EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline 3031057805, 9783031057809

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EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline Edited by Digdem Soyaltin-Colella

EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline “Once hailed as a major strength of its external action, the European Union’s promotion of good governance has recently suffered from severe difficulties. This volume provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment, and stands out by its broad geographical and issue coverage.” —Frank Schimmelfennig, Professor of European Politics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland “This book, by a reputable group of EU scholars, provides a comprehensive and multi-national assessment of the EU’s governance capacity and policy conditionalities both within the EU and beyond its borders. It is particularly timely at a time when the re-assertion of the EU as a global power is much needed in an age of democratic decline and the growing challenge of illiberal-authoritarian regimes in an increasingly post-Western world. Strongly recommended.” —Ziya Öni¸s, Professor of International Political Economy, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey “This edited volume makes a key and original contribution towards a growing strand of research on EU good governance support in the neighbourhood and beyond taking into account also the role of alternative governance exporters.” —Christine Hackenesch, Political Scientist and Senior Researcher, German Development Institute, Germany

Digdem Soyaltin-Colella Editor

EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline

Editor Digdem Soyaltin-Colella Department of Politics and International Relations University of Aberdeen, Edward Wright Building Aberdeen, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-05780-9 ISBN 978-3-031-05781-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © John Lund/Stone/Getty Image This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This book consists of papers presented in a workshop that I organised at Altınba¸s University in Istanbul on 6 March 2020, just before the COVID19 outbreak. The workshop brought together scholars, researchers, and academics working on different aspects of the European Union (EU), European politics, and governance. We held an intense one-day discussion on the papers in three separate panels and even had real coffee breaks. A few of the authors were able to join us online, so we had already begun to experience virtual presentations before the ‘new normal’. I express my sincere thanks to the research assistants and administrative staff for the technical help and continuous coffee supply throughout the workshop. I would also extend my special thanks to Altınba¸s University for mobilising all their resources to allow the workshop to be held in Istanbul. The workshop is funded as a part of the European Union Jean Monnet Programme under Grant Agreement Number 2018-1614/001001, project number 599443-EPP-1-2018-1-TR-EPPJMO-MODULE, entitled ‘EU Good Governance Promotion Inside and Beyond its Borders (EUGOGOV)’. Thanks to the EU funding support, we had the chance to come together to discuss new realities in Europe and in global governance and rethink the EU’s ability to promote good governance both inside and beyond the European periphery. This was quite a difficult task, especially during a time when the EU was being continuously challenged with refugee crises, rule of law and democracy problems, the green transformation, and most importantly the COVID pandemic. v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

From the beginning, the contributors to this edited book showed enormous dedication and patience and worked wholeheartedly on several rounds of revisions during the editing process. Therefore, I would like to thank the authors from many different institutions for their brilliant comments, hard work, and cooperation throughout the editing of this book. I would also like to mention that the suggestions by two anonymous reviewers were immensely helpful in improvising the manuscript. I would extend my special thanks to Salvador Santino F. Regilme (Leiden University), Ay¸segül Kayao˘glu (Istanbul Technical University), Melis Cin (Lancaster University), Selin Türke¸s Kılıç (Yeditepe University), and Emel Parlar Dal (Marmara University) for their academic input and critical suggestions on the earlier versions of the book. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to express special gratitude to the publishing editor of the Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, Ambra Finotello and the professional editorial and production team who guided us through all stages of the publication process. This was truly a learning process for me. In the last stages of the book, I have had the chance to be surrounded by great scholars and researchers at the University of Aberdeen who warmly welcomed me to the Department of Politics and International Relations and made me feel supported. Istanbul/Aberdeen, 2022

Contents

1

Introduction Digdem Soyaltin-Colella

1

Part I EU’s Promotion of Good Governance in the European Periphery What Are We Relearning in the Age of Democratic Decline? 2

3

4

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Governance Quality and Transparency of Politics in the European Union Damla Cihangir-Tetik and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya Rising Illiberalism in the European Periphery and the EU’s Application of Membership Conditionality for Democratic Governance Beken Saatçio˘glu Externalising Externalisation and Bad Governance of Migration in the EU: Turkey Learning from Europe Deniz Sert and Sevval ¸ Alparslan EU as a Good (Enough) Governance Exporter in Kosovo? Local Views on the Aborted Kosovo E Re Power Plant Project Didem Buhari Gulmez and Bengu Aydin Dikmen

21

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71

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CONTENTS

Part II Bad Neighbours, Worse Donor Darlings? When the EU’s Promotion of Good Governance Travels Abroad 6

7

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The EU’s Promotion of Good Governance and Democracy in the South Caucasus: Regional Strategies and Domestic Constraints Sinem Ünaldılar Kocamaz EU Good Governance Promotion and Development Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa in an Age of Democracy Crisis Samiratou Dipama Assessment of Good Governance and Gender Equality in the EU’s Budgetary Support Programme in Tanzania: Insights from Agriculture Sector Rahime Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm and Aikande Clement Kwayu Promotion of What Now? EU’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) Policies in the Changing European and Global Context Digdem Soyaltin-Colella and Damla Cihangir-Tetik

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133

157

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Part III Rethinking the Role of Alternative Governance Exporters 10

11

12

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EU Democratic Governance Promotion Towards Central Asia and Illiberal Regional Powers Tugce Yildiz

211

The External Face of the EU’s Cybersecurity Policies: Promoting Good Cybersecurity Governance Abroad? Dimitrios Anagnostakis

237

The China Model Debate: China as an Alternative Governance Exporter? Tolga Demiryol

259

Still a Good Governance Exporter? Questioning EU’s Transformative Power in the Age of Democratic Decline Senem Aydın-Düzgit

Index

283

295

Notes on Contributors

Alparslan Sevval ¸ is studying at Özye˘gin University, Istanbul, Turkey. She is a high honours student of the Department of International Relations and having a double major with the Department of International Trade and Business. She previously worked as a Migration Studies intern at a non-profit organisation and is currently a research assistant at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Özye˘gin University. Anagnostakis Dimitrios is a Lecturer of Security Studies and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham on the relations between the European Union and the United States on internal security issues. His research focuses on European Union, transatlantic relations, and international security, and it is informed by theories of international regimes. He is the author of the EU-US Cooperation on Internal Security: Building a Transatlantic Regime book. He has also published articles in the journals Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, Journal of Cyber Policy. Aydın-Düzgit Senem is a Professor of International Relations at Sabancı University and Academic Affairs Coordinator of the Istanbul Policy Centre. She was previously a Jean Monnet Chair of EU Political and Administrative Studies in the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her main research interests include European foreign policy, Turkish foreign policy, discourse studies, and politics of

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

identity. She holds a Ph.D. from Vrije Universiteit Brussels, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a B.A. from Bo˘gaziçi University. Her articles have been published in the Democratization, Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, Cooperation and Conflict, Politics, South European Society and Politics, Alternatives, International Relations, and Politique Europeenne. She is the author of (with Alper Kaliber) Is Turkey De-Europeanising? (Routledge, 2017), (with Nathalie Tocci) Turkey and the European Union (Palgrave, 2015) and Constructions of European Identity (Palgrave, 2012). She is a member of the ECFR Council, a board member of the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), a member of the Global Relations Forum (GIF), and a member of the Carnegie Rising Democracies Network. She also serves as the Associate Editor of South European Society and Politics. She was awarded the Young Scientist Award of Turkey’s Science Academy (BAGEP) in 2014 and was recently elected as a member of the Young Academy of Europe. Cihangir-Tetik Damla is an Assistant Professor at Istanbul University, Department of Political Science and International Relations. She received her Ph.D. degree (2017) in Political Science from Sabanci University. She wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on the European Union’s and Turkey’s foreign aid, development and cooperation policies. She has worked at Istanbul Bilgi University and Yeditepe University as part-time lecturer. She worked as expert and project coordinator at Transparency International Turkey, Istanbul Policy Center, and Economic Development Foundation (IKV) as well. Her main research areas cover EU politics, governance and integration, EU and Turkish foreign policy, development and cooperation policy, political parties, elections and democratisation, and transparency in politics. She received her first M.A. degree from King’s College London in European Studies (2008) and the second one from University of Athens in Southeast European Studies (2009). Demiryol Tolga is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Altınba¸s University. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, specialising in political economy. Demiryol published widely on theories of economic interdependence and politics of energy. In 2018–2019 he was a Fung Global Fellow at Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. His most recent research project focuses on the political economy of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

xi

Dikmen Bengu Aydin is a Lecturer at Izmir Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Galatasaray University, M.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Bo˘gaziçi Univer˙ sity, and B.A. in International Relations and European Union from Izmir University of Economics. As a recipient of Jean Monnet fellowship, she was a visiting doctoral fellow at University College Dublin. She has previously taught at the Department of Political Science and International ˙ Relations at Izmir University of Economics. Her current research focuses on the politics of climate and ideologies. Her published and/or ongoing research has covered topics in the areas of global climate governance, Turkish politics, early Republican period, cultural politics, and feminist historiography. Dipama Samiratou is a Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Gaziosmanpasa (GOP) University in Tokat. She received her Ph.D. in EU Politics and International Relations at Marmara University. She is interested in aid effectiveness, political conditionality, peace and security, migration, global governance, human rights, emerging powers, and cross-cutting African issues. Gençkaya Ömer Faruk is a Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Marmara University. He completed his Ph.D. studies at Bo˘gaziçi University, Department of Political Science and International Relations. He served as a lecturer at Bilkent University, Department of Political Science (1990–2009). He conducted research at the University of Oslo (Norway, 1987 with a Council of Europe scholarship and taught as a Fulbright visiting professor at Duke University (USA, 2001) and Roanoke College (USA, 2005). He contributed to the Anti-Corruption Research Commission of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (2003) as an academic expert. He is the author of books and articles on comparative parliaments, political parties and elections, political finance, transparency, anti-corruption, democratisation process, and other issues published in national and international journals and books. He is a joint researcher and writer of Sustainable Governance Index Turkey report (2008–ongoing) published by Berthelsen Stiftung and a member of the Legislation Experts Working Group of the Turkish Political Science Association and the International Political Science Association. He is a country evaluator in the GRECO unit of the Council of Europe (2008–ongoing) and a member of the OSCE Political Parties Main Expert Group (2012–ongoing).

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Gulmez Didem Buhari is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Izmir Katip Celebi University. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of London, M.Sc. by Research from the University of Edinburgh, and B.Sc. from the Middle East Technical University. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford Brookes University and the LSE European Institute in the UK. She is the author of Europeanization in a Global Context: Integrating Turkey into the World Polity (Palgrave, 2017) and co-editor of ‘Europe and World Society’ special issue (with Chris Rumford) published by the Journal of Contemporary European Studies. She also co-edited the books: Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity (Routledge, 2016); Rethinking Ideology in the Age of Global Discontent (Routledge, 2018), and Crisis and Change in Post-cold War International Relations (Palgrave, 2018). Kocamaz Sinem Ünaldılar is an Associate Professor of International ˙ Relations at Ege University in Izmir. She received her Ph.D. degree on EU studies from Dokuz Eylül University with her dissertation entitled Britain’s Transatlantic Relations Effect on European Union Integration in Tony Blair’s Term. She is working on European Union, transatlantic relations, international organisations, and international security. In the Department of International Relations, she offers courses such as The EU as a Global Actor, Post-Cold War Transatlantic Relations, International Organizations, and International Security at undergraduate and graduate levels. She has several publications that appeared in peer-review journals related to her research areas. Kwayu Aikande Clement is a senior research and development consultant at BUMACO Ltd.—a management and development consultancy firm in Tanzania. She is also an honorary research fellow at the Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Between 2013 and 2015, Aikande was a research affiliate of the University of Oxford, Department of Education. Her research interests include international development, party politics, religion, and politics. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Nottingham (UK) and has taught Politics and International Relations modules at the University of Nottingham (UK) and at Tumaini University—Makumira (Tanzania). Aikande is the author of Religion and British International Development Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and co-author of Pragmatic Faith and the Tanzanian Lutheran Church: Bishop Erasto N. Kweka’s Life and Work (with Amy Stambach, Lexington, 2021).

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

xiii

Her most recent article is published by the Journal of Party Politics (September 2021). Saatçio˘glu Beken is a Professor of International Relations and Jean Monnet Chair at MEF University, Istanbul. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and has been a postdoctoral fellow at Free University of Berlin’s Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) Research College ‘The Transformative Power of Europe’. Her areas of research include EU political membership conditionality, Europeanization, Turkey–EU relations, and European foreign policy. Her publications have appeared in international edited volumes and journals including South European Society and Politics, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Democratization, ˙ skiler. Turkish Studies, and Uluslararası Ili¸ Sert Deniz is a Professor at Özye˘gin University Department of International Relations. She has obtained her B.A. from Koç University, Department of International Relations in 2000, an M.Sc. in European Studies from the London School of Economics in 2001, and Ph.D. in Political Science from City University of New York in 2008. After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Sert joined the Koç University Migration Research Center, MiReKoc, where she has conducted research in different projects on international migration. Dr. Sert has also lectured at Bo˘gaziçi, Okan, and Koç universities. Her areas of expertise include conflict studies, forced, international, and irregular migration, transnationalism, border management, and civil society. She is currently holding the Jean Monnet Chair position on Migration and Mobility in Europe, the CHARM Project. Soyaltin-Colella Digdem is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and a member of the global strategy reference group of the Transparency International Berlin. Before joining the University of Aberdeen, she was an associate professor at Altınba¸s University in Istanbul, the academic director of the Jean Monnet Module titled ‘EU Good Governance Promotion Inside and Beyond Its Borders (EUGOGOV)’ (2018–2021) and a board member at Transparency International Turkey. She received her Ph.D. degree in Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Stockholm University Institute of Turkish Studies (SUITS). Her main fields of interest are the good governance, Southeast European and Turkish politics, and more specific policy sectors of the fight against corruption,

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

rule of law and democracy. Her publications have appeared in international edited volumes and journals including Europe-Asia Studies, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, South European and Black Sea Studies, International Political Science Review, European Politics and Society, Turkish Studies, International Spectator, and Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. She is the author of Europeanisation, Corruption and Good Governance in the Public Sector: The Case of Turkey (Routledge, 2017). Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm Rahime is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bahçe¸sehir University. She is also an associate member of the Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP). Her research focusses on Europeanisation, EU foreign policy, Turkish foreign policy, gendering EU studies, gender and diplomacy, and elite sociology. She is the author of Conditionality, the EU and Turkey: From Transformation to Retrenchment (Routledge, 2019) and co-editor of Feminist Framing of Europeanisation: Gender Equality Policies in Turkey and the EU (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Her articles are published in high-ranking journals such as Political Studies Review and Geopolitics. Yildiz Tugce is a research assistant in the Department of International Relations at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University. She received her B.A. degree from Izmir University of Economics in 2011 and her M.A. degree on European Studies from University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2013. She completed her Ph.D. at Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University on EU democracy promotion policies in Ukraine and Georgia under the impact of Russia. Her research interests are EU foreign policy in general and EU policies towards post-Soviet region and democracy promotion policies.

Abbreviations

AA ACP AKP BIRN BPfA BRI BTI CCP CEECs CEPA CIS CoE CPA CPI CSDP CSO CU DCFTA DCI DGMM DSR EAC EAEU EaP EC EDF

Association Agreement African, Caribbean and Pacific Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [Justice and Development Party] Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Beijing Platform for Action Belt and Road Initiative Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index Chinese Communist Party Central and Eastern European Countries Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement Commonwealth of Independent States Council of Europe Cotonou Partnership Agreement Corruption Perception Index Common Security and Defence Policy Civil Society Organisations CSO Customs Union Deep and Comprehensive Free-Trade Area Development Cooperation Instrument Directorate General of Migration Management Digital Silk Road East African Community Eurasian Economic Union EU’s Eastern Partnership European Commission European Development Fund xv

xvi

ABBREVIATIONS

EEAS EEC EFF EIDHR EMB EnC ENI ENP ENTSO-E EOM EP EU EUCO EUGS EULEX EUTF FDI FRIT FRONTEX GAMM GDP GRB GRECO ICANN ICMPD ICT INDEP IPA ISIS KEK KFOR KFOS LFIP MEDA MENA MFF MPT NATO NDICI NGO ODA OECD

European External Action Service European Economic Community Electronic Frontier Foundation European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights Election Monitoring Body European Community European Neighbourhood Instrument European Neighbourhood Policy European Network of Transmission System Operators Election Observation Mission European Parliament European Union European Council EU Global Strategy EU Rule of Law mission EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa Foreign Direct Investment Framework and the Refugee Facility for Turkey European Border Coast and Guard Agency Global Approach to Migration and Mobility Growth Domestic Product Gender Responsive Budgeting The Group of States Against Corruption Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers International Centre for Migration Policy Development Information and Communication Technologies Institute for Development Policy Instrument of Pre-Accession Assistance Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Ministry of Economic Development of Kosovo Kosovo Force Kosovo Foundation for Open Society Law on Foreigners and International Protection Mediterranean Development Assistance Mediterranean and North Africa Multi Financial Framework Money, Politics, and Transparency North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument Non-Governmental Organisation Official Development Aid Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

ABBREVIATIONS

OECD-DAC OSCE PKK PPA SAA SASAC SCO SCP SGC SOE SRBI SSA TACIS TANAP TAP TEU TI UK UN UNDP UNMIK US V-DEM WTO

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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Partiye Karkeren Kurdistan [Kurdistan Workers Party] Power Purchase Agreements Stabilisation and Association Agreement State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission Shanghai Cooperation Organization South Caucasus Pipeline Southern Gas Corridor State-Owned Enterprise Silk Road Belt Initiative Sub-Saharan African Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline Project Trans-Adriatic Pipeline Treaty of the European Union Transparency International United Kingdom United Nations United Nations Development Programme United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo United States Varieties of Democracy Project World Trade Organisation

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 1.3 Fig. 1.4 Fig. 1.5 Fig. 2.1

Fig. 8.1

Fig. 8.2

Fig. 9.1

Fig. 9.2

Governance and democracy in different country groups Governance and democracy in the EU27 and CEECs Governance and democracy amongst EU candidates and Hungary and Poland Governance and democracy among EU candidates and ENP countries Governance and democracy in the Sub-Saharan African countries under the EU’s ODA policy Political Finance Scores of Selected EU Member and Candidate Countries, 2014 (Source MPT [2014], https://data.moneypoliticstransparency.org/countries/) Aid Activities targeting gender equality and women’s empowerment in Tanzania (Source Compiled and extracted from OECD Dataset, https://stats.oecd. org/. Accessed 30th September 2021) Aid activities targeting gender equality and women’s empowerment (CRS) in Agriculture (Data extracted on 6 October 2021 16:18 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat) Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid over total EU ODA (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021]) Governance aid under different instruments/EU Institutions’ total ODA (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021])

8 8 9 9 10

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 9.3

Fig. 9.4

Fig. 9.5

Fig. 9.6

Fig. 10.1

Fig. 10.2

Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to IPA countries over total EU ODA to IPA countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021]) Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to ENI countries over total EU ODA to ENI countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021]) Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to DCI countries over total EU ODA to DCI countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021]) Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to EDF countries over total EU ODA to EDF countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021]) EU democracy promotion agendas (Source Wetzel and Orbie, The Substance of EU Democracy Promotion: Concepts and Cases, 9) Main components of the EU’s assistance to Central Asia under the “Government and Civil Society” section (Source Data collected from the EU Aid Explorer website: https://euaidexplorer.ec.europa.eu)

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List of Tables

Table 2.1

Table 2.2

Table 2.3

Table 7.1

Table 7.2

Table 7.3

Table 7.4

List of European countries regarding total changes in their TI CPI scores between 2012 and 2020; Freedom House scores between 2006 and 2021 and EIU Democracy Index scores between 2010 and 2021 (Italics emphasise EU candidate countries) List of countries regarding total changes in their scores of selected nine BTI indicators, between 2010 and 2020 (Italics emphasise EU candidate countries) List of countries showing total changes in their scores for selected eight V-Dem indicators between 2010 and 2020 (Italics emphasize EU candidate countries) EU governance aid as a share of total EU gross aid disbursements in sub-Saharan Africa (2010–2019; current USD and %) Sectoral distribution as a percentage of EU governance gross aid disbursement to Sub-Saharan Africa, 2010–2019 EU governance ODA gross disbursement to sub-Saharan Africa by type of aid (in current million USD and as a percentage of total governance aid) 2010–2019 Top ten recipients of EU governance aid disbursements in sub-Saharan Africa Average 2010–2019 as a percentage)

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 7.5 Table 8.1 Table 9.1

Table 9.2

Table 9.3

Table 9.4 Table 10.1 Table 10.2

Largest European governance aid donors (disbursements in USD millions, 2010–2019) –All Channels Gender considerations in the agriconnect projects EU total ODA in all sectors and total governance and civil society aid, Gross Disbursements, USD Millions 2019 (2002–2019) Amount and share of EU governance aid over total EU governance aid to developing countries among top three recipient countries of four regions (2002–2018) Annual shares of EU governance and civil society aid to IPA, ENI, DCI, and EDF countries over total EU governance and civil society aid to developing countries (2002–2019) The distribution of EU’s ODA policies over time (2007–2027) The substance of the EU democratic governance promotion agenda to Central Asian states Top five trade partners of Central Asian states (2019)

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194 201 224 228

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Digdem Soyaltin-Colella

European Union (EU) support for good governance reforms is the cornerstone of its conditionality and funding policies (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020). Particularly after the introduction of the White Paper on European Governance in 2000, good governance has become a key factor shaping the institutional structure and internal mechanism of the EU (Hix, 1998). In 2003 and 2006, the European Commission incorporated the common principles of good governance and its promotion in all foreign policy frameworks including enlargement, neighbourhood policy, and official aid programmes. With the eastern enlargement processes of 2004 and 2007, the EU has adopted a unique role in promoting good governance and democracy in third countries. An entire academic industry relating to research on EU governance transfer has since developed. Scholars have extensively studied how the transformative power of Europe resulted in democratic and good governance reforms in the post-communist countries in eastern Europe,

D. Soyaltin-Colella (B) Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Edward Wright Building, Aberdeen, UK e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_1

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D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA

accession countries in south-eastern Europe, and in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood. By definition of their promotion of transparency, accountability, and participation, the good governance principles complement the EU’s fundamental democratic values and strengthen its normative power and transformative capacity in the global arena (Börzel & Risee, 2009; Manners, 2002; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020). Theoretical and empirical state-of-the-art EU good governance research has produced three major findings. First, the EU good governance promotion policies pursued a broader understanding of the concept, not purely by focusing on the administrative capacity but also democratic elements such as respect for human rights, participation, and rule of law (Börzel et al., 2008; Börzel & Hackenesch, 2013). This approach, with its normative connotation, distinguished the EU from other international and regional organisations as a promoter and protector of ‘good governance’ par excellence (van Hüllen & Börzel, 2015, p. 227). The emphasis on good governance is also argued to enhance the global ‘actorness’ of the EU in terms of its commitment to the deepening of a liberal international order and its normative and transformative power (B¨orzel & Risse, 2009; Buhari-Gulmez, 2017; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020). Second, the EU’s excellence in good governance is manifest in the mechanisms and tools of its external governance transfer. Research on the ‘transformative’ power of Europe elaborated under which conditions, and to what extent, the EU exports governance standards to countries that are not (yet) members and has intensely examined the successful top-down Europeanisation in post-communist Europe, where EU-led domestic reforms largely promoted democratisation, political liberalisation, and the fight against corruption (B¨orzel & Risse, 2009, 2012; Lavenex et al., 2015; Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2005; Vachudova, 2005). Yet, a growing number of studies underscored the fact that the EU’s policies have triggered what amounts to largely shallow or ‘surface-thin’ reforms across countries (Wetzel & Orbie, 2015), while some scholars have underlined the technical and bureaucratic capacity problems that have led to implementation gaps (Falkner & Treib, 2008; Mastenbroek & Kaeding, 2006) and further pointed out unfavourable domestic conditions limiting the EU’s transformative power (Magen & Morlino, 2009; Elbasani, 2012; Soyaltin, 2017a; Soyaltin-Coella, 2022a), others have focused on the negative and pathological effects of EU conditionality and revealed how the selective and shallow Europeanisation processes have become instrumental to political leaders’ ability to

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INTRODUCTION

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neutralise domestic opponents and reward their domestic capital groups (Börzel & Pamuk, 2012; Dandashly & Noutcheva, 2019; Mendelski, 2015; Soyaltin, 2017b). Yet, as occurred in the Balkan countries, corrupt and authoritarian leaders have even proceeded in the EU accession process not because they have fulfilled the EU’s democracy criteria but by aligning with principles of good neighbourly relations. The EU’s focus on stability over democracy and governance problems has enabled this progress and stabilised existing regimes instead of transforming them (Bieber, 2019). Third, recent democratic backsliding in the EU’s new member states (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania) has made it clear that the EU’s instruments for the protection of democracy, the rule of law, and good governance in its member states have remained rather weak (Mungiu-Pippidi & Warkotsch, 2017; Sedelmeier, 2016; van Hüllen & Börzel, 2015). Until now, the EU has failed to activate Article 7-related sanctions against the illiberal governments in Hungary and Poland, given the procedures and voting rules within the Council and member governments’ reluctance to do so (Closa, 2020; Kelemen & Blauberger, 2016; Kochenov et al., 2016; Schlipphak & Treib, 2016; Sedelmeier, 2014, 2016; Soyaltin-Colella, 2020). Following the eurozone crisis, the high influx of asylum seekers in 2015, the UK’s decision to withdraw from EU membership, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic have also deepened the integration crisis in the EU, leading to fragmentation among European actors and constrained responses to illiberal tendencies in its member states (Börzel & Schimmelfennig, 2017; Buhari-Gulmez & Gulmez, 2020; Buzogány et al., 2021; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020; Sedelmeier, 2016; Soyaltin-Colella, 2020). Known as the Visegrad Group, the alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia has become an area of increasing political concern as their leaders increasingly embrace policies that undermine rule of law and democratic rights, and that diverge from EU’s common strategies in the handling of recent crises, most notably the refugee crisis. Their move towards illiberal democracy and nationalist/protectionist policies when it comes to migration has not only found public support at home but also in other EU member states where far right populist parties adopt hard line positions on immigration, prioritise security over democracy, and politicise their relations with neighbours (Buzogány et al., 2021; Góra, 2021; Morillas, 2017). The EU’s security interests overshadow the promotion of its democratic values and norms, weakening the normative actorness of the EU (Hackenesch et al., 2021).

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More recent research has acknowledged that the EU’s weak policies and practices for internal governance transfer damage its external governance capacity and send inappropriate signals to the accession (Turkey and Western Balkans) and European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries, where the regression on the quality of governance is associated with the recent illiberal trend and the longstanding presence of semiauthoritarian and authoritarian regimes (Börzel & Schimmelfennig, 2017; Kaliber & Aydın-Düzgit, 2017; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020; Öni¸s & Kutlay, 2019; Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2019). Scholars have also underlined the rising importance of illiberal externals (such as China and Russia) and the normative rivalry between Western and non-Western actors (Dandashly & Noutcheva, 2021), challenging the EU’s good governance reform agenda beyond its borders (Bieber, 2019; Markovic-Khaze & Wang, 2021; Soyaltin-Colella, 2022b). Based on these results, this book re-evaluates the EU’s governance promotion capacity, both within the EU and beyond its borders in light of the simultaneous decline in democracy and rise in authoritarianism in Europe in particular, and across the whole world in general (V-Dem Report, 2022). The illiberal practices and breaches of democratic values in the EU indicate broader changes in the global normative context and account for the growing problems of policy incoherence and democratic recession. Since 2015/2016, democracy has faced a global crisis as its hallmark institutions—political pluralism, separation of powers, and rule of law—are coming under pressure in different parts of the world, including established Western democracies such as the US (during the Trump era) (Diamond, 2015, 2019; Mudde, 2015; Przeworski, 2019). At a time of changing global order, the alternative non-European scripts (Russia, China, Political Islam) have gained the potential to challenge the universalised European/Western ideas of good governance and democracy, rule of law, and capitalism (Börzel & Zürn, 2020, 2021). Today, we observe the emergence of ‘hybrid regimes’ that demonstrate both democratic and authoritarian elements in their exercise of power (Levitsky & Way, 2010). Against these challenging dynamics inside and beyond its borders, the EU has seemingly downscaled its democratic transformative ambition across the world and embraced more pragmatic principles, as enshrined in the EU Global Strategy (EUGS) of 2016 (Barbé & Morillas, 2019). Instead of state-building, governance transfer, and the promotion of democracy, the EUGS has defined the concept of resilience as one of the cornerstones of EU foreign and security policy. This is bound to promote

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the EU’s image as a resilience builder (Stollenwerk et al., 2021; Tocci, 2020), yet will ultimately undermine its role as a democracy promoter and governance exporter. The EU’s declining appeal beyond its borders is coupled with the rise of illiberal powers as new donors to developing countries. In African countries, for example, China has emerged as a more convenient cooperation partner compared to the EU (or the US) as it rejects the conditioning of aid, trade, and loans to democratic reforms (Hackenesch, 2015, 2018). The growing importance of developing countries (i.e., China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Poland) as aid donors has resulted in a significant change in the donor market (Aydin-Düzgit, 2020; Cihangir-Tetik & MüftülerBaç, 2020; Petrova & Pospieszna, 2021). While academic consensus on the matter remains inconclusive, it is often argued that the growing presence of non-democratic or illiberal regional powers hinders Western donors’ attempts to promote democracy in recipient countries (Börzel, 2015; Risse & Babayan, 2015; Soyaltin-Colella, 2022b; Tseng & Krog, 2017). The authors of the book consider the new realities in Europe and in global governance that seem to necessitate a re-examination of the EU’s ability to promote good governance both inside and beyond the European periphery. Due to the nature of good governance as related to the broader concepts of democracy and rule law and regularity capacity being difficult to capture empirically, the individual chapters in the book focus on specific policy and country-level analysis. By doing so, the book provides comprehensive evidence on the EU’s governance capacity and reveals omitted variables and unintended consequences of the EU’s promotion of good governance both inside and beyond its borders. Furthermore, the policy areas covered in the book allow us to trace the patterns of cooperation and the conflict between the EU and a given target country or the alternative governance promoters, and to rethink the changing dynamics of good governance transfer. The edited volume conceives good governance, as a concept, to encompass two dimensions (Börzel et al., 2008; Börzel & Hackenesch, 2013). The first is related to the administrative side of governance and is equated with narrow regulatory understanding. The main principles of the regulatory dimension of good governance are related to statehood and can be listed as effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, sound financial management, and fighting corruption. The second dimension is the political concept of good governance, and refers to liberal democratic

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principles such as respect for human rights and freedoms, participation and accountability, and the rule of law (Wetzel & Orbie, 2015). With regard to channels of good governance promotion, we consider two options: intergovernmental and transnational. The intergovernmental channel targets state actors, national and/or subnational (regional, local) governments, as well as judiciary and legislative bodies, and political parties. The transnational approach rather targets domestic non-state actors, for example, civil society, business, or community-based organisations (Börzel et al., 2008; Schimmelfennig, 2007). Through these channels, the promotion of good governance either seeks to alter the preferences of target governments over strategies by manipulating their cost-benefit calculation or through empowering non-state actors, vis-à-vis their governments, by pushing for governance reforms. As an alternative approach, good governance may aim to change the outcomes preferred by domestic actors by socialising them into new norms through processes of social learning and persuasion. This leaves us with three types of mechanisms for governance transfer. The first, conditionality, attempts to manipulate cost-benefit calculations by creating incentives (sanctions and rewards); the second is the technical assistance and aid that are geared towards capacity-building for institutionalising good governance; and the third is the political monitoring and dialogue that relies on persuasion and learning strategies (Börzel & Risse, 2009). Finally, we examine the outcomes of good governance, which may vary between good and bad governance and include various intermediate possibilities such as good enough governance or good governance without democracy, which refers to the minimal conditions of governance necessary to allow political and economic development to occur (Grindle, 2007). Departing from this wide definition of good governance promotion, the authors of the chapters in the book focus on the (relevant) aspects of a five-stage analysis. Governance promotion is thus examined in terms of (i) the promoter of governance (the EU, China, Russia, or other regional powers), (ii) the content (statehood vs. democracy), (iii) the channels of promotion (intergovernmental, subnational, transnational), (iv) the underlying mechanisms of promotion (conditionality, aid, social learning), and (v) the outcome of the governance promotion (good, good enough, or bad governance). However, the democracy and governance problems within the EU, or the rise of alternative governance promoters, may mitigate the transformative power of the EU and subvert the content,

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mechanisms, or outcomes of its good governance promotion policies. To demonstrate the impact of internal problems (inside-out) or rise of illiberal regional powers (outside-in) on the EU’s governance transfer policies (see Hackenesch et al., 2021) the authors of the chapters examine whether there is a change in the substance/content of EU’s policies (e.g., from thick democracy to thin statehood promotion), in the mechanism (e.g., less aid for good governance reforms but more for stability, resilience, and infrastructure, or less credible and inconsistent applications of conditionality) or in the outcomes (e.g., from good to good enough governance or bad governance) (Börzel & Grimm, 2018; Grindle, 2007). To gain an overall understanding of the EU’s capacity to promote good governance, I analysed World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators data over a decade (2008–2018) for several country groups such as EU members states, Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), EU candidate countries, European neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries, and the top ten sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries receiving the highest Official Development Aid (ODA) from the EU. In line with the conceptual definitions of the book, I defined two categories for the administrative and democratic dimensions of good governance that I labelled governance and democracy. For the former, I standardised, aggregated, and averaged political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and control of corruption. For the latter, I aggregated and averaged voice and accountability and the rule of law according to the same index. The figures below show the results for two categories and inform us of certain important outcomes. First, the EU 27 is losing points both in terms of governance quality and democracy. There is also a similar backsliding in the CEECs, though which has largely stabilised over the last few years (Fig. 1.1). However, it should be emphasised that Hungary and Poland are backsliding considerably, both in terms of governance quality and democracy, compared to the CEEC average, but are still doing much better than all the current EU candidates (Fig. 1.2), and more in particular than Turkey (Fig. 1.3). Second, the EU candidates’ average performance is better than the average performance of the ENP countries, especially with regard to governance (Fig. 1.4). However, as indicated in the figures, Turkey, the largest recipient of the EU’s ODA, is a clear case of democratic backsliding and on its own reduces the EU candidates’ average, while Georgia, as a part of the ENP, is performing significantly better than all the EU candidates. Finally, the 10 SSA countries that together receive 30% of the EU’s total ODA, are backsliding

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Fig. 1.1 Governance and democracy in different country groups Democracy

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Fig. 1.2 Governance and democracy in the EU27 and CEECs

in both categories (Fig. 1.5). Thus, it could be claimed that EU aid to SSA largely fails to help countries gain better records of governance and democracy. The authors of the book contribute with further evidence regarding these overall outcomes and inform us about more case-specific domestic or regional conditions and/or comparative findings concerning the EU’s promotion of good governance. In line with the major observations shared above, the book is divided into three parts. Part I focuses on the EU’s good governance transfer to member and accession countries, and aims to find answers to the following questions: Under which conditions and to what extent does the EU promote good governance in

1 Governance

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INTRODUCTION

Democracy

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Fig. 1.3 Governance and democracy amongst EU candidates and Hungary and Poland Democracy

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Fig. 1.4 Governance and democracy among EU candidates and ENP countries

the European periphery? What are we relearning in the age of democratic decline? Based on four chapters, the first part presents cross-country empirical evidence on good governance promotion in political finance, migration, and energy/environment policy, and discusses the application of conditionality in an age of democratic decline. Firstly, the chapter by Damla Cihangir-Tetik and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya explores the extent to which recent democratic backsliding in the EU has affected the content of regulations and implementation of political financing in the twelve EU member states, three EU candidates,

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Governance -0.85

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Fig. 1.5 Governance and democracy in the Sub-Saharan African countries under the EU’s ODA policy

and one potential candidate country that are covered by the ‘Money, Politics, and Transparency’ database. They find almost no deterioration in either regulations or implementation of transparency and accountability in political finance in EU member states where there has been no democratic decline, while certain member and candidate states, namely Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, backslide in the practices of the transparency and accountability of political financing. Beken Saatçio˘glu’s chapter highlights rising illiberal tendencies even under the guise of EU conditionality. The author asks how consistently the EU has used its political conditionality as a governance promotion tool to tackle illiberal policies and practices in its accession countries. By focusing on EU–Turkey relations within the context of the 2015 refugee crisis, the chapter underlines inconsistencies in the EU’s application of membership conditionality in line with its changing geostrategic and security priorities, as enshrined in the EU Global Strategy of 2016, and sheds light on the illiberal outcomes of the EU’s governance export to Turkey. Deniz Sert and Sevval ¸ Aplarslan’s contribution takes a closer look at the policy instruments of the EU that externalise border management with the aim to promote resilience and stability within the EU’s borders. Their chapter explores how the instruments of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), the Migration Partnership Framework, and the Refugee Facility for Turkey have all failed to emphasise the EU’s image

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as a good governance promoter but effectively transfer the border externalisation practices to Turkey, which results in bad governance outcomes in migration management. Exploring the lack of implementation of good governance principles (transparency, participation, control of corruption, etc.) promoted by the EU in Kosovo, Didem Buhari Gulmez and Bengu Aydin Dikmen’s chapter looks specifically at the local debates around Kosovo’s new coal power plant. They discuss the EU’s good governance transfer capacity in the case of green energy in Kosovo and underline various factors (limited statehood and corruption in Kosovo, EU’s ambivalent policies in the region, Kosovo’s transatlantic partnership) to explain why the EU has tended to adopt the role of a good enough governance exporter in the country. Part II examines how, and to what extent, the EU’s governance promotion strategies travel beyond its border. It brings evidence from the ENP countries and the countries which are part of the EU’s ODA policies and is dedicated to country case studies from South Caucasus and SSA. These case studies illustrate the roles of domestic politics and the various regional actors that mitigate the impact of the EU’s good governance promotion policies in the current age of democratic decline. The chapter by Sinem Ünaldılar Kocamaz investigates the EU’s governance promotion capacity in the three ENP countries in the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. These countries have similar domestic constraints such as energy dependency on Russia and security concerns related to the frozen border conflicts. Despite this, they are different from each other in terms of identity, loyalty to the Western alliance, and quality of governance. After underlining Russia’s increasing influence on the EU’s governance promotion capacity, the chapter highlights the EU’s changing regional policies and its regional initiatives to explain the variance in governance outcomes. The author argues that democratic erosion in the EU has considerably weakened the EU’s role as a good governance promoter in the context of the Neighbourhood and Eastern Partnership Policy, regardless of the varying domestic conditions in the southern Caucasus countries. Samiratou Dipama’s chapter focuses on the EU’s good governance promotion in a different region—the sub-Saharan African (SSA). The author makes a critical examination of the different instruments of EU’s development cooperation in the region where authoritarian and semiauthoritarian regimes increase while democracies are backsliding. Her analysis illustrates that the EU’s efforts to integrate its development fund

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into the 2021–2027 Multi-Financial Framework (MFF) might help to strengthen the EU’s image as the largest donor in the SSA. Yet, without more inclusive policies, bottom-up enforcement of good governance reforms, and local ownership, the EU’s policy instruments to promote good governance in the SSA are more likely to generate counter-reactions or turn into political tools in the hands of African leaders. Rahime Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm and Aikande Kwayu also bring evidence from Africa to explore the relationship between the EU aid and good governance. They look specifically at the extent to which gender equality is incorporated into the EU’s good governance reform agenda in Tanzania, where tyrannical trends against gender balance are gaining relevance. Their empirical evidence from the EU’s aid policies in the agricultural sector in Tanzania reveals the gender-blind nature of the EU’s good governance promotion strategy, and the fact that its top-down approach tends to ignore the local priorities of the recipient countries and thus largely fails to eliminate corruption and bad practices. Digdem Soyaltin-Colella and Damla Cihangir-Tetik make an overall assessment of the EU’s Official Development Aid (ODA) policies and discuss the EU’s aid-based governance transfer policies in the current age of democratic decline. The empirical data coming from official documents and secondary literature illustrate that the EU has recently introduced more comprehensive rules governing its ODA policies for the accession process while promoting stability over democracy in the case of its neighbourhood policy. In its aid policies to SSA countries, the EU opted to save more funding for its more easily quantifiable and thinner developmental objectives, seeking to increase its visibility and pursue its strategic agenda vis-à-vis the rise of illiberal aid donors such as China and Russia. The authors examine recent challenges in European politics and the changing dynamics of the world to explain the revisions to the EU’s ODA policies under the 2021–2021 MFF. Part III turns to other regional and global actors and discusses the implications of the cooperation and/or conflict between EU and illiberal regional powers (China and Russia) on the future of the EU’s good governance promotion efforts. The theoretical and empirical contributions in the final part of the book present findings on the rising presence of authoritarian powers and discuss the implications for the EU’s claims of being the major governance exporter committed to the deepening of a liberal international order inside and beyond its borders.

