Evidence of convergence? The Western Balkan countries in democracy and governance assessments

Abstract

The article analyses and compares how democracy and governance assessments evaluate Southeast European countries. Datasets and expert studies from the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, the Polity project and the World Bank Institute have been selected to compare numerical ratings and verbal assessments, cross-nationally within Southeast Europe, in comparison with other regions of Europe and over time. The main findings are: The differential placement of states on levels of relations between the EU and Southeast Europe correlates with the ranking of states emerging from the surveys, while there is scarce evidence of a clear causality in either direction. The successive upgrading of relations between the EU and the Southeast European countries also corresponds to convergence trends observed by two of the surveys. Differences in the relative placement of states by individual surveys can only partially be explained by the country reports attached to the surveys, suggesting further methodological improvements.

Democratization via aid? The European Union’s democracy promotion in the Western Balkans 1994–2010

“…However, the few existing studies on aid spending suggest that official guidelines requiring progress in democratization as a criterion for aid allocation are not put into practice. For example, the EU signed Stabilization and Association Agreements with Macedonia (in 2001) and Montenegro (in 2006), although both countries had seen the deterioration of the Freedom House political and civil liberties scores prior to this ‘upgrade’ (Brusis, 2008: 391–392). This coincides with findings by Carey (2007) regarding the aid spending of the European Commission in developing countries: Due to bureaucratic inertia, local human rights situations do not consistently shape its aid flows.…”

Funding Democracy: Public Media and Democratic Health in 33 Countries

“…Since its debut in 2006, the EIU index has increasingly been adopted by researchers examining correlations with data of interest to different fields, such as public media, health care, and international relations (Brusis 2008; European Broadcasting Union 2019; Walker et al 2015). We use the EIU index because it aims to provide “thick” measures of democracy encompassing many dimensions of democratic processes, including the functioning of government, political engagement and cultures, and civil liberties (EIU 2020a: 51).…”