tremendous changes in their politics and civil societies. This post-communist transformation has been at the centre of scholarly attention since then. Recently this body of literature has been accompanied by studies focusing on the consequences of yet another important transformation, this time induced by the integration of East Central European countries into the European Union (EU). Understandably, these Europeanisation studies have predominantly taken notice of the changes brought about by EU accession in the political institutions and policies of new member states. Civil society actors, interest groups, and social movements have thus far remained somewhat overlooked.

Abstract: A number of Europeanisation scholars maintain that accession to the European Union (EU) provides non-state actors with new opportunities to strengthen their position in the opportunity structure, even in areas where there is no clear EU policy or law-exerting pressure from above. However, to date there has been little research focusing on whether non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Central and Eastern Europe have been able to use the EU in this way. In order to address this gap, this article considers whether, how and to what effect Polish women's rights organisations have deployed four types of EU political resource: arenas, policy instruments, funding programmes and points of reference. The research question is analysed through two different case studies: one on equality in the workplace, where there is a strong EU competence, and one on sexual and reproductive health and rights, where there is no EU competence. The case studies find that the use of EU resources did empower these organisations domestically, but to a lesser extent than expected, particularly where there was no EU pressure from above. In areas where the EU offers the greatest opportunities it also imposes constraints.

Introduction

From the outset, the Europeanisation literature has been concerned with the extent to which European Union (EU)-level institutions, policies and processes alter domestic opportunity structures.

Abstract: The EU enlargement, completed in 2004, has been hailed as one of the most significant EU accomplishments. It has also been called the most effective democracy promotion mechanism ever developed and applied. There is a lot of truth in such claims. The eight Central and East European countries that joined the EU have been the most successful examples of democratic consolidation and transition to a market economy in the entire post-communist region. This paper examines the impact of the EU accession process on democratic consolidation and the consequences of EU membership on the quality of new democratic regimes in these countries. In the first part of the paper, I will review empirical evidence showing the diverging trajectories of post-communist transformations and the deepening split between two parts of the former Soviet bloc. In the second part, I will sketch five dilemmas faced by the new, post-communist members of the EU. These dilemmas reveal the tension between the requirements of EU membership and continuation of post-communist transformations aimed at improving the quality of democracy and securing faster economic growth.

The EU accession and democratic consolidation: complementarity or conflicting logics?

Since its inception, the European integration process has aimed at strengthening liberal democracy across Europe. Participation in emerging European institutions has been reserved for states with secure democratic systems and a consistent record of respect for political and civil rights.

Abstract: This article discusses the role of subregional cooperation in the expanded European Union (EU) with specific focus on the evolution of the Visegrad Group (VG) which is, in its own words, a central European subregional “alliance” which includes the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Given that the VG's original purpose had been to support the EU (and NATO) membership endeavour, as EU entry approached there were doubts about whether it would have a meaningful role in the post-accession period. This article shows that far from fading into obscurity, the VG has established itself as a permanent and relevant part of the European political landscape and has made a successful transition from pre-accession to post-accession cooperation. In fact, the post-enlargement period seems to have given rise to the kind of substantial and rapidly growing political and practical cooperation agenda that had eluded the VG during the pre-accession period. As well as cooperation on EU affairs and a flourishing internal dimension of VG activity, some interesting new externally oriented agendas have also developed, including cooperation between the VG and other subregional groupings in and around the EU and with the Benelux Group in particular.

Introduction

Most of the subregional cooperation groupings that sprang into life in post-Cold War Europe had agendas linked to the EU membership aspirations of Central and East European states.