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Tugce Yildiz’s study focuses on the EU’s governance and democracy promotion in the Central Asian countries, i.e., Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Her chapter discusses the variations in the EU’s differentiated democratic governance promotion strategy among these countries with their otherwise similar domestic conditions. She finds that while the lack of credible ‘carrots’ and intensive ‘sticks’ limit the overall success in the EU’s promotion of good governance and democracy in Central Asian countries, varying levels of engagement with illiberal regional powers, especially with China and Russia, directly or indirectly shape the governance outcomes in the region. Dimitrios Anagnostakis ’s chapter makes a similar assessment regarding the competition between the EU and China (and Russia). His chapter focuses on cyberspace, which turned into a battlefield between competing visions of the liberal and illiberal powers in terms of security governance. The chapter unpacks the content of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance and examines the channels and mechanisms for the promotion of good cybersecurity governance abroad. The empirical analysis underlines the role and impact of alternative illiberal governance providers on the EU’s cybersecurity governance, and discusses how internal developments within the EU have also challenged the overall trajectory of the cybersecurity policy. By doing so, the author reveals the dilemma within the EU between security concerns and human rights (e.g., the right to privacy) regarding the development of cybersecurity governance norms. Tolga Demiryol ’s contribution provides theoretical and empirical evidence from China’s economic governance model, which is commonly considered to represent an alternative to Western governance transfer due to its no-strings-attached nature. The author sketches out three ways to unpack the concept of the ‘China Model’: (i) with reference to its embrace of pragmatism and gradualism in policymaking, (ii) in terms of the construction of the relationship between the state and the market, and (iii) in terms of the resilience of authoritarianism. The chapter specifically explores how the China model benefits from the transfer of cuttingedge surveillance technologies and discusses China’s capacity to export its brand of authoritarian governance as a model to like-minded countries, even those on the European periphery. The final chapter of the book, by Senem Aydın-Düzgit, presents the main findings of the book and asks whether the EU is still a good governance exporter in the current age of global democratic decline.

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Building on the findings of twelve empirical chapters, her chapter presents a comprehensive summary of the EU’s good governance promotion policies both within and beyond its borders, and assesses the impact of the rising internal disunity in the EU and illiberal contesters on the EU’s transformative power. The chapter also discusses the implications of the findings with regard to the future of the EU’s integration and the scope and depth of the EU’s governance transfer capacity.

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Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2020). Europe’s Burden: Promoting good governance across borders. Cambridge University Publications. Öni¸s, Z., & Kutlay, M. (2019). Global shifts and the limits of the EU’s transformative power in the European Periphery: Comparative perspectives from Hungary and Turkey. Government and Opposition, 54(2), 226–253. Pech, L. (2016). The EU as a global rule of law promoter: The consistency and effectiveness challenges. Asia Europe Journal, 14(1), 7–24. Petrova, T., & Pospieszna, P. (2021). Democracy promotion in times of autocratization: The case of Poland, 1989–2019. Post-Soviet Affairs, 37 (6), 526–543. Przeworski, A. (2019). Crises of democracy. Cambridge University Publications. Risse, T., & Babayan, N. (2015). Democracy promotion and the challenges of illiberal regional powers: Introduction to the special issue. Democratization, 22(3), 381–399. Schimmelfennig, F. (2007). Europeanization beyond Europe. Living Reviews in European Governance, 10(1). http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2007-1. Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (2005). The Europeanisation of central and eastern Europe. Cornell University Press. Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (2019). The Europeanization of eastern Europe: The external incentives model revisited. Journal of European Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2019.1617333 Schlipphak, B., & Treib, O. (2016). Playing the blame game on Brussels: The domestic political effects of EU interventions against democratic backsliding. Journal of European Public Policy, 24(3), 352–365. Sedelmeier, U. (2014). Anchoring democracy from above? The European Union and democratic backsliding in Hungary and Romania after accession. Journal of Common Market Studies, 52(1), 105–121. Sedelmeier, U. (2016). Political safeguards against democratic backsliding in the EU: The limits of material sanctions and the scope of social pressure. Journal of European Public Policy, 24(3), 337–351. Soyaltin, D. (2017a). Europeanisation, good governance and corruption in the public sector: The case of Turkey. Routledge. Soyaltin, D. (2017b). Turkey: The paradoxical effects of EU Accession. In A. Mungiu-Pippidi & J. Warkotsch (Eds.), Beyond the Panama papers. The performance of EU good governance promotion (pp. 79–89). Barbara Budrich Publishers. Soyaltin-Colella, D (2020). The EU’s action-without-sanctions? The politics of the rule-of-law crisis in many Europes. European Politics and Society. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/; https://doi.org/10.1080/ 23745118.2020.1842698 Soyaltin-Colella, D. (2022a). How to capture the judiciary under the guise of EU-led reforms: Domestic strategies of resistance and erosion of rule of law in

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Turkey. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14683857.2022.2044577 Soyaltin-Colella, D. (2022b). EU accession process, Chinese finance and rising corruption problem in Western Balkan Stabilitocracies: Serbia and Montenegro. Europe Asia Studies (Forthcoming). Stollenwerk, E., Börzel, T., & Risse, T. (2021). Theorizing resilience-building in the EU’s neighbourhood: Introduction to the special issue. Democratization, 28(7), 1219–1238. Tocci, N. (2020). Resilience and the role of the European Union in the world. Contemporary Security Policy, 41(2), 176–194. Tseng, H., & Krog, R. (2017, January 6–8). No strings attached: Chinese foreign aid and regime stability in resource-rich recipient countries. Paper presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, Chicago, IL. Vachudova, M. A. (2005). Europe undivided: Democracy, leverage and integration after communism. Oxford University Press. van Hüllen, V., & Börzel, T. (2015). Why being democratic is just not enough: The EU’s governance transfer. In V. Hüllen & T. Börzel (Eds.), Governance transfer by regional organizations (pp. 227–245). Palgrave Macmillan. V-Dem. (2019). Democracy facing global challenges. Annual Democracy report. V-Dem Institute: Department of Political Science University of Gothenburg. V-Dem Report. (2022). Autocratization changing nature? democracy report 2022. Varieties of Democracy Institute, University Gothenburg. Wetzel, A., & Orbie, J. (2015). The substance of EU democracy promotion: Concepts and issues. Palgrave Macmillan.

PART I

EU’s Promotion of Good Governance in the European Periphery What Are We Relearning in the Age of Democratic Decline?

CHAPTER 2

Governance Quality and Transparency of Politics in the European Union

Damla Cihangir-Tetik and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya

Introduction The principles of transparency and accountability have been increasingly adopted in political processes due to the economic, social, and political effects of globalisation and the framework regulations, recommendations, and reports prepared by international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), Council of Europe, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), World Bank, and Transparency International (TI). There are also several international and national civil society

D. Cihangir-Tetik (B) Department of Political Science and International Relations, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] Ö. F. Gençkaya Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_2

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organisations working in the fields of good governance and democratisation, which are related to ensuring transparency and accountability in politics. Accountability is considered to be a basic principle of democratic governance through which citizens’ control over its government secures public confidence (Bogdanor, 2007: 6). Regular, open, competitive, fair elections under judicial review are the only legitimate mechanisms of determining who will govern in representative democracies (Dahl, 1998: 92). Free and open political contention during and between elections is considered to be both a means and an important end of democratic development (Johnston, 2005: 5–6). Citizens should be able to monitor and check the actions of the politicians they elected (Schmitter & Karl, 1991: 76). As complementary to accountability, transparency refers to “the availability of economic, social and political information, which is reliable, timely and accessible to all stakeholders” (Vishwanath & Kaufmann, 1999). A full democratic polity guarantees all rights, freedoms—primarily, freedom of information, freedom of expression, and freedom of organisation—and opportunities for the effective operation of democracy. To ensure effective, representative, and fair democratic governance, “legal regulations and monitoring processes with regard to the financing of political parties, campaigns and candidates should be prepared in a way that they will ensure transparency and accountability in politics” (Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR, 2020: 9, 57). More specifically, there is a close relationship between ensuring the equality of opportunity in competitive democratic politics and political financing (OECD, 2016). Complex processes such as democratisation, political parties, elections, participation and representation, rule of law, and the fight against corruption keep the issues of regulation, implementation, and supervision of political finances on the agenda (Casas-Zamora, 2005: 1; Walecki, 2007: 75). For political actors to maintain their relative independence, and to take and implement decisions in an impartial and fair manner, the need for candidates, especially political parties, to be financially supported by direct and indirect state aid in their political activities has emerged (Gençkaya, 2000). The funding of political activities is a key issue for ensuring good governance and combating corruption. Globalisation of politics and political finance has consequently provided an input in terms of resources, and of the regulation and monitoring of this issue. Among the indicators that determine a country’s level of democracy, the extent to which political financing is fair and competitive is taken into account (International

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IDEA, 2019). Since there is no uniform legal framework in the regulations and practices of countries on this issue, international organisations publish principles and guidelines regarding the regulations and practices of the member states on the financing of politics (Council of Europe, 2003; United Nations, 2003; OSCE/ODIHR and Venice Commission, 2020). In addition, the GRECO of the Council of Europe evaluated the practices of the member states in the context of the transparency and accountability of party funding aspects of democratic governance since 2007. Statistical evidence about political financial datasets is also expanded and primarily include the International IDEA Political Finance Database (IDEA-PFD) (2002, 2012, 2016, 2018, and most recently in 2020), Global Integrity’s Money, Politics and Transparency (MPT, 2014) Campaign Finance Indicators. Freedom House underlined that “democracy and pluralism are under assault” (Freedom House, 2020) and “autocracies” have been in the majority (92 countries and home to 54% of the world’s population) worldwide since 2001 (V-Dem, 2020). Democratic erosion signals the reduction in “horizontal accountability” through the suspension or amendment of the constitution and fundamentally changes to the power structures within government (Huq & Ginsberg, 2017). Democratic backsliding eroded three core features of democratic rule, namely separation of powers, basic political rights and civil liberties, and the integrity of the electoral process (Haggard & Kaufman, 2021). In democracies, the conduct of free and fair elections permits “vertical accountability” to voters. Equally significantly, diagonal accountability by the media and civil society was regressed, negatively influencing the effectiveness of horizontal and vertical accountability (Lührmann et al., 2020). The EU and its member and candidate states are not exempt from this global breach of democratic values and practices, andHungary, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, and Turkey provide notable examples of such (Esen & Gümü¸sçü, 2016; Sedelmeier, 2014). Increasing authoritarian tendencies and practices, particularly in EU member states, have been diminishing the EU’s value-driven normative power in global affairs over the course of the last decade (Kelemen, 2020; Zielonka, 2017). Yet, sharp democratic decline, increasing corruption, and deterioration of good governance practices in the Western Balkans and Turkey over the last several years (Bieber, 2018; Csaky, 2016; Saatcioglu, 2016) show that the EU’s conditionality

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for further democratisation and governance reform have lost its effectiveness in the enlargement process (Cihangir-Tetik, 2021; Kmezic, 2020; Soyaltin-Colella, 2020, 2022). This study aims to explore the extent to which recent democratic backsliding has affected the content of regulations and implementation of political financing, and vice versa, in 27 EU member states, the UK, and seven EU candidate/potential candidate countries. Is there a reciprocal relationship between political financing and level of democracy in a country and/or which one determines another? We argue that in the countries in which there has been a sharp decline in their Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) scores; there has been sharp democratic decline according to their scores in the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, the Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index and the Varieties of Democracy Project since 2010; and there has been deterioration in civil rights and freedoms according to their Freedom House scores since 2006, it is expected that deterioration in the party/campaign finance regulations and, in particular, in the practices of the transparency and accountability of political financing, will be observed.

Relationship Between Political Financing Status and Level of Democracy, Freedoms, Corruption Perception and Governance Performance Scholarly studies on political finance have evolved since 1950s (Alexander, 1989; Heidenheimer & Alexander, 1970; Norris & Van Es, 2016; Ohman, 2014; Pinto-Duschinsky, 2002; Van Biezen, 2003) and include public financing of political parties and candidates, state aid, the introduction of limits on contributions, spending and campaign time, as well as public disclosure and sanctions. Transparency of political funding is a crucial element of an effective enforcement regime (Casas-Zamora, 2005; Gençkaya et al., 2016; OECD, 2016; Ohman, 2014; Pinto-Duschinsky, 2002) and includes rules, institutions, and processes that political parties and candidates are obliged to follow when receiving, recording, spending, and disclosing the monetary sources they use for political purposes (Tonhäuser & Stavenes, 2020). Political finance transparency regulation ensures that parties publicly disclose their activities, preventing the misuse of public finance and

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increasing parties’ accountability to their voters (Ohman, 2014). Unregulated or poorly managed money in politics is often considered one of the greatest threats to electoral integrity and, consequently, democracy (International IDEA, 2014). Accordingly, in countries with no limits or bans, any corporate influence on politics can be exercised in silence, which has detrimental consequences for democracy (Van Klingeren et al., 2015). Recent deterioration of key democratic institutions, including electoral mechanisms, undermines the foundations of democracy, even in established as well as emerging democracies (Freedom House, 2019; Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR 2016). While the flow of “soft money” in elections increases corruption and erodes citizens’ trust in political institutions (International IDEA, 2019b), the abuse of state resources by the ruling party precludes a level playing field, and prevents equal participation and representation of all citizens in democratic political processes (International IDEA, 2014). Regulations on political party funding play an important role in strengthening democracy, curbing opportunities for corruption and undue influence, and enhancing transparency and accountability (Martini, 2012). Besides, strengthening civil society and promoting an independent media as well as high levels of judicial independence are indispensable elements of both democracy and the enforcement of political finance regulations (Lee-Jone, 2019: 5, 12).

Relationship Between Political Finance Regime and Level of Democracy: One-Way or Reciprocal Interaction? The GRECO’s Third Evaluation Round, which focused on the transparency of political party funding with reference to the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to member states on common rules against corruption in the funding of political parties and electoral campaigns (Rec (2003) 4), provides a unique source of information on the transparency of party and candidate resources, how the regulations are enforced, and what sanctions can be imposed (GRECO, 2006). GRECO evaluation procedures involve the collection of information through a questionnaire(s), on-site country visits enabling evaluation teams to solicit further information during high-level discussions with domestic key players, and drafting

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of evaluation reports (Doublet, 2013). These reports, which are examined and adopted by the GRECO plenary, contain recommendations to the countries evaluated in order to improve their levels of compliance with the provisions under consideration. Measures taken to implement recommendations are subsequently assessed by GRECO under a separate compliance procedure. The thematic analysis indicated that the main problem appears to emerge from the implementation of legal regulations (Gençkaya et al., 2016: 22–23). Political parties’ areas of activity, declaration, and publishing of political party accounts, independence of oversight bodies, fair and equal use of public broadcasting facilities during the campaigning period for political parties, unregistered third-party contributions, and flexibility of sanctions are the main issue areas. The GRECO recommendations ensure that CoE member states comply with international standards, adjusting their regulation and practice to conform to the CoE’s anti-corruption standards. This is a crucial function of an international organisation’s (foreign factor) guidance to improve the member countries’ (domestic factor) democratic integrity (Smirnova, 2018: 568). Political Finance Regimes of EU Member and Candidate States Regarding the compliance with the GRECO’s recommendations, 66% of the recommendations have been implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner, 26% have been partly implemented, and 8% have not been implemented. Member states have fully or mostly amended their rules after evaluation by the GRECO, including Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, and Spain. A few countries, such as Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Germany, and Sweden, had partially completed the recommendations. Only four countries, Denmark, Hungary, Netherlands, and Turkey, had failed to adopt at least three or more recommendations before the termination of evaluations. The issues of transparency, monitoring, and sanctions are closely interconnected. Therefore, no sanctions can be imposed without any efficient monitoring body, which must work transparently. Money, Politics, and Transparency (MPT, 2014) is collaboration between the Electoral Integrity Project, the Sunlight Foundation, and Global Integrity to develop a detailed assessment of campaign finance regulations and practice in place across 54 countries worldwide. The

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MPT dataset contains 50 indicator questions split into five broad categories—Direct and Indirect Public Funding; Restrictions on Contribution and Expenditure; Reporting Requirements to the Oversight Entity and Public; and Regulation of Third-Party Actors and Monitoring and Enforcement—addressing issues integral to the effective, transparent regulation of political finance. The basic findings are highlighted as follows (MPT, 2014, 20–56): de facto realities often fail to align with de jure legal frameworks; state resources are regularly deployed for electoral advantage during campaigns; violations of regulatory frameworks, especially the restrictions on contribution and expenditure, occur more often than not; legal requirements mandating the reporting and disclosure of political finance information are inconsistently applied; and third-party actors are subject to very little regulation though oversight authorities usually exist, but whose effectiveness is highly restricted due to a lack of merit-based, independent leadership. Levels of corruption are a decent predictor of de facto realities connected to political finance enforcement, though they cannot completely explain how and whether a country will enforce political finance regulations. Levels of freedom (Freedom House, 2019), which is one of the main indicators of representative democracy, also fail to correlate perfectly with MPT in practice scores. The findings of this survey are also elaborated upon via limited countrybased case studies in Checkbook Elections: Political Finance in Comparative Perspective (Norris & Van Es, 2016). According to the calculation above, countries in law scores are the unweighted averages of the scores on all 23 de jure indicators describing how strictly a country’s laws regulate political finance. The in-practice score assesses practical enforcement within a country on all 20 de facto indicators. The composite score is the average of all scores on a given country’s scorecard, weighted by each of the scorecard’s five sections. The MPT database covered only ten EU members (including the UK) and four EU candidate countries. The indicators of political finance in Fig. 2.1 based on MPT scores mean that in many of the countries—with the exception of Germany, Sweden, Italy, and the UK—there are deficiencies in practice rather than legislation. According to GRECO reports, it is seen that these four countries—except Germany—have made real progress in terms of their legal regulations. Although the implementation seems to be slow and dependent on other variables, in some countries stagnation and even regression was observed during this period. It is therefore

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Fig. 2.1 Political Finance Scores of Selected EU Member and Candidate Countries, 2014 (Source MPT [2014], https://data.moneypoliticstransparency.org/ countries/)

necessary to review the scores in Fig. 2.1 in light of the final GRECO reports. As a result of Germany’s nearly nine-year evaluation process (GRECO, 2019a), only one out of the nine recommendations was satisfactorily completed, but with seven partially completed. GRECO noted a clear lack of political will to enhance the system ever since the adoption of the Evaluation Report more than nine years ago and, as a consequence, this system falls short of European standards. Italy moved from public to private funding in its 2017 reform and upgraded transparency and publication requirements for campaign donations, as introduced in 2019. However, GRECO (2019b) urged Italy to deal with the problem of absence of an independent supervision authority. Sweden (GRECO, 2018) also made certain reforms in dialogue with the GRECO on the Transparency of Party Financing in 2014 and 2019, yet reporting and monitoring mechanisms still need to be improved.

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The UK’s progress (GRECO, 2013c) was found to be satisfactory yet will still be reviewed, and in the meantime had not implemented two of the GRECO’s recommendations. GRECO evaluation of Bulgaria reminded its partially fulfilled recommendations (GRECO, 2016) and urged country to implement necessary legal reforms as soon as possible. Croatia’s completion of the relevant legislation (GRECO, 2013b) within two years, as according to the recommendations, was praised. It has been emphasised that although Hungary (GRECO, 2019a, 2019b) has taken a number of steps regarding the transparency of party accounts, the general situation has remained unchanged since GRECO evaluations started in 2010. Poland (GRECO, 2014a), whose final evaluation reports were completed within six years, needs further reforms to complete those recommendations that have only been partially implemented. Romania (GRECO, 2017) strengthened transparency in the financing of politics through legal regulations and practices. Slovenia’s (GRECO, 2014c) current level of compliance with the recommendations is no longer “globally unsatisfactory”. While the new democracies, especially Albania (GRECO, 2013a) and Serbia (GRECO, 2014b), have implemented the GRECO’s recommendations with great enthusiasm and rapidity in line with the EU membership goals, Bosnia and Herzegovina were asked to make certain reforms with regard to the transparency of political financing by the end of September 2021 (GRECO, 2020a). Concerns were highlighted in the reports that those candidate countries that implement the recommendations showed the same effectiveness in practice. On the other hand, it was found regrettable that Turkey, which is one of the oldest members of the CoE, has been experiencing ebbs and flows in its democratisation process and has longer experience in the regulation and implementation of political financing, has fully implemented only one of the nine recommendations in ten years (GRECO, 2020b).

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Democracy, Freedoms, Corruption, and Governance in EU Member and Candidate States As mentioned previously, there is a relationship between political funding and political competition (performance in elections), implying increased financial resources may likely increase the success of a candidate/party during elections (Speck, 2013; Speck & Mancuso, 2013). In this process, what is more important than whether money determines the election result is the extent to which the “legitimacy of financing the democratic process is tainted by risks that threaten to undermine its very purpose” (OECD, 2016). Therefore, there is also a relationship between transparency of party or political funding and the democratic quality of a political system. Democratic decline is among the multiple crises that the EU, and its member and candidate states have been facing during the last decade. While the EU itself has been dealing with the problem of democratic deficit, its member states, notably Hungary and Poland, and candidates, including the Western Balkan countries and Turkey, face serious backsliding in democratisation, the rule of law, freedoms, and civil rights. Yet, even European countries with democratic tradition and high levels of socio-economic development, such as Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands, have been facing democratic deterioration (see Tables 2.1 and 2.3). This issue becomes more crucial and complex as politics may expand globally. The influence of multinational companies or other state actors in the electoral processes both financially and technologically leads to the question of “whose money” determines “whose political preferences”. Open, transparent, and accountable societies may have more transparent party/political funding regulation or practices. Therefore, to assess the political systems level of democracy, freedoms, and civil rights and liberties, several indices have been formulated including V-DEM , the EIU Democracy Index, BTI , CPI of TI, and Freedom House. This study intends to assess if there is a correspondence between the transparency of party/political funding and the level of democracy in a given EU member, candidate, or potential candidate country. In doing so, we use twenty-two selected indicators from the above-mentioned indices such as; • total change in CPI score between 2012 and 2020 from TI; • total score changes from Freedom House between 2006 and 2021;

Kosovo, Romania

Freedom House

Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden

Luxembourg, Romania

Stable

UK, Germany, Cyprus, Ireland, Finland Lithuania, Albania, France, Latvia, Estonia,

Latvia, Austria, Lithuania, Czech Rep. Montenegro, Slovakia, Ireland, UK, Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo, Germany, Belgium, Croatia N. Macedonia, Albania, Slovenia, Croatia

Increase Finland, Malta, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Netherlands, France, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia Austria, Spain, France, Germany, UK, Luxembourg, Italy, Montenegro, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia Belgium, Greece, Czech Rep., Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovakia, Denmark, Austria, Croatia, N. Macedonia, Sweden, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Serbia, Italy, Spain, Netherlands

Decrease

Turkey, Hungary, Malta

Turkey, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Malta

Hungary, Cyprus, Turkey, N. Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Sharp Decline

GOVERNANCE QUALITY AND TRANSPARENCY …

Source Authors’ own calculation and compilation (EIU, 2021; Freedom House, 2020; TI, 2021)

EIU

Greece, Estonia, Italy

TI CPI

Sharp Increase

Table 2.1 List of European countries regarding total changes in their TI CPI scores between 2012 and 2020; Freedom House scores between 2006 and 2021 and EIU Democracy Index scores between 2010 and 2021 (Italics emphasise EU candidate countries)

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• change in democracy index between 2010 and 2020 from the EIU; • total score changes of status index, democracy status, free and fair elections, association/assembly rights, freedom of expression, rule of law, stability of democratic institutions, party system and governance index from BTI between 2010 and 2020; and • total score changes of electoral democracy index, clean elections index, elected officials index, election monitoring body (EMB) autonomy, EMB capacity, election free and fair, accountability index, political corruption index, rule of law index, and electoral regime index between 2010 and 2020 from V-DEM. These indices use different methods for the calculation of the scores for different indicators for the selected countries. Thus, in this study we have calculated only the annual score changes of those indicators for EU member and candidate states and the UK, particularly during the last decade. Our analysis is based on negative or positive score changes in those indicators. Therefore, final scores of selected European countries that this study takes into account are equal to the total score changes between the selected years. We have then ranked those countries according to the results of their final scores in 2020 and in 2021 for the Freedom House indicators only. According to our calculations, all countries were classified according to five categories, that is, those which have had a sharp increase, an increase, stability, a decrease, and a sharp decrease in their TI CPI, Freedom House, and EUI scores. Also, these countries were classified into three categories (increase, stable, and decrease) for selected BTI and V-DEM indicators, since there have been no significant increases in these countries’ scores during the last decade and there are only few countries with increased scores. Additionally, we prefer to indicate only the bottom five countries according to their BTI and V-DEM rankings, since the majority of the countries have declining scores, where the bottom five represent those with the most significant declines (see Tables 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3). Transparency International CPI Transparency International is an independent, non-governmental international civil society organisation that has branches in over 100 countries and that fights against all kinds of corruption and injustice as a result of transparency and accountability. According to TI, “corruption is the

Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia

Estonia

Albania

Democracy status

Free and fair elections

Association/assembly rights

Montenegro, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Czech Rep., Estonia, Albania

Poland, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Source Authors’ own calculation and compilation (BTI, 2021)

Governance index

Stability of democratic institutions Party system

Rule of law

Lithuania, Estonia, Montenegro Latvia

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia

Status index

Freedom of expression

Increase

BTI Indicators

Lithuania, Croatia, Estonia, Slovenia Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, N. Macedonia, Montenegro, Turkey

Bosnia & Herzegovina, Lithuania, Czech Rep., Estonia Kosovo

Czech Rep., Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia The rest are stable (9 countries)

Stable

Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovakia

Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina Hungary, Bosnia& Herzegovina, N. Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey Turkey, Hungary, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Romania, N. Macedonia, Poland, Serbia Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia Turkey, N. Macedonia, Hungary, Slovakia, Bosnia & Herzegovina Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Czech Rep

Decrease (bottom 5)

Table 2.2 List of countries regarding total changes in their scores of selected nine BTI indicators, between 2010 and 2020 (Italics emphasise EU candidate countries)

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Table 2.3 List of countries showing total changes in their scores for selected eight V-Dem indicators between 2010 and 2020 (Italics emphasize EU candidate countries) V-Dem indicators

Increase

Electoral democracy index

Kosovo, N. Macedonia, Romania, Latvia

Clean elections index

EMB autonomy

EMB capacity

Election free and fair

Accountability index Political corruption index

Stable

Decrease (bottom 5)

UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg Romania, Kosovo, N. France, Spain, Macedonia, Latvia, Albania Cyprus, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Belgium Belgium, Slovakia, France, Netherlands, Latvia, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Albania Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta Spain, Bosnia & Sweden, Ireland, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Cyprus, Slovenia, Italy Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Malta Romania, Ireland, Lithuania, Albania, N. Macedonia Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia Kosovo, Romania, N. Belgium, Macedonia, Slovakia Sweden, Ireland

Slovenia, Poland, Turkey, Serbia, Hungary

Kosovo, Romania, Slovakia, Italy

N. Macedonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Turkey

Luxembourg, Denmark, Belgium, UK, Sweden, Croatia

Montenegro, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey

Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, Poland

Slovakia, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Netherlands

Czech Rep., Hungary, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden

Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Turkey

(continued)

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Table 2.3 (continued) V-Dem indicators

Increase

Stable

Decrease (bottom 5)

Rule of law index

Romania, Kosovo, Slovakia, Italy, Greece

Latvia, Finland, Netherlands, Lithuania, Sweden, Estonia

Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Hungary, Poland, Turkey

Source Authors’ own calculation and compilation (V-Dem, 2020)

abuse of entrusted power for private gain. Corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis” (TI, 2021). TI prioritises political integrity and dirty money issues in its advocacy campaigns, research, and projects. TI’s globally known CPI scores ranks the level of public corruption perception in 180 countries and different regions each year following detailed research and analyses by both local offices and its headquarters in Germany. The CPI aggregates data from different institutions, local experts, and businesspeople. TI standardises data sources to a scale of 0– 100, where a 0 indicates the highest level of perceived corruption and 100 the lowest. Countries’ CPI scores are then calculated as the average of all standardised scores available for each country. Scores are rounded to whole numbers (TI, 2021). According to the CPI 2020 Report, corruption undermined the global health response to COVID-19 in 2020. Yet, it also contributes to a continuing crisis of democracy worldwide (CPI Report, 2020). There is a strong link between political integrity, the level of democratisation, and the level of public corruption in a country (Casas-Zamora, 2005: 1; Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR, 2020: 9; Walecki, 2007: 75). Thus, in our analysis we take into consideration the CPI scores and differences in scores between EU member states, candidates, and potential candidates between 2012 and 2020. Our findings indicate that out of 35 European countries, the CPI scores of 17 have increased, while only two have remained stable (Luxembourg and Romania), while 16 countries’ scores have actually decreased. Out of those 16, while the scores of 11 have decreased slightly, there has been a sharp decline in the remaining five (Hungary, Cyprus, Turkey,

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North Macedonia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina), ranging between 11 and 7 points. Yet, out of 17 countries that have improved their CPI scores since 2012, only three, Greece, Italy, and Estonia, have seen a significant improvement, of 14-, 11-, and 11-point increases, respectively (see Table 2.1). These results also indicate some similarities, and indeed divergences, with GRECO evaluations. While Turkey and Hungary failed to comply with GRECO recommendations, Cyprus’s evaluation has mostly been satisfied. However, Cyprus’s CPI score has increased tremendously since 2012. By contrast, Finland, Spain, Serbia, Slovenia, and Portugal have essentially been compliant with GRECO’s recommendations, but their CPI scores have been in decline; on the other hand, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, and the UK are all compliant with GRECO recommendations and their CPI scores have increased. According to MPT political finance scores, Germany, Sweden, and the UK are the only countries to have implemented better standards of political financing in law than in regulation. Among them, only Sweden’s CPI score has declined. Among the countries that have higher scores in regulation, only Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Turkey have seen deteriorating perceptions of corruption. Freedom House Freedom House emphasises the direct link between freedoms and accountable, democratic governments with respect to the rule of law and human rights. In this respect, it “speaks out against the main threats to democracy and empowers citizens to exercise their fundamental rights through a unique combination of analysis, advocacy, and direct support to frontline defenders of freedom, especially those working in closed authoritarian societies. Freedom House produces research and reports on a number of core thematic issues related to democracy, political rights and civil liberties. Freedom House’s flagship publication Freedom in the World is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties” (Freedom House, 2020). It ranks 195 countries and 15 territories on a scale from 7 (free) to 0 (not free) and categorises them generally as free, partly free, and not free in its Freedom in the World report each year. According to Freedom House, there has been a growing democracy gap worldwide since 2005. Since then, while the total number

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of free countries has declined from 89 to 82, the total number of “not free” countries has increased from 45 to 54 (Freedom House, 2020). Our findings indicate that out of a total of 35 EU members (including the UK), candidate, and potential candidate countries, only six have seen increased overall Freedom House scores, while there has not been any change in the total scores of four (Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden) between 2006 and 2021. Yet, out of the six countries that have improved their scores since 2006, only two, Kosovo and Romania, have seen significant improvements of 25- and 8-point increases, respectively. Freedom House scores for 25 countries—21 of which are EU member states—are alarming, since they have decreased since 2006. While the scores of 18 have decreased slightly—10 of which have declined by only 1 point—there has been a sharp decline in seven countries (Turkey, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Malta) ranging from 33 to 8 points (see Table 2.1). Freedom House scores for the European countries mostly overlap with their GRECO evaluations and MPT political finance scores. Albania, Croatia, Romania, and Slovenia are among those countries that are mostly compliant with GRECO recommendations and that have increased their civil rights and liberties scores. Yet, their MPT scores in law are better than the practice of political finance. Similar to their CPI scores, Turkey, Hungary, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are among the least-free European countries. Thus, while improved political finance practices are expected in Albania, Croatia, Romania, and Slovenia, the opposite is likely in Turkey, Hungary, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The EIU Democracy Index The EIU evaluates the status of democracy in 165 countries and two independent territories worldwide and publishes its figures annually. “The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Based on their scores on 60 indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regimes: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian regime” (EIU, 2021). It ranks countries from 10 to 0. According to the EIU Democracy Index 2020 report, out of 24 full democracies, only nine are EU members. Even though there is not any authoritarian EU member or candidate country, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro,

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and North Macedonia were hybrid regimes in 2020. Thus, out of 34 European countries that we analyse in this study, the majority are flawed democracies according to the EIU 2020 report (EIU Report, 2020). Since the data excludes Kosovo, we analyse 34 European countries from the EIU Democracy Index. The EIU data shows various similarities with our findings from the Freedom House data. The status of democracy has been in decline since 2010 in 24 European countries, in which freedoms, civil rights, and liberties have simultaneously been declining (see Table 2.1). Out of these states, three have faced sharp declines, namely Turkey (−12.5), Hungary (−6.5), and Malta (−6). These findings are in parallel to the results of the other indexes analysed in this study. According to the EIU data, there is no country in Europe that has seen a sharp increase in its level of democracy over the last decade. The UK is the leading European country regarding its status of democracy, followed by Germany, Cyprus, Ireland, and Lithuania. In this case, Cyprus’ status is interesting, since while it has seen a sharp decline in its corruption perception according to TI CPI, it continues to strengthen its democracy according to the EIU democracy index, and its GRECO evaluations are mostly satisfactory. Another oxymoron is Greece, since while it has made huge improvements in the level of its corruption perception, its level of democracy has been decreasing since 2010. Even though no country has managed to maintain its level of democracy, Finland, Spain, and the Netherlands have seen very slight changes that can essentially be considered negligible (see Table 2.1). However, as the four countries that failed to comply with GRECO recommendations, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Turkey, are also among those European countries that have seen a decline in their scores of CPI, Freedom House and EIU Democracy Index during the last decade. Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index (BTI) The BTI “analyses transformation processes towards democracy and a market economy in international comparison and identifies successful strategies for peaceful change” (BTI, 2021). It includes three criteria (political, economic, governance), for which it considers 81 indicators in total, as related to these criteria, that are published biannually. Out of the 137 countries it evaluates, there are 18—Central and Eastern European (CEECs), Western Balkan countries, and Turkey—that are European as

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well as those in democratic and economic transformation. We analyse only nine BTI indicators for these 18 countries in this chapter. According to the overall status index changes since 2010, only three countries’ scores have increased. These forerunners are Lithuania (0.26), Latvia (0.24), and Estonia (0.21). The other 15 countries’ status indexes have declined since 2010. However, of them, the scores of Turkey (−2.03), Hungary (−2.01), Poland (−0.70), Bulgaria (−0.60), and Romania (−0.59) have declined sharply (see Table 2.2). The BTI also categorises democratic statuses and the status of governance performance of related countries. The categories of democratic status are democracy in consolidation (1), defective democracy (2), highly defective democracy (3), moderate autocracy (4), and hard-line autocracy (5). Turkey was the only European country that had transformed into a highly defective democracy in 2018 from a defective democracy, and into a moderate autocracy in 2020 from a highly defective democracy. Yet, Hungary (in 2014) and Poland (in 2020) were the two countries that transformed into defective democracies from democracies in consolidation. The categories of the status of governance performance are excellent (1), sound (2), fair (3), flawed (4), and poor (5). While Turkey’s governance performance was sound between 2010 and 2016, it was considered to be fair in 2018, but was significantly damaged and considered flawed just two years later, in 2020. Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina were the other two states with flawed governance performance in 2020. While the status of the governance performance of Bosnia and Herzegovina was fair in 2010 but has been flawed since 2012, it has been declining consistently in Hungary. Hungary’s governance performance was excellent in 2010, became sound between 2012 and 2014, and declined to fair between 2016 and 2018. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) The measurement of the level or status of democracy in a country has been a somewhat complex issue in the literature. The aim of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project is to overcome this ambiguity regarding the concept of democracy in social sciences research. Thus, it “is a new approach to conceptualising and measuring democracy. It provides a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the

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simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles” (V-Dem, 2020). There are particular elements of V-Dem that distinguish it from other similar datasets that we also wanted to include in our analysis. It “is one of the largest-ever social science data collection efforts with a database containing over 28.4 million data points. The latest version of the dataset, v11, covers 202 countries from 1789–2020 with annual updates to follow” (V-Dem, 2020). It covers hundreds of lower-level components of democracy; we have used ten of them, which are effective in terms of explaining the link between political financing, political integrity, and the level of democracy, for 35 European countries in this study. Two of these indicators—elected officials index and electoral regime index—are measured as intervals. According to the elected officials index, in all of the countries analysed in this study, the chief executive and legislature are appointed through popular elections (either directly or indirectly). However, this index should not necessarily be interpreted as an important element of democracy in its own right. The responses of the electoral regime index of 35 countries indicate that regularly scheduled national elections are on course, as stipulated by electoral law or well-established precedent. According to the other eight indicators of V-Dem that we have analysed, particular countries’ scores had increased and decreased with regard to almost all of these components of democracy. While Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Italy have improved their levels of transparency, accountability and monitoring capacity in elections and the rule of law, similar to previous results from other datasets and indexes used in this study, Poland, Turkey, Hungary, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are among the non-proficient, even significantly deteriorating countries regarding these eight indicators between 2010 and 2020. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden are among the worst countries regarding free and fair elections during the last decade. Yet, the score for the election monitoring body capacity of the Netherlands has also decreased tremendously during this period (see Table 2.3). These three countries’ GRECO evaluations have also been unsatisfactory. According to TI CPI, Freedom House, and the EIU Democracy Index, the scores for the Netherlands, regarding its corruption perception, level of freedoms and democracy, have also declined. Romania is the only opposite case when we compare the results of all other datasets with V-Dem.

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Romania has only increased its level of freedoms and civil liberties tremendously during the last decade, according to Freedom House. However, the TI-CPI, EIU Democracy Index and BTI scores of Romania have decreased between 2010 and 2020.

A General Assessment When the scores of democracies, freedoms, corruption perception, and the rule of law indicators, and political finance scores of European countries are compared, it can be said that political financing arrangements and practices in a country contribute positively to the development and consolidation of democracy, lower levels of corruption perception, and empowerment of freedoms and the rule of law. However, in this study we clarify that the opposite argument can also be valid. Although the relationship between the two is not definite, it is possible that they may affect each other. In our analysis, it was seen that this relationship is not uniform in all of the MPT scores and GRECO evaluations. It is clear that in some countries, particularly so-called “established democracies”, variables such as historical experience, political party system, and election system, as well as political culture and economic relations and factors, can affect the financing of politics (Gençkaya, 2018), together with the development of democracy, empowerment of civil liberties and freedoms, and the level of corruption. According to our findings, the UK is the perfect example of such a European country. The MPT data clearly shows the success of political financing in practice in the UK. The 2013 GRECO evaluation of the country finds its performance satisfactory as well. Even though the political financing in the UK is not regulated perfectly (MPT, 2014), being a consolidated democracy with long-standing democratic practices create a reciprocal relationship with political integrity. Although rapid improvements have been achieved in terms of legal regulations in countries, e.g., Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, that intend to take part in the democratic world as EU members, institutional inadequacies in particular, as clarified in our analysis, prevent the effective functioning of the system. These countries constitute the second group in our analysis. According to MPT (2014) and GRECO evaluations, while Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina regulate political financing adequately, in practice their performances do not meet the same standards. Yet, while Albania, Kosovo, and Italy have also showed some improvements in their levels of democracy, freedoms, and

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corruption perceptions, Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina did not show similar trends during the last decade. On the one hand, this situation proves once again that the relationship between political financing and democratisation is not reciprocal in all of the cases; on the other, having adequate political financing regulations does not go hand in hand with satisfactory practices in all cases. It is also somewhat early to evaluate the practices of political financing and democracy in EU candidate and potential candidate countries of the Western Balkans and be able to draw any real conclusions since they are still in process of reformation and democratisation. These countries’ future political finance practices and democratisation performances will give us a clearer picture regarding the relationship between political financing and democracy. In our analysis, there is a third group of European countries, such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, where political financing developed in a liberal tradition. There is no definite relationship between rules, regulations, and practice, but the level of democracy in each is quite high. However, the resistance of some democratic countries, particularly the Netherlands and Germany, to changing their established rules weakens their scores and practices in terms of political financing and, more recently, their levels of democracy as well. The final group of countries includes those which have shown sharp declines in their levels of democracy, freedoms, corruption perceptions, and governance performance during the last decade, and indeed in their political financing scores. According to our analysis, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey are the most distinct European countries in this category, in that the sharp democratic regression in this group of countries has resulted in regression in the rules and practices of political financing apace. It is possible that compliance to GRECO recommendations may have incentives that are too weak, too strong, or contradictory (Johnston, 2005: 4). As both EU and CoE member states Hungary and Poland, and as a negotiating EU candidate and CoE member, Turkey have not faced any sanctions or enforcement because of their deteriorating performances in terms of political financing, democratisation, respect for human rights and freedoms, and governance. This is contrary to both the membership ideals and norms of the CoE (Smirnova, 2018: 568) and the EU. In short, we argue that it is not possible to limit the relationship between political financing and democratisation to being one-way or reciprocal. It can be both, and each country’s case should be evaluated on its own merits, as this study shows. The fairness, transparency, and

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accountability of the political financing regime are affected not only by the level of democracy, civil liberties and freedoms, corruption perceptions, and governance status/performance of countries, but also by several other factors in different cases whose analyses are beyond the scope of this study. This study has focused on assessing the impact of international standards of democratisation, civil liberties and freedoms, good governance, and transparency in public affairs, and the related findings of several international independent institutions over the political financing regimes of 35 European countries, including 27 EU member states, the UK, and seven EU candidates. It has also crystallised the lack of analyses in the literature on other structural, institutional, historical, economic, and contextual factors affecting political financing in different countries, as a prominent topic for further research.

