Rule of law, corruption and democratic accountability in the course of EU enlargement

Abstract

Why has the EU's promotion of Rule of Law (RoL) triggered different and largely surface-thin reforms across countries subject to a similar frame of enlargement in the Western Balkans (WB)? We hypothesize that the domestic (non)enforcement of EU promoted rules depends on the mobilization of politically autonomous constituencies of changeorganized advocacy groups and autonomous state institutionswhich amount domestic accountability. The empirical investigation focuses on the prosecution of political corruption as empirical foci to assessing the travails of EU-promoted rules in the domestic context. Specifically, we trace the role of (1) EU's RoL promotion strategy, (2) political resistance and (3) domestic accountability in explaining different records of prosecution of political corruption in Albania and Croatia.

Reforming judicial recruitment and training in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia under EU guidance: implementation without institutionalisation?

“…We depart from an understanding of the existing gap between (new) formal rules and rules in use (Dimitrova 2010;Mungiu-Pippidi 2014;Lauth 2012). In line with much of the contemporary literature on the adoption of EU external rules (Elbasani and Šabić 2018;Dimitrova 2010;Freyburg and Richter 2010), our focus is primarily on domestic actors and their bargaining over the new rules. We aim to contribute to the debate concerning the EU's ability to drive forth rule change in candidate countries via the use of a series of tools and strategies (capacity building assistance and tutelage, conditionality, various knowledge transfer initiatives).…”

“…More critical analyses of the EU's approach have argued that the Commission has privileged judicial independence above a balancing of power and accountability (Parau 2015). All acknowledge that given the lack of acquis shared by existing EU member states, reforming the rule of law and judicial processes is probably the most difficult aspect of the EU's external governance of (potential) candidate countries in the Western Balkans (Strelkov 2016;Elbasani and Šabić 2018).…”

“…Across post-communist Eastern Europe reform efforts have, with varying degrees of success, sought to separate judges from politicians as well as improving the effectiveness of the judicial process and the training of judges. However, reforms have also made parts of the judiciary, especially general prosecutors, too independent and therefore unaccountable (Bobek and Kosaš 2014;Elbasani and Šabić 2018;Parau 2015).…”

“…Given the importance of the rule of law as a horizontal principle supporting other key democratic institutions, and the EU's so-called 'new enlargement strategy approach' for the Western Balkans, introduced in October 2011, 1 our objective is to explore the conditions under which already initiated reforms lead either to sustainable change in domestic institutions, or fail to become institutionalised and therefore have limited or no impact. In terms of our contribution to the literature on reform under the aegis of the EU, we wish to further an understanding of why some aspects of judicial reform take root in candidate and new member states and lead to sustainable improvements in the functioning of the judiciary, and others do not (Mendelski 2012(Mendelski , 2013Elbasani and Šabić 2018).…”

Can the Balkans Join the West?

“…35 Not surprisingly, this is especially the case where domestic accountabilitythrough either autonomous government institutions or civil society-is lacking. 36 State capture is often blamed on foreigners, especially on the United States and the EU, who are said to prefer a promise of stability even if it means maintaining corrupt leaders in power. The neologism is "stabilitocracy": "Governments that claim to secure stability, pretend to espouse EU integration and rely on informal, clientelist structures, control of the media, and the regular production of crises to undermine democracy and the rule of law."…”