The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe ed. by Frank Schimmelfennig, Ulrich Sedelmeier (review)

458 Рецензии/Reviews Emilian KAVALSKI Frank Schimmelfennig, Ulrich Sedelmeier (Eds.), The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). xii+256 pp. ISBN: 0-8014-8961-X. For a number of years, scholars and analysts have been trying to capture the process, content, and context of the role played by various international actors, and in particular the European Union (EU), in former communist countries. In this respect, the notion of “Europeanization” has become a shorthand for the complex dynamic of adapting state administrations , promoting economic stability, and encouraging social participation in decision-making. However, the conceptual ramifications of this term have remained fuzzy and unproblematized and, thus, have curtailed its explanatory potential, as well as its utility as an analytical model. In the literature to date, Europeanization has been largely defined as a process of convergence on European norms through (1) the implementation of legally binding rules of international behavior in the domestic sphere of the candidate states; (2) the transformation of the objective interests of accession countries; and (3) the concomitant alteration of their subjective values and identities. It is to the benefit, therefore, of this outstanding volume edited by Frank Schimmelfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier that it opens up both the subject of Europeanization for better understanding and theorizing , as well as explaining its application to the experience of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The point of departure for the volume is the domestic impact of EU rules. All the contributors to The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe concur that the “EU effect” in the former communist countries of CEE is pervasive, but the way in which it is exercised is unclear. The editors point out that such failure to grasp the process of Europeanization results from dominant debates that highlight the functional effects of institutions, which have tended to befuddle the conceptual clarity of the framework of Europeanization. Therefore, from the outset, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier have provided an instrumental definition of the notion of Europeanization, which they define simply as the “process in which states adopt EU rules” (P. 7). Hence, the focus of the volume is on the institutionalization of EU rules and procedures at the domestic level – i.e. the alteration of the domestic political practices of CEE states according to EU standards. In order to make sure that their proposition does not get occluded, the editors explain 459 Ab Imperio, 1/2006 that they understand institutionalization as the observable exhibition of “rule-conforming patterns of domestic rules and procedures, behavior, and discourse” (P. 8). In this respect, the volume delineates a theoretical research agenda for the study of the impact of the EU on the accession countries and examines its analytical contentions in several comparative case-studies. In this way, it also adds analytical rigor to the study of enlargement conditionality. The main analytical contribution of the volume is the suggestion of an “external incentives model” (P. 3) that underwrites the practices of Europeanization in CEE. Generally , this model follows the external rewards and sanctions that the EU adds to the cost-benefit calculations of accession states. Its pattern is accentuated by logic of consequences, according to which “the EU sets the adoption of its rules as conditions that the CEE states have to fulfill in order to receive rewards from the EU” (P. 10). The proposition of Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier is that, as indicated by the external incentives model, a government adopts EU rules if the benefits of EU rewards exceed the domestic adoption costs (P. 12). Hence, the implication is that if the external incentives are to work – i.e. have effect on the domestic practices of accession countries – they have to be set as conditions for reward. Crucially, however, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier qualify that the influence of the EU depends on the context in which the EU uses its incentives (P. 210). In this respect, the editors conclude that it is the highly asymmetrical relationship between insiders and outsiders in the enlargement process that offers the EU a degree of power it does not enjoy either vis- à-vis its member states nor vis-à-vis other international actors. Thus, the adoption of EU rules in the context of accession...