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CHAPTER 3

Rising Illiberalism in the European Periphery and the EU’s Application of Membership Conditionality for Democratic Governance Beken Saatçio˘glu

Introduction In recent years, illiberalism has risen both within the European Union (EU) and in the European neighbourhood, in line with a global trend against democracy and freedom intensifying since 2005/2006 (Diamond, 2015). Notable cases include Hungary and Poland (democratic backsliding and autocratisation); Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia (potential democratic backsliding); Albania, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and North Macedonia (state capture impeding the rule of law, and backsliding) (Börzel & Schimmelfennig, 2017; Kmezi´c, 2019; Kmezi´c & Bieber, 2017). These alarming trends are similarly observed in the EU’s eastern and southern neighbourhood. Aside from a few exceptions (Tunisia,

B. Saatçio˘glu (B) Department of Political Science and International Relations, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_3

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Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine), the countries included in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) exhibit very low levels of democratic development (Börzel & Lebanidze, 2017). In the EU’s periphery, while being an official EU candidate state, Turkey represents a prime example of competitive authoritarianism (Esen & Gümü¸sçü, 2016) under the post2002 rule of the Justice of Development Party (AKP). It has also been a “not-free country” (according to Freedom House’s rankings) since 2018 (Freedom House, 2018), and an “electoral autocracy”, occupying its place among the world’s top three “autocratising countries” since 2010 (V-Dem Institute, 2021). These developments have revived interest in the EU’s capacity for promoting the principles and structures of liberal democratic governance in the accession and neighbourhood countries. In this respect, the main mechanism that the EU employs is the instrument of conditionality. While ENP conditionality is rather “soft” (Lavenex, 2014: 892) and limited in scope given the lack of the EU membership perspective, accession conditionality is more domestically intrusive, constituting the EU’s most comprehensive and successful foreign policy tool embedded in its enlargement strategy. However, the EU’s consistent and effective use of conditionality is practically constrained. First, the existing domestic illiberal dynamics on the ground may be so severe that they effectively negate any EU efforts at liberal governance promotion and, by extension, transformative power (Börzel & Lebanidze, 2017). In such cases, the EU should not only deploy extra effort to exert democratic leverage over stubborn, illiberal regimes but it should also make this a clear policy priority. Second, the changing international order and the rise of the non-West reduce the appeal of the governance model promoted by a crisis-driven EU in the eyes of the target countries that are subject to EU influence/conditionality (Börzel, 2015; Kutlay, 2018). Finally, the EU now has strategic priorities like “resilience building” in addition to—and at times in opposition to—democracy and governance promotion in third countries. As explained in the EU’s 2016 Global Strategy: “A resilient state is a secure state, and security is key for prosperity and democracy” (European External Action Service, 2017: 23). While resilience is needed to maintain cooperation with non-member states, this may further clash with the EU’s aim of governance export embedded in its enlargement policy, as admitted in the Strategy: “The strategic challenge for the EU is therefore that of promoting political reform, rule of law, economic

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convergence and good neighbourly relations in the Western Balkans and Turkey, while coherently pursuing cooperation across different sectors” (ibid.: 24). In view of these difficulties facing EU governance promotion, this chapter addresses a set of interrelated questions: How consistently does the EU use membership conditionality1 to address illiberalism? Specifically, to what extent is such use impaired by other factors, i.e., third countries’ domestic factors complicating liberal rule transfer, the EU’s exogenous geostrategic calculations/priorities, etc.? What has been the impact of (inconsistently applied) conditionality on the ground, i.e., in terms of EU governance export? These questions are assessed via a case study of EU-Turkey relations within the context of the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. This episode of EU-Turkey relations provides an important test case for the EU’s ability and willingness to consistently use conditionality since doing so coincided with the EU’s other foreign policy aims linked with external border security (relatedly also, the integrity of the Schengen area), and even protection against terrorism. Historically, despite politics frequently infiltrating the EU’s use of conditionality towards Turkey (Saatçio˘glu, 2009), overall bilateral relations have not strayed too far from Ankara’s compliance with the Copenhagen political criteria. Currently, Turkey is the fastest backsliding EU candidate (notably, since 2013). Therefore, when compared to the other EU candidates in the Western Balkans (see Chapter 5 in this book), the EU faces a higher normative responsibility to stick to its democratic values in the case of Turkey. Studying the EU’s externalisation of the refugee crisis to Turkey (see also Chapter 4), the chapter makes two claims. First, in managing the crisis, consistency of conditionality was compromised by the EU’s strategic, realpolitik interests,2 which trumped the pursuit of democratic values vis-à-vis Turkey. In line with the literature, consistency is present when the EU uses political conditionality as a mechanism of “reinforcement by reward” (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2004), which in turn suggests that “[it] rewards democratic progress (positive conditionality) or sanctions the lack thereof (negative conditionality)” (Börzel & Lebanidze, 2017: 18). Throughout the refugee crisis, the EU ushered in a transactional, strategic partnership with Ankara, which eroded conditionality via offering material and normative concessions to a democratically backsliding Turkey (Saatçio˘glu, 2020). Second, such inconsistent use of conditionality has only worsened Turkey’s move away from the EU’s

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democratic norms that lie at the heart of the Copenhagen political criteria. Specifically, the EU emboldened and empowered Turkey’s antidemocratic regime. This is an unintended consequence of the Union’s strategic policy towards Ankara, which is driven by its prioritisation of bilateral cooperation to resolve the refugee crisis. The following proceeds as follows. First, the chapter briefly reviews the literature on EU conditionality. It shows that existing works mostly focus on conditionality’s domestic effectiveness (i.e., target states’ compliance with the membership criteria), leaving the conditions of its consistency insufficiently explored, and under-theorised. Second, the chapter revisits the refugee crisis, and empirically demonstrates how this external shock fostered a strategic partnership between Ankara and Brussels. Third, it reveals that the partnership overrode conditionality, and fed unintended (illiberal) policy and domestic governance outcomes via legitimising and bolstering Turkey’s anti-democratic regime.

EU Membership Conditionality and Governance Transfer to Third Countries Research on EU membership conditionality is elaborate and has been developed since the early 2000s, largely in parallel to the need to theorise post-communist Central and Eastern European countries’ (CEECs) efforts to meet the EU’s membership criteria. Embedded in the broader research on Europeanisation, scholarship on conditionality has sufficiently assessed the question of how this policy tool generates domestic effects in target states, convincingly laying out the causal mechanisms of compliance with the EU membership criteria. Relatedly, the rationalist “external incentives model” has shown that conditionality produces compliance when it is credible (therefore also consistently applied) and the domestic political compliance costs do not outweigh the benefits associated with EU membership (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2004, 2005; Schimmelfennig et al., 2003). Yet, its thorough theorisation of conditionality’s domestic effects and the EU’s related transformative power notwithstanding, the literature remains weak when it comes to exploring and problematising conditionality itself. As Gateva rightly argues: … Most of the research is aimed either at explaining how the EU conditionality influences the domestic structures in the applicant countries or

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at evaluating the effectiveness of EU conditionality in particular policy areas. The fundamental problems of the nature and the scope of EU conditionality remain very weakly analysed. (Gateva, 2015: 26)

Hence, most studies on EU conditionality are centred on hypothesising the factors affecting its domestic effectiveness rather than its consistency. Under what conditions is conditionality consistently applied? Is consistency exogenously given, i.e., shaped by the EU’s foreign policy goals unrelated to (and sometimes conflicting with) democracy promotion (e.g., stability, trade, security)? This question remains untheorised in the literature. First, the literature readily assumes that conditionality has been more consistently applied vis-à-vis EU candidates than the neighbourhood countries (Schimmelfennig, 2012), since enlargement policy is systematically “linked to compliance with basic democratic norms in the target countries” (Schimmelfennig, 2008). Accordingly, this has largely stemmed from the European Commission’s centralised and meritocratic role in assessing candidate and EU applicant countries’ compliance as well as, more significantly, the “community effect”: “Whereas interest-based considerations are permitted to take the upper hand in relations with external states, the constitutive community rules will prevail in relations with future insiders” (Schimmelfennig et al., 2006: 46). Second, the literature on EU conditionality argues that inconsistency problems mostly arise in the EU’s relations with non-candidate third countries in the neighbourhood and beyond (Schimmelfennig, 2012), as has been widely documented by works on EU foreign policy (Noutcheva et al., 2013; Pomorska & Noutcheva, 2017; Whitman & Juncos, 2014; Youngs, 2010) as well as studies on ENP highlighting the problematic application of ENP conditionality following from the EU’s “stabilitydemocracy dilemma” (Börzel & Lebanidze, 2017; Börzel & van Hüllen, 2014). Relatedly, the major problem impeding norm-based EU foreign policy is viewed as the EU’s frequent prioritisation of security- and stability-oriented foreign policy aims (for the sake of strategic interests) over democracy. Yet, strategic exogenous factors affecting the EU’s usage of ENP conditionality and/or conduct of foreign policy at large have also infiltrated its specific relations with accession countries. In fact, problems in the EU’s application of clear, consistent, and credible membership conditionality are already documented in case studies on Western Balkan

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countries (Kmezic, 2019; Richter, 2012), Romania (Phinnemore, 2010), and Turkey (Saatçio˘glu, 2009), as well as acknowledged—if not fully investigated—in more recent studies on EU enlargement (Grabbe, 2014; Vachudova, 2014, 2019: 77–80). To conclude, in view of the state of the academic literature, there is need for a more systematic theorisation of the consistency of EU membership conditionality. Gateva’s above-cited contribution is a step in the right direction for “designing a rigorous conceptual framework for the [analysis] of EU enlargement conditionality” (Gateva, 2015: 2), incorporating “the impact of institutional and external factors on the development of EU enlargement policy” (ibid.: 26–27). Short of offering or testing a theory of conditionality, the following case study explores this governance export mechanism as pertaining to Turkey, an official EU candidate since 1999. The analysis shows that conditionality is trumped by the EU’s strategic and security considerations. When these are overwhelming (i.e., when the EU is confronted with an external shock or crisis that elevates geostrategic needs to the centre of its external action), democratic norms embedded in conditionality take the back seat, even in relation to pro-authoritarian EU candidates (Turkey) over which the EU’s democratising pressure may be most needed. In turn, such violation of conditionality by the EU reinforces illiberal policy and governance outcomes on the ground.

The EU’s Refugee Crisis: Strategic Partnership Undermining Conditionality in EU-Turkey Relations The Making of a Strategic, Transactional Partnership The 2015 Syrian refugee crisis was a critical juncture in EU-Turkey relations since it ushered in a strategic partnership between the two sides (Saatçio˘glu, 2020).3 The partnership was sealed by transactional EU-Turkey cooperation to resolve the crisis, which culminated in two “EU-Turkey Statements” that were signed on 29 November 2015 and 18 March 2016, respectively. In essence, such cooperation meant that the EU externalised the management of the crisis to Turkey as the main transit country for the refugee flows to Europe. This was because Brussels was unable (and unwilling) to implement a common European asylum policy reflecting a “European solution” to the crisis. The attempted solution

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would embed the principles of “solidarity” and “fair sharing of responsibility”, as stated in the EU’s Lisbon Treaty.4 Yet, divisions among the member states and political opposition to refugees’ relocation and resettlement in Europe, which was particularly raised by central and eastern European countries (led by Hungary), impeded its satisfactory execution (Saatçio˘glu, 2021). The two Statements with Turkey rested on the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan which came out in October 2015 through the efforts of the European Commission and the European Council, and especially, Germany. These arrangements formed the backbone of a give-and-take relationship between Ankara and Brussels: While Ankara agreed to stop refugee passage to the EU (by controlling Turkey’s sea and land borders to Europe) and to host the refugee populations in Turkey, Brussels promised it financial aid (to be channelled directly to the Facility for Refugees covering the hosted refugees’ socio-economic needs), “re-energised” EUTurkey membership talks, and the prospect of visa liberalisation, among other incentives. The November 2015 Statement offered Turkey critical material benefits and closer dialogue in exchange for its refugee cooperation: (1) the opening of new chapters to re-energise Turkey’s accession process, (2) “structured and more frequent high-level dialogue … to explore the vast potential of Turkey-EU relations” and EU-Turkey summits to be held twice a year, (3) Schengen visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens by October 2016 (though conditional on Turkey’s fulfilment of the visa liberalisation roadmap), and (4) the prospect of opening the negotiations for the modernisation of the 1995 EU-Turkey Customs Union (CU) by the end of 2016 (European Council, 2015a). These steps to the EU’s outreach to Ankara, and support for the Turkish government, suggested a shift in EU policy towards Turkey since both accession-oriented ties and in general, EU-Turkey highlevel dialogue had stagnated following the turbulent period surrounding Turkey’s May–June 2013 Gezi protests. In fact, the period between the autumn of 2015 and spring of 2016 saw an intensification of diplomacy and bilateral summits between the European Council and Ankara. Guided by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Dutch EU presidency, these efforts led to the second EU-Turkey statement—also known as the “refugee deal”—in March 2016. The deal extended the scope of the benefits previously offered to Turkey, always in exchange for the latter’s much-needed cooperation for

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handling the refugee situation. In addition to speeding up the disbursement of the e3 billion announced by the November 2015 Statement, Brussels pledged additional funding of e3 billion to be mobilised until the end of 2018. The deal also emphasised the EU’s commitment to accelerate Turkey’s visa liberalisation roadmap with an eye towards lifting Turkish citizens’ visa requirement by the end of June 2016. Additionally, it paved the way for the resettlement of refugees (the number of which would be limited to 72,000) from Turkey in the EU: “All new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greek islands as from 20 March 2016 [would] be returned to Turkey” and “for every Syrian being returned to Turkey from Greek islands, another Syrian [would] be resettled from Turkey to the EU” (European Council, 2016). Finally, the deal highlighted the EU’s commitment to open negotiation chapters with Turkey “at an accelerated pace”, along with its support for “the ongoing work on the upgrading of the Customs Union” (ibid.). The EU-Turkey strategic partnership surrounding the refugee crisis effectively eroded the EU’s norm-based and conditional relations with Turkey. Driven by strategic exigencies, Brussels found itself asymmetrically dependent on Turkey to an extent that was unprecedented in the history of the EU-Turkey relationship. Declarations and statements by EU leaders and European politicians amply demonstrate this point. As Merkel candidly stated at the outset of EU-Turkey talks to jointly resolve the crisis: We will not solve the refugee problem completely; we need, among other things, further talks with Turkey for that. Only with Turkey we can switch illegality to legality. It is very important that the (European) Commission discusses further the migration agenda with Turkey. (Müftüler-Baç, 2021)

Indeed, only a year after the making of the refugee deal, the EU’s externalisation of migration control proved successful since irregular migrant flows from Turkey to Europe dropped by 97% (ibid.). Consequently, the then president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, praised Turkey for its crucial role in the process: On migration and support for refugees, the EU and Turkey remain very close partners. I would like to express our appreciation for the impressive work Turkey has been doing, and to sincerely thank Turkey and the

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Turkish people for hosting more than 3 million Syrian refugees these past years. (European Council, 2018)

The EU’s close partnership with Turkey was also regularly emphasised in official EU documents, thus signalling an undeniable shift in Brussels’ approach to Turkey: Although Turkey remained an official EU candidate, it was clear that the EU no longer considered it as such. While the unlikelihood of Turkey’s EU membership (due mainly to the deterioration of Turkish democracy) was already known before the refugee crisis, post-crisis documents and declarations added an extra focus on cooperation-oriented, strategic relations. This meant that the new relations effectively evolved towards an enhanced strategic partnership (based on mutual interests), notwithstanding the normative issues impeding Turkey’s EU accession. In a way, the EU’s primarily strategic tone was revealed at the outset by Tusk in November 2015: “Turkey remains a strategic partner for Europe, but also a candidate country of the EU” (European Council, 2015b). Later, the Commission’s yearly reports on Turkey put partnership before Turkey’s EU candidacy. For example, the Commission’s 2016 report opened with the phrase: “Turkey remains a key partner for the European Union” (European Commission, 2016: 4). Correspondingly, the report revealed that the Commission “has stepped up EU-Turkey relations in all key areas of joint interest based on a broad strategic engagement” in line with the November 2015 EU-Turkey Statement (ibid.: 96). Similarly, European Council (EUCO) conclusions since the refugee crisis have regularly emphasised the EU’s strategic need for cooperation with Turkey to such an extent that it is possible to view the Council as “a positive driver … of an interest-driven, transactional partnership between the Union and Turkey” (Turhan & Wessels, 2021: 187). In fact, post2015 EUCO summits increasingly discussed relations with Turkey in the context of bilateral issues such as migration and the Eastern Mediterranean, alongside underscoring “the EU’s strategic interest in … the development of a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey” (European Council, 2021: 4). While remaining extra critical about Turkey’s deviation from democracy and the rule of law, the European Parliament (EP) admitted that relations have become “progressively more transactional” (European Parliament, 2021). The EP also called for “the deepening of …

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[EU-Turkey] relations in key areas of joint interest, such as counterterrorism, migration, energy, the economy and trade” as “an investment in the stability and prosperity of both Turkey and the EU” (European Parliament, 2017). In short, following the refugee crisis, the EU pursued a clear preference for strategic relations with Turkey, which was in turn triggered by its policy of externalisation of migration management to Ankara. Yet, this transactional approach to the relations came at the expense of the principle of conditionality that had guided them in the pre-crisis period. By prioritising strategic cooperation over norm-driven (and/or accessionoriented) engagement, the EU violated its own regime of conditionality towards Turkey at a time when its democratic performance as an EU candidate hit historic lows. The gap between the EU’s functionally positive stance towards Turkey and the country’s aggravated domestic situation gradually widened subsequent to the July 2016 coup attempt and Turkey’s adoption of “executive presidency” via a constitutional referendum held in April 2017. In other words, democracy issues were not allowed to factor into the EU’s partnership with Turkey. The latter was not made conditional on Turkey’s observance of democratic and liberal governance principles; on the contrary, it proceeded at full speed, notwithstanding the growing illiberalism in Turkey. Implications of EU-Turkey Strategic Partnership for EU Conditionality and Illiberal Governance in Turkey The strategic EU-Turkey cooperation via the refugee deal undermined the EU’s instrument of conditionality by violating the principle of “reinforcement by reward”. This was due to two factors. First, as explained above, the EU offered (or promised to offer) Turkey material rewards in exchange for its migration cooperation. Among these, the prospect of “re-energised” accession talks, in particular, contradicted the spirit of conditionality. As stated in Turkey’s 2005 “Negotiating Framework” document, the Commission would recommend the suspension of Turkey’s membership negotiations in case of Turkey’s “serious and persistent breach” of the EU’s foundational democratic principles (European Council, 2005). Yet, despite Turkey’s persistent and severe violation of the Copenhagen political criteria (as widely documented by the Commission’s post-2015 Turkey reports),5 two chapters were opened with Turkey, in December 2015 and June 2016, respectively:

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Chapters 17—“Economic and Monetary Policy” and 33—“Financial and Budgetary Provisions”. The move drew sharp criticism from observers of EU-Turkey relations, emphasising the EU’s sidelining of democratic norms in relations with Turkey: “[O]pening a chapter now - and a chapter that is not directly related to human rights issues - signals to a radiant Davuto˘glu that EU norms are up for grabs” (Bechev & Tocci, 2015). It also signalled a significant change in the EU’s policy towards Turkey, which—in relative terms—revolved around the political criteria during the period prior to the refugee crisis. As previously explained by former EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, Stefan Füle, in reaction to the Turkish government’s crackdown on Turkey’s democratic Gezi protests in 2013: “Energising the EU accession process and strengthening democracy by respecting rights and freedoms are two sides of the same coin” (Füle, 2013). Second, particularly in the course of bargaining with Ankara for the refugee deal, EU representatives and European politicians toned down their criticisms of Turkey’s deteriorating democracy (Saatçio˘glu, 2020: 10). This “discursive retreat” from political conditionality and EU democratic norms effectively extended normative concessions and political legitimacy to Ankara, as such facilitating its much-needed agreement to the terms of the refugee deal. As candidly admitted by former Commission President Jean Claude Juncker in November 2015: We can say that EU and the European institutions have outstanding issues with Turkey on human rights, press freedoms and so on. We can harp on about that but where is that going to take us in our discussions with Turkey?… We want to ensure that no more refugees come from Turkey into the European Union. (The Telegraph, 2015)

The de-emphasis on democratic norms also marked the tone of highlevel EU-Turkey meetings during the period leading up to the refugee deal. Merkel’s October 2015 visit to Turkey was particularly telling in this regard since democracy issues did not even make it to the list of topics discussed with the Turkish government. This constituted a sharp contrast to the chancellor’s pre-refugee crisis critical stance towards Turkey’s illiberal trajectory. Subsequently, the Commission delayed the publication of its highly critical report on Turkey (which, for the first time, used the term “backsliding” to describe the state of Turkish democracy) (European Commission, 2015) until after the Turkish general elections of 1

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November 2015. Brussels’ political manoeuvre effectively constituted a political concession that was reportedly granted in response to Erdo˘gan’s request (Okyay & Zaragoza-Cristiani, 2016: 58). Within the EU, the European Parliament was alone in criticising this for the sake of calling for rigorous EU conditionality towards Turkey: “[The delay] was a wrong decision, as it gave the impression that the EU is willing to go silent on violations of fundamental rights in return for the Turkish Government’s cooperation on refugees” (European Parliament, 2016). It could be argued that the EU’s strategic approach to Turkey eroding conditionality served to embolden and empower Turkey’s antidemocratic regime, both domestically and vis-à-vis the EU. In the context of the refugee crisis, the Turkish government gained substantial bargaining leverage, and moral superiority over the EU (for following a seemingly humanitarian policy and hosting the refugees in Turkey). Emboldened as such, it used this asymmetry in order to extract benefits and/or favourable policy outcomes from Brussels when bargaining for the refugee deal as well as in the subsequent period. Blackmailing tactics were readily used by the representatives of the government who knew that cooperation with Ankara was the EU’s only choice (Greenhill, 2016). As revealed by the former French President François Hollande and others: “[Europe must] work with Turkey [to ensure that the refugees] can stay there, find a job, and wait for the situation in Syria to improve” (Politico, 2015). Consequently, the AKP government deployed threats and sought to use the refugees as bargaining chips against the EU. As Turkish President Tayyip Erdo˘gan stated in a conversation with Juncker and Tusk in February 2016: “We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and put the refugees on buses… So how will you deal with refugees if you don’t get a deal? Kill the refugees?” (Reuters, 2016a). The threatening discourse was also used after the deal was made, this time to ensure that the latter’s terms were properly carried out by the EU: “We want … our citizens to travel visa-free, and the customs union to be updated. [But] if the EU doesn’t keep its word, including the migrant deal, we will cancel all agreements” (former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto˘glu quoted in Reuters, 2016b). Finally, in late February 2020, Ankara acted on these threats and opened its land border with Greece to the passage of the refugees. This was done in an apparent attempt to push the EU to support Turkey’s military offensive in Syria’s Idlib province and share Turkey’s growing

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refugee burden in view of the massive flow of displaced civilians moving towards the Syrian-Turkish border. We will not close these doors in the coming period … Why? The European Union needs to keep its promises. We are not obliged to look after … so many refugees. If you’re honest, if you’re sincere, then you need to share. (Erdo˘gan quoted in The Guardian, 2020)

Domestically, the EU’s retreat from the mechanism of conditionality bolstered the AKP government’s persistent non-compliance with the Copenhagen political criteria, which has consistently arisen since 2010 (Alpan, 2021; Müftüler-Baç, 2019). Although Turkey’s EU reform momentum had already deteriorated following the 2010 constitutional amendments, eroding the political independence of the Turkish judiciary (Saatçio˘glu, 2016), the transactionalism in post-refugee crisis EU-Turkey relations broadened the government’s leeway in its pursuit of antidemocratic policies at home. A series of landmark developments marked the illiberal governance of this period: the government’s crackdown on academia and independent Turkish media gaining speed in 2015 in conjunction with, inter alia, its much criticised handling of events allegedly linked to PKK terrorism in southeastern Turkey, the 15 July 2016 coup initiative and the resulting emergency rule (marked by rule by decree and massive purges against not only suspected coup plotters but also, and more widely, members of the democratic opposition), and the April 2017 constitutional referendum enabling Turkey’s adoption of “executive presidency”, which became effective following Turkey’s June 2018 general elections. In the aftermath of EU-Turkey migration cooperation, the EU’s strategic preference for transactionalism signalled Ankara that it could freely pursue a domestic illiberal agenda without fearing any repercussions from Brussels. The fact that Chapters 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights) and 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security) were not opened to negotiations as part of the EU-Turkey Statements’ commitment to “reenergise” Turkey’s accession process reinforced the Turkish perception that the EU’s priorities vis-à-vis Turkey were largely pragmatic rather than norm-driven. Later, when the 26 June 2018 European Council declared (in response to Turkey’s 24 June 2018 elections) that no further chapters would be opened or closed with Turkey since Turkey had moved “further away

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from the EU” (Council of the EU, 2018), the EU effectively lost its last bit of accession-driven democratic leverage over Turkey. As the Council issued the same conclusion about the EU-Turkey CU upgrade (citing that work towards CU’s modernisation is not foreseen), the expected CU modernisation negotiations also could not serve as a mechanism of democratic pressure over Turkey.6 Recent developments between the EU and Ankara served to further empower Turkey’s antidemocratic regime by strengthening the Turkish perception that the EU is willing to partner with Turkey over strategic matters irrespective of the latter’s democratic degradation. Tensions between Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, and other EU member states (notably, France) in the Eastern Mediterranean proved critical in this regard. In pushing Turkey to de-escalate the crisis in the region (by stopping its “illegal” hydrocarbon drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea),7 the EU promised some carrots, none of which were explicitly tied to democracy or the rule of law. In this context, the prospective “positive agenda” was linked to Turkey’s cooperation with the EU in the Eastern Mediterranean: Provided constructive efforts to stop illegal activities vis-à-vis Greece and Cyprus are sustained, the European Council has agreed to launch a positive political EU-Turkey agenda with a specific emphasis on the modernisation of the Customs Union and trade facilitation, people to people contacts, High-level dialogues, continued cooperation on migration issues, in line with the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement. (European Council, 2020: 8)

Subsequent European Council meetings reiterated the positive agenda based on the same conditions. The June 2021 European Council reemphasised “the EU’s readiness to engage with Turkey in a phased, proportionate and reversible manner to enhance cooperation in … areas of common interest, subject to the established conditionalities [emphasis added] set out … in previous European Council conclusions” (European Council, 2021: 4). The mentioned “conditionalities” revolved around Turkey’s good relations with Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean (relatedly also, Ankara’s support for the resolution of the Cyprus dispute in line with the UN framework). Against this backdrop, the 2021 Enlargement Strategy, where the Commission announced its key reform priorities for Turkey (along with the other candidate countries in the Western Balkans), fell on

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deaf ears. As was the case with the earlier Commission reports, the 2021 Turkey report also contained detailed documentation and criticism about Turkey’s democracy and governance at large. The Commission highlighted ongoing “democratic backsliding” and illiberal governance caused, inter alia, by: (1) “the absence of an effective checks and balances mechanism” due to widening power centralisation in the hands of the Presidency, (2) antidemocratic pressures on domestic political opposition (including the pending closure case against the Peoples’ Democratic Party, HDP, before Turkey’s Constitutional Court), (3) the government’s persistent ignorance of the European Court of Human Rights’ rulings (notably, in regard to the unlawful imprisonment of Selahattin Demirta¸s, the former HDP leader, and Osman Kavala, Turkish businessman and human rights activist), and (4) rising political control over the Turkish Central Bank (made particularly evident by Erdo˘gan’s frequent—twice in the span of four and a half months in 2021—dismissal of the Bank’s governor) (European Commission, 2021a). At the same time, in line with the EU’s post-refugee crisis outlook on Turkey, the 2021 Enlargement Strategy referred to Turkey as “a key partner … in essential areas of joint interest, such as migration, counterterrorism, economy, trade, energy and transport” (European Commission, 2021b). Relatedly, the Strategy reiterated the EU’s “strategic interest in a stable and secure environment in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the development of a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey”, alongside emphasising Turkey’s key role in migration cooperation (ibid.). Aside from stressing these strategic priorities, setting the tone and conditionalities of the EU-Turkey relationship, only loose reference was made to democratic issues: “… dialogue on rule of law and fundamental rights remains an integral part of the EU-Turkey relationship” (ibid.). In the final analysis, it is safe to assume that the EU’s strategic, transactional approach to its relations with Turkey engendered unintended, illiberal policy outcomes. In the process, the Turkish government gained prospective incentives (within the context of the refugee deal and the positive agenda) from the EU, despite worsening democratic backsliding at home. In addition, it secured increased room for manoeuvre both in dealing with Brussels (particularly over refugee matters) and in the domestic arena (i.e., with respect to preserving and deepening antidemocratic rule). Knowing the EU’s strategic need for cooperation

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and preference for handling Turkey as a partner rather than an EU candidate subject to membership conditionality, Ankara could simply afford to withstand the Commission’s (and the Parliament’s)8 parallel criticisms and concerns regarding the democracy front. Yet, the EU’s policy of prioritising strategic interests over democratic norms is self-defeating for Brussels’ transactionalism as well, since Turkey’s domestic and foreign policies are closely interlinked under the current, antidemocratic presidential system. In fact, unfavourable policy outcomes driven by Turkey’s search for “strategic autonomy” in the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Syria, and Azerbaijan (among others) often stem from a personalised foreign policy stance led by Erdo˘gan (in the absence of institutional checks and balances) and, relatedly, the unfettered populist nationalism pursued by the AKP government (Kutlay & Öni¸s, 2021: 1099–1102). Consequently, Brussels’ de-emphasis of democratic norms in favour of strategic interests in relations with Turkey fosters EU-Turkey conflict in executing European foreign policy as well, and not just in terms of Turkey’s domestic politics and polity.

Conclusion This chapter has investigated how consistently the EU has used political membership conditionality as a governance promotion tool to tackle rising illiberal policies and practices in the European periphery. The question was addressed by focusing on the case of EU-Turkey relations during the 2015–2016 Syrian refugee crisis. The chapter has shown that, motivated by exogenous strategic factors (i.e., the need to stem the refugee flows to Europe due to security and political, as well as populist concerns), the EU has repeatedly violated its conditionality policy vis-à-vis Turkey in the context of its much-needed migration cooperation with Ankara. Specifically, as Brussels and Ankara reached the March 2016 deal to manage the crisis, their relations evolved towards a strategic partnership which came at the expense of the democratic norms underpinning political conditionality that had characterised the pre-crisis relations. In fact, the deal was the product of strategic bargaining between the two sides: marked by Ankara’s leverage, it resulted in material and normative concessions extracted by Turkey. In rewarding (or promising to reward) the Turkish government for its observance of the March 2016 EU-Turkey Statement, the EU violated the principle of “reinforcement of reward” while legitimising Turkey’s antidemocratic rule by toning

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down its criticisms relating to the domestic front. The EU’s inconsistency with democratic norms in relation to an official EU candidate state (which has since similarly characterised subsequent EU-Turkish engagement over the Eastern Mediterranean and other foreign policy issues) ironically bolstered the resilience of Turkey’s antidemocratic rule and facilitated illiberal governance and policy outcomes in the country. In the final analysis, the case study on Turkey reveals that EU membership conditionality can be just as inconsistently applied as ENP conditionality (or EU external action at large) when strategic European considerations trump its application by Brussels. In fact, the EU-Turkey refugee deal was finalised in the spirit of the EU’s (or individual member states, such as Italy’s) strategic engagement with certain ENP countries (e.g., Libya) over migration, which has similarly been maintained in disregard for these regimes’ democratic credentials. Ultimately, however, this transactional EU policy is a double-edged sword: while serving strategic needs in the short term, it exerts stabilising effects on incumbent illiberal regimes in the long term. In turn, this not only delegitimises the EU as a normative actor but also creates difficulties in the EU’s pursuit of cooperative/strategic external engagement, as recent developments in EU-Turkey relations have demonstrated.

Notes 1. When assessing membership conditionality, the chapter focuses on political conditionality (centred on EU candidates’ compliance with the Copenhagen political membership criteria). Hence, the terms “membership conditionality” and “political conditionality” are used interchangeably throughout the chapter. 2. This chapter does not go into a theorisation or analysis of the EU’s interests regarding the refugee crisis. The EU’s control- and security-oriented approach to the crisis has amply been discussed elsewhere (Bauböck, 2017; Haughton, 2016; Monar, 2016, among others). Instead, the chapter takes these interests as given and shows how (rather than why) the EU consequently retreated from conditionality in cooperating with Turkey over the crisis. 3. The following case study analysis partly draws on the empirical investigation conducted in a previous article by the present author (Saatçio˘glu, 2020).

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4. As stated in the treaty: “The [asylum and immigration] policies of the Union … and their implementation shall be governed by the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility, including its financial implications, between the Member States” (Art. 80). 5. The Commission’s yearly country reports on Turkey can be accessed at: https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/enlargement-policy/ negotiations-status/turkey_en. 6. For an argument about how the process of CU upgrade negotiations could push Ankara towards economic governance reforms and consequently provide a much-needed pillar for a rules-based EU-Turkey relationship, see Ülgen (2017). Although the June 2021 European Council brought the CU’s modernisation (subject mainly to the existing CU agreement’s full implementation by Turkey) (European Council, 2021: 4) back to the agenda, the argument still holds that any EU rules-based leverage that could potentially result from CU upgrade negotiations cannot be triggered so long as the latter are not launched. 7. For background on the Eastern Mediterranean crisis, see, inter alia, Dalay (2021). 8. By the EP’s own admission in its 2021 report on Turkey: “Turkey’s lack of political will to carry out the reforms required under the accession process and its failure to address the EU’s serious concerns about the rule of law and fundamental rights have … negatively affected the accession process … and have led to EU-Turkey relations becoming progressively more transactional [emphasis added]” (European Parliament, 2021).

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Noutcheva, G., Pomorska, K., & Bosse, G. (2013). The EU and its neighbors: Values versus security in European foreign policy. Manchester University Press. Okyay, A., & Zaragoza-Cristiani, J. (2016). The leverage of the gatekeeper: Power and interdependence in the migration nexus between the EU and Turkey. The International Spectator, 51(4), 51–66. Phinnemore, D. (2010). And we’d like to thank... Romania’s integration into the European Union, 1989–2007. Journal of European Integration, 32(3), 291–308. Politico. (2015, September 20). European leaders seek refugee deal with Turkey. Pomorska, K., & Noutcheva, G. (2017). Europe as a regional actor: Waning influence in an unstable and authoritarian neighborhood. Journal of Common Market Studies, 55, 165–176. Reuters. (2016a, February 8). Turkey’s Erdo˘gan threatened to flood Europe with migrants: Greek website. Reuters. (2016b, April 18). Turkey will call off migrant deal if EU fails to grant visa-free travel by June—PM . Richter, S. (2012). Two at one blow? The EU and its quest for security and democracy by political conditionality in the Western Balkans. Democratisation, 19(3), 507–534. Saatçio˘glu, B. (2009). How closely does the European Union’s membership conditionality reflect the Copenhagen criteria? Insights from Turkey. Turkish Studies, 10(4), 559–576. Saatçio˘glu, B. (2016). De-Europeanisation in Turkey: The case of the rule of law. South European Society and Politics, 21(1), 133–146. Saatçio˘glu, B. (2020). The European Union’s refugee crisis and rising functionalism in EU-Turkey relations. Turkish Studies, 21(2), 169–187. DOI: 10.1080/14683849.2019.1586542. Saatçio˘glu, B. (2021). The EU’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis: A battleground among many Europes. European Politics and Society, 22(5), 808–823. Schimmelfennig, F. (2008). EU political accession conditionality after the 2004 enlargement: Consistency and effectiveness. Journal of European Public Policy, 6, 918–937. Schimmelfennig, F. (2012). Europeanisation beyond Europe. Living Reviews in European Governance, 7 (1), 1–31. Schimmelfennig, F., Engert, S., & Knobel, H. (2003). Cost, commitment and compliance: The impact of EU democratic conditionality on Latvia, Slovakia and Turkey. Journal of Common Market Studies, 41(3), 495–518. Schimmelfennig, F., Engert, S., & Knobel, H. (2006). International socialization in Europe: European Organizations, political conditionality, and democratic change. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (2004). Governance by conditionality: EU rule transfer to the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Journal of European Public Policy, 11(4), 661–679. Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (2005). The Europeanisation of Central and Eastern Europe. Cornell University Press. The Guardian. (2020, February 29). Erdogan says border will stay open as Greece tries to repel influx. The Telegraph. (2015, October 17). EU should not ‘harp on’ Turkey about human rights, says Jean-Claude Juncker. Turhan, E., & Wessels, W. (2021). The European Council as a key driver of EU-Turkey relations: Central functions, internal dynamics and evolving preferences. In W. Reiners & E. Turhan (Eds.), EU-Turkey relations: Theories, institutions and policies (pp. 185–217). Palgrave Macmillan. Ülgen, S. (2017). Trade as Turkey’s EU Anchor. Carnegie Europe. Vachudova, M. A. (2014). EU leverage and national interests in the Balkans: The puzzles of enlargement ten years on. Journal of Common Market Studies, 52(1), 122–138. Vachudova, M. A. (2019). EU enlargement and state capture in the Western Balkans. In J. Dzankic, S. Keil, & M. Kmezic (Eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western Balkans: A failure of EU conditionality? (pp. 63–85). Palgrave Macmillan. V-Dem Institute. (2021). Autocratisation turns viral: Democracy Report 2021. Gothenburg. Whitman, R., & Juncos, A. (2014). Challenging events, diminishing influence? Relations with the Wider Europe. Journal of Common Market Studies, 52, 157–169. Youngs, R. (2010). The EU’s role in world politics: A retreat from liberal internationalism. Routledge.

CHAPTER 4

Externalising Externalisation and Bad Governance of Migration in the EU: Turkey Learning from Europe Deniz Sert and Sevval ¸ Alparslan

Introduction October 2015 was an interesting month for Turkey-EU relations. First, at the peak of the so-called European migrant crisis, and weeks before rerunning local elections in Turkey, the EU postponed its progress report on the country (Hurriyet Daily, 2015), which was highly criticised by those who see the EU as an agent of democratic reforms in the country. Second, and in the meantime, Chancellor Merkel visited President Erdo˘gan (BBC, 2015). Sitting in their gilded chairs, the two leaders discussed the fate of the refugees, where Merkel promised Erdo˘gan financial aid, and praised

D. Sert (B) · S. ¸ Alparslan Department of International Relations, Özye˘gin University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_4

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Turkey for hosting two million Syrians at the time, a number that subsequently reached 3.7 million as of November 2021. In return for these offerings, Turkey would watch over Europe’s borders more efficiently, improve living conditions of the Syrians in Turkey, and enforce further controls on irregular migration. A few months later, on 18 March 2016, the EU-Turkey Statement was announced (European Council, 2016). While details with regard to the statement are already analysed and criti¸ sek, 2017; Toygür & cised elsewhere (see for example, Arribas, 2017; Sim¸ Benvenuti, 2017; Yıldız, 2021), one clause is important to note here: Turkey promised to “take any necessary measures to prevent new sea or land routes for illegal migration opening from Turkey to the EU, and will cooperate with neighbouring states as well as the EU to this effect” (European Council, 2016). This was an open declaration of the EU’s externalisation policy upon Turkey (see also Chapter 3 in this book). Externalisation practices ensure that while the European Union with its almighty values might not be expanding, Fortress Europe, with its restrictive and exclusive bearing, is definitely doing so. The EU and individual member states are offering millions of euros for different projects to prevent migration (including those who are in need of international protection) to Europe. Reports (see for example, Akkerman, 2018) underline a momentous growth in Europe’s border externalisation policies, with many new instruments such as the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), or the Migration Partnership Framework, and the Refugee Facility for Turkey (FRIT). There is a growing body of literature on EU’s externalisation policies in relation to Turkey, and FRIT (see for example, Lehner, 2019; Saatçio˘glu, 2016; Sönmez & Kırık, 2017; Ulusoy & Battjes, 2017). Our aim is to add to this literature by arguing how the externalisation policies in the EU, which is not only employed but also adopted by other states, pose a challenge for the image of the EU as a good governance promoter. Externalisation is defined as a “range of processes whereby European actors and Member States complement policies to control migration across their territorial boundaries with initiatives that realise such control extraterritorially and through other countries and organs rather than their own” has two dimensions (Moreno-Lax & Lemberg-Pedersen, 2019). The first is the remoteness of the geographical distance that is interposed between the locus of power and the locus of surveillance, while the second is the multiplicity of actors engaged in the venture through bilateral and multilateral interactions, usually through coercive dynamics of conditional

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reward, incentive, or penalisation (Moreno-Lax & Lemberg-Pedersen, 2019). Thus, externalisation includes a wide range of practices from border controls, rescue operations, to measures addressing the various drivers of migration (Stock et al., 2019). Border externalisation depends on employing modern technology, training, and equipping governments in third countries to export the border far away from a state’s territory (Privacy International, 2019). Within this structure, there is a need to focus on the democratic erosion that comes with policies of externalisation. The relationship is twofold. First, as Molnar (2021) rightfully argues, all these policies increase states’ reliance on private companies that are developing and deploying border and migration technologies, which erode sovereignty and political control. Second, as Prestianni explains, “(t)he main thing about the externalisation process is that, within its context, negotiations begin with third countries without first assessing the human rights standards in those places or the way local governments handle immigration issues” (Curzi, 2016). This chapter contemplates the EU’s policy instruments used to externalise border management in order to endorse resilience and stability within the EU’s borders. Thus, going back to the five-stage analysis explained in the Introduction, i.e., governance promotion is examined in terms of (a) the promoter of governance (the EU, China, Russia, or other regional powers), (b) the content (statehood versus democracy), (c) the channels of promotion (intergovernmental, subnational, transnational), (d) the underlying mechanisms of promotion (conditionality, aid, social learning), and (e) the outcome of the governance promoting (good, good enough, or bad governance), the chapter considers the latter, and investigates how such policies fail to promote the EU’s image as a good governance promoter. This chapter exemplifies how the democracy and governance problems inside the EU, or the rise of alternative governance promoters may diminish the transformative power of the EU and undermine the content, mechanisms, or outcomes of its good governance promotion policies. To properly illustrate the effects of internal problems (inside-out) or upsurge of illiberal regional power (outside-in) on the EU’s governance transfer policies (see Hackenesch et al., 2021), we examine whether there is a change in the outcomes from good to bad governance.

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While the EU successfully transmits its border externalisation practices to Turkey, the result is bad governance in Turkey’s migration management. Turkey’s learning process from Europe in terms of border externalisation practices stems from reduced transparency, reduced accountability, reduced participation; in other words, bad governance in migration management in Turkey. This argument is in line with more recent research discussing how the EU’s frail policies and practices in internal governance destroy its external governance transfer and send poor signals to the accession, i.e., Turkey and the Western Balkans, and European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries, where the relapse in governance is related to the current illiberal leaning and the enduring existence of authoritarian or semi-authoritarian governments (Börzel & Schimmelfennig, 2017; Kaliber & Aydın-Düzgit, 2017; Mungui-Pippidi, 2020; Öni¸s & Kutlay, 2019; Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2019). In order to face challenging global dynamics, such as migration, within, and in its near neighbours, the EU rationalises its democratic transformative determination in the world and adopts more practical principles, as seen in the 2016 EU Global Strategy (EUGS) (Barbé & Morillas, 2019). Rather than state-building, governance transfer, and democracy promotion, the EUGS announced the notion of resilience as one of the foundations of EU foreign and security policy, which is to endorse the EU’s image as a resilience builder (Stollenwerk et al., 2021; Tocci, 2020), damaging its position, function, and responsibility as a democracy promoter and good governance exporter. Unfortunately, when it comes to migration, the discourse of illiberal democracy and nationalist/protectionist policies easily gains public support, not only from EU members where far-right populist parties embrace hard line positions on immigration (Morillas, 2017), but also in countries like Turkey. Thus, Turkey is obviously a partner and platform for applying the European Union’s externalisation policies. In this article, we position Turkey within the externalisation literature from a different perspective. We argue that Turkey is moving beyond being a mere collaborator and podium of externalisation; rather, it is becoming an actor wholly by itself, beginning to apply its own externalisation policies to other countries of origin and transit. Turkey is becoming a firm apprentice of externalisation, though with bad governance outcomes. Accordingly, the chapter concentrates on Turkey’s own efforts at externalisation and its learning process from Europe. The chapter is composed of three main sections. While the first revisits the literature on externalisation, the second section presents Turkey’s exertions of externalisation, followed by a brief conclusion.

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Externalisation: The State of the Art Today, much of the debate around the European Union’s (hereafter, the EU) reaction to the recent migration crisis focuses on border externalisation policies. The term “Fortress Europe” is resurfacing to refer to the increasingly negative attitudes the EU has towards migrants and the strict methods by which it manages its border controls. Accordingly, as the EU got progressively more concerned with stopping irregular migration flows, with neighbouring countries ending up involved in Europe’s border management practices, eventually developing into the gates that filter the desired and undesired types of migrants on behalf of the EU ˙ 2018). itself (Üstübici & Içduygu, Externalisation is not a new trend, however, given that debordering has been happening in the United States and various other countries since 9/11. Nevertheless, while it is important to note that adapting such border management techniques is not particular to the EU, according to Bialasiewicz (2012: 844), the EU’s case diverges from other cases because it “proceeds through a fluid assemblage of functions, mechanisms, and actors; a series of loose institutional arrangements”, making it a lot trickier to investigate. Considering the complexity and the wide range of practices the term “externalisation” encompasses in the context of the EU, it could be ill advised to depend on just one definition. Therefore, it is essential to consider how this term has been conceptualised by different scholars in the literature. For instance, Moreno-Lax and Lemberg-Pedersen (2019) define it as the practices Europe employs through mobilising countries and organs outside the Union to be able to monitor migration beyond their external borders. A more general description was given by Stock et al., which characterises externalisation practices as essentially the Global North’s way of extending its border controls towards the countries in the Global South (2019). They also note that the methods by which receiving countries extend their borders vary greatly. Afilal and Fernandez (2018: 172) claim that Europe’s border externalisation strategy is a new form of colonialism, defining externalisation of borders as “delocalizing the limits of the control of a sovereign country through the implication and accountability of other countries”. They argue that the EU, while attempting to influence the migration policies of other countries and constructing externalised borders, inevitably categorises people and countries as EU members or “others”, creating stereotypes about the latter. This type

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of classification, combined with the growing efforts towards controlling migration, institutes a new form of coloniality. In order to gain a fuller grasp of the externalisation practices of the EU, one also needs to be able to comprehend the motives behind such actions. Mobility and migration being seen as a threat to the notion of nation state is not a new phenomenon (Stock et al., 2019). Accordingly, the recent influx of migrants into Europe has been framed according to a discourse that frequently refers to security concerns (Bobi´c & Šantic, 2020). Such a discourse not only overlooks a good deal of the reasons causing these people to move, but also conceals the Union’s inability to manage the so-called crisis. In any case, there is a supposed correlation between the arrival of migrants and the growing concerns about secu˙ rity. Likewise, Üstübici and Içduygu (2018: 182) point out the growing tendency towards associating migrants with weakened social cohesion and welfare as a result of the “increasing securitization of migration and asylum”. At the same time, research shows that “(e)ven when controlling for populism, far-right political affiliation, and important national-level variables, anti-immigrant sentiment is significantly associated with increased illiberal-democratic political preferences and decreased evaluations of the importance of living in a democracy” (Vaughan, 2021). There is a definitive role of securitisation of migration as the main binding factor for populist radical right parties after the so-called ‘migration crisis’, which is manifest in their increasing influence in the 2019 European Parliament elections (Ünal & Oner, 2021). There is also the issue of desirability of different types of migrants, implying that only specific categories of migrants, mainly the undocumented ones, are associated with increased security concerns and that there is a want for them to be kept away by the EU. However, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to differentiate between groups of migrants who use the same routes. Therefore, the EU finds itself in a position in which it has to bring into play more preemptive means to deal with this crisis outside its borders (Benam, 2011). As we have noted that while externalisation policies are a reaction to the threat that undocumented human mobility poses to sovereign nation states, it is also imperative that we mention how externalisation results in a redefinition of sovereignty. When we talk about sovereignty in this context, we are no longer referring to the same meaning that the Westphalian state model suggests (Casas-Cortes et al., 2016). Since the EU is now becoming involved in

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the movements happening beyond its regional borders, sovereignty is not understood as limited to the control of a specific territory either. Hence, “the border is no longer the ‘edge’ and limit of political sovereignty” (Casas, 2010: 74). Another reason as to why Europe wants to keep these people away is one of cost-efficiency (Stock et al., 2019). Framing the migrants as a burden to the receiving countries and arguing that costs of any kind, whether economic, political, or social, should be distributed among the origin and transit countries as well as the receiving ones, helps the EU to justify their externalisation and outsourcing policies. It is also useful to note the agency that is responsible for implementing the externalisation policies of the EU on behalf of all member states, and in a coordinated manner. In 2005, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders, i.e., FRONTEX, was founded as a means by which EU could attempt to integrate its external border ˙ 2018). Matters such as management practices (Üstübici & Içduygu, information-sharing between corporations and third countries are being carried out by FRONTEX. The main factor making externalisation so hard to investigate is the diverse methods by which states can externalise their borders. MorenoLax and Lemberg-Pedersen (2019) explain two instruments by which states manage their border control. The first, which they refer to as the spatial dimension of externalisation, utilises the physical distance between the actual borders and the place surveillance takes place. The other dimension, the relational one, is about the incentives or penalties that externalising states mobilise to increase the number of actors involved in the process. Stock et al. (2019) outline these different externalisation practices more explicitly. For instance, visa procedures and readmission agreements, which are ways of outsourcing of border controls to third countries, are among the most mainstream externalisation instruments. Other than outsourcing policies, authors also note that certain migration management measures taken in origin or transit countries that result in the immobilisation of would-be migrants are also helpful in terms of filtering the migrants receiving countries would like to admit. They also note that non-state actors, such as private and civil society organisations, are becoming increasingly involved in the EU’s externalisation practices, either by conducting visa checks or through helping with the implementation of economic aid programmes.

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In line with these scholars, Casas et al. (2010) also distinguishes between two methods of externalisation, namely outsourcing practices and spatial extensions. They also exemplify how the EU externalised its border management to neighbouring countries in the south in detail. Providing financial aid, surveillance tools, and trade agreements are among the incentives the EU has used to ensure these countries’ cooperation under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM) frameworks. Likewise, the Migration Routes Initiative was also a result of the EU’s efforts to expand its migration management beyond its borders. Thus, under these and many other different projects, we see EU member states offering millions of euros to origin or transit countries to prevent people from migrating to Europe, where resilience (of the states, not the migrants) becomes more important than democracy and human rights. Referring to the incentives the EU offers to third countries in exchange for their assistance in managing the migration crisis immediately brings EU-Turkey relations to mind. There are ongoing debates and a growing body of literature on EU’s externalisation policies in relation to Turkey, mainly arguing that Turkey is “functioning as a gatekeeper for the European Union’s external borders” (Muftuler-Bac, 2022: 21). As Sönmez and Kırık explain (2017), Turkey is among the major transit countries for irregular migrants attempting to reach Europe. Therefore, as EU members realised that any measure taken to address the current crisis without cooperating with Turkey and taking the migrants living under the temporary protection regime there into account would be unsustainable, they started a series of negotiations that resulted in the signing of a number of historic agreements and deals with Turkey. The EU incentivises non-member states to strengthen their border controls and ensure the readmission of irregular migrants who went across their borders through the infamous readmission agreements, which are essential to the Euro˙ pean non-entry regime (Içduygu & Demiryontar, 2019). In his article, Papagianni (2013) explains how and why these readmission and visa facilitation agreements are among the more powerful means the EU uses to externalise its border management. Therefore, the EU-Turkey readmission agreement that was signed in 2013, as well as the deals that followed and advocated its implementation, are understood according to these terms as well (Saatçio˘glu, 2016; Sönmez & Kırık, 2017). It should also be considered that readmission agreements are usually condemned for the problems stemming from readmission. The agreement between the EU

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and Turkey was not an exception in this respect either. While aiming to stop irregular migration through Turkey, the agreement had little regard or sensitivity towards human rights (Sönmez & Kırık, 2017). EU-Turkey relations regarding border management policies and the Joint Action Plan between the two sides have also paved the way for the March 2016 Joint Statement between the EU heads of state and Turkey. It was agreed upon with the hopes of preventing irregular migration from Turkey to Europe, instead replacing these flows with safer legal pathways. The Statement was composed of an extended version of the previous readmission agreement as well as incentives for Turkey to implement them (Ulusoy & Battjes, 2017). The idea of returning migrants to Turkey assumes that Turkey is a safe country for them, as it is a requirement of the EU Asylum Procedures Directive that migrants will only be readmitted to safe third countries (Ulusoy & Battjes, 2017). In line with this, Lehner (2019) explains how the EU-Turkey deal is a good example of how the EU has been using the safe third country concept to solve the migrant crisis in the EU outside of its borders. He also criticises the externalisation policies of the EU by arguing that they are not viable measures to address inherent structural problems. Addressing multiple problems stemming from the recent migration influx, the Statement also included a plan to establish the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey, known by the acronym FRIT, to support refugees in Turkey and ensure that their needs were met. Under this facility, Europe promised a total of e6 billion to Turkey to be disbursed in tranches. This financial aid provided to Turkey is interpreted by Saatçio˘glu (2016) as a “reward” in return for the country’s cooperation in externalising the EU’s migration problem. Aside from allocating funds, the EU also used visa liberation and EU accession talks as other incentivising tools (Ulusoy & Battjes, 2017). In all, the EU-Turkey statement was a success in terms of the EU’s external migration governance given that a sharp decline in the number of irregular migrants reaching the EU’s borders was observed (Muftuler-Bac, 2022). Consequently, Turkey proved to be extremely helpful to the EU in terms of implementing its externalisation policies. When we look at the existing literature, we can understand how diverse the EU’s externalisation tools, and what the motivations behind its desire to implement these policies, actually are. By closely examining the deals that were reached between the EU and Turkey, which is a country with an essential position for the sustainability of the EU’s externalisation and

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outsourcing policies, we can get an idea about the nature of externalisation policies and the incentives provided for their implementation. It also enables us to see how the EU’s external borders are being extended towards other countries through a series of direct and indirect instruments. Bearing all this information in mind, it might be safe to argue that Fortress Europe is getting larger by the day, though within this literature Turkey only emerges as a partner and object of externalisation. Yet, as the following section explores, Turkey is also becoming an actor of externalisation, developing into a subject of its own policies.

Externalisation by Turkey: Lessons Being Learned In this section, we propose four sources that indicate Turkey is not only an agent and location of externalisation but also becoming an actor that cultivates its own policies, and which are leading to bad governance outcomes. These are (1) the increasing number of readmission agreements that Turkey is signing with source countries of irregular migration, (2) capacity-building projects of the Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM hereafter) that was founded by the 2013 Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP hereafter), (3) overseas missions of the DGMM, and (4) the wall along the southeast border. We do not argue that Fortress Turkey is actually being built, but there are signs of a learning process. Overall, externalisation fits well with Turkey because it is already illiberal without much venue for transparent migration policymaking, where control emerges as a recurrent theme in migration management (see Sert & Danı¸s, 2021). The EU’s externalisation policies can travel to countries like Turkey and promote bad governance rather easily, as there is not much room for debate or public discussion on the subject, and there is a lack of checks and balances in the overall regime. Furthermore, although Turkish authorities complain that the financial aid received through FRIT is not sufficient to compensate for the expenses of looking after the refugees, there is a consensus in the field that FRIT funds have enabled a lively third sector of their own (Kiri¸sci, 2021; Okyay, 2018). Even those who are critical about FRIT and/or the 18 March 2016 Statement have somehow become part of this emerging sector; nobody working on a migration-related field in Turkey is immune from this sectorisation. Thus, financial aid, as a mechanism of externalisation, is certainly working for the sake of a less transparent, less democratic governance of migration.

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To begin with, as the literature suggests, readmission agreements appear to be an important mechanism of externalisation. In the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, it is stated that “readmission agreements are effective instruments in combating irregular migration and encouraging states to take serious measures against this phenomenon” (MFA, 2021). Accordingly, in October 2021, Turkey signed and proposed readmission agreements with fifteen countries with the aim of controlling irregular migration. These countries are Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Norway, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Romania, the Russian Federation, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen. Looking at the data provided by the DGMM on the distribution of irregular migrants by citizenship, of these countries, Pakistan, Syria, and Moldova have been among those most responsible for sending countries over the years (DGMM, 2021a). Thus, Turkey is not signing agreements purely to readmit from as a transit country (as, for instance, in the case with Greece and Norway), but also to be able to send irregular migrants back to where they are coming from. The number of such agreements is increasing. Second, since its foundation in 2014, there have been 85 capacitybuilding projects conducted for and/or by the DGMM. Supported through different programmes and donors, while 66 of these projects have already closed as of October 2021, 19 are still ongoing (DGMM, 2021b). For example, as funded by the International Organisation for Migration, UK, projects entitled “Irregular Migrants in Turkey Voluntary Assisted Return and Reintegration Program” and “Voluntary Return Programme” both suggest Turkey’s eagerness to increase its capacity on return. While some of these projects also aim to return Syrians under the temporary protection regime, they are mostly designed to drive irregular migrants back. Among all these projects, the “Travel Document and Visa Control Systems Before Exit in Countries of Origin – PREDOC” project is the most attention-grabbing. Administered by the International centre for Migration Policy Development, ICMPD, and funded by the UK, PREDOC entailed that support was provided to the DGMM in developing a framework for a system to be developed for checking travel documents and visas prior to departure in order to implement an advanced entry control procedure for passengers from countries of origin before they, in fact, leave their country. PREDOC aimed at expanding preflight checks in countries of origin and strengthening the procedures

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and methods used to carry out entry inspections into Turkey. The system to be installed would ensure that irregular migrants were prevented from entering the country at the first stage, providing indirect protection and creating an additional layer for EU border security, as well as being cost-effective. The project entailed the establishment of a network of cooperation between private airline companies, liaison officers of other countries, relevant public bodies such as the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the DGMM. The project was finalised in 2017, which resulted in stricter measures being employed predeparture. Article 110 of LFIP already envisions and describes the overseas organisation of the DGMM: (1) The Directorate General is authorised to establish overseas organisations pursuant to the Decree Law on the Overseas Organisations of Public Institutions and Agencies No: 189 of 13/12/1983. (2) The migration counsellors appointed to the embassies shall: (a) ensure cooperation and coordination between the Directorate General and the agencies and institutions in the country of posting; (b) keep track of the developments related to matters within the mandate of the Directorate General and inform the Directorate General accordingly; (c) monitor the implementation of the migration legislation both in the country where they are posted and in Turkey; (c) establish necessary contacts and connections in the countries to which irregular migrants shall be removed or voluntarily returned in order to facilitate such procedures; (d) carry-out actions related to complying countries of origin information; (e) carry out tasks assigned by the Directorate General to combat human trafficking and protect victims; (f) suggest and prepare joint project proposals on migration, counter trafficking and the protection of victims of trafficking, and follow up on the projects being implemented; (g) carry out other tasks assigned by the Directorate General. (3) The migration attachés appointed to the consulates shall: (a) receive and finalise visa and residence permit applications lodged to the consulates; (b) collect information and documents related to the applications; request missing information and documents from the applicants; assess the applicants when necessary by conducting an interview and record such interviews; report visa applications that can be finalised by the consulate directly to

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the Consul for approval; report residence permit and visa applications that require the prior decision of the Directorate General, to the Consul for approval following the decision of the Directorate General; (c) provide assistance for the activities and actions related to foreigners to be removed from Turkey or voluntarily returned, in the countries of destination; (d) monitor developments on migration in the country of posting and prepare annual reports; (e) carry-out other tasks related to migration to be assigned by the consuls; (f) carry-out other tasks assigned by the Directorate General. As of 2021, none of the clauses stated in the law regarding the overseas organisation of the DGMM have been materialised. Yet, DGMM officers are being sent to overseas missions ad hoc to countries such as Afghanistan and Sudan, two important source countries of irregular migration. A final outlet to confirm Turkey’s eagerness to stop irregular migration is the wall that has been being built along the southeast border of Turkey. Local media report that as of October 2021, a 155-km section of a planned 241-km wall has already been erected at the border line between Turkey and Iran, and three-metre-high concrete slabs are being installed to stop irregular migrants (Euronews, 2021). While the effect of the wall in terms of impeding irregular migration remains to be seen, the wall is nevertheless a symbol of Fortress Turkey.

Conclusion The title of this edited volume is EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline. Yet, the aim of this chapter is certainly not to state that externalisation is a practice of good governance. Saatçio˘glu, in this volume, already probes how the EU has constantly operated its membership in a conditional manner to gear illiberal governance structures in its accession countries, emphasising variation in the EU’s application of political conditionality in line with its changing geostrategic and security considerations and shedding light on the bad governance outcomes in Turkey. Externalisation is a mechanism for promoting bad governance. The EU’s externalisation of externalisation, or to put it differently, Turkey’s internalisation of externalisation, is an example of a bad governance outcome. Still, Turkey is learning from the EU regarding

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border management. It is extending the range of its readmission agreements, building a wall, increasing predeparture controls, and increasing its capacity for return. We do not claim that Turkey is becoming a fortress—given its geographical location, its migration history, and its current position as the host of the largest refugee community, this is highly improbable. Yet, Turkey has certainly embarked upon a series of externalisation policies by itself, rather than solely being a partner of the EU or being a venue for the application of such policies. Whether fortress Turkey will become a reality in the future remains to be seen; until then, the EU will certainly continue to play a role in transforming migration governance in Turkey.

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Molnar, P. (2021). Surveillance sovereignty: Migration management technologies and the politics of privatization. In G. Hudson & I. Atak (Eds.), Migration, security, and resistance: global and local perspectives. Routledge. Moreno-Lax, V., & Lemberg-Pedersen, M. (2019). Border-induced displacement: The ethical and legal implications of distance-creation through externalisation. Questions of International Law, 56(1), 5–33. Morillas, P (Ed.). (2017). Illiberal democracies in the EU: The Visegrad group and the risk of disintegration. CIDOB: Barcelona Center for International Affairs. Muftuler-Bac, M. (2022). Externalisation of migration governance, Turkey’s migration regime, and the protection of the European Union’s external borders. Turkish Studies, 23(2), 290–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/146 83849.2021.1943661 Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2020). Europe’s burden: Promoting good governance across borders. Cambridge University Publications. Okyay, A. S. (2018). Bottom-up approaches to EU–Turkey migration cooperation: A call for sustainable, principled, fair and inclusive governance (MEDRESET Working Paper No. 5). Öni¸s, Z., & Kutlay, M. (2019). Global shifts and the limits of the EU’S transformative power in the European periphery: Comparative perspectives from Hungary and Turkey. Government and Opposition, 54(2), 226–253. Papagianni, G. (2013). Forging an external EU migration policy: From externalisation of border management to a comprehensive policy? European Journal of Migration and Law, 15(3), 283–299. Privacy International. (2019). New report underlines the EU’s strategy in the war on migration: Border externalisation. https://privacyinternational.org/newsanalysis/3224/new-report-underlines-eus-strategy-war-migration-border-ext ernalisation (Accessed 30 November 2021). Saatçio˘glu, B. (2016). Turkey and the EU: Strategic rapprochement in the shadow of the refugee crisis. E-International Relations. https://www.eir.info/2016/01/21/turkey-and-the-eu-strategic-rapprochement-in-the-sha dow-of-the-refugee-crisis/ Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (2019). The Europeanization of Eastern Europe: The external incentives model revisited. Journal of European Public Policy, 27 (6), 814–833. Sert, D. S, ¸ & Danı¸s, D. (2021). Framing Syrians in Turkey: State control and no crisis discourse. International Migration, 59(1), 197–214. Sim¸ ¸ sek, D. (2017). Turkey as a “Safe Third Country”? The impacts of the EU-Turkey statement on Syrian refugees in Turkey. Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, 22(3), 161–182. Sönmez, P., & Kırık, H. (2017). Turkish-EU readmission agreement: A critique of EU-turkey migration dialogue. Güvenlik Stratejileri Dergisi, 13(25), 1–26.

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CHAPTER 5

EU as a Good (Enough) Governance Exporter in Kosovo? Local Views on the Aborted Kosovo E Re Power Plant Project Didem Buhari Gulmez and Bengu Aydin Dikmen

Introduction The European Union (EU) is a leading international actor that seeks to transform Kosovo into an independent and legitimate state in the liberal world order. Yet, its role as a good governance exporter remains limited in contested states in the Balkans. According to the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, the EU is often falsely accused of lagging behind other states like Russia, Turkey,

D. B. Gulmez (B) ˙ Department of International Relations, Izmir Katip Çelebi University, Izmir, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] B. A. Dikmen Izmir Institute of Technology, Urla, Turkey

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_5

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and China that have significantly increased their investments and development aid in the region in the post-Covid 19 era (Luxner, 2021). In fact, the EU’s Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans amounts to e9 billion, exceeding that of its “geopolitical competitors”, but the EU puts forward a liberal democratic agenda in the region (ibid.). According to Borrell, what makes the EU less popular in the region is its political conditionality, if not its deficient propaganda skills (ibid.). While other powers do not expect the regional states to undertake reform towards transition into liberal democracies, the EU is only willing to integrate with Western Balkan countries if these countries “do their homework” and “meet our standards” (ibid.). Borrell adds that: “To have an independent judiciary and get rid of corruption – with the European perspective or without it – is a way of building modern societies” (ibid.). In this context, the reforms advocated by the EU can be seen as a source of global legitimacy for the newly independent states in the region. EU political conditionality has long served as a roadmap for many countries like Turkey (see Chapter 3 in this book) whose intention is to consolidate its legitimate and modern statehood by not only integrating into the EU but also into the “world society” (Buhari Gulmez, 2017). Yet, there are increasing contestations against the EU’s role as a good governance actor in both the EU and elsewhere, especially in the “areas of limited statehood” (Risse, 2011). This chapter specifically focuses on the case of Kosovo, which provides one of the “most likely” cases for the EU’s success in exporting good governance reforms given its contested statehood, its pro-Western stance and its urgent need to acquire international recognition as a modern and legitimate actor in world society (Bieber, 2011; Börzel & Grimm, 2018; Noutcheva, 2020). In particular, a closer look at the debates about the (now failed) new coal power plant project to be built by a US-led company in Pristina allows us to better grasp the limitations of the EU’s role in transforming Kosovo into a liberal democratic state through political conditionality. While the Kosovo government’s agreement with a US-led company to build a new coal power plant led to several protests in Kosovo based on environmentalism and free market principles, the EU seemed reluctant to directly criticise the project, to the dismay of pro-European activists. Several factors limit the EU’s actorness as a good governance promoter in contested states like Kosovo such as the EU member states’ enlargement fatigue and lack of a unified stance (Börzel & Grimm, 2018; Bouris & Papadimitriou, 2020). Moreover, ongoing political conflicts

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and weak state capability to effectively enact and implement reforms in the region lead the EU’s role shifting towards that of a “good enough governance” exporter in the sense of preferring stabilisation over democratisation (Börzel & Grimm, 2018). Furthermore, the EU’s good governance actorness in the Western Balkans has often been defined with a lack of a reflexivity in terms of taking the local values, understandings and perceptions more seriously (Keil & Arkan, 2016). In the specific case of Kosovo, the EU has seemed to prioritise the political dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo at the expense of good governance promotion (Krasniqi & Musaj, 2016). This chapter benefits from 20 qualitative face-to-face interviews conducted by the authors in Pristina in mid-June and September 2019 with parliamentary advisors, civil society activists, public officials from the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning and the state-owned Kosovo Energy Corporation, in addition to the EU, OSCE, and UNDP missions in Kosovo. This study will first discuss the EU’s “engagement without recognition” strategy towards Kosovo. It will emphasise Kosovo’s allegiance to the US and the division of labour between the US and the EU in their transatlantic partnership towards the former Yugoslavian territories. It will then explain the new coal power plant project signed between the Kosovo government and the US-led company ContourGlobal as a national strategy to decrease energy dependence on Serbia. Finally, it will summarise the views of the governmental and civil society actors in Kosovo about the EU’s role in Kosovo in general and in relation to the new coal power plant debates in particular.

EU’s Engagement Without Recognition: Kosovo with an Asterisk (*) In official EU documents, Kosovo has always been followed by an asterisk indicating its exceptional status as derived from the EU’s failure to officially recognise the country as a sovereign state, even while actively engaging with it.1 The EU’s non-recognition is due to the reluctance of five EU member states, namely Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Spain, to do so. Due to both Serbia’s persistent sovereignty claims over Kosovo and the fear that Kosovo’s secession would hold a demonstration effect on their own minority groups, certain countries in both Europe and elsewhere choose to overlook Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence. This is a serious limitation on the EU’s role as a good

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governance exporter in Kosovo: “how do you create a functioning state without recognizing its sovereignty? As a consequence of this dilemma, the EU has managed to improve effective governance while democratic governance has lagged behind” (Börzel & Grimm, 2018: 123). In fact, the EU’s role in Kosovo has been inherently paradoxical: Kosovo’s weak internal sovereignty and the growing international agreement over its independent external status have both contributed to a situation where the EU is de facto treating it as an independent state while being directly in charge of key government functions on its territory. (Noutcheva, 2020: 460)

Kosovo’s claim to self-determination has usually been represented as an “exceptional” case of remedial secession (see Ker-Lindsay, 2013). As the international community has become increasingly constrictive after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which prompted a securitisation of the international system under the US leadership, Kosovo’s secessionism could have been easily dismissed as a destabilising factor in the region. Nevertheless, Kosovo consists of a Muslim Albanian majority and various ethnic minorities, such as Serbs, Bosniaks, Turks, Egyptians, Gorani and Ashkalis, that have put forward the remedial cause argument stating that the people of Kosovo could not survive under the Serbian government following the massacres and mass expulsions of non-Serbs from Kosovo at the end of the 1990s. More than 100 countries have already recognised Kosovo as an independent state. Yet, the Kosovan authorities fail to govern the northern municipalities largely populated by Kosovo Serbs, which makes Kosovo a perfect example of a “contested state”, suffering from a lack of a strong internal and external sovereignty (Baracani, 2020). In such cases, the EU’s challenge remains to reconcile its political conditionality with the reality of contested states while facing a “tension between accession conditionality and efforts to end political conflict in its neighbourhood” (Bieber, 2011: 1785). Hence, the EU had to focus on stabilisation as the priority in the Western Balkans suffering from ethnic, political and border conflicts and weak state capacity (Börzell & Grimm, 2018). Rather than a good governance exporter, the EU becomes a “good enough governance” exporter in contested states (ibid.). Due to the Serbian attacks, more than 800,000 Kosovo Albanians became refugees at the gates of Western Europe in 1998. Although the

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EU was highly affected by the Yugoslavian conflicts in its own backyard, it failed to intervene in an effective manner to end the conflicts and the flood of refugees. According to the US, the EU failed to catch the “hour of Europe” that had been declared by Luxembourg Foreign Minister, Jacques Poos, regarding the EU’s rising responsibility towards the former Yugoslavian peoples (Drozdiak, 1999). The EU’s failure paved the way for the US-led NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999. While the US President Clinton was a “reluctant sheriff” in terms of using force in maintaining the regional order, he decided on the NATO intervention in Kosovo, which he justified in terms of both humanitarian concerns (emphasised by the Western failure to prevent the Bosnian tragedy) and geopolitical concerns: Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative. It is also important to America’s national interests. Take a look at this map. Kosovo is a small place, but it sits on a major fault line between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, at the meeting place of Islam and both the Western and Orthodox branches of Christianity. To the south are our allies, Greece, and Turkey. To the north, our new democratic allies in Central Europe. And all around Kosovo, there are other small countries, struggling with their own economic and political challenges, countries that could be overthrown by a large new wave of refugees from Kosovo. (Clinton, 1999)

Kosovo’s “gratitude to the US” should not be overlooked while analysing Kosovo’s politics and society. The interviews conducted in the Kosovan Parliament and civil society demonstrate that the image of the US as the “saviour of Kosovo” is a strong one at the collective level. Kosovo’s capital city Pristina hosts a Clinton boulevard with a statue of the US President. In this respect, Kosovo’s relations with other actors such as the EU are affected by Kosovo’s political allegiance to the US. Also, NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) continues to operate in the country with around 3,500 Allied and partner troops (NATO, 2021). As a traditional ally of the US, the EU has long participated in a “division of labour” in the region where the “America fights the wars, Europe does the dishes” (Peterson, 2001). In other words, the EU’s role was mostly limited to civilian missions in terms of reconstructing the infrastructure that had been damaged by the war and exporting good governance to the regional states through membership and aid conditionality. It allocated huge amounts of aid to the region, signed the

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“Stability Pact for Southeast Europe”, and successfully used economic sanctions and diplomacy to both convince Croatian Serbs to abandon Milosevic and Serbia to accept a ceasefire ending the NATO bombardment of 1999. However, the EU’s lack of unity during the Yugoslavian conflicts was highly problematic. For instance, the unilateral decision of Germany to recognise Croatia and Slovenia in 1991 came as a surprise to other member states that only reluctantly followed suit. Besides, Italy and Greece were initially reluctant to participate in NATO’s Kosovo war. US interest in disengaging from southeastern Europe and its pressures on the EU to help the Balkan nations integrate into the post-Cold War liberal world order should not be overlooked while analysing the role of the EU in Kosovo. The 1995 joint action plan known as the “New Transatlantic Agenda” between the US and the EU demonstrates that the US had already made some effort to pressurise the EU to act as a unified actor in terms of helping transform the region’s newly independent states into modern and legitimate actors of the post-Cold War liberal world order. The joint action plan had emphasised that the transatlantic partnership had a common aim to demilitarise the region, help democratic elections and restore respect for human rights (The New Transatlantic Agenda, 1995). The Sofia Declaration that was signed at the end of the EU-Western Balkans summit in May 2018 similarly emphasised the importance of the promotion of the rule of law and socio-economic reforms, the fight against corruption and organised crime, good governance, and respect for human and minority rights in aligning the regional states with the EU (EU Council, 2018). The Kosovo crisis also served as a catalyst for the EU’s efforts towards developing a European security and defence policy for the region. In 2003, the EU launched its first missions in the region, including the EU’s policing mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a military operation in Northern Macedonia. The EU also takes recourse to NATO command structures, as seen in the case of EUFOR Althea in Bosnia-Herzegovina under the Berlin Plus agreements. It also provides military support to NATO operations and UN peacekeeping forces. Yet, it remains open to debate whether the rise of the EU’s military actorness complements or undermines its export of good governance in the region. This chapter focuses on the EU’s role of good governance promotion in Kosovo where the EU runs the EU rule of law mission (EULEX), which is “the largest civilian mission ever launched under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)” since 2008. Actively endorsed by

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various US administrations, the EU is also a diplomatic actor that seeks to facilitate normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo as well as the relations between the Kosovo government and Kosovo Serbs based in northern Kosovo. In late October 2015, the EU signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Kosovo, which was interpreted as a “milestone for the EU-Kosovo relationship” that “will help Kosovo make much needed reforms and will create trade and investment opportunities”. (Council of the EU, 2015). As a potential candidate for the EU, Kosovo benefits from the Instrument of Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). Yet, the EU has succumbed to various crises that challenge the EU’s efficiency in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, but also its legitimacy in terms of promoting liberal democratic values. The rise of far right and populist leaders within EU member states benefited from the Eurosceptic and Islamophobic popular reactions largely associated with the Eurozone and Syrian refugee crises in Europe. Orban’s Hungary has been among the most vocal EU member states that openly contested the EU’s liberal conditionality with a particular emphasis on the rule of law (Soyaltin-Colella, 2020). Such criticisms against the “liberal nature, content or substance” of the post-Cold War world order have been on the rise, prompting democratic backsliding in Europe. This does not only challenge the EU’s raison d’être but also undermines its ability to serve as a “role-model” in other regions. Moreover, its statebuilding efforts and the reforms it advocates in the Western Balkans have proved counterproductive in various cases (Keil & Arkan, 2016). In particular, the EU’s failure to both open accession negotiations with Albania and Northern Macedonia and start visa liberalisation with Kosovo led to a decline in the trust in the EU, whereas the US maintains its central position as “the most trusted partner of the region” (Maza, 2020). Furthermore, while US President Obama emphasised multilateralism and the constructive role of the EU in resolving the political conflict between Serbs and Kosovars, US President Trump used a more direct approach that bypassed the EU in dealing with regional affairs. He persuaded Kosovo and Serbia to end their conflict over the tariffs: “In a typical American style, Grenell [US Special Presidential Envoy to Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations between October 2019 and January 2021] reportedly told Pristina that the US will annul its investment in Kosovo unless the tariffs are revoked” (Gotev, 2020). Overall, the EU’s position towards Kosovo as a good governance exporter is ambivalent due to its failure to recognise Kosovo as an independent state, the lack of a unified

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vision about the regional affairs, disharmony with the US, and the democratic backsliding that led the EU to turn inwards. The following section will discuss the (now aborted) Kosovo e Re project, which was a new coal power plant project signed with a US-led company to decrease Kosovo’s energy dependence on Serbia.

Kosovo’s (Aborted) Coal Power Plant: Kosovo E Re A small country with less than 2 million people, Kosovo is one of the poorest countries in Europe, suffering from the highest level of unemployment (World Bank, 2018). Hosting large lignite reserves, Kosovo continues to benefit from the two old coal power plants (Kosovo A and Kosovo B) from the Cold War era, cited as “the worst single-point source of pollution in Europe” by the World Bank (Plesch, 2018). As a young and contested state, Kosovo faces difficulties in attracting foreign investment. Similar to other Balkan countries that lack financial resources to invest in large-scale energy projects, it signs Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) that guarantee sales to investors for a particular period of time (GAP Institute and The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, 2019: 4). Yet, PPAs go against the European Community (EnC) Treaty that promotes liberal standards on competition signed by the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) in 2005. In addition, if Kosovo overlooks the laws of competition by restricting its electricity market, it undermines its EU membership prospects. According to EU progress reports, Kosovo is “moderately advanced” in terms of legal transposition, but it suffers from a huge “implementation deficit”. The former Kosovo government under Ramush Haradinaj signed a PPA for a new coal power plant with a US-led multinational company (ContourGlobal) in December 2017, violating the national law on state aid, the EU laws on competition, and the EnC Treaty. The treaty guaranteed to pay for capacity charges and buy the electricity produced by the company based on the set target price of 80 e/MWh for a period of 20 years. Several civil society organisations in Kosovo denounced the PPA with the US as violating the principles of the free market and competition by closing the national electricity to potential domestic and international investors. According to the GAP Institute in Kosovo, the PPA would be a huge economic and financial burden on the shoulders of Kosovo’s taxpayers for 20 years. The new coal power plant would also increase the environmental degradation in the country.

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Five organisations, namely Balkan Green Foundation, GAP Institute, Group for Legal and Political Studies, INDEP (Institute for Development Policy) and CEE Bankwatch Network filed an official complaint against this agreement in the Energy Community (Reuters, 2019). The EnC lacks effective sanctioning mechanisms, but the national courts of Kosovo can enforce compliance with the international commitments of Kosovo. The project was initially supported by the World Bank that later announced its decision to withdraw its financial support in October 2018. Behind the World Bank’s withdrawal was a confidential Options Study that had evaluated the energy demand, cost, and consumption in the country, and which concluded that a power plant was not necessary (World Bank, 2018). The Kosovo government saw the new coal power plant project as a key strategy to decrease its energy dependence on Serbia, which continues its historical claims of sovereignty over Kosovo. The political conflict with Serbia prevents a functioning interconnection between Kosovo and Albania (Energy Monitor, 2019). Besides, the Kosovo-Serbia energy agreement of 2013 failed to be implemented due to Serbia’s conditionality about “licensing and operationalization of an electricity supplier in the north of Kosovo” (Energy Regulatory Office of the Republic of Kosovo, 2018: 73). The Kosovo government feared that this would encourage the secessionist Serbs in northern Kosovo, who reject the sovereignty of the Kosovo government and do not pay any electricity tax (ibid.). Declining energy dependence on Serbia is often seen as the “second independence of Kosovo” (Balkan Green Foundation, interview 2019). The Kosovo e Re project with the US was justified by the Kosovo government based on the need to focus on energy security. Governmental actors often emphasised that Kosovo should first prioritise the consolidation and international recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty. Without energy security, Kosovo could not guarantee its survival. Environmental concerns remain of secondary importance compared to the “high politics”, i.e. national survival and security (Dikmen & Gulmez, 2022). In April 2020, Kosovo was admitted to the Independent Regulatory Zone, which holds the potential to decrease Kosovo’s energy dependence on Serbia. Kosovo has been relying on Serbia’s state-owned transmission system operator’s (EMS, Elektromreža Srbija) regulatory area in order to be connected to the European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E). Opposing Kosovo’s independence, Serbia did not

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export electricity to Kosovo in 2018, causing the grid to become imbalanced and leading to a lower frequency in the Continental European Power System (Schmidt, 2018). Kosovo claims that Serbia has made profits of e65 million since 2008 by illegally using Kosovo’s transmission network (Energy Monitor, 2019). On 14 April 2020, Kosovo became part of a regulatory bloc with Albania’s transmission system operator (OST) in order to be connected to Europe’s electricity market, thus bypassing Serbia. When the main opposition party Vetëvendosje (Self-Determination) came to power on 3 February 2020, ContourGlobal announced in March 2020 its decision to cancel the new coal power plant project due to the difficult “political situation” in Kosovo (Bami & Travers, 2020). On March 25, Vetëvendosje’s coalition government collapsed with a noconfidence vote in the Kosovo Assembly and served as a caretaker due to the coronavirus pandemic until the 2021 elections (Vela, 2020). Moreover, the President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, resigned on 5 November 2020 due to a war indictment against him before the Hague-based Specialist Chambers that has primacy over all other courts in Kosovo. How was the EU’s role perceived by the various national actors who were involved in the debates on the Kosovo e Re project? A brief survey of diverse opinions on the EU’s role in this matter demonstrates the limitations of the EU’s capability as a good governance exporter in Kosovo. Based on interview data, the following section summarises the main criticisms of the EU’s role in Kosovo as a “good enough governance” exporter. It also benefits from the interview of two anonymous experts from the EU Representation Office in Pristina.

The EU as an Important but Reluctant Actor During the Kosovo E Re Debates This section provides an analysis of 20 semi-structured interview responses gathered by the authors in Pristina in June and September 2019 while the debates about the new coal power plant project signed with the US-led ContourGlobal were still ongoing. Interviewees were affiliated with the Kosovo government and Parliament (KEK—Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, Governing Party of the time, PDK, and the opposition party Vetëvendosje), Kosovo missions of various international organisations— including, the EU, The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in

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Europe (OSCE), Energy Community and the United Nations of Development Programme (UNDP)—and civil society organisations such as the GAP Institute, the Institute for Development Policy (INDEP), Balkan Green Foundation, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), ERA, Kosovo Foundation for Open Society (KFOS) and the US-led Millennium Foundation Kosovo. During the interviews, the fate of the Kosovo e Re agreement was not yet clear, and several interviewees shared their view that the PPA might be aborted due to the lack of transparency in the tender process and the violation of liberal competition rules. They also shared their expectation that the EU should have played a more active role in endorsing their protests against the new coal plant project. The 2019 EU Progress Report on Kosovo called on the Kosovan government to decommission the oldest (Kosovo A) coal power plant and upgrade Kosovo B and to focus on renewable energy. It also warned that “Kosovo continues to rely nearly exclusively on lignite as a source of energy and on two obsolete, highly polluting coal-fired power plants. This adds significantly to its heavy air pollution problems” (EU Progress Report, 2019: 81). It also stated that: The government has concluded a commercial agreement with the bidder on the construction of the Kosova e Re 500 MW lignite power plant, which is due to start in 2019. Following the World Bank’s withdrawal from the partial loan guarantee, financing arrangements for the estimated EUR 1 billion plus project are still to be settled. It may have a major impact on public finances, tariffs and the environment and this must be carefully reassessed. (EU Progress Report,2019: 50)

The EU provides important funding opportunities to the Kosovo government and civil society. The EU’s financial assistance under IPA II for Kosovo for the period 2014–2020 amounts to e602.1 million with a special emphasis on the priority sectors, including the reform of the energy sector, among others (European Commission, n.d.). The EU also aims to help Kosovo upgrade the coal power plant, Kosovo B, with electrostatic filters to raise it to European standards by 2021 (e 76 millions). The EU has also been the sponsor of the Climate Diplomacy and Sustainable Development Weeks in Kosovo, as well as various local projects on energy efficiency, renewable energy, waste management, environmental advocacy at the local level and awareness raising.

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According to the interviewees from the GAP Institute in Kosovo, the EU could have been a very strong good governance exporter in Kosovo due to its political conditionality associated with Kosovo’s willingness to gain membership and funding, such as IPA. Yet, “The EU was very weak in pushing its agenda” while Kosovo’s contract with ContourGlobal violated the state aid law and undermined the environmental reforms the EU had advanced (GAP Institute, interview 2019). Similarly, the interviewees from INDEP expected Kosovo, as a potential EU candidate and a signatory to the EU’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement, not to violate EU regulations and directives on state aid and environmental policy (interview, 2019). For them: The EU is maybe the main actor that is pushing some things forward in Kosovo. They have this European Commission report they publish every year. Even officially in Kosovo that is the main policy evaluator instrument in Kosovo. The only policy evaluator instrument is the EU report. So, the government would say ‘Look! We have made progress in this and failed in this.’ After that the government of Kosovo complies with this “homework” from the European Commission report and they try to do something about it. They never fully fulfil all the criticisms they get from the EU report. But that is an instrument for pressure. That’s also something that we as civil society use to say ‘Look! This is also in the EU report’ to governmental decision-makers. (INDEP, interview, 2019)

Yet, they state that the EU Office in Kosovo failed to show a “firm stance” “abstaining from saying yes or no” to the new coal plant deal (INDEP, interview, 2019). Moreover, the EU’s failure to both provide concrete membership prospects for Western Balkan countries and to start visa liberalisation with Kosovo has led Kosovan politicians to think that they have nothing to lose if they do not implement the EU reforms: “Before, it was ‘EU says it, it’s Amen’. Now, ‘EU says it, oh! We must say something else!” (INDEP, interview, 2019). Interviewees from the Kosovo government who endorse the Kosovo e Re project were also critical of the EU. They emphasised that the EU was losing its credibility in the eyes of the nation as it failed to actively support Kosovo’s international recognition and visa liberalisation with EU member states. Many interviewees argued that the political conflict with Serbia was the main reason behind the EU’s reluctance to fully recognise and support Kosovo. For them, Serbia has been threatening the EU

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with alignment with Russia at the expense of the Western bloc. In addition, it reminds the EU that it can destabilise the region by encouraging the secession of ethnic Serbs in various Balkan countries. Hence, the EU had to offer concessions to Serbia and abstained from active support of Kosovo, which led to certain “double standards” against Kosovo. Furthermore, a number of interviewees suggested that the rise of Islamophobia in Europe was an important determinant of the EU’s problematic approach to the Muslim-majority Kosovo. They claim that the EU exaggerates Kosovo’s level of corruption while overlooking the state of corruption in other Balkan countries, such as Serbia and Montenegro that the EU has recognised as official candidates. In fact, many interviewees feared that if Serbia becomes an EU member before Kosovo, it will be able to block any future prospects for Kosovo’s accession to the EU. Adri Nurellari, an advisor to the Speaker of the Parliament of Kosovo in 2019, argues that: The EU is losing leverage in the Balkans because on the one hand, Kosovo has swallowed very bitter pills in the sense that we have agreed to major compromise by accepting [the] Ahtisaari plan to provide extensive positive discrimination to minorities as a way to show commitment to the Western countries in return for their support. Yet, their support has been limited. It has been 11 years since our declaration of independence and there has been no change when it comes to the EU members who fail to recognize Kosovo. So, the EU has not delivered their part of the deal because there is no change when it comes to these countries’ stance on Kosovo. (interview 2019)

Nurellari criticises the “vagueness” and the “hypocrisy” of the EU progress reports on Kosovo. He states that while the 2019 report heavily criticised Kosovo for its rule of law performance, it overlooked the fact that the rule of law matters were in the hands of the UN and, subsequently, the EU through EULEX. “So, they ridiculously blame Kosovo for something that they were responsible for a long period of time” (Nurellari, interview 2019). Therefore, Kosovo increasingly sees “the US as a more reliable partner than the EU because the EU is not delivering” its promises (ibid.). Interviewees from civil society such as Jeta Xharra emphasise that even though the EU fails to officially recognise Kosovo and start visa liberalisation, it still provides a roadmap for good governance reforms that Kosovo needs. Yet, some interviewees accuse both the EU in general and

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the EU officials working at the EU Representation in Pristina in particular, of looking at Kosovo from an orientalist perspective. For instance, Xharra argues that for EU officials, Kosovars are Muslim “second-rate citizens of Europe” who do not deserve green energy because of their own failure to comply with the EU. Supporting this view, an anonymous expert from the EU Office in Pristina criticised Kosovo Albanians for lacking an understanding of environmental issues due to their culture that distinguished them from other ethnic communities in the Balkans who were more environmentally sensitive (interview 2019, emphasis added). The head of the EU Representation in Pristina invited the Kosovo legislators to control the import of used European cars that do not comply with EU directives on CO2 vehicle emissions. The EU also encouraged Kosovo to decommission Kosovo A, which is the oldest of Kosovo coal power plants. As Kosovo repeatedly fails to comply with the EU suggestions regarding environmental protection and good governance in general, EU officials who lose hope begin to see the evolution of the political dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia as the main priority. “As Kosovars, we have been seen constantly through the prism of dialogue and peace with Serbia, not through the prism of environment nor as proper Europeans” (Xharra, interview 2019). As regards the Kosovo e Re project, Xharra states that “the EU was silent, bloody silent because it cares about dialogue with Serbia that is the priority. As long as you do not kill each other [it is fine, they say]. Whether you breathe coal here [Kosovo] is of secondary importance” (ibid.) She adds that they expected a political stance from the EU about the Kosovo e Re project in addition to the EU funding on environmental projects. Yet, in her opinion, “the EU does not want to get involved because they do not want to clash with the US that has a huge interest in the project” (ibid.). She denounces the EU progress reports on Kosovo for failing to criticise Kosovo’s continued investment in coal-burning energy plants that are an important source of air pollution (ibid.). An expert from the UNDP Kosovo (Shkipe Deda Gjurgjiali) explains that the EU offered around e76 million in order to improve Kosovo B with new electro filters (EUObserver, 2020). Yet, she thinks that “the power plants are obsolete, FULL STOP” (Gjurgjiali, interview 2019). Several interviewees claim that in the eyes of Kosovan public opinion, several EU officials in Kosovo have been ignorant of the country’s reality, if not becoming corrupt themselves. In particular, EULEX is seen as a failure in terms of fighting corruption and consolidating the rule of law

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in the country (an interviewee from the Ombudsperson Institution of Kosovo, 2019). Liburn Aliu, MP of Kosovo parliament from Vetevendosje suggests that his political party’s contestation against EULEX does not necessarily mean that they are against the EU (interview, 2019). On the contrary, Kosovo Albanians have relatives in several EU countries (especially in Germany) and wish to reunite with them by becoming an EU member. Yet, there have been multiple protests against the EULEX in Kosovo for several reasons, including “dissatisfaction with the mission’s effectiveness” (Mahr, 2018). Liburn Aliu comments that: They brought here EULEX to fight corruption because they do not trust the locals. They are just cohabiting with the corruption here and they failed totally. So, they have made the corruption here stronger… They have short term contracts here…They were coming here without respecting the local will here. We also had UN mission, UNMIK personnel who were immune to our laws… They just got decorated in their own countries, so they come here and go back to their countries, get decorated here and these are the international, let us say, neo-colonizing networks that promise to bring you peace and freedom. They immediately started to think that the history starts with them. [For them,] We are not here. There was no past. We should forget what has happened in the past. Because now they are here, let us start from scratch, from zero. [We already knew that external actors, such as the EU, would fail here because] If you ignore the history, if you ignore the problem, the genesis of the problem here, then you are going to fail. They have been cooperating with politicians who are subservient, who are obedient to them, and they did not care about the corruption here. So, they brought EULEX who did not fight corruption. Why? Because they wanted, they built those dossiers, files against them [politicians] and they are just threatening them: “Look! I have a file on you.” So, we have now obedient politicians [to the EU] because the EU has files against them and they [the EU officials] are tolerating their crime because they are obedient to them… You cannot explain that on a cultural basis. It is also about a foreign factor here, it is EULEX and its missions that are also being corrupted together with locals here. (Aliu, interview 2019)

Several interviewees emphasise that EU officials see themselves as “temporary” in Kosovo and lack local knowledge, which leads them to simply repeat “one-size-fits-all” policy preferences and fail to fully grasp Kosovo’s real situation. An interviewee from KFOS argues that:

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All of them [EU officials serving in Kosovo] complain about Kosovo but everybody wants to come here because Kosovo is the most quiet city and place in Europe…They are coming to a peaceful country, but they are being paid as if this is a war-zone… They are coming as the so-called “experts”, but they are not even half-experts. (Interview 2019)

According to a local expert from KEK, which is a state-owned public entity linked with the Kosovo Ministry of Economic Development, “expecting Kosovo to only use renewable energy is unfair treatment and double-standards because it is not reliable, it does not provide security of energy supply and it comes with higher prices” (interview 2019). Moreover, there is no alternative to ContourGlobal because China is not a reliable investor and Kosovo cannot take any risks in making a deal in such a critical and complex industry (ibid.). Nurellari, from the Kosovo Parliament, shares a similar stance: It is a bit unfair to demand from Kosovo that is in the process of development a tough measure which even the advanced Western countries have not taken. So, this export of policies without taking care of the Kosovar context, I think it is disgusting to be very honest. And as a matter of fact, fortunately, even the World Bank – they withdrew yes – but in terms of policy, they had said that for Kosovo one has to make an exception because Kosovo is a land-locked country with limited resources and coal is our main resource. We do not have the hydropower other countries like Albania have. For us, building a coal plant is also a matter of energy security because we are dependent on imports from Serbia. And this kind of dependency provides us with special concern as we have a lower bargaining position. (Interview 2019)

From a geopolitical perspective, Nurellari suggests that “especially after the invasion of Abkhazia and Ossetia, there is a major gap between Russian foreign policy and the US and Western countries. And Kosovo in a sense has accidentally become a victim of this new Cold War” (interview 2019). He also criticises the lack of a unitary and credible approach on the part of the EU: “Germany pretends to be sort of a barrier to Russia but on the other hand, it built the Nord Stream” (Nurellari, interview 2019). In this context, Xharra also thinks that “we [Kosovo] just seem unimportant in this game, in this geopolitical game” (Interview 2019).

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Conclusion The EU is a major actor in Kosovo along with the US. Its role is perceived as one of being a good governance exporter due to its use of political conditionality towards Kosovo through various mechanisms such as the EU’s annual Progress reports associated with Kosovo’s potential membership, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, the promise of visa liberalisation, trade and aid. In the environmental sector, it provides important funding opportunities to the Kosovan government and civil society, such as the IPA II 2019 (e 86.3 millions) and the upgrading of Kosovo B with electrostatic filters to raise it to European standards by 2021 (e76 million). The EU has been the sponsor of the Climate Diplomacy and Sustainable Development Weeks in Kosovo, as well as various local projects on energy efficiency, renewable energy, waste management, environmental advocacy at the local level, and awareness raising. Yet, the interviews conducted with local actors in 2019 on the Kosovo government’s new coal plant contract with the US-led ContourGlobal (later aborted) demonstrate that the EU’s local expectations remain unsatisfied. This study emphasises that the EU’s capacity to export good governance reforms to Kosovo has been limited due to several factors. First of all, Kosovo’s “limited statehood” is a serious obstacle against the EU’s good governance promotion. The Kosovo government represents a young nation state whose sovereignty has not yet been fully recognised in the international system. Besides, its diplomatic talks with Serbia and ethnic Serbs populating northern Kosovo, as facilitated by the EU and the US, have not yet been concluded. Kosovo Serbs continue to reject the Kosovo state, reinforcing the latter’s weakness. Although it runs an Office in Kosovo and built “the largest civilian mission ever launched under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)” in 2008, the EU has failed to officially recognise Kosovo because of five particular EU member states that remain reluctant to do so. This inherently limits the EU’s official representation and activities in Kosovo. Given Kosovo’s low prospects for EU membership in the near future and the EU’s failure to start visa liberalisation with Kosovo, this has led local actors to denounce the EU’s conditionality as “double-standards”. Furthermore, there are certain claims that the rise of Islamophobia and far-right populism in EU member states has also played a role in reinforcing the EU’s reluctance to enact Kosovo’s visa liberalisation and accession. EU officials serving in Kosovo are generally perceived

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in a negative light, namely as lacking local knowledge and interest (if not suffering from orientalist views) and even being accused of reinforcing corruption in the country. In particular, Kosovo is often seen as a victim of geopolitical competition between Russian and Western powers. Hence, the EU is perceived as offering political concessions to Serbia (such as more credible prospects for membership) due to its fear of a full Serbian alignment with Russia and destabilisation of the Balkans, with the rise of secessionist demands among ethnic Serbs dispersed in the region. Accordingly, the EU’s credibility had declined severely by 2019. In addition, the EU chose to tone down its critical attitude towards a new coal power plant in Kosovo as its transatlantic partner, the US, was involved. The US enjoys a special place in the hearts and minds of the Kosovan people who are “grateful” for American leadership in saving Kosovo from the then Serbian leader Milosevic’s massacre at the end of the 1990s. The US is the bigger partner that fights the wars, while the EU is expected to democratise and liberalise the region through soft power instruments. When the US interests and the EU’s reform agenda on green energy clashed, the EU abstained from taking an openly political stance against the ContourGlobal coal power plant deal. This case shows that the EU’s actorness as a good governance exporter in the case of green energy is limited in Kosovo in spite of the EU’s critical importance to Kosovo’s state-building and transition to liberal democracy. This is not merely due to the limited statehood of Kosovo and the EU’s ambivalent “engagement without recognition” stance towards Kosovo that may have been reinforced by the rise of far-right populism in Europe. The EU’s actorness in Kosovo is also affected by geopolitical considerations such as Serbia-Russian rapprochement and the US-Kosovo alliance. Transatlantic partnership has opened a space for intervention by the EU in terms of exporting good governance to the region in general and Kosovo in particular after the dissolution of the Yugoslavian state. Yet, the case of the aborted Kosovo e Re coal power plant demonstrates that the US’s influence in Kosovo may also restrict the EU’s actorness as a good governance promoter. Overall, in line with the literature on the EU’s limited transformative power in contested states, the local perceptions discussed in this study stress that the EU is seen as a “good enough governance” exporter in Kosovo.

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Note 1. In the footnote, the EU remarks that “References to Kosovo are without prejudice to positions on status. They are in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99 and the opinion by the International Court of Justice on the Kosovo declaration of independence.”

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Risse, T. (2011). Governance without a state?: Policies and politics in areas of limited statehood. Columbia University Press. Schmidt, F. (2018, March 7). Clocks in Europe are running late because of the Kosovo conflict. Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/clocks-in-europeare-running-late-because-of-the-kosovo-conflict/a-42867061 Soyaltin-Colella, D. (2020). The EU’s ‘actions-without-sanctions’? The Politics of the Rule of Law Crisis in Many Europes. European Politics and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2020.1842698 The New Transatlantic Agenda. (1995). https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cms data/124321/new_transatlantic_agenda_en.pdf Vela, B. (2020, March 26). Kurti’s downfall leaves Kosovo politics in turmoil. Balkan Insight. World Bank. (2018). Brief: Energy in Kosovo. https://www.worldbank.org/en/ country/kosovo/brief/energy-in-kosovo

PART II

Bad Neighbours, Worse Donor Darlings? When the EU’s Promotion of Good Governance Travels Abroad

CHAPTER 6

The EU’s Promotion of Good Governance and Democracy in the South Caucasus: Regional Strategies and Domestic Constraints Sinem Ünaldılar Kocamaz

Introduction The European Union (EU) seeks to secure stability within its borders to fulfil its energy needs—a vital problem that needs a solution—to prevent conflict around its enlarged borders and, thereby, create a stable region around the union. To this end, the EU has implemented several policies in the Caucasus region, such as the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP). However, several endogenous and exogenous factors have hampered the EU’s efforts to promote good governance and democracy in the Caucasus. The ambiguous reactions of the EU towards the frozen conflicts is one of the factors that negate

S. Ü. Kocamaz (B) Department of International Relations, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_6

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the EU’s effectiveness. In addition, cyclical transformation in the region and the decline in the EU’s effectiveness in the neighbourhood are vitally important in terms of influencing both the EU and South Caucasus. Moreover, democratic values and traditional elements of the EU’s identity have been eroded inside the union: the negative effects of the Eurozone crisis on economics and the rise of far-right parties and populism have changed the spirit of the union, xenophobia and nationalism have increased subsequent to the refugee crisis, and tolerance and multiculturalism have severely declined within the union; hence, the concept of ‘Fortress Europe’ has become a new reality. Under these conditions, it is difficult for the EU to claim to be a good governance promoter anymore, as the above damage the credibility of the Union. For example, the latest developments in Poland and Hungary have raised concerns over democratic backsliding and erosion of rule of law. While the world and the EU is suffering from democratic backsliding, it has become meaningless for the Union to claim to be a transformative power for its neighbourhood. Since the beginning of the ENP, various problems have occurred because of the particular characteristics of the Caucasus countries. These three countries have reacted differently to the EU’s good governance promotion. They have different strategies, policies, and government structures; therefore, their reactions to the EU’s promotion of democracy are similarly different (see also Börzel & Pamuk, 2012). While Georgia adopted some of the EU’s reforms in exchange for future integration with the EU, Armenia chose to align with Russia. Azerbaijan, however, has chosen a more neutral approach; it has not become part of any regional organisation, and is more reticent about transparent models of governance. This has created a challenge for the EU. Yet, what was more challenging was the Ukraine crisis. Since the outbreak of the crisis in 2014, the prevailing thought in the world is that the EU and Russia are engaged in a geopolitical contest over their common neighbourhood. Although this situation has complicated the regional antagonisms between Russia and the EU, Russia’s influence is more visible. As Russia’s dominance is rising, it has become even more vital for the EU to transform its values regarding the Caucasus region. In this framework, this chapter analyses the EU’s capacity in terms of good governance promotion in the cases of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. These three countries are crucial cases to explore the EU’s capacity as a good governance promoter as they are all subject to the same regional

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dynamics yet have different governance qualities and domestic identities. Moreover, they are different from each other in terms of identity and loyalty to Western alliances. However, their energy dependency on Russia and their security concerns related to the frozen conflicts are quite similar. In this framework, this chapter assesses the impact of the domestic politics of the target countries and Russia’s increasing influence on the EU’s governance promotion capacity while examining the latter’s regional policies and the new regional initiatives in the region in the current age of democratic decline.

The EU’s Good Governance Promotion Strategies in the South Caucasus The South Caucasus is a significant region for the EU. First, the EU’s increasing energy dependency has created a growing interest in the diversification of energy supplies. Through closer collaboration with the Caucasus countries, the EU could potentially benefit from the precious natural resources in the region. Moreover, Azerbaijan and Georgia, by connecting the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, provide a transportation corridor for trade, military, and communication. Besides, the geographic location of the region in terms of east–west transportation roads is an important factor for the union. On the other hand, as a neighbourhood area, the security and stability of the region is vital to the EU in terms of the security of its own member countries. In this framework, the EU launched the ENP in 2004, to create a stable zone around its borders and foster a more collaborative relationship with regional countries. The EU contends that ‘the adoption of its norms and rules will ultimately bring stability and prosperity to the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood, with the ENP/Eastern Partnership, the EU primarily seeks to extend a European “postmodern security community” across the wider Europe’ (Averre, 2009: 1690). The EU has three types of mechanisms to construct an effective global governance. First, the EU uses conditionality through sanctions and rewards. Neighbouring countries reap benefits and avoid costs. Second, the EU offers financial assistance to increase the institutionalisation of good governance. Third, it employs political monitoring and dialogue that relies on the use of persuasion and learning strategies (Börzel & Risse, 2009: 9). In addition to good governance promotion, the ENP provides the EU with control over the region. The neighbourhood policy has been

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crucial in increasing the EU’s influence around its near borders and strengthening its effectiveness as an actor through normative regulations. However, the EU has established bilateral relations with states in the region, and the policy in each country is differentiated in line with the relevant domestic conditions. The ENP was an ambitious policy about the actorness of the EU through normative character. Yet, it could not generate the expected outcomes as it failed to understand the domestic realities of the region (Dekanozishvili, 2020). First, the EU’s concern and priority about the democratisation and good governance promotion in the region did not coincide with the expectations of other local actors. The EU’s valuesbased agenda is too strict for these countries in terms of governing the interests of the elite. Domestic factors (police violence, the chronic lack of independence and transparency in the judiciary, restrictions on media freedom, discrimination against the LGBT community), and weakness of institutions filtered the transformative power of the EU. Second, the security concerns and red lines of the countries in the region, such as South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh problems, raised the expectations in terms of the EU’s involvement in the peace-promoting process. However, under the ENP, the EU chose to focus on partner countries’ reform processes as the first step to resolving conflict (Delcour & Wolczuk, 2018: 48). More importantly, the increasing influence of Russia in the region and the changing political dynamics after the Ukraine crisis also weakened the EU’s capacity as a good governance promoter in the region. After the Ukrainian crisis, the European Commission called for an ENP revision to better address the conflicts in the neighbourhood, and the EU then initiated a review of the ENP in 2015. The renewal of the policy contains a re-examination of tools and instruments. ‘The revised ENP of 2015 initially appears to reflect a change in policy course. The document does not mention conditionality once, suggesting a quite radical break with one of the oldest tools in the EU’s foreign policy toolbox’ (Ikani, 2019). The ENP tended to contain only vague references to adopting key aspects of the acquis. It is a move away from promoting democracy and good governance to more specific objectives, with more of a realpolitik strategy. Instead of the implementation of the general model for every partner country, the EU opted for a stabilisation and differentiation terminology. Given the limited success of the ENP in promoting good governance in the target countries in the South Caucasus, the EU launched the EaP,

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and offered South Caucasus countries a more strengthened contractual framework via Association Agreements (AAs) and Deep and Comprehensive Free-Trade Areas (DCFTAs). Moreover, the EaP promotes gradual liberalisation of the visa regime and increased sectoral cooperation with the partner countries (Delcour & Hoffmann, 2018: 11). Distinct from the ENP, the EaP was proposed to six member countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. To achieve the overarching goals set by the EaP, these countries had to implement a wide range of governance reforms with the approximation of their national legislation to the EU. The EaP represents a shift from soft to hard law commitments and follows a much stricter conditionality, as the DCFTAs or AAs are not just simple free trade agreements. The 2011 ENP review introduced the concept of ‘deep democracy’ (Delcour & Wolczuk, 2021: 162). Through these regulations, the EU required a more comprehensive approximation between neighbourhood countries and EU regulations (Pishchikova, 2019: 166). Moreover, in contrast to the ENP, there is no ‘one size fits all’ model in the EaP as it allows countries to construct their own identities. ‘Conditionality within the EaP was grounded in the so-called “morefor more principle”: the more progress on reform, democratisation, and rule of law a neighbour would show, the greater would be its approximation with the EU’ (Pishchikova, 2019:167). Although the EaP is a more improved version of the ENP, regional countries were not satisfied with the results, as they had different expectations from the EU such as membership. However, the EU anchors brought their neighbours their own rules without membership, as free trade agreements serve the interests of the EU rather than countries in the region. Moreover, the EaP initiatives (energy, border management) are predominant policies that reflect EU interests (Casier, 2019: 85). These problems create an asymmetric position between the EU and partner countries. Despite the inefficient character of the neighbourhood policy, the critical juncture that brought these problems to the surface was the Ukraine crisis, as the geo-politicisation of the EaP became evident in its aftermath. In terms of concrete results, in the EaP summit in November 2017, the EU and its eastern partners agreed to 20 deliverables to be achieved by 2020. ‘ These deliverables revolve around three main priorities: economic development, good governance and connectivity, energy efficiency and climate change. There are also three more general deliverables related to

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civil society, gender equality, non-discrimination, and strategic communication and independence of the media’ (Crombois, 2019: 93). Indeed, these kinds of policy initiatives are more concrete than democratic transformation. Yet, the balance between foreign policy tools and ambitious political reform requirements could not be achieved. Although the EU made vital renewals and revisions related to its neighbourhood approach and defined itself as a driver of democratisation and good governance promotion, there remains a major factor in the region that restricts the success of the EU: Russia (see also Chapter 10 in this book). From a comprehensive perspective, both the EU’s and the EaP countries’ positions with Russia considerably influence the outcomes of the ENP.

Russia and the EU in the South Caucasus When the ENP was formulated by the EU in 2004, Russia was not evaluated as a major problem in the region. However, NATO started to discuss the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in the Riga Summit (2006), and the EU began to construct close ties with regional countries through ENP Action Plans. After the Riga Summit, the region began to turn into a ‘contested neighbourhood’ area between the two great powers. Yet, it was the Ukraine crisis that exposed the increased rivalry between the two major powers for several reasons. First, these two actors have different types of foreign policies regarding the countries in the region. The EU has pursued more constructivist perspectives about the transformation of identities, while Russia is depicted as a ‘negative actor’ and ‘a non-normative or a realpolitikoriented’ player (Casier, 2013: 1379; Tulmets et al., 2018: 459). The EU and Russia are, thus, entirely different from each other in terms of their identities and actions. By using a constructivist perspective and establishing identity in the shared neighbourhood area, the EU has created an identity that differentiated it from Russia (Delcour, 2018b: 17). The other vital notion that affects the rivalry between these two powers is regionalism, which became much more important after the emergence of the negative effects of globalisation. The character of the EU as a region-builder deteriorated Russia’s regional strategy. This is because, through free trade agreements and the creation of a common regulatory space based upon its acquis, regional countries have become firmly bound to each other. Within this framework, the implementation of the EaP policy with all mechanisms (AAs and DCFTAs) triggered a sense of

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competition with the EU for common neighbours. Russia began to build on its regionalism by launching the Eurasian Customs Union. This type of deep economic integration increased rivalry, as it affected the loyalty of regional countries through economic benefits. In 2012–2013, the Kremlin started to use both negative and positive measures such as trade bans, lengthy customs checks, and, finally, the offer of financial contributions. This strategy worked well with Armenia, which announced that it would join the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) a few weeks after completing negotiations for an AA/DCFTA (Delcour, 2018b: 25). Thus, by using several aspects such as control over countries, creating alternative economic integration projects, and claiming genuine Europeanness, Russia attempted to prevent the EU’s normative hegemony in the region (Casier, 2019: 86). Moreover, there are some other factors that contribute to Russia’s supremacy over the EU in the region. The lack of effective governance mechanisms, non-effective civil society, and rent-seeking autocratic regimes in these countries would prefer to follow the Russian model, which does not impose any rules related to good governance, rule of law, and human rights. The other significant factor is energy; energy transportation and asymmetric energy dependency increased Russia’s bargaining power (Delcour, 2018a: 114). Although the EU and Russia play their games in line with their predetermined regional strategies, the real actors that change the scenario are the South Caucasus countries, including Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, each of which responded to these aggressive policies in varying ways.

The EU’s Regional Strategies and Domestic Constraints in the South Caucasus Regional dynamics in the South Caucasus region have changed since the Ukrainian crisis. The rising influence of Russia and newly created situation deemed it necessary for the EU to reformulate its policies at a time when Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan have been struggling with problems regarding polarisation, rule of law, elections, and transparency. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, these countries could not be transformed from autocratic regimes to democracies. Therefore, they prove to be good laboratories for the EU to re-evaluate its efficiency in terms of good governance promotion. Although all South Caucasus countries

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have problems related to democracy, they have differences in terms of their visions and policies. Georgia has always been a frontrunner in the EaP and seeks to gain EU membership status in the future. However, current events have changed its capacity to meet EU requirements, and Georgian democracy is certainly still under question. Azerbaijan is the slowest in the region in terms of reform implementation. Azerbaijan has not implemented the necessities determined in the Association Agreement. Aliyev’s reluctance about the reforms has created a considerable obstacle to the implementation of good governance principles and the fight against corruption in the country. Moreover, Azerbaijan is used to playing its energy card against the EU. Armenia has its own interests for maintaining good relations with the EU. Although it has pro-Russian characteristics, the EU’s financial support is still important to Yerevan. In this framework, Armenia is struggling to reform, but Russia’s influence places considerable pressure on the government (Bosse, 2019). To understand the EU’s capacity and constraints in the region, the following subsections evaluate the domestic politics, security concerns, bilateral relations with the EU, and dependency on Russia for each country in detail. Georgia and the EU Georgia, with its strong Euro-Atlantic orientation, has the closest ties with the EU in the region. The country has attempted to gradually distance itself from Russia since President Mikheil Saakashvili’s term of office. Moreover, the Rose Revolution resulted in a radical reorientation of Georgia’s foreign policy towards the West, not just to ensure the stabilisation of the country, but also for security reasons. Georgia has struggled in terms of NATO membership as well. In this context, Georgia sought to fulfil the EU’s conditions more wholeheartedly than the other two Caucasus countries. Georgia became a member of the ENP in 2004, and then the EaP’s tailored approach, as opposed to the ‘one-size-fits all model’ of the ENP, became successful in integrating the country. Further, Georgia has also made significant progress on the path of economic integration with the EU. In September 2008, the DCFTA was introduced between the EU and Georgia as part of European help post-conflict; it was signed in 2014 (Vyshka & Maurice, 2018: 52). On March 8, 2017, visa-free travel also came into force for Georgia. Georgian nationals with biometric passports

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could travel visa-free as well as stay for 90 days in any 180-day period (Putkaradze, 2019) in the Schengen area, including 22 EU member states, four EU non-member states, and four candidate countries for Schengen. While the visa-free regime brought travelling benefits, the real importance of this improvement was symbolic for Georgia in identifying itself as a European country. Georgia shares the EU’s values when compared to the other Caucasus countries. However, some negative views are still evident in society towards some of the values promoted by the EU. This reality affects the success of the EU in terms of promoting good governance under the ENP/EaP framework. As Delcour and Wolczuk (2021) mentioned, several mass protests were organised against the EU’s requirements. For example, the EU required Georgia to adopt an anti-discrimination law including sex orientation and gender identity within the framework of the Visa Liberalisation Action Plan. As the law was passed and entered into force, protests began inside the traditionalist wing, especially with the support of the Church (Delcour & Wolczuk, 2021:164). Moreover, the EU prefers to follow a developmental approach of democracy promotion, which may generate better results in the long term but cannot prevent democratic backsliding in the short term (Lebanidze, 2020a: 3). It is evident that the extreme political polarisation between the ruling (Georgian Dream) and the opposition party (United National Movement) has become one the main challenges to Georgia’s democratic consolidation. In addition, the ruling party’s grab for administrative resources and desire to control the media, as well as the politicisation of the judiciary, became more aggressive (Sinikukka, 2021: 1). To compete with these dynamics, the EU needs to coordinate the process of political dialogue and play a neutral arbiter role between polarised groups (Lebanidze, 2020a: 3). For instance, the last developments between the opposition and the ruling party were related to the release of Nika Melia; the leader has been released from prison, paving the way to end the political crisis in the country. Brussels also offered to post bail on Melia’s behalf to have him released from custody before the amnesty bill was passed. In this event, the EU played a key role to find a solution to the crisis. Negotiations between the opposition and the ruling Georgian Dream Party were mediated through the involvement of the European Council President Charles Michel. Through negotiations, Georgian Dream has promised sweeping political, electoral, and judicial

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reforms and will allow opposition parties to enter parliament (Euronews, 2021). The deal between parties mediated by the EU is particularly important in terms of illustrating the role of Brussels as a democratic governance promoter. However, the EU should increase its consultancy functions in terms of mobilising non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Although NGOs are vital to democratic consolidation, the EU opts for having increased intergovernmental contact with governments rather than trying to establish new cooperation frameworks with its neighbouring states through the involvement of non-state shareholders. Civil society activists argued that the EU should have acted earlier through political dialogue and diplomatic engagement. Non-transparency and restrictions of press freedom became the norm in politics; harassment of journalists calls for the EU to increase its involvement in Georgia. Due to these requirements, the EU and Georgia held the 14th round of their annual Human Rights Dialogue on 7 July 2021 under the EaP umbrella. The parties evaluated how they could improve more open, constructive exchange on the human rights situation in Georgia and on the latest developments with the EU’s policy of the promotion of good governance and democracy. Both sides renewed their commitment to human rights and asserted their positions regarding discrimination and authority. Although the EU tries to improve its capacity, the threat of Russia and the security considerations of the country became more significant for elites in terms of Western orientation. The South Ossetia conflict provided the EU with the opportunity to acquire a conflict manager role in the region. Brussels appointed a special representative for the crisis in Georgia and deployed the EU Monitoring Mission, whose objectives included monitoring the security situation and implementing the Six Point Agreement. However, the EU could not implement an effective strategy in terms of protecting Georgia’s territorial integrity. ‘ For the Georgian authorities the EU suffered from a weak involvement in the region’s unresolved conflicts and its soft, long-term vision of security diverged from the short-term concerns of the Georgian government’ (Delcour, 2019: 8). Due to this reality, Russia was able to limit the actorness and power of the EU (Dobrescua & Schumacher, 2018). These failures decreased trust towards the EU. In the Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia, especially with regard to arbitrary detentions restrictions to the right to freedom of movement, violation of property

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rights, education in the mother tongue, and ethnic discrimination towards Georgians created concerns, and the EU could not show a real response to these problems. Although Georgia has criticised the EU’s strategies and capacity regarding the promotion of good governance, the country has still positioned itself as a European country with a Western identity. Through this ideology of Westernisation, Georgia has presented itself as the frontrunner of the EaP and has sought acknowledgement from the EU for this status. Therefore, Georgia’s preference to be qualified as an Eastern European country is tightly interwoven with its quest for centrality (Delcour, 2019: 8). The latest human rights dialogue shows the EU’s intention to cope with the abolition of human rights in Georgia by underlining problems of discrimination, freedom press, gender issues, domestic violence, and women’s rights transparency; it will be seen in the years to come whether these efforts bring about positive consequences or otherwise. Azerbaijan and the EU Azerbaijan is the most difficult case in the region for the EU in terms of transforming the structure of its governance. Azerbaijan did not obey the EU’s conditionality in terms of political reforms that will transform the structure of the country. Compared to other South Caucasus countries, Azerbaijan has opted for a different foreign policy strategy. The Azeri government seeks to develop a close cooperation with the EU through on its own terms, as depending on a more equal partnership. Although this country is very small as compared to the EU, Azerbaijan has material and immaterial sources of power, such as natural gas. During the negotiations for the AA, Strategic Modernisation Partnership (SMP), and Strategic Partnership Agreement (SAP), Azerbaijan used its bargaining capacity and attempted to persuade the EU about its priorities. In addition, the EU could not implement severe restrictions or impose its values for several reasons (Bosse, 2019). First, when material and immaterial sources are considered, it is obvious that energy resources and economic interdependence are the key factors affecting Azerbaijan’s negotiation capacity. The EU is Azerbaijan’s first trading partner and biggest export and import market. It is also Azerbaijan’s largest foreign investor, both in the oil and non-oil sectors. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s energy is a valuable asset when the high-energy requirements of the Union are considered. At the same time, as an

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alternative supplier, Baku has reduced the EU’s reliance on Russia (van Gils, 2018: 1582). Moreover, the Eu’s Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) includes three pipelines: the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) across Azerbaijan and Georgia, the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP) across Turkey, and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) crossing Greece and Albania and connecting them to Italy—and its main supplier in the near future will be the Shah Deniz consortium operating the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan. This energy dependency of the EU has given Azerbaijan huge bargaining power. For example, over the last decade, the European Commission gave seed funding for the prospective and initial work on pipeline infrastructure in the Corridor and the European Investment Bank approved on 6 February 2018 the largest loan ever given to an energy project, e1.5 billion for TAP (Bocse, 2018). Azerbaijan is also a key transit country between the EU and Turkmenistan and can thus help the EU implement its Trans-Caspian Gas pipeline project. Being an energy supplier and potentially an energy transit country from Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan to the EU increases Azerbaijan’s political importance to the EU. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s relative economic growth is also a significant factor that has increased its bargaining power. Between 2010 and 2015, Azerbaijan had an excellent performance in terms of economic growth, so the country feels less dependent on the EU for funding (Van Gils, 2018). The other factors that have increased its bargaining power are the negotiation skills and the success of diplomats from Azerbaijan, and government officials often refer to the country’s perceived importance, particularly Azerbaijan’s ‘strategic importance’ for the EU (Van Gils, 2018: 1585). Azerbaijan’s strategic importance, economic growth, and bargaining power reduce its dependency on the EU, and this situation weakens the EU’s governance promotion capacity and its power to redress democratic problems. As indicated by the European External Action Service (EEAS) the overall state of human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan continues to be a serious concern for the EU. There is not enough space for civil society, and critic voices are also frequently prosecuted. Media is still under the control of the government; journalists are arrested, and detentions continue. Moreover, torture cases are also reported in the country (EEAS, 2021: 28) along with state-backed corruption. Through EaP, the EU tries to strengthen rule of law, promote civil society, promote freedom of expression, and support development, social, and economic inclusion

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in Azerbaijan. These efforts have resulted in several positive results such as the release of Azerbaijani investigative journalist, Afghan Mukhtarli (EAAS, 2021: 29). Like Georgia, security is a vital factor that affects the relations between the EU and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s essential concern is the NagornoKarabakh conflict; it expects the EU to act as a real and effective player in the settlement of this conflict. Yet the Azeri government was clearly disappointed with the weak performance of the EU. Further, President Aliyev has tried to get the attention of the EU in negotiations by emphasising the destabilisation potential of the conflict. Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs also called on the EU and other European institutions to ‘denounce what it regards as human right violations in the territories occupied by Armenian forces around Karabakh’ (Delcour & Wolczuk, 2018: 52). Nevertheless, the EU did not take such responsibility and evaluated this issue as a concern for the OSCE Minsk Group. However, it is clear that the Minsk Group is ineffective in terms of conflict resolution. The EU’s inconsistent approach to Karabakh—primarily, its reluctance to openly support Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity as it has done with Georgia—has been a major source of distress in bilateral relations (Simão, 2012: 198). Consequently, Azerbaijan assessed the capacity of the Brussels as an unsuccessful security provider in the region and took on a more neutral position as compared to pro-European Georgia and pro-Russian Armenia For example, during and after the 44-day Nagorno-Karabakh war, the EU called the sides to cease hostilities immediately and return to the negotiations table. Following the conflict, the EU mobilised in total EUR 6.9 million in humanitarian aid and expressed its readiness to support post-conflict recovery and to effectively contribute to the shaping of a durable and comprehensive settlement of the conflict, including through support for post-conflict rehabilitation and confidence building measures (EAAS, 2021: 29). However, these efforts were limited and failed to satisfy the demands of Azerbaijan as the EU only supported ‘the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of the partners’ as well as ‘efforts and mediation to end the conflicts,’ but without outlining an approach (Mirel, 2021) The relations between two parties that are based on DCFTA, economy, and finance do not present a comprehensive solution for the democracy and governance problems in Azerbaijan.

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Armenia and the EU Relations between Armenia and the EU are different from the other two Caucasian countries. Armenia’s first choice has always been Russia in terms of achieving territorial security. In this manner, Armenia has preserved its strategic alliance with Russia, and relations with the Western world were just seen as complementary. Armenia has evaluated the EU as simply a technical partner for collaboration on economic development and a donor for social reform. When ENP/EaP performance of the EU is assessed, it can be said that like the other ENP countries, the EU’s engagement in favour of Armenia’s democratisation through political conditionality was a failure (Bosse, 2019). The EU did not make political change a precondition for closer ties with Armenia. With the renewal of ENP and the more strengthened EaP, the EU tried to construct a new dialogue with Armenia-like other EaP countries through DCFTAs. Further, the EU also launched the negotiation process to promote legal approximation in Armenia. However, the then President Serzh Sargsyan’s announcement about Armenia’s plans to join Russia’s Customs Union instead of signing the AA with the EU came as a surprise for Brussels. There were several reasons explaining this unexpected decision. First, in terms of economic relations, Russia is Armenia’s main trading partner and primary source of foreign direct investment. In recent years, Russia has pursued a debt write-off policy in order to influence foreign policy decisions of its neighbouring countries. For instance, between 2002 and 2009, Russian companies acquired assets ranging from the country’s largest cement factory to the Armenian rail network in return for debt cancellation and significant Russian investment (Roberts & Ziemer, 2018: 155). Second, Russia has been accepted as a basic security provider throughout the post-Soviet period. Armenia was eager to become a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Collective Security Treaty (later the CSTO) in the 1990s. Like Azerbaijan, the major redline of Armenia’s foreign policy has been NagornoKarabakh. In this context, Armenia requires the military and political support of Russia, as Yerevan has never trusted the EU on this matter. Additionally, like Azerbaijan, Armenia has the same negative attitudes against the EU about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and has found the performance of the EU to be ineffective, limited, and constrained in

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the conflict settlement process. In 2010, after the failure of the ratification of the Zurich Protocols between Turkey and Armenia in particular, Russia began to increase its influence over Armenia. The Armenia-Turkey normalisation process was then halted as Russia persuaded Armenia to amend the treaty on Russian military bases so that the term of deployment would be 49 years instead of 25 (Grigoryan, 2014, 199). Third, energy dependency has been a major factor of the Armenian government. The Armenia–Russia bilateral gas deal which was signed in December 2013 grants Gazprom a monopoly to operate pipelines in Armenia and prevents the Armenian government from making regulatory changes in this area until 31 December 2043 (Kostanyan & Grigosian, 2016: 2). Further, Russia is also home to the world’s largest Armenian diaspora, and Armenian migrant workers in Russia make up 9.1% of Armenia’s GDP (Kostanyan, 2015: 2). Finally, Armenia is Russia’s most obedient neighbour. It has been an easy target for Russian state-controlled companies, which are buying out most of the country’s strategic assets. Thus, Armenian political elites have readily given up the country’s strategic infrastructure (Lebanidze, 2020b: 142). Russian oligarchs still own the energy sector in the country and Russia plays its energy card whenever necessary. For example, to persuade Armenia to refuse to sign the AA with the EU, Russia increased gas prices in Armenia by 50% in April 2013 (Asbarez, 2013). In this context, Armenia is a type of battlefield between the EU and Russia in terms of authoritarian diffusion and democratic transformation. However, authoritarian incumbents and powerful oligarchic clans inside the country are in favour of an autocratic regime over the EU’s democratic Europeanisation process. Further, as explained above, Russia uses hard and soft power tools to diffuse autocracy inside the country. The asymmetry of power between Moscow and Yerevan has also created natural diffusion between these two powers. Moreover, Russia exerts a great influence on Armenian society as Russian-controlled media groups like Sputnik as well as Armenian- and Russian-supported NGOs create a more pro-Russian environment in the country. However, Armenia’s civil society has benefited from Western funding too. For example, according to the Russian Federation Council’s International Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, nearly 350 Armenian NGOs have been actively agitating against Eurasian integration in favour of the EU (Roberts & Ziemer, 2018:157). After the renewal of the ENP, Armenia has sought to regain and restore relationships with the EU and deepen its ties with the West more

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broadly. Thus, the two sides re-opened negotiations on the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which created a more dynamic and ambitious framework for cooperation. The CEPA was later signed in the Fall of 2017. The scope of political dialogue and the inclusion of the EU acquis in legally binding provisions across a range of sectoral areas of cooperation consists of AAs without Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) responsibilities (Terzyan, 2019: 103). In the process of renewal of the ENP and Armenia’s U-turn, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan played an important role by criticising Armenia’s enormous dependence on Russia. His criticism influenced Armenia’s advancement towards the EU. The strategy of balancing Western and Russian interests has been very popular among Armenian political elites and academia, and particularly after the election of Pashinyan. After rising to power, Pashinyan focused on the EU democratic reforms. He tried to change the old system by reducing the power of oligarchs, former elites, and the ruling party, and preventing corruption, and diminishing the power of monopolies. He adopted several national strategies to fight against corruption and promote human rights and introduced reforms in the governance structures of the police and judiciary (EAAS, 2021: 27). After 2018, the EU has also increased its assistance to Armenia, expanded its funds for fighting corruption and reforming the justice sector, and increased its support for civil society organisations (Freedom House, 2021) However, Nagorno-Karabakh war changed all positive conditions and achievement of Velvet Revolution and weakened the reform movement. This situation has created a securitydemocracy dilemma inside the country (Delocour, 2021; Ohanyan, 2021). During the war, the government started to implement martial law, for example, controlling media contents which are related with war. After the war, the ceasefire undermined the government’s legitimacy and created a chaotic environment inside the country; opposition parties started to question the role of the prime minister. Although NGOs and media are the vital components of Armenia’s democracy, after the war, NGOs sustained attacks from conservative groups, and hate speeches have expanded inside the country (Freedom House, 2021). The war in Nagorno-Karabakh also increased the influence of Russia in Armenia (Lebanidze, 2020b: 144, see also Ohanyan, 2021). While Azerbaijan achievements during and after the war against Armenia triggered the sense of insecurity among Armenians, the Russian peacekeeping presence on the

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ground promoted public safety as Armenia cannot ensure its own security. It is thus commonly believed that only deeper integration with Russia (not with any other actor) can prevent outbreak of war in the region (Atlantic Council, 2021).

Conclusion Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the EU tried to promote stability and security in its near abroad through different strategies and policies such as ENP and EaP. By strengthening democracy and rule of law and improving transparency and good governance, the EU seeks to create a welfare zone and security environment in its neighbourhood. In order to eliminate its weaknesses, the EU has renewed its policies since 2004, and has tried to cope with local resilience and regional realities. However, policies and values of the EU do not overlap with the expectations of countries in the region. Several reasons caused the expectations-realities gap and security-democracy nexus. First, security and solutions for regional conflicts are the key for creating stability. Basic concerns of Caucasus countries are regional conflicts and border disputes. South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh problems are clear obstacles in front of the EU’s efforts to establish good governance and democracy in the region. During the last NagornoKarabakh war, Turkey and Russia shaped the conflict and post-conflict processes as well as the ceasefire conditions. These policies adopted by other regional actors deteriorate the credibility of the EU as a real partner and its good governance reform agenda. Moreover, the EU has conducted its regional policies on economic incentives through DCFTAs. Especially after the EaP, the normative magnetism of EU policies was reduced, and the collaboration with the partner countries shifted to more economic and technical areas. Second, after the South Ossetia intervention and annexation of Crimea, Russia’s power and influence has increased significantly in the region. Russia views the Caucasus region as its own backyard and benefits from instability, conflicts, and fragile democratic institutions of these countries. Russia also uses its economic power and energy resources as a bargaining chip over the countries. Third, Russia has established regional organisations competing with the EEU and tried to make its own free trade agreements, countering EU’s DCFTAs with the aim of promoting influence in its immediate neighbourhood. Russia also benefits from bad

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governance structures, corruption, unfair elections, and the weakness of governments of the Caucasus region. Last but not least, the democratic erosion and internal crises in the EU also weakened the EU’s good governance transfer capacity. Since the 2008 economic crisis, far-right parties started to gain power in many EU countries triggering xenophobia and nationalism and mobilising popular support for anti-immigration policies After the Arab uprising and Syrian civil war, the fortress Europe approach has become more decisive. The EU started to lose its own traditional values such as cosmopolitanism, multilateralism, tolerance, and democracy. As the EU can’t even cope with Poland and Hungary in terms of democracy standards, its reliability started to diminish. Such dilemmas reduce the motivation of its partners in its ENP, weaken the role of the EU as a good governance promoter, and more importantly open more room for illiberal alternatives such as Russia.

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Dekanozishvili, M. (2020). The European Union’s credibility–expectations gap in its European neighborhood policy: Perspectives from Georgia and Ukraine. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 20(2), 289–305. Delcour, L. (2018a). Lost in transition: The liberal international order in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus. The International Spectator, 53(1), 109–121. Delcour, L. (2018b). Dealing with the elephant in the room: The EU, its ‘Eastern Neighborhood’ and Russia. Contemporary Politics, 24(1), 14–29. Delcour, L. (2019). Armenia’s and Georgia’s contrasted positioning vis-àvis the EU: Between vocal centrality and strategic marginality. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 27 (4), 439–450. Delcour, L. (2021, January 19). The future of democracy and state building in postconflict Armenia, Carnegie Europe. Delcour, L., & Hoffmann, K. (2018). The EU’s policy in the South Caucasus. L’europe En Formation, 385, 7–25. Delcour, L., & Wolczuk, K. (2018). Well-meaning but ineffective? Perceptions of the EU’s role as a security actor in the South Caucasus. European Foreign Affairs Review, 23(1), 41–60. Delcour, L., & Wolczuk, K. (2021). Mind the gap: Role expectations and perceived performance of the EU in the South Caucaus. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 62(2), 156–177. Dobrescua, M., & Schumacher, T. (2018). The politics of flexibility: Exploring the contested statehood–EU Actorness Nexus in Georgia. Geopolitics, 1–21. EAAS. (2021). https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2020_eu_h uman_rights_and_democracy_country_reports.pdf. accessed 10 July 2021. Euronews. (2021, November 5). Georgia frees jailed opposition leader Nika Melia after EU posts bail. European Commission. (2019). EU neighbourhood policy. https://ec.europa. eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/neighbourhood/countries/azerbaijan_en. Accessed 5 September 2019. Freedomhouse. (2021). Nations in Transit-Armenia. https://freedomhouse. org/country/armenia/nations-transit/2021. Accessed 10 July 2021. Grigoryan, A. (2014). Armenia: Joining under the gun. In S. F. Starr & S.E. Cornell (Eds.), Putin’s grand strategy: The Eurosian Union and its discontents (pp.98–108). Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies. Ikani, N. (2019). Change and continuity in the European neighborhood policy: The Ukraine crisis as a critical juncture. Geopolitics, 24(1), 20–50. Kostanyan, H. (2015). The rocky road to an EU-Armenia agreement: From Uturn to detour. CEPS Commentary, Centre for European Policy Studies. Kostanyan, H., & Giragosian, R. (2016). EU-Armenian relations: Seizing the second chance. CEPS Commentary, Centre for European Policy Studies. Lebanidze, B. (2020a). Resilience and democracy: Can a pragmatic EU still promote democracy in Georgia? Georgian Institute of Politics, 21, 1–7.

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Lebanidze, B. (2020b). European and Russian strategies in the Post-Soviet space. Springer VS. Mirel, P. (2021). The Eastern Partnership: Between resilience and interference, Foundation Robert Schuman Policy Paper. https://www.robert-schuman.eu/ en/doc/questions-d-europe/qe-589-en.pdf. accessed 8 July 2021. Ohanyan, A. (2021, March 3). Peace and reform: Europe’s role in the PostKarabakh War Caucasus. Carnegie Moscow Center. Pishchikova, K. (2019). Facing a fragmented neighbourhood: The EU and six eastern partnership countries. In S. Giusti & I. Mirkina (Eds.), The EU in a trans-European space: External relations across Europe, Asia and the Middle East (pp. 157–176). Palgrave Macmillan. Putkaradze, R. (2019). Georgia in the European Union’s Eastern partnership countries: Historical aspects and challenges. Ecoforum, 8(1), 1–6. Roberts, S., & Ziemer, U. (2018). Explaining the pattern of Russian authoritarian diffusion in Armenia. East European Politics, 34(2), 152–172. Simão, L. (2012). The problematic role of EU democracy promotion in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 45(1–2), 193–200. Sinikukka, S. (2021). What if...The EU fails to promote democracy in Georgia? European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), 40–44. https://www. jstor.org/stable/resrep28677.10 Terzyan, A. (2019). Bringing Armenia Closer to Europe? Challenges to the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement Implementation. Romanian Journal of European Affairs, 19(1), 97–110. Tulmets, E., Vieira, A., & Ferreira-Pereira, L. C. (2018). Introduction: Competing conditionalities? Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus between the European Union and Russia. European Politics and Society, 19(4), 451–470. Van Gils, E. (2018). From ‘unilateral’ to ‘dialogical’: Determinants of EU–Azerbaijan negotiations. Europe-Asia Studies, 70(10), 1572–1596. Vyshka, K., & Maurice, W. (2018). The importance of being European: Reflections on EU-Georgia relations. Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 2(2), 51–54.

CHAPTER 7

EU Good Governance Promotion and Development Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa in an Age of Democracy Crisis Samiratou Dipama

Introduction The growing acknowledgement since the end of the 1990s among international donors is that uncontrolled aid and economic conditionality have failed to produce satisfactory development results in the developing world (Easterly, 2000; Mkandiwire & Soludo, 1999) and have even contributed to empowering authoritarian regimes; this has led to an increasing consideration of the associated political aspects, especially the governance feature of the recipient countries, in development cooperation policies. This stems from the 1998 World Bank report evaluating the effects of ten

S. Dipama (B) Department of Political Sciences and International Relations, Tokat Gaziosmanpasa University, Tokat, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_7

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years’ structural adjustment programmes that the bad governance situation in the recipient countries has been one of the main hidden causes of poor performance by the recipient countries (World Bank, 1988: 3). In this respect, good governance, defined narrowly by the World Bank as ‘the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development’ (World Bank, 1992) has started to become a central feature of external donors’ development aid policies. This thinner definition provided by the World Bank focuses on the institutional aspects of good governance and refers to what is called ‘effective’ governance, which is restricted to the promotion of efficient and transparent state institutions. This article, however, adopts a broader definition of good governance, that of so-called ‘democratic governance’, which encompasses not only institutional dimensions related to the transparent and efficient management of public resources but also political aspects such as the promotion of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law (Burnell, 2000; Santiso, 2003). On the one hand, development cooperation is used as a tool to promote good governance practices in the recipient countries through budget and project support directed towards strengthening state institutions and CSOs; on the other, good governance has been used as a criterion for aid allocation, meaning that donor countries attach certain political strings to their development cooperation frameworks to the extent that the provision, increase, or decrease of financial and technical support is based upon recipient countries’ performance in terms of making substantial democratic and governance reforms. Theoretically, norms have always been at the centre of EU internal and external policies to the extent that the EU is technically considered a global normative actor, using primarily normative means for the attainment of its normative ends. In this sense, Article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) expressly stipulated the preponderant role of norms such as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law shall shape the EU’s domestic and international actions. The EU has used different frameworks to promote good governance in SSA, especially after the wave of democratisation that occurred in this region in the 1990s, ranging from political dialogue to political conditionality, and also financial and technical assistance. The Cotonou Partnership Agreement adopted in 2000, which defines democracy, human rights, and the rule of law as ‘essential elements’ and good governance as a ‘fundamental element’ of the agreement, provides the EU with the right to put sanctions on

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the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP-later renamed Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States) group of countries violating these elements. It is important to note that the choice between effective and democratic governance promotion in the context of the EU’s relations with SSA is not fixed but rather varies according to country (see Chapter 8 in this book). Certain factors like the level of dependency on the aid of the SSA countries and the existence of key economic interests of the EU member states in SSA countries influence the EU’s preference for ‘effective’ governance over ‘democratic’ governance, and vice versa (Börzel & Hackenesch, 2013). Although there is a significant body of academic work in the literature analysing the impact of the EU’s democracy promotion instruments (Kotzian et al., 2011; Portela, 2010; Warkotsch, 2008), few elaborate on the implications of these instruments for good governance promotion in SSA. The assessment of this issue is very timely in the context of the growing democratic decline in the world in general and in the EU in particular, as shown by the evolving authoritarian trend in certain EU member states like Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic. In this sense, the long-hailed EU’s normative power is going through a dire test which will likely have repercussions on its external norm promotion and diffusion’s missions. Against this backdrop, this chapter aims to complete the existing literature in a critical context of a general trend of democratic backsliding in the EU through a critical assessment of the scope and challenges of the EU’s political and financial instruments in promoting good governance in SSA. In doing so, it will first offer an overview of EU-SSA relations from a historical perspective and will then review the different instruments and policies used by the EU to boost good governance in SSA. In a third step, this paper reviews the main data about EU governance aid towards SSA to draw a picture of the features of EU governance aid policies towards SSA (relying mainly on OECD data). In a fourth and final step, this paper will provide a critical decrypting of the development cooperation instruments used by the EU to bolster good governance in SSA using academic articles, reports, and quantitative data.

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Evolution and Framework of EU-Sub-Saharan Africa Relations The EU’s relations with sub-Saharan Africa to date have been governed by successive agreements concluded between the EU and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) group of states since the adoption of the Treaty of Rome, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. An Association Agreement was included in the Treaty of Rome that laid the ground for the creation of the European Development Fund (EDF), which became effective in 1959. The EDF, which until recently constituted the main financial instrument of development cooperation between the EU and SSA, granted financial and technical assistance to African and overseas territories that were still under colonial rule at that time. Following the accession of former colonies to independence, the Yaoundé I Convention (1964–1969) was signed on 20 July 1969 between the then EEC and the ACP states. The Yaoundé I Convention ‘gave eighteen ex-colonial countries in Africa commercial advantages such as the duty-free access of specified African goods into the European markets and developmental aid and excluded the Caribbean and pacific states’ (Roth, 2009: 15). Upon the expiration of the Yaoundé I Convention, the Yaoundé II Convention was adopted and became operational on 1 January 1971. Compared to Yaoundé I, Yaoundé II was based on reciprocity between the two parts and enhanced the sense of responsibility of the associated countries in that the reduction of the custom duties benefited not only these countries, but also the EEC (Bjorvnskouv & Krivonnos, 2001). The expiration of the Yaoundé conventions lent impetus to the adoption of the so-called four Lomé Conventions, which shaped European development aid from 1975 to 2000. The call for new negotiations stemmed from increasing voices raised against the ongoing neo-colonial blueprint and unproductiveness of the former Yaoundé conventions, as well as from the necessity to include former UK colonies in the conventions following the UK’s accession to the EEC in 1973. The ACP was formally established in February 1975 by the Georgetown Agreement concluded between the European Community and 46 developing countries (37 African, six Caribbean, and three pacific). The Lomé conventions introduced non-reciprocal trade preferences, which gave, among others, ACP countries favourably discriminative and non-reciprocal access to

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European markets while providing continued financial support to ACP countries under the EDF. One of the major innovations of Lomé III (1985–1990) was the inclusion of some kind of ‘policy dialogue’ in Article 215 of the Convention in the following terms: ‘the draft indicative program (…) shall be the subject of exchange of views between the representatives of the ACP state concerned and those of the community to ensure the maximum effectiveness of cooperation schemes’ (Unspecified, 1985). Unlike the previous conventions, Lomé IV was set up for a ten-year period covering 1990 to 2000 but still under a five-year financial protocol. In the mid-term, several developments occurring in Europe, such as the eastern enlargement process, and in Africa, like the democratisation process in several African countries, led to the Mid-term Review of Lomé IV in 1994–1995. The mid-term review introduced important political changes to EU-ACP relations in its Article 366a by positioning democracy, human rights, and the rule of law as ‘essential elements of the Convention, by including a consultation procedure in case of perceived violations of these elements and a suspension clause as a measure of last resort (Unspecified, 1996). These political developments indicated that a violation of these ‘essential’ elements by an ACP country could lead to a partial or total suspension of development cooperation when political dialogue to remedy the situation failed. Later, 78 ACP countries and the EU-15 signed the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) in June 2000, which was subsequently revised in 2010. The new agreement is often called ‘a ground-breaking and innovative framework for development, adapted to the needs of international cooperation in the early 21St century’ (ECDPM, 2008). The novelty of the CPA stems firstly from its holistic approach to EU-ACP relations by including development cooperation, political cooperation, and economic and trade cooperation as its main pillars. Although the CPA fosters the conditionality clause introduced in the Lomé IV revised convention, in its Article 9(1) it makes a clear separation between, on the one hand, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law as essential elements, and good governance as a ‘fundamental element’ of the agreement on the other. The current Cotonou Agreement was set to expire in February 2020 but due to the effects of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the application of the CPA has been extended until 30 November 2021 at the latest awaiting the signature of the new agreement. In all, the post-Cotonou

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agenda should be built on key lessons learned from past experiences and should reflect the normative status of the EU with an extensive focus on development cooperation as a tool for norms diffusion to SSA countries.

Understanding the Main Characteristics of the EU’s Good Governance Aid Data This section offers an overview of the main data about EU governance aid in SSA to draw inferences about the main features of the EU governance aid from a statistical perspective. Table 7.1 shows that, on average, the share of governance issues in the EU’s ODA disbursement to SSA is very low, amounting to merely 11.59% between 2010 and 2019. From 2010 to 2014, there has not been very significant variation in the volume and percentage share of the EU’s governance aid to SSA, although there have been some relative increasing and decreasing fluctuations in the amount. In contrast, there has been a sharp increase in the amount and share of EU governance aid to SSA from 2015 to 2016, increasing, respectively, from USD $575.943 million in 2015 to USD $716.625 million in 2016, and from a 12.80% share in 2015 to a 15.25% share in 2016. This impressive increase is partly attributed to the increasing spill-over effects of the increasing security Table 7.1 EU governance aid as a share of total EU gross aid disbursements in sub-Saharan Africa (2010–2019; current USD and %) Years 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2010–2019 Average

Total volume of EU governance aid (Current USM Mio)

Governance aid as a share of EU’s total ODA (%)

554.610 569.635 559.567 554.246 594.938 580.435 575.943 716.625 865.615 736.859 630.84

11.73 11.70 11.04 11.84 11.22 14.34 12.80 15.25 16.04 14.31 11.59

Source OECD Statistics-Credit Reporting System, https://stats.oecd.org/

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threats (illegal migration, terrorism) in SSA on EU countries. Whereas the volume and percentage share of EU governance aid continued to grow from 2017 to 2018, a falling trend has been observed from 2018 to 2019, with the percentage share falling from 16.04% in 2018 to 14.31% in 2019. Regarding the sectors, Table 7.2 showcases that the EU has used about 41.69% of its governance aid to support the effectiveness of government institutions (public sector reform- public financial management-support to subnational government anti-corruption institutions-legal and judicial development). In terms of the security aspects of good governance, the EU has disbursed in total 14.29% and 14.87% of its total governance aid to, respectively, reinforce recipient countries’ security systems and to support conflict prevention, resolution, and peacebuilding efforts. In terms of support for democratic governance, the majority of EU aid is used to support civil society (12.87%) and elections (11.56%) at the expense of human rights, which only receives about 4.95% of the Table 7.2 Sectoral distribution as a percentage of EU governance gross aid disbursement to Sub-Saharan Africa, 2010–2019

Good governance sectors Public sector policy and administrative management Public finance management Decentralization and support to subnational government Anti-corruption organizations and institutions Legal and judicial development Democratic participation and civil society Elections Legislatures and political parties Media and free flow of information Human rights Women’s equality organizations and institutions Security System Management & reform Civilian peace-building, conflict prevention& resolution

Percentage share (%) 13.96 9.11 7.84 1.18 9.60 12.87 11.56 0.68 0.53 4.95 1.04 14.29 14.87

Source OECD Statistics-Credit Reporting System (Government & Civil Society), https://stats.oecd.org/

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EU’s total governance aid. The governance sectors of the legislature and political parties (0.68%) and of media and information freedom (0.53%) received the lowest shares of EU’s governance aid between 2010 and 2019. Direct financial support for gender equality is also very limited, amounting to only 1.04% of the EU’s total governance aid disbursement (see Table 7.2). One can deduce a clear prioritisation of the institutional aspects of good governance by the EU over the political aspect of democratic inclusiveness from these data. This entails that the EU adopts a selective approach (not comprehensive) to the good governance norm in SSA. Table 7.3 shows that project-type constitutes the most frequently used channel of EU good governance promotion in SSA, as it represents more than half of the EU’s total governance aid throughout the above years. Technical assistance comes second, whilst budget support constitutes the least-used channel for good governance promotion in SSA, except for 2017, 2018, and 2019. The advantage of project-type interventions is that the projects are implemented under the control of EU institutions and, as such, the implementation is likely to be much more transparent and impactful in terms of reaching the intended target. Nonetheless, budget support partially contributes to enhancing the governance structure of the recipient countries because sound institutional and budget management systems are preconditions for the eligibility to and provision of budget support; the EU also provides technical and administrative support to eligible countries with the aim of improving their budgetary systems. Yet, budget support, especially general budget support, provides an exclusive manoeuvre to the recipient country’s government regarding the manner in which the funds will be used to support good governance. Taking into consideration the degree of corruption of many governments in SSA and their authoritarian practices and, further, given the state-centred focus under EDF, it is likely that the funds will not be used efficiently to serve its initial cause (promoting good governance), especially when it comes to increasing CSO pace and enhancing accountability. In this context, the prevalence of projects in the EU governance aid disbursement towards SSA is a positive and welcoming step towards increasing the effectiveness of EU good governance policies. Table 7.4 indicates that in SSA, the top 10 recipients of EU governance aid between 2010 and 2019 were the DRC (7.73%), followed respectively by Somalia (7.37%), Nigeria (6.25%), Niger (5.51%), Mali (5.23%), Tanzania (3.54%), CAR (3.24%), Benin (2.96%), Chad (2.74%)

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

Source OECD Statistics-Credit Reporting System, https://stats.oecd.org/

15.894 47.474 33.623 18.148 22.914 36.253 40.003 92.096 87.937 85.711 3.24% 9.87% 7.47% 4.40% 5.22% 8.41% 9.73% 17.70% 14.61% 11.63% Project-type interventions 304.179 325.144 318.410 270.864 317.764 292.094 309.098 388.622 446.629 620.569 61.51% 67.60% 70.80% 65.77% 72.50% 67.81% 75.24% 74.70% 74.20% 84.21% Experts and other technical 110.543 58.367 84.151 93.108 85.455 58.941 47.406 23.142 31.965 14.293 assistance 22.57% 12.13% 18.71% 22.60% 19.26% 13.69% 11.54% 4.44% 5.31% 1.93%

Budget Support

2010

Table 7.3 EU governance ODA gross disbursement to sub-Saharan Africa by type of aid (in current million USD and as a percentage of total governance aid) 2010–2019

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Table 7.4 Top ten recipients of EU governance aid disbursements in subSaharan Africa Average 2010–2019 as a percentage) Country

Average 2010–2019 share of total EU governance aid gross disbursement to SSA (in %)

South of Sahara, total DRC Somalia Nigeria Niger Mali Tanzania Central African Republic-CAR Benin Chad South Africa

100 7.73 7.34 6.25 5.51 5.23 3.54 3.24 2.96 2.74 2.46

Source OECD Statistics, https://stats.oecd.org/

and South Africa (2.46%). Among the largest recipients of EU governance aid were countries that are considered relatively democratic and stable, such as South Africa, Tanzania, and Benin. The remaining seven countries, namely DRC, Somalia, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, CAR, and Chad are experiencing serious security and governance problems. This is a positive approach since good governance is not only the issue of ‘failed states’ but also of nascent democratic countries in SSA (to help them maintain and improve this positive trend). Furthermore, the fact that the top five recipients of EU governance aid between 2010 and 2019, namely DRC, Somalia, Nigeria, Niger, and Mali, are currently important ‘playgrounds’ for terrorist organisations, mainly in the horn of Africa and in the Sahel, signals the increasing securitisation of the EU’s approach to good governance in SSA. It follows from Table 7.5 that between 2010 and 2019, in Europe, the UK provided the largest amount of governance aid (USD 420.64 million), followed by Germany (350.88 million USD), Sweden (USD 265.39 million), Denmark (162.62 million USD), the Netherlands (120.42 million USD), France (68.30 million USD), and Belgium (63.73 million USD). Although with the likes of Germany and the UK, France ranks among the top EU donors to SSA, it is only the sixth-largest member state in terms of governance aid. This shows some variances

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Table 7.5 Largest European governance aid donors (disbursements in USD millions, 2010–2019) –All Channels

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EU institutions

630.84

UK Germany Sweden Denmark Netherlands France Belgium

420.64 350.88 265.39 126.62 120.42 68.30 63.73

Source OECD Statistics-Credit Reporting System, https://stats. oecd.org/

in the importance attributed to the good governance issue among key EU member states. This variation in the importance attributed to EU member states in their development cooperation policies towards SSA certainly impacts negatively on the effectiveness of the EU good governance policies towards SSA because this will increase inconsistencies in their reaction against cases of breaches in SSA countries and undermine the EU’s credibility as a normative actor in this region.

Decrypting the EU’s Good Governance Promotion Instruments in SSA In the specific case of SSA, the EU mainly uses financial and political means to spur good governance. Financial Instruments The financial instruments are mostly related to development aid as an important tool to strengthen good governance in SSA countries through projects, budget, and technical support aimed at strengthening government institutions and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). One of the main financial instruments governing the relations between the EU and SSA countries is the EDF, established in the early years of the Treaty of Rome. Until its integration into the EU’s 2021–2027 MultiFinancial Framework, which represents a fusion of all existing external financial instruments into the so-called Neighbourhood, Development, and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI-with geographic and thematic lines), the EDF was not part of the EU budget and was based

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on voluntary contributions from EU member states (Raunio & Wolfgang, 2021: 22 see also European Commission, 2021). The EDF constituted an important tool through which the EU supports good governance in SSA countries, either through making development aid conditional on the democratic conditionality performance of the recipient countries, as in the case of budget support (good governance principles are the main criteria for budget allocation), or through dedicated funds in the project and technical support programmes aiming at strengthening and improving the governance space in the recipient countries (Börzel & Hackenesch, 2013). Nonetheless, the fact that the EDF, which was not part of the EU budget until recently, depended on successively renegotiated contributions from the member states under the procedures defined in the Cotonou Agreement might challenge the EU’s efforts at good governance promotion. The intergovernmental feature of the EDF meant that EU member states contributing the most would have the last say on the sectoral and geographical distribution of EDF funds, leading therefore to an increasing ‘politicisation’ of the EU’s external development policy (Hackenesch et al., 2021). More often than not the biggest contributors to EDF funds in SSA are former colonial powers like France, UK, Germany, and Italy, i.e. with huge political, economic, and security interests in SSA. This intergovernmental nature of the EDF likely had a negative impact on its efficiency as an instrument of good governance promotion since the question of where and to whom funds should be directed was mostly dependent on the self-interests of the key contributors, with little regard for EU norms and values and without the scrutiny of the Parliament, the guardian of the EU’s positive image and norms inside and outside (D’Alfonso, 2014). As such, it is very likely that on many occasions the EU’s norms of good governance promotion had been traded against its member states’ self-interests in SSA. Indeed, it is sometimes argued in the literature that the EU has been reluctant to impose sanctions on certain SSA government leaders committing serious violations of the democratic and good governance principle due to the need for certain EU member states to maintain friendly relationships with government officials and secure their own interests in the country. So, it is argued that the EU is much more prompt to impose sanctions on SSA countries where they have very minimal interests and with whom they are not on good terms.

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For instance, some scholars have substantiated the connection between the level of aid and economic dependency and the effectiveness of the EU good governance promotion in the cases of Angola and Ethiopia by contending that whereas in the case of Angola, the EU’s governance approach shifted gradually from democratic governance reform to effective governance reforms, EU’s policies towards Ethiopia have shifted towards democratic governance (Börzel & Hackenesch, 2013). They argued that this differing approach of the EU towards the two SSA countries can be explained by the fact that, unlike Ethiopia, Angola is not an aid-dependent country, and some key EU member states have strong economic interests in Angola, and this has considerably reduced the EU’s leverage to push for democratic governance reforms in Angola and pushed the EU to focus rather on the less-controversial issue of state-building (Ibid). Finally, the inclusion of the EDF into the EU budget can, at first glance, be seen as an important move through which the geostrategic considerations of its members in the choice of the sectoral priorities for funding will be considerably restrained due to the direct oversight capacity of the European Parliament on NDICI funds. In this context, the merger of EDF with the NDICI can partly contribute to preventing overlapping actions across projects and to mitigating the likelihood of trade-offs between member states’ material interests and EU norms, including good governance because the Parliament will have more power in pushing for the promotion of the EU norms in its main external financial instrument, the NDICI. Put differently, the Parliament will have a larger say in the formulation of the development cooperation strategies and policies because through the Parliament’s involvement in the Commission’s budget approval, ‘‘the EP-committees for foreign affairs (AFET) and development (DEVE) also have the option to be more involved at an early stage, by helping to set strategic or policy goals and planning out governance of the funds’’ (Hoogeland & Stracquadanio, 2021). Nonetheless, it is important to note that ‘the shift from a multiannual rolling fund to annual disbursement may pose a risk to the predictability of EU governance assistance to SSA’ (Gavas & Pleeck, 2021). Moreover, the still prevailing role played by the Commission (at the expense of the Parliament) in the implementation of development projects (Hoogel & Stracquadanio, 2021) with the still possible influence of key EU member states can reduce the hope invested in the capacity of the EDF’s merger

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with the NDICI to reduce possible trade-offs between certain member states’ egoistic interests and the EU norm promotion mission in SSA. Besides the EDF, SSA countries, until their inclusion into the NDICI in 2021, benefited from aid funding from the EU budget under the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) and European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) instruments. SSA countries mainly receive funds under the DCI thematic development programmes directed towards poverty reduction and CSOs and local actors’ empowerment (Seek Development, 2012: 2). In the illustration, the Pan-African programme established in 2014 is an EU financial instrument that is dedicated to complement the EDF and implementing the Joint AfricaEU strategy in five main areas, including inclusiveness, good governance, peace, security, and democratic principles (EuropeAid website, n.d.). The EIDHR, through its financial support dedicated mainly to CSOs and NGOs, helped to enhance the democratic and human rights conditions in SSA countries. Although the majority of EIDHR funds are directed to actions boosting democracy, it included actions related to the strengthening of the capacity of political parties and parliaments in its 2016–2017 Multi-Annual Action Programme (Zamfir, 2017). Through its extensive focus on non-state actors as the main beneficiaries of its funds, the EIDHR contributes to mitigate partially the state-centred approach of the EDF and to enhance the transnational and inclusive features of EU good governance policies. Part of the EIDHR funds is also used to support elections in SSA countries through deploying election observation missions (EOMs) in SSA countries where elections are contentious to help ensure they remain free and fair (EuropeAid Website, n.d.). The EU has deployed EOMs in numerous SSA countries, such as the Ivory Coast in 2011, Zimbabwe in 2013, Gabon, Ghana, and Zambia in 2016, and Gambia in 2017. Political Instruments There are essentially two instruments used by the EU to boost good governance in SSA: political dialogue with partner countries, and political conditionality. Indeed, political consultation with partner countries constitutes a tool of good governance promotion in the SSA countries. This approach is consecrated in Articles 8 and 9 of the Cotonou Agreement as one of the instruments used to preclude the activation of Article 96, which could eventually lead to sanctions. Under the political dialogue

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umbrella, the EU holds regular political dialogues with partner country to prevent serious breaches of human rights, democratic principles, the rule of law, and good governance in the recipient country, or otherwise to remedy such serious breaches. The rationale behind political dialogue is to create an interactive pace of communication through which the EU can, through regular monitoring of the situation, exhort the concerned SSA government to cease the ongoing democratic breaches and to open pace for a democratic political environment in a respectful manner (Carbone, 2005). Political conditionality is the other political instrument used by the EU to promote good governance in SSA. As stated above, the CPA brought certain novelties to the political conditional clause in EU-ACP relations by not merely reiterating human rights, democratic principles, and rule of law introduced in Lomé IV-bis as ‘essential elements of the agreement, but by making reference to good governance as a ‘fundamental element’ of the agreement. The EU relies increasingly on political conditionality to promote its governance reform goals either as a precondition for the provision of budget support (European Commission, 2017) or for the increase or decrease in the amount of development assistance. In this sense, the EU uses both positive and negative conditionality in its strategies of good governance promotion in SSA. Positive conditionality, as a rewarding financial instrument directed to SSA countries, as used in efforts to uphold political and democratic norms, has been foreseen in Art. 3, Annex IV of the agreement in the following terms: ‘resource allocation shall be based […] on performance’ that, inter alia, includes ‘progress in implementing institutional reforms’ (Annex IV, Art. 3 CPA). This reward in the form of increasing the amount of aid to the benefit of a given SSA country is meant to encourage the beneficiary country and its peers, as well to continue making reforms that enhance the pace of democratic, institutional, and human rights in SSA countries. Besides positive conditionality, the EU makes use of negative conditionality to bolster good governance promotion in SSA. Negative conditionality, referring to the total or partial suspension of the development cooperation in cases of breaches, is foreseen in Article 96 of the CPA. Nonetheless, it should be stressed that the ‘fundamental’ element of good governance is excluded from the scope of Article 96 of the CPA, meaning that this article cannot be activated in cases of serious good governance breaches. In this regard, the EU can take actions against an SSA government only in case of serious breaches of the essential elements of the

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CPA and when political dialogue fails, whereupon these measures shall immediately be revoked if ‘the reasons for taking them no longer prevail’ (Article 96 of the CPA). This separation of good governance from political principles, such as human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, especially in the context of the suspension clause, reflects the EU’s initially narrow understanding of good governance. Nonetheless, the possibility for the EU to adopt appropriate measures in cases of violations of some aspects of good governance, namely corruption and act of bribery leading to corruption, and when political dialogue fails, have been foreseen in Article 97 of the CPA (Article 97 CPA). Yet, Article 97, which also foresees the launch of political dialogue and even the adoption of appropriate measures against corrupt regimes, has never been applied; this represents a failure on the part of the EU, even though SSA countries’ records at fighting corruption are poor, according to the various transparency international reports. According to Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), SSA is the lowest scoring region regarding CPI with an average of 32 out of 100 (well below the global average score which is 43 out of 100), painting a grim picture of the corruption that is endemic to this region (Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, 2020). This EU reluctance to effectively sanction corrupt regimes in SSA, coupled with the fact that Article 96 cannot be used to impose sanctions against regimes committing serious breaches to the good governance principle (as a fundamental element) in the region, is likely to worsen the governance structure of these countries because corruption is one of the main causes of the chaotic governance in many SSA countries. Despite the increasing activeness of the EU to use negative conditionality as a means of good governance promotion in SSA, many doubt the productivity of these sanctions. Indeed, sanctions are considered ineffective and counterproductive in promoting good governance since they generally harm the general populace more than the government officials they actually target, with the ensuing socio-economic crises likely to exacerbate corrupt practices and internal conflicts. Government officials can even use these imposed sanctions to increase their popularity quota in the eyes of their citizens and discredit the EU’s actions in this country, especially in these particular times of increased democratic backsliding in some EU countries, particularly in former communist states such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. This general trend of democratic decline is evidenced by the latest Freedom House

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report in which ‘the proportion of countries deemed ‘not free’ is now the highest it has been in the past 15 years’ (Karˇci´c, 2021). In fact, these countries are increasingly attacking key EU norms such as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and are becoming increasingly authoritarian in substance through increased threats posed to judicial autonomy, free media, and to the civic sector. The fact that these countries, despite being members of the EU— considered the oasis and guardian of global norms and values—for a long time being able to readily pursue their illiberal actions without a firm reaction from the EU, have challenged the long-accepted idea of democracy as a model of development par excellence (Hackenesch et al., 2021; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020; V-Dem Institute, 2019). In this sense, if actions are not effectively taken to stop this illiberal trend in the EU, African leaders and people’s appeal to democracy and good governance could be eroded and the EU’s credibility in SSA would vanish, undermining its efforts to promote good governance in the region; this could potentially nurture the growing sentiment among the African people and leaders that the EU uses its power to impose conditions on Africans that it fails to fulfil at home. The newly adopted Rule of Law conditionality clause by the EU, which is meant to suspend payments to EU countries violating key norms such as human rights, democracy, and rule of law (European Parliament News, 2020), if well implemented, could re-enhance the EU’s image as a credible normative actor in the eyes of the African leaders and people. However, the current evolution with respect to the use of this clause is not encouraging given the latest warrants of the European Parliament against the EU Commission’s slowness in seriously addressing current rule of law breaches through opening quick investigations despite the fact that ‘the situation in some member states already warrants immediate action’ (European Parliament, 2021). The ineffectiveness of the sanctions imposed by the EU on African countries can also partly be attributed to the increasing presence of rising powers like China and Turkey in the development aid landscape of the continent (Aydin-Düzgit, 2020; Hackenesch, 2018). Since more often than not these emerging countries provide funding to African governments without political strings attached, they provide alternative sources of funding to authoritarian African leaders which makes a thinner positive behaviour change to comply with the EU’s imposed conditions for the resumption of development cooperation (Bader et al., 2010).

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Given the minimal role played by norms and values such as good governance and democracy in the development cooperation policies of these emerging actors towards SSA in contrast with the high profile played by political conditionality in the EU’s development cooperation policies towards the region, this chapter argues that the EU’s good governance promotion policies are likely to have limited impact on the ground as long as EU and the rising powers fail to harmonise their development cooperation policies, with norms being put at the centre in both theory and practice. Another interesting impact of the rise of these illiberal donors in SSA is that those like China propose another model of development to SSA countries, which is not necessarily based on norms. China is known to be a model of the authoritarian developmental state which has been able to register strong economic development without adhering to Western norms of democracy and rule of law. The entrance of these economically successful authoritarian regimes into the SSA region through their important investments in large infrastructural projects and know-how transfers at the expense of norm diffusion is likely to strengthen SSA leaders’ interest in the authoritarian model of development (Grimm & Hackenesch, 2017), and thus decrease their positive response to the EU’s norm-based model of development cooperation. The rise of illiberal donors like China in SSA can pose a threat to the EU’s normative and strategic interests in this region and to fierce competition between the EU and these new donors, which could in turn push the EU to narrow its good governance approach from democratic governance to thin and less-controversial statehood promotion, or even lead to less aid for good governance reform in order to maintain friendly relations with its SSA partners and not to lose its control over this strategic region. The analysis of Tables 7.1 and 7.2 seems to evidence this shift to a narrow approach to good governance promotion in SSA by the EU since, on average, between 2010 and 2019, nearly half of the EU good governance aid has focused on the promotion of state institutions (see Table 7.2) and the good governance aid share in total EU ODA towards SSA decreased from 16.04% in 2018 to 14.31% in 2019 (see Table 7.1). Besides, other factors, such as on the one hand the political system of SSA countries and the level of democratic culture within SSA society (countries with a higher level of democratic culture are likely to more effectively implement EU governance promotion policies) (Bratton & van de Walle, 1997), as well as the contribution of the EU governance reforms

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to the consolidation of the legitimacy of SSA government, notably in terms of strengthening state institutions capable of generating economic growth and providing sustainable public goods quality of the SSA institutions (countries with a higher level of aid and economic dependency vis-à-vis the EU as well as SSA governments willing to build strong state institutions that will help enhance their domestic legitimacy are more likely to positively respond to EU’s governance reforms) also influence SSA governments’ positive or negative responsiveness to EU’s good governance promotion policies (Hackenesch, 2015, 2018; Wright, 2009). This is why it is important for the African leaders and people to take on their responsibility in the sense of increasing their awareness about the necessity to improve the governance structure of the region through combating corrupt attitudes, authoritarian regimes, patrimonialism, and many other vices.

Conclusion This chapter contends that the EU has included several financial and political instruments in its framework relationship with SSA to promote good governance in the region. With respect to the financial instruments, they included—until their phasing out in favour of the NDICI—the EDF, the DCI, and the EIDHR. With respect to the EDF, it is important to note that until its recent inclusion into the NDICI it was essentially an intergovernmental instrument based on voluntary contributions from member states with no direct oversight by the Parliament and designed on a multiannual basis. Thus, most often, the EDF has been criticised for being an inadequate instrument for the EU’s norm promotion in SSA because of the frequent trade-offs of norms with powerful member states’ interests. It is important to note that SSA remains the largest recipient under the geographical pillar in the NDICI because it is foreseen to provide to the SSA region at least USD $29.1 billion and around 37% of the overall geographical funds (Lilyanova, 2021), which is slightly above the 23.4 billion provided to SSA under the 2014–2020’s 11th EDF. The fact that the SSA region will not lose its top place among the EU’s development corporation’s main recipient under the NDICI signals the EU’s ambition to keep its place as the largest donor to SSA in the context of the growing presence of other donors, such as China, to the region, to boost its influence and to reaffirm and strengthen its geopolitical actorness vis-à-vis these new donors in this strategic area (Parandii, 2020). In

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this sense, with a more sophisticated, simplistic, and unified instrument like the NDICI, the EU will be able to act as a block and unified actor in the region and to align its development programmes with its foreign policy objectives in a more consistent manner. Regarding the political instruments, whereas political dialogue serves to maintain dialogue between the EU and its SSA partners in case of violation of the essential and fundamental elements of the CPA, with the aim of remedying such situations and avoiding the use of sanctions, political conditionality serves the promotion of good governance either through positive rewards for SSA countries making substantial efforts towards promoting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, or otherwise through sanctions for recalcitrant SSA countries’ governing authorities violating the ‘essential elements’ of the CPA. The fact that the CPA does not foresee the use of sanctions in the instance of violation of the ‘fundamental’ element of good governance is indicative of the contrast between the EU’s narrow understanding of, and soft approach to good governance and its tougher approach towards democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Political conditionality has been ineffective in terms of producing tangible governance reforms in the recipient countries. The prevalence of member states’ interests in the EDF, combined with the observed democratic decline in the EU, damages the EU’s legitimacy in the eyes of its partners and its capacity to effectively promote good governance through budget support and projects. With respect to the features of the EU’s good governance aid, it stems from the above statistics that the EU seems to prioritise support for the effectiveness of government institutions compared to good governance and democracy. However, the apparent ineffectiveness of the EU’s good governance promotion instruments in SSA can also be attributed to the increasing role played by emerging donors like China, India, and Brazil, which provide alternative funds to African governing elites with no political strings attached. Thus, achieving effective good governance in SSA should be considered a shared responsibility between SSA governing authorities and their external partners. In this sense, a more coherent and coordinated foreign policy of external actors intervening in SSA (including traditional actors like the EU and emerging countries) would also be crucial to improving the governance structure of SSA countries.

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CHAPTER 8

Assessment of Good Governance and Gender Equality in the EU’s Budgetary Support Programme in Tanzania: Insights from Agriculture Sector Rahime Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm and Aikande Clement Kwayu

Introduction This chapter seeks to understand the EU’s promotion of gender equality as part of good governance in the agricultural sector in Tanzania. Good governance is a global strategy that is used to determine democratic rule with respect to human rights, rule of law, transparency, accountability, and efficiency in public administration. Since the neoliberal turn in the

R. Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm (B) Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bahçe¸sehir University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] A. C. Kwayu Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_8

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1980s, international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank started setting conditions on aid recipient countries to respect the standards of good governance (Diarra & Plane, 2012). This required them to adopt a series of reforms to fight against corruption, increase accountability in public institutions to ensure democratic participation and respect for the rule of law, among others. The EU and its member states deliver most of the development aid in the world, which leaves the EU well-positioned to promote good governance beyond its borders. Parallel to good governance, the EU has also assumed a significant role in promoting gender equality, especially since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) in 1995, and has embraced ‘gender mainstreaming’, which is the incorporation of the gender dimension into the planning, design, and implementation of all policies—as an international norm. What is problematic, however, is the EU’s treatment of gender equality and good governance as separate issues, the effectiveness of which are likewise assessed through separate mechanisms. The EU’s promotion of good governance is through intergovernmental (i.e., strengthening government and public administration) and transnational (i.e., non-state actors) channels (Börzel et al., 2008), but is highly criticised due to its ‘one size fits all’ approach as it fails to push for effective and sustainable implementation owing to the differences in regime types and structures of recipient countries, for example, Ethiopia and Angola (Börzel & Hackenesch, 2013). Recently, the lack of gender awareness in the EU’s definition of good governance has been criticised by Soyaltin-Colella and Cin (2022), who argued that informal norms and gendered power relations reinforce corrupt and ill practices in target states. Surprisingly, there is no criticism directed against the gender-blind nature of the EU’s good governance promotion strategy through aid and its top-down nature, ignoring the priorities of the aid recipient countries. First among these insights, the legitimacy of the EU as a ‘normative gender actor’ (see Chappell & Guerrina, 2020) is questioned given the severe backsliding in gender equality in six of the EU’s own member states (Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia) (European Parliament, 2018a) parallel to the rise of right-wing governments openly questioning the role and status of women in society. Still, the EU seeks to promote gender equality among aid recipient countries and assess their compliance by the extent to which they grant women rights. Yet, as the backlash in gender equality in its member states has manifested, feminist literature also harshly criticises the

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treatment of women’s rights as human rights. This is because granting rights does not lead to equal participation of men and women in public life due to the patriarchal mindsets that limit their capabilities (Cin & Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm, 2021). We argue that gender mainstreaming is an essential component of good governance. Implementation of gender mainstreaming requires the collection of gender-segregated data and ensuring equal representation of men and women in the programmes and activities of public and private bodies, including gender expertise in political processes, and adding gender perspective in the planning, budgeting, monitoring, and evaluation processes of all policies, programmes, and activities. Budgeting is considered as one dimension and operationalisation of gender mainstreaming. As Seren ¸ Kurular (2021) noted, budgets are not only about the allocation of financial resources, but are also the core determinants of the development process as they reveal social and political inequalities and can be used to assess good governance. For countries where the EU does not project any membership perspective, delivering aid and budget support to civil society and public administration remains the ultimate tool to promote good governance and gender equality in target states. This is because the EU can control spending on aid and make it conditional to respecting gender equality outcomes when delivering it. Yet, the EU’s role as a donor has also been questioned recently in line with the rise of illiberal donors such as China (Lange & Tjomsland, 2014, see also Chapter 9 in this book) Youngs (2019) also shows that the amount of aid that Western donors, including the EU, directs to democracy (termed as political aid) is not significantly different from the amount dedicated by non-Western donors, who have conventionally been considered illiberal donors. Youngs (2019) further underscores the limited commitment by Western donors to go deeper in addressing those issues. The EU, for example, he argues, upgraded relations with other democracies through a coalition with thirteen such countries in 2018. However, they only focus on promoting good stories about human rights and not coordinating democracy support. It is in light of these superficial interventions amidst continuous aid-giving that the EU may find its development aid becoming counterproductive to the promotion of good governance and gender equality. Development aid may further assist autocratic countries by facilitating their legitimacy (Carnegie & Marinov, 2017; Uitz, 2020; Youngs, 2019, see also Chapter 7 in this book).

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This chapter seeks to understand the extent to which gender equality is incorporated into the EU’s promotion of good governance through its budgetary support programme in the agriculture sector in Tanzania. Since 2016 there was a sharp decline in democratic and civic space in Tanzania (Freedom House 2019; Paget, 2017; The Economist, 2018). Discrimination based on gender equality, including pregnant schoolgirls and LGBT rights, have also been reported. In 2018, the EU threatened to revise its development framework in Tanzania due to such issues and the EU representative in Tanzania was recalled (Britton, 2018). However, the EU has continued to provide developmental aid in Tanzania, and in June 2021 it launched its flagship agricultural programme known as ‘Agriconnect’, which amounts to e100 million of support (European Union in Tanzania 2021).1 In light of this development, the support given by the EU may further enhance the autocratic administration in Tanzania. The EU’s links with Tanzania can be traced back to 1975. This relation has been framed through regional blocks such as the African, Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP) and the East African Community (EAC). Yet, with the perpetual disagreements among the regional block members including the failure to convince all member states to collectively sign the EUEconomic Partnership Agreement (EPA), the EU goes on to support trade and sustainable agriculture in a bilateral manner, which is the main reason we focus on agriculture in this chapter. In its programme for Tanzania (2014–2020), the EU put in place an approximate funding budget of over e600 million, which includes budgetary support. We argue that analysis of the agricultural sector would provide observable indicators through which to understand whether gender equality is an important component of its good governance promotion, first because the EU’s current flagship development assistance in Tanzania is an agricultural programme known as ‘Agriconnect’. Second, agriculture engages 65% of the Tanzanian population (National Bureau of Statistics, 2021), which makes it a crucial sector through which the EU’s promotion of gender equality can be assessed. Finally, the agricultural programme typifies the EU’s good governance channels, both intergovernmental and transnational. Yet, in Tanzania, the line between the intergovernmental and transnational channels in the EU’s good governance promotion strategy is blurred as its development programmes are channelled through budgetary support (intergovernmental), yet part of the implementation is carried out by both government agencies and non-state actors such as NGOs (transnational).

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This chapter is structured according to three main sections. After this introduction, the first section offers a literature review on the EU’s promotion of good governance and gender equality, delving into norm contestation, gendering EU studies, and postcolonialism. Secondly, we discuss the role of the EU as a developmental donor, defining the conditions and parameters of the EU aid and its potential impact on different clusters of beneficiary countries and their policies, with a particular eye on its donor role in Africa. Third, we incorporate empirical analysis where we elaborate on the EU’s budgetary support programme in Tanzania through a critical analysis of EU-funded projects on agriculture to explore the extent to which gender equality is incorporated into the design of its budgetary programme.

The EU’s Promotion of Gender Equality and Good Governance: The State of the Art Promotion of good governance is one of the fundamental tools of the EU’s soft power, exerted through conditionality, development, and humanitarian aid programmes, and has proved to be remarkably effective since the early 2000s (Carbone, 2010). Yet, the EU is facing rising illiberalism from within. The rise of authoritarianism in Hungary and Poland, both of which have gone through EU conditionality to gain full membership, creates questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the EU as a good governance promoter and norm entrepreneur (Soyaltın-Colella, 2020). In this section, we will present three bodies of literature that deal with the differential impact of the EU’s conditionality and incentives, such as aid, to target countries to generate domestic policy change. First is the literature on norm contestation, which covers the resistance towards the top-down perspective in the adoption of EU norms. They question the perception that the EU norms are unquestionably desirable, that its norms and governance structures are better than the local ones, and that they should be adopted to comply with the EU to find solutions to governance problems in those countries. It is argued that norm contestation is not necessarily harmful as contestation can also strengthen norms, enhance compliance by allowing diverse voices to be heard and domestic priorities to be considered (Acharya, 2014). This model assumes a non-hierarchical relationship between the actors, the EU and third countries. Yet, as Johansson-Nogués et al. (2020: 11) underline, the power asymmetry embedded in the EU’s normative policies does not

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provide an equality of voice opportunity and results in norm violation. For instance, in a recent article, Weilandt (2021) underlines the link between norm contestation and violation in the Tunisian context and underlines the importance of local agency to determine the extent to which the EU norms are accepted and adopted. Second is the literature on gendering EU studies’ focus on the EU’s promotion of gender equality, which systematically accounts for a rhetoric implementation gap (David & Guerrina, 2013; Minto & Mergaert, 2018). A volume that was recently edited by Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm and Cin (2021) draws on the ideas of key feminist philosophers such as Carole Pateman, Onara O’Neil, Martha Nussbaum, Nancy Fraser, and Anne Philips and designs an alternative feminist framework to Europeanisation, and further notes that the EU’s lack of agenda is the main problem as it encourages third countries to tick boxes to meet legislation but cannot prevent backsliding given the fact that women’s rationality and interests are not taken into account in the EU’s male-dominated decision-making structures. They also criticise the EU’s treatment of women’s rights as human rights while gender equality is much broader than granting women with rights but requires equality of outcomes and opportunities. These findings build on a burgeoning body of literature that questions the EU’s legitimacy and credibility as the teacher of gender equality because it treats gender equality instrumentally to achieve the wider objectives of growth and poverty reduction, leading to the shrinking of the meaning of gender equality (Lombardo et al., 2009). The third body of literature comprises postcolonial studies which problematises inherent Eurocentrism and raise important questions about epistemic injustice. Kunz and Maisenbacher (2017), for instance, criticise the EU’s promotion of gender equality in the southern neighbourhood, its framing of them as ‘backward other’ and not civilised. As such, the EU reinstates a European identity that is ‘superior, exceptional and unique’ in a patriarchal tone and attributes white women the responsibility to teach other ethnic women their rights, and white men to train ethnic men how to respect their women. The EU’s gender equality understanding is also instrumental in securing its economic and security interests rather than engaging with the quality of women’s lives (Kunz & Maisenbacher, 2017: 132), ignoring women’s dual role and the media’s gendered discourse on women’s employment, poverty, and limited participation in the private sphere. Similar debates are raised by scholars of decolonising knowledge who challenge the dominance of the Euro-American knowledge

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that destructures non-Western and indigenous knowledge (MaldonadoTorres, 2016; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013). Grosfoguel (2013) agrees that how we come to understand the world, how we identify its problems, and how we think about solving them is fed to us through the perspectives and experiences of a small group of white Western European men. Scholars of decolonising knowledge consistently remind us that democratisation, good governance, and human rights are not of European origin and cannot be attributed to European values, and invite us to go beyond taking domestic struggles as facilitating factors in the Eurocentric social inquiry (Ayers, 2006; Jones, 2006). The following section puts these theoretical insights into the context of the EU’s emergence as a development donor and moves to analyse its role in Africa in general and Tanzania in particular.

Development Aid as an EU Tool for Promoting Good Governance in Africa The EU has evolved to be one of the most prominent development donors (Orbie, 2012). It is a member of the OECD and sets out external development budgets and policies. The Union sets aside 10% of its budget to external activities, which is disbursed through grants, contracts, and budget support to its partner countries (European Commission, 2021a). In its 2021–2027 Global Europe (Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument—NDICI), the EU has allocated Euro 79.46 billion for cooperation with third countries. This represents a 12% increase from the 2014–2020 budget. The objective of NDICI is to contribute towards the eradication of poverty, promoting sustainable development, prosperity, peace, and stability. For sub-Saharan Africa, the NDICI has earmarked Euro 29.18 billion. The goals for the current NDICI include eradicating poverty, good governance, human rights and rule of law, environment and climate change, migration and mobility, inclusive economic growth, and human development including gender (European Commission, 2021b). It is important to note is that the EU external development relations are also informed by its norms and policies that have been set to guide its practices. With regard to gender, the EU is currently implementing its third Gender Action Plan (EU Gender Action Plan III—2021–2025), in which the EU has placed gender as a crosscutting priority and as one of its core values. In this light, the EU has

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three approaches that include gender mainstreaming, targeted action, and political dialogue; combined with these is gender-responsive budgeting. Studies have noted that EU aid to third countries is intended to satisfy normative goals and serves the development needs of aid-receiving countries (Grilli and Riess 1992). There is, however, an emerging literature that challenges the normative basis of the EU funding and/or its effectiveness. For instance, using the European Commission’s (EC) budget support and governance incentive in Ethiopia, Del Biondo and Orbie (2014) underline that the EU’s position shifted from a democracy promoter to a developmental donor. In a later study, Del Biondo (2015) engages with a broader literature that demonstrates donors’ reluctance to incorporate democracy in their development policies and underlines that the EU has also been applying sanctions selectively, particularly in Africa. This study underlines that in contrast to the EU’s development assistance to other regions such as the Mediterranean, which follows security and trade motivations, the EU’s policies towards Africa were motivated by its own self-interest such as preventing the spill-over of insecurity in Africa to Europe, leading it to integrate security clauses into its agreements with Africa (see Del Biondo et al., 2012; Keukeleire & Raube, 2013). With this motivation, while the governments in Africa in general and Tanzania in particular become more authoritarian, the EU continues to provide funding that indirectly strengthens those governments. At this point, it is crucial to recall the studies which underline that foreign assistance might be counterproductive in supporting authoritarian and illiberal regimes. Along with the global trend of the increasing fragility of liberal democracy and assaults on democracy in many countries (Youngs, 2019), a number of development donor countries have increased their aid assistance on democracy. For instance, through the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, the EU allocates more than e160 million per year (Youngs, 2017, 2019). However, as Del Biondo (2015) has noted, despite being explicitly stated in the 2011 Agenda for Change that human rights, democracy, and good governance would be taken as measures to determine the mix of instruments and that general budget support would be limited to countries that respect democratic principles, the EU, similar to other donor countries maintains cordial and development relations with non-democratic regimes and is increasing aid to authoritarian regimes such as Algeria, Egypt, and Sudan (Youngs, 2019). Establishing good relations with non-democratic

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regimes translates into more aid to them, which can help such governments to maintain patronage and services, thus helping them to stay in office (Carnegie & Marinov, 2017). In fact, Uitz (2020: 4) demonstrated that the EU’s illiberal governments—Poland and Hungary—are the major recipients of the EU funds. Yet, the lack of conditionality in delivering EU funds, such as respecting founding values, the EU is argued to be at risk of funding more illiberal governments in the coming years. These findings point towards the instrumental nature of the EU’s development aid as an instrument for development to further its own interests. For instance, Hout (2012) argues that donors prioritise development over democracy, or they focus on tackling humanitarian-related poverty reduction. Lange and Tjomsland (2014) confirm that partnership is an alternative framework for development cooperation, but it has been criticised for furthering the priorities of the North, rather than those of the South, as the advocates of postcolonial literature and decolonising knowledge had frequently asserted.

Donor-Recipient Relations Between the EU and Tanzania in the Case of Promoting Gender Equality Tanzania is a good case through which to understand partnership dynamics between the EU and sub-Saharan Africa. The EU has been providing development support to the country both through multilateral and bilateral arrangements. The bilateral arrangement was established in 1991 when the EU placed its delegation in Tanzania just prior to the establishment of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. The Treaty further accentuated the bilateral relations as per its Article C (Treaty on the European Union 1992). The EU put in place its mission in Tanzania and since then it has had a representative there. The main objectives of the EU mission in Tanzania are intended to improve the following: (i) Tanzania’s political and social democracy; (ii) national policies towards sustainable and inclusive development of the country; and (iii) Tanzania’s continued involvement in regional economic integration processes, as well as political and security initiatives that contribute to the consolidation of peace and democracy in the region. Lange and Tjomsland (2014) argue that EU-Tanzanian partnerships were useful to the adoption of woman-friendly legislation in the late

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1990s but have been increasingly challenged since the 2010s. The reason for backsliding is also in line with the arguments of the norm contestation and decolonising knowledge literature because the EU’s priorities clash with cultural norms, leading the government to pursue a future without aid to refrain from partners interfering with its policies. Amidst increasing attacks on democratic rights and repressions in Tanzania between 2016 and 2020, the EU passed resolutions and gave a number of statements condemning the Tanzanian government (European Parliament, 2018b). The EU was also categorically clear about its concerns over the lack of LGBT rights in Tanzania. The EU’s vocality against the abuse of human rights in Tanzania led to anxieties between its delegation and the Tanzanian government. As a result, in 2018, the EU head of delegation in Tanzania was recalled over the criticisms of a crackdown against LGBT Tanzanians (Britton, 2018). The Tanzanian government, however, capitalised on norms and cultural differences in their attempts to counter the EU’s standpoint. In relation to norm contestation and postcolonial framework, the authorities in Tanzania tried to question EU legitimacy and moral authority to push for their own values that are not in conformity with Tanzanian values or culture. Nevertheless, the EU did not go beyond resolutions and statements to enforce change. The resolutions and statements could not be stronger than cutting aid and the reduction or termination of budget support. This confirms the growing number of criticisms that were directed against the governance of EU funds across different countries and continents (see Carnegie & Marinov, 2017; Uitz, 2020: 4; Youngs, 2019). While the EU has been vocal against the abuse of gender equality in Tanzania, it has continued with its budgetary support to the Tanzanian government despite the shrinking civic space and issues of gender discrimination, such as the limited access to education for pregnant schoolgirls that indirectly helps the government to sustain its illiberalism. Lange and Tjomsland (2014) have underlined that the power balance in development cooperation that the EU establishes with Tanzania is evolving with the rise of China as a major development partner, which allowed otherwise aid-dependent African governments to rely less on the North. In Tanzania, Chinese aid has been used as a bargaining chip for negotiating aid conditionality, which clearly disrupts the hierarchical and top-down strategy of the EU promotion of good governance in which gender equality is a part, which confirms postcolonial critiques of the EU’s self-portrayed superior image. Following EU threats in 2019

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to carry out a comprehensive review of its aid following homophobic comments in Tanzania, the President of Tanzania went public to praise Chinese aid as well as cementing his government’s view that they will not ‘kneel’ before donors (Oxford Analytica, 2019). Swedlund (2013) also argues that the Tanzanian government is gradually moving away from its tradition of being a more compliant development partner to taking a more self-assured stand. Due to this self-confidence and due to the issues that NGOs and donors now want to address in policies and legislation—abortion, the priority of formal law over customary law, access to education for pregnant girls and gay rights—are more controversial than the issues that were addressed in the 1990s. Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is also an important indicator for promoting gender equality in target countries. GRB does not mean reserving a separate budget for women but stands for a more balanced distribution of resources by adopting a gender-based approach. The EU incorporated GRB into the Lisbon Treaty, and the European Parliament and the Council of the EU have invited member states to develop and implement it, but the EU cannot impose any regulations or interfere with the member states’ fiscal policies (Seren ¸ Kurular, 2021). In Tanzania, while implementation remains a problem, GRB had been integrated into the national budget of Tanzania in 1997, long before the EU and the majority of its member states, through a domestically driven and inclusive process of deliberative democracy (Mushi & Mamkwe, 2010). This finding confirms all three bodies of literature, as it shows that the EU’s norms and governance structures are not necessarily superior. This requires questioning the term ‘promotion’ of gender equality by the EU given the GRB’s implementation problems by the EU’s own member states, despite their commitment when signing the BPfA and GRB practices at the central or local government level, as adopted by the EU member states such as Denmark, Spain, and Ireland after 2010 (see Seren ¸ Kurular, 2021: 184–188). Tanzania even published a book on GRB in 1999 when the EU member states were still devising their plans and GRB was not particularly high on their agenda, which should lead us not to attribute this positive success to the EU or, indeed, any other donor country. Tanzanian government, on the other hand, despite strong commitment, failed to implement GRB effectively due to problems such as the lack of a national programme to raise awareness of resource generation, failure to utilise and ensure participation of the stakeholders in the planning and budgetary processes, bureaucratic structure of the

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government sectors, poor governance, irresponsibility and lack of transparency in the entire process, and poor knowledge of the civil society in the budgetary process (Mushi & Mamkwe, 2010: 11). Similar problems persisted in the implementation of GRB across the world, including among the EU’s own member states (Seren ¸ Kurular, 2021). Yet, the EU could use its economic leverage and aid conditionality to generate the better implementation. In the following section, we will elaborate upon the EU’s budgetary support programme in Tanzania and the extent to which gender-responsive budgeting and gender sensitivity is integrated into EU-funded agricultural projects in Tanzania.

Promotion of Gender Equality in the EU’s Budgetary Support Programme in the Tanzanian Agriculture Sector Given the nature of the EU (as a multilateral organisation) and its historical relations, the framework of EU relations with Tanzania is still informed by a collective approach. The 4th Lome Convention expired in 2021, and the EU signed the Cotonou Agreement with ACP countries, which started its implementation in 2021. The Cotonou Agreement focuses on human rights, democracy, and rule of law. With respect to the above objectives and the Cotonou Agreement, the EU has seven themes for Tanzania. These are: (1) Political and thematic dialogue; (2) Human rights, democracy, and the rule of law; (3) Cooperation; (4) Humanitarian aid; (5) Trade; (6) The East African Community and the Regional Cooperation with EAC; and (7) The European Investment Bank. One of the EU’s approaches to contribute towards development in Tanzania is through budget support. Budget support means providing the Tanzanian budget with predictable residual financing. Thus, budget support provides extra funding to certain specified sectors. In the period between 2006 and 2020, the EU provided budget support to the following sectors: agriculture, education, energy, health, roads, and water. In this section, we will analyse the gender aspect in the budgetary support focusing on the agriculture sector, which is funded in the EDF framework through the Tanzanian Ministry of Finance. Now, the EU flagship programme in Tanzania is Agriconnect. The programme runs for four years, from 2019 to 2024, and is worth e100 million (European Union in Tanzania 2019).

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Beyond 2021, the EU continues to support the agricultural sector with a significant grant, and it is a crucial sector in which gender equality is underlined as a crucial objective. Previous research underlined that women farmers’ success is dependent on the extent to which they have access to resources, knowledge, and financial support, and invites attention to provide women farmers with equal opportunities to their male counterparts as well as the necessity of removing structural and ideological barriers against them (Sachs et al., 2016). It was also indicated that even though women were responsible for at least 70% of the food production in Africa, and rising awareness of the need of women farmers, agricultural extension services were directed predominantly towards male farmers, and they operate under greater constraints than men due to limited access to technology, land, inputs, and credit due to the persistent patriarchal assumptions that they are responsible primarily for domestic care functions in their homes and children in addition to their time and mobility limitations. Policymakers are also not aware of such constraints, including the rate of illiteracy among women, and the potential impacts of these gender-related factors on agricultural productivity (Saito & Weidemann, 1990). According to Saito et al. (1994), the critical role played by women farmers in Africa as they produce more than one third of the basic foodstuff in the region, despite suffering an unsupportive environment to work and sustain their families, eventually lead to the loss of agricultural activity. They argue that ‘If sub-Saharan Africa is to revitalise the agricultural sector and improve household food security – goals assigned high priority by all the countries in the Region – raising productivity of women farmers must be the centrepiece of agriculture strategy’ (Saito et al., 1994: vii). This situation, underlined in the early 1990s, has not changed significantly in Africa in general and Tanzania in particular. For instance, according to the findings of the research programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, 43% of the documents stress that women are important actors and change agents as well as natural managers, but they remain vulnerable and have limited access to land and lack of land ownership (Ampaire et al., 2016). Isaya et al. (2018: 78) argue that women constitute 80% of farmers and they have limited access to a wide range of agricultural inputs or resources, such as modern farming tools and technology, as well as access to loans, land rights, education, and farming resources, such as information to contribute to productivity. According to this study, which explored the sources of information for

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women farmers on Tanzania2 radio and extension workers appeared to be the main sources of their access to agricultural information. Therefore, Isaya et al. (2018) recommended that the government should pay attention to their needs, such as access to information, credit and loans, and farm inputs and markets. This is where the EU, with its donor status, could play a particular role. Even though the EU has not been the norm agent for the Tanzanian government’s adoption of gender-responsive budgeting, it could play a proactive role in its implementation using its aid conditionality, given the fact that the EU institutions constitute the top donors to the Tanzanian government. According to the European Parliament (2015: 11–12), all activities financed from the EU budget should have gender-specific indicators with identified target groups who belong to different racial, economic, and religious groups. However, by 2018, only 1% of the structural and mutual funds had been allocated under gender mainstreaming (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2018). Hence, the EU member states fell short of their commitments with respect to the implementation of GRB (Seren ¸ Kurular, 2021). As we focus on ‘Agriconnect’ as the EU’s flagship programme in Tanzania, funded through the EDF, it is important to examine the extent to which the EU incorporates issues of gender in its programme and its gender-related measures. In order to measure gender responsiveness in the budget support, the EU uses the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) gender equality classification. According to this classification, the inclusion of gender equality elements in project funding is classified according to three categories: ‘G2’ (principal), ‘G1’ (significant), and ‘G0’ (not targeted). ‘G2’ programmes are projects for which ‘gender equality is the main objective’ (European Commission, 2019: 1). ‘G1’ projects are those in which ‘gender equality is an important and deliberative objective, but not the principal reason for undertaking the project/programme’ (European Commission 2019). Finally, ‘G0’ programmes are projects which have been screened against the gender marker, but which have not been found to target gender equality (European Commission, 2019: 1). The EU set the target that, by 2020, 85% of the all-new programmes will be marked by ‘G1’ or ‘G2’ (Anagnostakis, 2021). However, in Tanzania, according to the OECD Stats, the EU funds disbursed to ‘Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing’ have only had ‘G2’-classified funding in two years, 2017 and 2019, and further that the majority of the funds are not targeted for gender and classified as ‘G0’.

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Furthermore, in comparing different OECD member countries’ activities in Tanzania and their promotion of gender, the EU ranks the lowest, as Fig. 8.1. Currently, there are five ongoing Agriconnect projects; each of these has their own objectives and specific targets. To unpack the gender sensitivity, it is important to start by looking at the basic gender-related objective of each of the projects, as presented in Table 8.1. The gender aspect in Agriconnect projects is present but not adequate. The objective statements are general, which is one factor that may underlie the improper incorporation of aspects of gender sensitivity in the programme. They all fall in G1 (significant) or G0 (not targeted). This falls below the GAP goal, which is to ensure that all projects are gender-centred at the G2 (principal) level. It is, nevertheless, crucial to unpack these objectives as each of the projects has gender-specific targets. For example, CODE-P (no. 1 in Table 8.1) works in three regions of the Southern Highlands of Tanzania to improve coffee productivity. The project target is to reach 24,000 smallholder coffee farmers. This target EU Institutions United States United Kingdom Switzerland Sweden Spain Slovak Republic Portugal Poland Norway New Zealand Netherlands Luxembourg Korea Japan Italy Ireland Hungary Greece Germany France Finland Denmark Czech Republic Canada Belgium Austria Australia DAC Members, Total

0.000

200.000

Principal

400.000 Significant

600.000

800.000

Gender Total

1,000.000 1,200.000 1,400.000 1,600.000 1,800.000 Screened, not targeted

Not screened

Fig. 8.1 Aid Activities targeting gender equality and women’s empowerment in Tanzania (Source Compiled and extracted from OECD Dataset, https://stats. oecd.org/. Accessed 30th September 2021)

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Table 8.1 Gender considerations in the agriconnect projects No.

Project

Gender aspect

1

Smallholder Coffee Development Project in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands (CODE-P)a

2

Passport to Coffee Export (PACE)b

3

Building Inclusive and Competitive Horticulture Businesses in Tanzania’s Southern Highlandsc To Certification and Beyond: Market Access for Sustainable Coffee, Horticulture and Tea from Tanzaniad Boresha Chai Improving Income and Nutrition of Smallholder Tea Farmers in Southern Tanzaniae

Increased incomes from G1 improved postharvest, processing capacities and market linkages (smallholder farmers, women and men, small and medium enterprises—SME’s) and financial services Improve gender-relations and G1 youth empowerment along the value chain Support financial inclusion and G1 literacy of youth and women

4

5

GAP ranking

None mentioned

G0

Stimulate female leadership and youth participation in tea cooperatives

G1

a European Union in Tanzania (2019). CODEP-P. https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/code_p_

project_factsheet.pdf. Accessed 29th September 2021 b Passport to Coffee Export (PACE) project, https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/tanzania/86242/ passport-coffee-export-pace-project_en. Accessed 6 October 2021. c Building Inclusive and Competitive Horticulture Businesses in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands, https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/factsheet_rikolto_16062021.pdf. Accessed 6 October 2021. d To Certification and Beyond: Market Access for Sustainable Coffee, Horticulture and Tea from Tanzania, https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/voluntary_sustainability_standard_project_f actsheet.pdf. Accessed 6 October 2021. e Boresha Chai Improving Income and Nutrition of Smallholder Tea Farmers in Southern Tanzania, https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/factsheet_idh_boresha_chai_project_final.pdf. Accessed 6 October 2021

is broken down as 14,000 (60%) farmers should be young women and 9,600 (40%) should be youths between 18 and 35 years. Interviews with one of the CODE-P implementing partners indicate that the EU requires Monitoring and Evaluation as to the target achievement, which includes reporting on the number of women that have been reached. The project funds training activities of which gender is one of the core subjects to

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be covered. Further, probing and review of CODE-P project documents show that the targets are mostly descriptive as the EU and the implementing partners have not emplaced a systematic strategy that ensures and promotes gender in a sustainable manner and to ensure that it is a crosscutting issue across other stakeholders, in particular the local government. This is an illustration of the G1 level, which considers gender significant but not a principal aspect of the programme. The same problem can clearly be read when we compare the EU funding for the agricultural sector in Tanzania over the years since data has been made available by the OECD, that is, since 2009. As illustrated in Fig. 8.2, EU funding to the Tanzanian agricultural sector has never included projects where gender equality is a principal target (G2) at all. What is even more worrisome is that while some projects were funded that incorporated gender equality as a significant target (G1) in 2010, 2012, and 2015, no agricultural projects since 2015 have targeted gender equality.3 Furthermore, with a close analysis of the Agriconnect budget breakdown, the inadequacy of the gender consideration becomes even more clear. Of the e100 million, e48 million has gone to the rebuilding of rural roads, e1 million to monitoring and evaluation, e2 million to awareness raising on nutritional practices, e12 million to value chain 6,000.000 5,000.000 4,000.000 3,000.000 2,000.000 1,000.000 0.000 2009

2010

2011 Principal

2012

2013

Significant

2014

2015

Gender Total

2016

2017

2018

2019

Not targeted

Fig. 8.2 Aid activities targeting gender equality and women’s empowerment (CRS) in Agriculture (Data extracted on 6 October 2021 16:18 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat)

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development, and e32 million to support small-scale farmers’ production. Given the EU gender-responsive budgeting, it is difficult to identify the cross-cutting gender element in the budget breakdown. The gender aspect would be bundled within the 32 million support to small-scale farmers’ production, whereby 60% of the target are women. It would have been a systematic measure if the EU had allocated a certain proportion of the budget to issues of gender—in the manner that it has, for example, done for nutrition. The examination of Agriconnect and projects’ inclusion of gender aspects, including the budget breakdown, underlie the argument that the EU is not being systematic in terms of influencing structural changes with regard to its Gender Plan III approach of ensuring that gender is a crosscutting issue in the budget process and also to inform gender-responsive budgets. How could the EU expect gender to be a cross-cutting issue in its budget support when the Gender Policy in Tanzania was last formulated in 2000 (United Republic of Tanzania 2000)? This question echoes the arguments made by Ampaire et al. (2016) that there has been no gender integration in any documents at the ward level. This is crucial because the EU programmes are implemented at the local government level, which is framed under the ward level. Ampaire et al. (2016) further showed that the agricultural sector policies and strategies integrate gender throughout the documents but lack implementation strategies. The implementation is arguably difficult due to limited structural support to consider gender sensitivity in the implementation of development programmes.

Conclusion This chapter focuses on the incorporation of gender equality into the EU’s good governance promotion through the provision of aid to the Tanzanian agriculture sector. We underline the problematic nature of the EU’s promotion of gender equality and good governance as separate matters with distinct measures for assessing each, and argue that gender equality is an essential component of good governance to ensure respect for the rule of law and human rights, transparency, accountability, and efficiency in public administration. To assess the extent to which the EU’s promotion of good governance incorporates the gender aspect in Tanzania in today’s age of rising illiberalism both in Europe and in Africa, we focus on the agricultural sector, which engages 65% of

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the Tanzanian population with 80% of the farmers being women, and evaluate gender-responsive budgeting in the Agriconnect projects, the EU’s current flagship programme for budgetary support in Tanzania. We underline that the EU’s budgetary support mechanisms fall short of its commitments and priorities to empower women farmers and ensure good governance in the agriculture sector while contributing to authoritarian tendencies. First, gender mainstreaming failed to be implemented in the agricultural sector as the problems identified for women farmers in Tanzania remained unaltered, with lack of information and credit remaining the most pressing issues. Women farmers were particularly hindered by the patriarchal mindsets and intense pressure to balance their farming and caring responsibilities. While the EU has been uniquely positioned to use its donor status, its failure to fully adhere to gender-responsive indicators such as its own budget, financing projects in the Tanzanian agriculture sector that were not targeted for gender (G0), exclusive reliance on quantitative monitoring in the project evaluations, weak transparency and dissemination of project activities, and the EU’s reluctance to impose sanctions such as cutting aid to the Tanzanian government has left women farmers unempowered. The EU’s delivery of aid without considering the priorities of Tanzanian farmers is particularly to blame for this outcome. Therefore, the EU’s budgetary support programme should incorporate gender expertise as an essential part of project management and implementation to empower women farmers. Secondly, we found clear contestation of the EU norms by the Tanzanian government, questioning the top-down status of the EU’s norm promotion and the norms’ compatibility with Tanzanian values, such as the LGBT rights issue. This situation is further exacerbated by the rise of illiberal donors such as China helping the Tanzanian government to adopt a self-assured stance by reacting to the superiority of the EU norms on several occasions, using Chinese funding as leverage against the EU to reject its superior stance. Some positive achievements in the field of gender equality, such as the incorporation of gender-responsive budgeting in Tanzania was realised through a domestic process of deliberation without the EU’s influence. Whereas the EU may be considerate of its long-term interests on its side, Tanzania is playing postcolonial and norm contest politics in trying to resist perceived ‘external’, ‘Western’ (EU) norms. At this point, the joint management of EU funds between the Tanzanian Ministry of Finance, the EU’s continuing delivery

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of aid as the country becomes increasingly authoritarian and illiberal, and its inability to balance its good governance strategy against illiberal donors such as China confirms the counterproductive impact of foreign funding for democracy in recipient countries, and which has contributed to strengthening authoritarian tendencies in the country.

Notes 1. EU launches sustainable agriculture programme set to improve livelihoods in rural Tanzania ‘AGRI-CONNECT- Supporting Value Chains for Shared Prosperity’ (European Union in Tanzania 2021). 2. The study was conducted with a sample of 288 women farmers in Kilosa and Hai districts in Morogoro and Kilimanjaro regions (Isaya et al., 2018). 3. Please note that in the chart, the bar for the year 2009 appears invisible because it is a very small amount (0.758).

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The Economist. (2018, November 8). John Magufuli is fostering a climate of fear in Tanzania. The Economist.. Treaty on the European Union. (1992). .https://europa.eu/european-union/ sites/default/files/docs/body/treaty_on_european_union_en.pdf. Accessed on 25 October 2021. Uitz, R. (2020). Funding llliberal democracy: The case for credible budgetary conditionality in the EU (BRIDGE Network—Working Paper 7). United Republic of Tanzania (2000). Women and Gender Development https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&p_isn= Policy. 94119&p_country=TZA&p_count=270&p_classification=05&p_classco unt=8 (Accessed on 25 October 2021). Weilandt, R. (2021). Acceptance in principle, contestation in practice: EU norms and their discontents in Tunisia. Democratization. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13510347.2021.1888930 Youngs, R. (2017). Europe reset: New directions for the EU . Bloomsbury Publishing. Youngs, R. (2019). Upholding democracy in a post-Western order. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

CHAPTER 9

Promotion of What Now? EU’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) Policies in the Changing European and Global Context Digdem Soyaltin-Colella and Damla Cihangir-Tetik

Introduction The Official Development Aid (ODA) is one of the main instruments that the EU has at its disposal to make its voice heard in the international arena. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee’s (OECD-DAC) data shows that the EU institutions and its member states constitute the world’s biggest

D. Soyaltin-Colella (B) Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Edward Wright Building, Aberdeen, UK e-mail: [email protected] D. Cihangir-Tetik Department of Political Science and International Relations, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_9

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collective donor of ODA, providing e75.2 billion in 2019. This amount represents 55.2% of total global assistance. The EU (institutions) itself is the fourth-largest donor globally after the US, Germany, and the UK, with a total ODA of e13.8 billion in 2019 that is allocated to every region in the world. Aid levels managed by the European institutions have increased by 68% over the last 10 years (OECD, 2020). The ODA used to be located in budget heading four, “The EU as a global partner”, in the EU’s multi-financial framework (MFF). For the period 2014–2020, it represented around 5.7% of the EU’s total financial framework. Heading four includes four “geographic” instruments (the Development Cooperation Instrument-DCI, the European Neighbourhood Instrument-ENI, the Instrument for Pre-accession-IPA, and the Instrument for Cooperation with Industrialised Countries). However, the European Development Fund (EDF), the biggest external financing instrument managed by the Commission, was kept outside the EU budget and the MFF. The EDF supports the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, yet the biggest proportion of it is allocated to subSaharan African countries with which the EU member states have cultural historical and economic links due to colonial heritage (see Chapters 7 and 8 in this book). Yet, the new reconfiguration under the 2021–2027 MFF locates the ODA instruments under heading six (Neighbourhood and the World), integrates the EDF into the budget, and envisages a more comprehensive aid strategy. In the EU’s all ODA instruments, regardless of the geography, the promotion of good governance has become a key priority (MungiuPippidi & Warkotsch, 2017: 10). Given its well-designed financial instruments associated with comprehensive policy programmes, the EU is considered a promoter and protector of “good governance” par excellence (van Hüllen & Börzel, 2015) and has generated positive governance outcomes in many countries on the fringes of Europe (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2005; Vachudova, 2005). Although the substance of the EU’s good governance promotion varies across regions and aid programmes (see Wertzel & Orbie, 2015), the amount of the EU’s ODA that was allocated to the government and civil society sector has doubled over the last decade (see Fig. 9.1). The good governance agenda of the EU, however, has faced diverse challenges in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2009, the rate of economic decline exceeded the EU average in every new member state. Thus, the MFF for 2014–2020, negotiated in the context of the

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18.00 16.00

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Fig. 9.1 Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid over total EU ODA (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021])

economic crisis, was the first to have lower resources overall compared to previous MFFs. The main objective of the 2014–2020 MFF focused on how to make EU ODA more effective without spending more (ETTG, 2018; Munoz-Galvez, 2012). This pragmatist turn also fits with the European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) of 2016, which focuses on building resilience and promoting local ownership instead of top-down state centric democracy promotion in its neighbourhood (Tocci, 2020). Resilience has become a key concept for the management of the EU’s foreign policy but also for the governance of internal shocks. Following the devastating eurozone crisis, the EU has faced multiple crises including migration and the increasing number of refugees entering Europe, the UK’s decision to withdraw from EU membership, serious breach of liberal democratic values in certain member states (notably in Hungary and Poland), and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic that led to the closure of European borders (EPRS, 2018; Hackenesch et al., 2021; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020). The 2021–2027 MFF was prepared under these challenging circumstances in the European and global governance context, and brought swift adjustments to the EU’s ODA policies. This chapter gives an overall assessment of the EU’s good governance agenda in the ODA policies and illustrates the recent changes in their volume and in regional distribution. The empirical data from EU’s official

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documentation and secondary literature illustrates that the EU is seeking to increase its aid to accession countries under the IPA and introduces more comprehensive rules governing its aid policies to redress the illiberal practises in its candidate countries (Soyaltin-Colella, 2020), while providing more funding for the stability and resilience-building in its neighbourhood to deal with the new challenges posed by an increasingly assertive Russian foreign policy, the refugee crisis, and the rise of Islamic State (ISIS) in the Mediterranean (see Chapter 6 in this book). In the case of sub-Saharan African countries, the EU has apparently revised its earlier positions on democratisation and good governance reforms and now promotes narrower and more easily quantifiable developmental objectives. At the same time, by integrating the EDF into the 2021–2027 MFF, the EU seeks to make its external aid to ACP countries more visible (Parandii, 2020) and promote its strategic agenda as the world’s largest donor visà-vis the new players in the donor market such as China, Turkey, Brazil, and India (Aydin-Düzgit, 2020; Cihangir-Tetik & Müftüler-Baç, 2020; Soyaltin-Colella, 2022). The chapter is structured as follows. After the introduction, the following part provides a brief examination of the EU’s ODA policies with a specific focus on the governance sector. Here, we show the priorities and strategies of the EU’s aid policies in different regions. The third section provides a more detailed analysis of the EU’s ODA instruments (IPA, ENI, DCI, EDF) that were organised under heading four in the 2014–2020 MFF and maps the policy change in line with the internal and external challenges the EU is facing. In the final section we discuss the implications of our findings for the design of the 2021–2027 MFF and the EU’s capacity as a good governance exporter.

The EU’s ODA Policies and Good Governance Agenda During the Cold War period, the ODA was used as an instrument of foreign policy by Western donors with the aim of alliance-building against Soviet influence. Yet, the one-size-fits-all approach in the aid allocation that aims to promote the agreed-upon political and economic reform programmes in recipient countries has created a “moral hazard” (Goldsmith, 2001). The aid programmes failed to monitor the implementation of necessary reforms in the recipient countries and perpetuated bad political and economic outcomes with the promise of free money. This may

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lead to the Samaritan’s dilemma as aid recipients stop trying when aid comes for free (Buchanan, 1975). After the end of the Cold War, the conditionality became a more effective aid policy instrument for good governance and democracy promotion. In the case of the EU, a number of political conditions were attached to the EU’s ODA policies aimed at enhancing good governance principles, such as political accountability and transparency and improving human rights, civil liberties, and democracy. The good governance promotion has become a key priority in designing EU ODA policies with the governance turn of the late 1990s (Hout, 2010: 1). “Good governance” made its first appearance in an official EU document in November 1991, when a resolution of the Council established that the EU would “support efforts of developing countries to advance good governance”. The concept of good governance was borrowed from the World Bank (Carbone, 2010: 20). The Cotonou Agreement, signed in 2000, defined good governance as the transparent and accountable management of human, natural, economic, and financial resources for the purpose of equitable and sustainable development. The transition from the previous Lomé IV bis Convention to the Cotonou Agreement also meant that on top of the “essential elements” of the partnership between the ACP and the EC (defined as human rights, democratic principles, and the rule of law, whose violation could lead to the suspension of aid), “good governance” became a fundamental element and made the fight against corruption a priority for the first time (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020: 70). Later, the communication on Governance in the European Consensus on Development, issued by the European Commission in August 2006 and endorsed by the Council in October 2006, advanced the approach to good governance. The increase in rhetoric has been followed by change in the structure of funding mechanisms. A governance incentive tranche was developed in 2007 as a part of the aid funds allocated to ACP countries. The governance situation and reform commitments in recipient countries became a key condition for the allocation of the EDF. The IPA funds also contributed to the EU’s accession conditionality in promoting good governance reforms in the candidate states. The ENI has included a “governance facility” instrument through which the EU rewards neighbouring countries with progress in good governance reforms (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020: 76).

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The EU has also increased its funding for good governance reforms. The amount of the EU ODA that was allocated to the government and civil society sector increased from 7% in 2002 to almost 16% in 2016. After a sharp decrease to 7% in 2011, the governance aid increased to 14% in 2018, and decreased slightly to 13% in 2019 (see Fig. 9.1). The section on government and civil society includes, among other areas, public sector development and administrative management, anticorruption organisations and institutions, legal and judicial development, and media freedom. The lion’s share of the EU’s governance aid is allocated to ACP countries under the EDF. This covers the largest number of and most geographically widespread recipients. Today, the ACP includes 79 members, from sub-Saharan Africa (48), the Caribbean (16), and the Pacific (15). The IPA takes the second-largest share from the EU’s ODA and distributes governance aid to accession countries (Albania, BosniaHerzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey). The ENI is the third-largest EU governance aid fund and has helped to promote governance capacity of the countries that are part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) since 2004. These include countries to the south such as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. To the east, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine also fall under the ENI. As shown in Fig. 9.2 there was a slight increase after 2012 in the governance aid that was allocated under the four “geographic” instruments (IPA, ENI, DCI, and EDF). The trend of increase continued even when the MFF of the EU was negotiated for 2014–2020 in the context of the economic crisis and refugee influx. It was the first to have lower resources overall compared to previous MFFs. Its total expenditure is set at e1.087 billion of which e66.2 billion can be spent under Heading 4 (“Global Europe”) on external action, including ODA. The aid structure remained the same for 2014–2020, yet the EU aimed to do more with less spending. Yet, the 2021–2027 MFF saves more funding for the external actions, envisages a comprehensive restructuring of the ODA instruments, and aims to increase efficiency and coherency of the EU’s aid policies. We will discuss the new MFF in the last part of the chapter, but first we map the change in the EU’s ODA policies over time and present the details of the change in volume, and in sectoral and regional distribution to better

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70% 60% 50%

IPA

40%

ENI DCI

30%

EDF 20% 10% 0% 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 9.2 Governance aid under different instruments/EU Institutions’ total ODA (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021])

capture the major contextual changes that have occurred since 2008 in the European and global context.

Mapping the Change in the EU’s Governance Agenda in Its ODA Policies The ODA instruments of the EU—IPA, ENI, DCI, EDF—are different from each other in terms of their integration levels, institutional structures, geographical and thematic policy scopes, and EU member states’ motives behind establishing and funding them (Cihangir-Tetik & Müftüler-Baç, 2018). Yet, the common feature in all ODA instruments is the governance agenda. Through these instruments, the EU distributes funds for governance reform in third countries. The significance of multilateral EU aid in relation to governance varies by instruments addressing different regions (Dadašov, 2017). Table 9.1 illustrates the change in the governance aid over the years and under different aid instruments. Of the four instruments, the IPA consistently received the majority of ODA, followed by the ACP countries. The ENP received nearly double that it received before 2010 in 2012–2014, while the pre-accession countries saw growth after 2010.

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Table 9.1 EU total ODA in all sectors and total governance and civil society aid, Gross Disbursements, USD Millions 2019 (2002–2019) Year

EU Total EU Total EU EU governance EU EU governance ODA to governance governance aid under ENI governance aid under EDF developing aid aid under aid under countries IPA DCI

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

2120,08 2489,78 2935,27 9805,98 10,689,46 10,829,78 11,314,80 11,876,83 11,918,09 15,941,95 17,174,98 15,575,17 16,597,91 16,507,61 19,645,10 19,150,91 18,964,59 17,719,55

150,89 252,42 195,31 1290,31 1706,10 1525,60 1342,24 1420,69 1349,38 1247,88 1464,88 1364,94 1467,23 1540,18 1708,06 2238,40 2724,38 2355,81

0 15,40 0 309,59 570,43 518,03 374,33 360,33 234,58 209,21 333,24 362,23 260,37 271,64 243,03 460,37 541,67 375,16

0 1,313 0 167,84 284,37 200,28 260,49 220,27 214,65 209,92 213,67 229 287,54 306,57 451,72 540,52 471,09 472,98

0,15 4,10 0,14 285,54 310,26 271,26 135,73 243,07 241,09 214,59 301,60 202,47 238,72 231,74 304,40 334,91 432,89 360,70

95,02 134,69 130,22 305,26 374,95 328,52 386,26 382,33 434,65 374,55 402,00 364,24 396,02 447,16 423,54 526,35 569,41 491,73

Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics (2021)

Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) The IPA is a unique instrument managed by the DG NEAR of the European Commission, which provides technical and financial assistance to EU candidates and neighbouring states. Its provision is directly linked to “pre-accession conditionality”, which is a type of political conditionality unique to the EU and an external incentive model (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2005: 669) that requires the adoption of democratic rules and standards, as laid down in the Copenhagen Criteria at the June 1993 European Council, as a prerequisite to EU membership (Schimmelfennig & Scholtz, 2008) and accession to IPA funding. Thus, it has the strongest tie between foreign aid policy and political conditionality for democratic standards and human rights principles in target countries.

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The IPA is the main form of external assistance instrument that covers the immediate neighbourhood and periphery of the EU. Its geographical scope is limited to EU candidate countries. Current candidate and potential candidate countries are eligible for IPA funding. According to the EU budget between 2000 and 2006, the total amount allocated to the “7. Pre-accession strategy” budget line was e18.4 billion. Before IPA became operational on 1 January 2007, pre-accession support was provided through a number of separate mechanisms to accession countries. From January 2007 onwards, the IPA replaced a series of EU programmes and financial instruments for candidate countries. The IPA’s budget for 2007–2013 amounted to e11.9 billion and for the 2014– 2020 MFF period, the budget commitment for IPA II is e11.7 billion. Finally, IPA III, as covered by the 2021–2027 MFF, has been increased to e12.6 billion (see Table 9.4). Even though this increase is lower than that proposed by the European Commission, which was e14.5 billion, it signifies that the enlargement—particularly, the accession of the Western Balkans, as presented in the new enlargement methodology declared by the Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, on 5 February 2019 (European Commission, 2020)—is again on the EU’s agenda. The policy scope of the IPA is wide since it provides aid and support to candidate states that need to harmonise certain policies with the EU acquis communautaire. Therefore, assistance for transition and institution building, and building measures promoting economic and social cohesion and cross-border cooperation are the main aims of IPA funding. Another policy sector that IPA funding prioritises is governance and civil society, as IPA is the EU’s principal mechanism of providing political aid. Prior to their candidacy, accession countries have to comply with the Copenhagen Criteria. Thus, to be eligible for financial assistance, candidate countries should apply the rule of law, respect human rights, establish a multiparty system, hold free and fair elections, and have a market economy by default (Maresceau, 2003). Even though candidate countries should meet Copenhagen Criteria prior to their candidacy status, to consolidate new reforms, around 19% of aid provided under IPA funding was allocated to the promotion of good governance principles and civil society in candidate countries between 2002 and 2019 (See Fig. 9.3). Yet, the EU also uses aid cuts as a political tool to reverse authoritarian drifts in candidates. For example, in the last three years, the EU has decreased the pre-accession aid to Turkey as a response to the country’s move away

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70% 60%

59%

50%

49% 48%

40%

37% 31%

30%

23%

20%

20%

10% 5%

0%

0%

7%

9%

12% 6%

7%

16% 15%

5%

0%

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 9.3 Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to IPA countries over total EU ODA to IPA countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021])

from democratic norms (Youngs & Zihino˘glu, 2021: 10). However, the EU declares that these aid cuts do not cover IPA funding for governance and civil society sectors. Between 2002 and 2019, IPA funding supported eight beneficiaries in the adoption and implementation of the reforms required for EU membership, with Turkey being by far the largest beneficiary, followed by Kosovo and Serbia (See Table 9.2). According to OECD development statistics, there are three different periods, 2002–2004, 2005–2010, and 2011–2018, during which the share of governance aid over total EU aid allocated to IPA the countries fluctuated drastically. For example, while the EU did not provide any governance aid to candidate countries, particularly in 2002 and 2004, it allocated 58.5% of all ODA to the region as governance aid in 2003 (See Fig. 9.3). Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina took the lion’s share of EU governance aid in 2003; this indicates the EU’s support for the reform and democratisation processes of Western Balkan countries. Between 2005 and 2010, the share of governance aid peaked at 49.1% (2006). However, in 2011 it drastically declined to 4.8% by a sharp increase of overall aid to IPA countries from around e1 billion in 2010 to e4.5 billion in 2011. While the EU has increased the total amount of IPA funding since 2011, the amount allocated to governance aid did not increase in step. Thus, the average share of governance aid to IPA countries between 2011 and 2019 remained at 9%. Only in 2017

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Table 9.2 Amount and share of EU governance aid over total EU governance aid to developing countries among top three recipient countries of four regions (2002–2018) Recipient Turkey (IPA) Kosovo (IPA) Serbia (IPA) Ukraine (ENI) Morocco (ENI) West Bank and Gaza (ENI) Afghanistan (DCI) Iraq (DCI) South Africa (DCI) DR Congo (EDF) Nigeria (EDF) Mali (EDF)

EU governance aid amount (USD million 2018)

% gov. aid/Total EU gov. aid

1816,353 1022,609 987,069 690,759 614,210 438,249 862,491 295,511 262,571 632,929 481,469 326,567

7,8 4,4 4,2 3,0 2,7 1,9 3,6 1,2 1,1 2,6 2,0 1,4

Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics (2021)

(12%) and 2018 (16%), there was a slight increase in this proportion in parallel to the rise in overall EU ODA disbursements (see Fig. 9.3 and Table 9.2). Among four recipient regions, the region covered by the IPA is the only recipient in which the volume of EU governance aid almost doubled in 2017 and, indeed, increased in 2018 as well. The average share of EU governance aid allocated to IPA countries over total EU governance aid between 2002 and 2019 has been 21%. This slight rise could be considered the beginning of a new EU strategy to re-energise democratisation processes and the reforms in its accession countries where illiberal externals such as China have started to gain relevance (Soyaltin-Colella, 2022). Yet, it should be added that the countries that received substantial amounts of EU aid for governance and civil society during the last decade were among the most significantly affected by the drastic democratic regression of recent years (Cihangir-Tetik, 2021; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020, see Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 in this book). Coupled with governance and democracy problems in the member states, the rising authoritarian tendencies beyond its borders cast a shadow on the EU’s transformative power in the candidate countries (Bieber, 2019; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2020). It remains to be seen whether the recently declared new enlargement

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methodology and the EU’s new budget will be able to solve the problem of democratic backsliding in the Western Balkans and Turkey. European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) The ENP was launched in 2004 with the objective of avoiding the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and its neighbours and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability, and security of all. The European Commission emphasises that “it is based on the values of democracy, rule of law and respect of human rights”. It is one of the important external assistance policies of the EU that crystallises the importance of the security and stability of the periphery of the EU. The ENP is primarily executed by the EEAS and the DG NEAR, especially by the Commissioner, through the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty. Thus, the ENI—like the IPA—consists of the multilateral aid allocated by the EEAS via the EU budget, but with the close cooperation of the Commission and in coherence with other related policies such as Trade, Internal Market, Development Policy, and Foreign Policy. Again, like the IPA, it has more political motivations than development orientation on paper. However, the ENP has been criticised by focusing more on effective governance than democratic governance, favouring an emphasis on efficient state institutions that help regulate economies rather than on democratic issues and reform (Börzel & van Hüllen, 2011). The ENI does not have a “membership reward” on condition that the political conditions are met by the partner country. On the other hand, the political conditionality that the ENI offers has a “more for more” approach, as adopted in 2012 (see Chapter 6 in this book). The “more for more” approach suggests that those partner countries that comply with the EU’s rules will be given priority in terms of financial support, greater and more rapid access to the internal market, and visa-free travel to the EU (money, market, and mobility) (Koch, 2015). The ENP covers the EU’s 16 closest southern and eastern neighbour countries, which are at the same time ENI beneficiaries. These countries are Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia to the south, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine to the east. Even though the policy scope of the ENI is not wide as that of the IPA, it still covers similar issues and sectors, albeit shallowly, in order to familiarise the political and economic structures of neighbouring countries with the EU

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member states. However, not all partner countries require the same level of cooperation with the EU. Thus, the ENP has been revised and the one-size-fits-all approach was abandoned. The total amount of the EU’s budget for ENPI in 2007–2013 was e11.18 billion. For 2014–2020, the EU allocated e15.4 billion under the ENI. Before 2007, the main assistance instruments to neighbour countries were Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States and Georgia (TACIS) (for eastern neighbouring countries including CEECs prior to their accession to the EU in 2004) and Mediterranean Development Assistance (MEDA) (for the Mediterranean states) and gained, respectively, 3.14 and e5.35 billion budgets for the 2000–2006 period. According to OECD development data, there was not any significant contribution from the ENI to the promotion of good governance and civil society in the ENP countries until 2005. While the annual shares of governance aid over total EU aid allocated to ENP countries were the highest between 2005 and 2010, they started to decline when the EU was hit by the 2008 financial crisis. Even though the shares, with respect to the overall EU aid to the region, slightly increased after 2012, it only again reached around 13–15% between 2017 and 2019 (see Fig. 9.4). The continuation of the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict, the 2010 Arab uprisings in various MENA countries, the eruption of civil war in Syria 18%

16%

16% 14%

15%

14% 12%

12%

12%

13%

13% 12%

14% 13%

11%

10%

9%

8%

8%

8%

9%

7%

6% 4% 2% 0%

0%

0%

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 9.4 Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to ENI countries over total EU ODA to ENI countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021])

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in 2011 and the consequent refugee crisis, and the 2014 Crimean crisis following the Ukrainian revolution (see Table 9.2) were the main external factors shaping the direction of EU governance aid under the ENI during the last decade. On the other hand, the share of governance aid to ENP countries over total EU governance aid to developing countries increased between 2002 and 2018. It peaked in 2016 at 26%, but started to decline in 2017 (to 24%) and in 2018 (to only 17%), while overall EU governance aid leaped. In 2019, it increased to 20% again while both total EU ODA and governance aid decreased. Yet, the European neighbourhood is the only region in which the amount of EU governance aid increased in 2019 (see Tables 9.3 and see also Table 9.1). Table 9.3 Annual shares of EU governance and civil society aid to IPA, ENI, DCI, and EDF countries over total EU governance and civil society aid to developing countries (2002–2019) Share of EU governance aid under IPA/EU total governance aid to developing countries (%) 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

0 6 0 24 33 34 28 25 17 17 22 27 18 18 14 21 20 16

Share of EU governance aid under ENI/EU total governance aid to developing countries (%) 0 1 0 13 17 13 19 16 16 17 15 17 20 20 26 24 17 20

Share of EU governance aid under DCI/EU total governance aid to developing countries (%) 0 2 0 22 18 18 10 17 18 17 21 15 16 15 18 15 16 15

Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics (2021)

Share of EU governance aid under EDF/EU total governance aid to developing countries (%) 63 53 67 24 22 22 29 27 32 30 27 27 27 29 25 24 21 21

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ENI funding supported fifteen beneficiaries in the adoption and implementation of the political and technical reforms required for partnership. Ukraine (at 2.9%) is the largest recipient of governance aid followed by Morocco (at 2.6%) and West Bank and Gaza (at 1.8%) between 2002 and 2018 (see also Table 9.2). However, with the Arab uprisings in 2011 it became evident that, in the absence of enlargement, “carrots” were insufficient to motivate good governance reforms and deliver the prerequisite of democratisation for more development aid in its neighbourhood. Without any possibility of accession, even the term “EU’s neighbours” has been perceived negatively and creates “constructive ambiguity” (Simao, 2013). In addition, even though the EU aims to support political and economic reforms in the neighbourhood, the Arab uprisings showed that the EU and its member states are more security and stability oriented instead of focusing on political and economic reforms. Thus, the EU suffered from a “growing credibility deficit” during and after the Arab uprisings (Hollis, 2012; Pace & Cavatorta, 2012). In the post-Arab uprisings, the EU has experienced increasing difficulties in acting as a good governance exporter in its so-called neighbourhood (Dandashly, 2018; Teti et al., 2019). Coupled with protracted migration problems, the spreading threat of ISIS in the Mediterranean and an assertive Russian foreign policy, the post-Arab spring challenges forced the EU to reshuffle its strategic priorities under the “more for more” approach and downgrade its ambitions in the neighbourhood in its 2015 Review (Dekanozishvili, 2020). Hence, our data shows that the amount of EU governance aid to the ENP countries did not change significantly before and after the Arab uprisings (see Fig. 9.2 and Table 9.3. Also see Chapter 6 in this book). Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) The DCI covers cooperation with regions including Latin America, Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and South Africa, and replaces the previous geographic and thematic instruments. In addition to its geographic programmes, it also covers five thematic programmes and a series of measures to help 18 ACP Sugar Protocol countries adjust to the reform of the EU’s sugar regime. The DCI was launched in 2007 by replacing a wide range of previous programmes that had been established over time. The EU’s annual average ODA in the governance and civil society sector to DCI countries was around 10–11% of its overall aid to those countries

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between 2002 and 2019. Particularly after 2009, there were no significant fluctuations in the annual share of its governance ODA to DCI countries. Even since 2017, this share has been on an increasing trend (see Fig. 9.5). However, the annual share of EU’s governance aid to DCI countries declined sharply in 2013 to 15% from 21% in 2012 and subsequently stayed at around 16% until 2019, even though the overall volume of EU governance and civil society had increased between 2013 and 2018 (see Tables 9.1 and 9.3). One of the most significant findings in our research is the dissociation of Afghanistan as a recipient among DCI countries. Afghanistan is the top regional recipient of EU’s governance ODA by far (receiving 3.6% of all EU governance ODA allocated between 2002 and 2018), followed by Iraq (at 1.2%), and South Africa (at 1.1%), (see Table 9.2). The EU’s prioritisation of these two most insecure and conflict-related countries of the world, Afghanistan and Iraq, in governance and civil society aid allocation during the last two decades is in parallel with its development assistance objectives, linking democracy and good governance promotion with aid allocation in third countries. However, the recent fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban just after the withdrawal of the US security forces from the country once again raised the question of the social, economic, and political effectiveness of overall aid allocated 18% 16%

16%

15% 15%

14%

13% 14%

13%

13%

13% 13%

12%

10%

10% 8%

8%

8% 7%

10% 10% 8%

6% 4% 2% 0%

3% 1% 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 9.5 Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to DCI countries over total EU ODA to DCI countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021])

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to Afghanistan over the last twenty years by the “West”, particularly the USA, the EU, and its member states (Acemoglu, 2021). Before the establishment of the DCI, the EU’s foreign aid policy towards Latin America and Asia was limited to several bilateral trade and development cooperation agreements, and community aid was also limited. In the economic relations with Latin America, the US has always had geographical priority over Europe. Therefore, particularly with the emergence of waves of democratisation in a number of Latin American countries in the 1980s, Europe’s main approach towards and interest in Latin America remained political in nature. Regarding the EU-Asia relations in development cooperation, the role of EU foreign aid was also limited until the establishment of the DCI. Some influential member states, such as the UK (before Brexit), had close bilateral relations deriving from their historical ties—particularly with Asian states, such as India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. However, the significant contributions from EU member states to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) just after the Asian financial crisis in 1998 was critical to EUAsia relations. The EU’s priority areas in Asia are far more than trade, economic, and rural development, conflict resolution and humanitarian assistance, which is in parallel with the EU’s foreign policy strategy and contributes to its global actorness in the region. However, how the EU aims to eradicate poverty, support democratisation, good governance, equality, and promote human rights in Asia remains to be answered. European Development Fund (EDF) Europe has a long history of development and cooperation with third countries, especially those in Africa because of the close historical, political, social, and economic ties of some of its member states. The EU’s development policy is one of the first common policies of the Union, beginning from the 1950s, and was mentioned in Part IV of the Treaty of Rome as well (Lister, 1997). With the Treaty of Rome (1957), the first common foreign aid initiative, the EDF was introduced in 1958. The aim of the EDF was to support the ACP countries and Madagascar, which had colonial ties with France. Thus, France, as an EU member state, wanted to preserve its domain in these regions and countries (see Chapter 7 in this book). Together with preferential trade

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agreements (PTAs) with those countries, the EDF enabled the allocation of a significant amount of aid to the ACP states. The EDF has a special structure and is different from other geographic EU aid instruments regarding its tie with EU Member States. The EDF is financed outside the EU budget until the recent MFF. It was financed by direct contributions from EU Member States according to a contribution key and is covered by its own financial rules. Even prior to the decision on the MFF for 2014–2020, there were several discussions about the integration of the EDF’s budget into that of the EU and, with that, to strengthen the EU institutions’ role in development and cooperation policy. However, it was ultimately decided that geographical cooperation with the ACP states would not be integrated into the EU budget (budgetised) but would continue to be funded through the existing intergovernmental EDF. EU member states’ national interests coincided with their priority areas in development aid. Each donor state has a certain specialisation, expertise in certain specific sectors, countries, and regions. Therefore, they prefer to allocate aid to those regions and countries in their specialised sectors. EU member states have their own tradition in foreign aid policy. Therefore, while some of them prefer more technical assistance (for example, Germany), others prioritise budget support (for example, the Nordic states). Yet, member states’ bilateral aid policies, approaches towards EU development policy, and relations with EU institutions are affected by election results, any governmental change, personalities of certain politicians and officials, and the public opinion in the country and in the recipient state as well. Some country factors, for example, government or leadership change, any violation of human rights and democratic principles, or occurrence of a coup d’état in recipient states also impact the allocation patterns of donor countries and agencies. Since elected governments in EU member states are responsible to their electorate, public opinion on the government’s foreign aid policy is vital to decisions made by national officials and policymakers. Thus, public opinion is much more binding for member states than EU institutions. The EU’s governance and civil society aid under the EDF is the only financial instrument used in the four regions of the EU development aid policy whose annual share has been continuously increasing between 2002 and 2019. While its average annual share of total ODA to EDF countries is 9.3%, its average annual share of the EU’s total governance aid to all developing countries between 2002 and 2019 is 31.6% (see Fig. 9.6 and

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14% 13%13% 12%

12%

11%

10%

10% 9%

8%

9%

10% 10% 10% 9%

9%

9%

10%

8%

7% 6% 5%

5%

4% 2% 0% 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 9.6 Annual share of EU governance and civil society aid to EDF countries over total EU ODA to EDF countries (2002–2019) (Source Authors’ own calculations OECD Development Statistics [2021])

Table 9.3). These figures show that while the region receives the majority of overall governance and civil society aid from the EU, the Union and its member states do not similarly prioritise the governance and civil society sector under the EDF. Yet, while the EU did not allocate any governance and civil society aid to IPA, ENI, and DCI countries in 2002 and 2004, and very little in 2003, its annual shares of its governance aid to EDF countries of the total EU ODA to developing countries were 63, 53, and 67% in those same years, respectively. However, since 2005, the EU has seen a policy shift in this regard and increased the shares in its governance aid to IPA, ENI, and DCI countries while decreasing the share to EDF recipients (see Table 9.3). Besides, both the amount and share of governance aid per country among EDF recipients is less than recipients of IPA and ENI, since the EDF covers the largest number of countries. The top three recipients of EU governance ODA are sub-Saharan African countries, namely the DRC, Nigeria, and Mali, receiving only 2.6, 2, and 1.4% of governance aid of the total governance aid allocated by the EU between 2002 and 2018, respectively (see Table 9.2). In this chapter, we argue that one of the significant reasons for this policy change in the allocation of governance aid to EDF countries is the EU and member states’ preference to opt out for narrower and

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easily quantifiable developmental objectives in its ODA policies, particularly towards sub-Saharan Africa, while simultaneously competing with emerging illiberal donors in the region (Risse & Babayan, 2015). The second reason for EU policy change in governance aid allocation to different regions is the intergovernmental structure of the EDF. While the IPA, ENI, and DCI have been financed by EU institutions (supranational structure), the EDF receives money from EU member states (see Chapter 7 in this book). The EU was only coordinating and monitoring the EDF until the application of the 2021–2017 MFF. Thus, EU member states have preferred to offer support to other developmental objectives in sub-Saharan Africa than good governance and democratisation (Grimm & Leininger, 2012). However, in order to solve the dilemma of both competing with emerging donors as a “one-voice Europe” and promoting good governance and democratisation without making concessions to the EU’s development objectives at the same time in sub-Saharan Africa, the EDF is budgetised in the 2021–2027 MFF, which is discussed further in the following section.

The EU’s Revised ODA Policies in the Changing Liberal Order The new MFF for 2021–2027 locates the EU ODA policies under Heading 6 “Neighbourhood and the World”. The amount allocated to Heading 6 is e98.4 billion, which constitutes 9.2% of the e1.074.3 billion in 2021–2027 MFF. Although the share dedicated to external action in the MFF has increased since the previous budget term (it was 8.9% in the 2014–2020 MFF), it is still less than the 2018 European Commission proposal of e118 billion. The budget cut is mostly a result of the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit on member states’ contributions (Käppeli & Gavas, 2020; Parandii, 2020). The revised ODA policies under Heading 6 are also new in line with the EUGS, which downscaled the EU’s transformative ambitions worldwide (Barbé & Morillas, 2019) and prioritised resilience building and pragmatism over democracy promotion in its foreign policy (Juncos, 2017; Stollenwerk et al., 2021). In empirical terms, heading 6 includes the Neighbourhood Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) (e70.8 billion) (see Table 9.4); the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (e12.6 billion); humanitarian aid (e10.3 billion); the common foreign

Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) Asia, Latin America, some CSI, South Africa

Western Balkans, Turkey

Eastern and Southern neighbour states of the EU

EDF (Eleventh EDF)—not budgetised

IPA

ENI

PHARE, ISPA, SAPARD, CARDS, Turkey pre-accession ENPI, MEDA and TACIS

ALA, TACIS, ten thematic budget lines

Tenth EDF

Replaces

11,181 (16)

11,468 (16)

16,897 (24)

22,682 (32)

Funding 2007–2013 million Euro (per cent)

15,400 (19)

11,700 (14)

19,700 (24)

30,500 (36)

Funding 2014–2020 million Euro (per cent)

Under NDICI, Asia and the Pacific 10,000, Americas and the Caribbean 4,000 Under Pre-Accession Assistance 12,565 Under NDICIThe Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, European Neighbourhood 23,000

Under NDICI (Total 70,800), Sub-Saharan Africa 33,000

Funding 2021–2027 (approximately, billion EUR in 2018 prices)

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Source Authors’ own calculations EPRS (2021), EU External Action Service

DCI

Geography

The distribution of EU’s ODA policies over time (2007–2027)

Instrument

Table 9.4

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and security policy (e2.4 billion); cooperation with overseas countries and territories, including Greenland (e444 million); and other (including the European Instrument for Nuclear Safety) (e1.4 billion). The NDICI merges most of the financial instruments into one and integrates the off-budget EDF into the MFF. The NDICI has a budget of e70.8 billion (as of 2018) which amounts to 72% of all funds allocated to Heading 6. In line with the new realities in the wider Europe and changing global dynamics, the NDICI places cooperation with the EU’s two priority regions—sub-Saharan Africa and the Neighbourhood—at its core. Most resources (75% of the envelope) are devoted to geographical programmes that aim to promote good governance, the rule of law, human rights, human development, and sustainable economic growth, among others (EPRS, 2021). Under the 2021–2027 MFF, the budget dedicated to the IPA has slightly increased. The IPA has also been revised to align with the 2018 Western Balkan strategy’s six flagship initiatives and the evolving circumstances of EU-Turkey relations via the establishment of the Facility for Refugees. As regards political priorities, IPA III focuses on the rule of law, fundamental rights and governance, socio-economic development, EU policies and acquis, and people-to-people contacts, as well as reconciliation, good neighbourly relations, and regional cooperation. IPA III necessitates the increased involvement of civil society organisations and strengthens its conditionality provisions. It links the rule of law and fundamental rights with economic governance and reforms and the strengthening of democratic institutions and public administration reforms. The EU’s declining appeal (Öni¸s & Kutlay, 2019) at a time of the rise of non-Western powers has forced it to undergo a paradigm change in its accession policy. Following the EU-Western Balkans summit, which was held online in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU announced its new enlargement methodology entitled “Enhancing the accession process – A credible EU perspective for the Western Balkans” and prioritised Western Balkan countries for enlargement and re-reform process (European Commission, 2020). The EU’s reaffirmed commitment to Western Balkan after over a decade of neglect opened the door to Albania and North Macedonia to start negotiations (Tocci, 2020). The EU’s apparent change in attitude to its enlargement strategy in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic came as a reaction to China’s steadily increasing economic presence in the region (Soyaltin-Colella, 2022).

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New enlargement methodology emphasises an even stronger focus on fundamental reforms, including the rule of law, the functioning of democratic institutions and public administration, and defines a comprehensive incentives mechanism to ensure the irreversibility of the democratic reforms in the accession countries. The increased aid to the to-be-member countries under the renewed IPA III and introduction of stricter conditions and clearly defined benchmarks for the membership should be evaluated in this context. By doing so, the EU seeks to strengthen its weakened image in the eyes of outsiders and differentiate itself from the illiberal powers as a democratic attraction point. When it comes to the ENP countries, we also see an increase under the renewed “European Neighbourhood” instrument established in the MFF 2021–2027. The EU has committed to allocate around e23 billion to the ENP countries between 2021 and 2027, which is the largest financial increase from e15.4bn in comparison to other external instruments (see Table 9.4). Although good governance, civil society, democratisation, the rule of law, human rights, and transparency in the ENP countries are listed as important conditions for EU aid transfer, the deteriorating geopolitical environment in the southern and eastern neighbourhoods, the rise of Islamic terrorism and the threat represented by ISIS, hybrid threats, and the refugee crisis seem to have placed the EU’s security concerns high on the agenda while slimming down its democratic agenda in line with the principled pragmatism and resilience-building strategies of the EUGS (Juncos, 2017). Next to emerging crises in the EU Neighbourhood, the geopolitical shifts impelled the EU to fundamentally review its development fund. First, the EDF has been integrated into the NDICI and has become part of the 2021–2027 MFF. Second, the funds for sub-Saharan Africa have increased. The new EDF located under NDICI increased funds by 23%, from e26 billion to 33 billion (Table 9.4). With these revisions, the EU not only aims to make its external aid to sub-Saharan Africa more visible but also seeks to assert itself as a real geopolitical player vis-à-vis the rise of donors such as China (Parandii, 2020). Over the last two decades, China has risen as a significant economic player and an aid donor on the international stage. It is argued that the increasing amount of China’s aid to developing countries could have blocked Western donors’ attempts to promote good governance and democracy in these regions (Hackenesch, 2018; Risse & Babayan, 2015), as it has little or no strict compliance requirements or political preconditions (Markovic-Khaze & Wang, 2021).

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In contrast, the Chinese aid is viewed as a promoter of authoritarianism as it contributes to the spread of the “Chinese version of authoritarian stability” in the least-developed recipient countries, particularly in Africa (Kurlantzick & Link, 2009, see also Chapter 12 in this book), but also in the EU’s periphery (Soyaltin-Colella, 2022). The rising presence of authoritarian powers come as a challenge to the EU’s claims as being the major governance exporter committed to the promotion of liberal principles both within and beyond its borders. As indicated by the empirical evidence in this chapter, the revisions to the ODA policies in the new MFF reflect the EU’s geopolitical concerns in its near neighbourhood and its attempts to adapt itself to the changing dynamics in the donor market.

References Acemoglu, D. (2021). The EU must terminate Hungary’s membership. Project Syndicate. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/eu-must-termin ate-hungary-and-possibly-poland-by-daron-acemoglu-2021-09?barrier=access paylog Aydin-Düzgit, S. (2020). Can non-democracies support international democracy? Turkey as a case study. Third World Quarterly, 41(2), 264–283. Barbé, E., & Morillas, P. (2019). The EU global strategy: The dynamics of a more politicized and politically integrated foreign policy. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32(6), 753–770. Bieber, F. (2019). The rise of authoritarianism in the Western Balkans. Palgrave Pivot. Börzel, T. A., & Hüllen, V. V. (2011). Good governance and bad neighbours? The limits of the transformative power of Europe (KFG Working Paper Series, 35). Freie Universität Berlin, FB Politik- und Sozialwissenschaften, Otto-SuhrInstitut für Politikwissenschaft Kolleg-Forschergruppe “The transformative power of Europe”. Buchanan, J. M. (1975). The Samaritan’s dilemma. In E. S. Phelps (Ed.), Altruism, morality and economic theory (pp. 71–85). Russell Sage. Carbone, M. (2010). The European Union, good governance and aid coordination. Third World Quarterly, 31(1), 13–29. Cihangir-Tetik, D. (2021). Turkey’s activism and actorness in the Western Balkans: The role of transatlantic relations. In E. Ku¸sku-Sönmez & Ç. Üstün (Eds.), Turkey’s changing transatlantic relations (pp. 237–265). Lexington Books. Cihangir-Tetik, D., & Müftüler-Baç, M. (2018). Turkey’s compliance with the European Union’s development policy: A pattern of external differentiated

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integration? Journal of European Integration, 40(7), 939–959. https://doi. org/10.1080/07036337.2018.1482291 Cihangir-Tetik, D., & Müftüler-Baç, M. (2020). A comparison of development assistance policies: Turkey and the European Union in sectoral and humanitarian aid. Journal of European Integration. https://doi.org/10.1080/070 36337.2020.1734587 Dadašov, R. (2017). European aid and governance: Does the source matter? European Journal of Development Research, 29(2), 269–288. Dandashly, A. (2018). EU democracy promotion and the dominance of the security–stability nexus. Mediterranean Politics, 23(1), 62–82. Dekanozishvili, M. (2020). The European Union’s credibility–expectations gap in its European neighbourhood policy: Perspectives from Georgia and Ukraine. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 20(2), 289–305. European Commission. (2020, February 5). Commission lays out its proposals for EU accession process. Press Release. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pressc orner/detail/en/IP_20_181 European Parliamentary Research Services (EPRS). (2018). The EU external financing instruments and the post-2020 architecture European Implementation Assessment Study. European Parliamentary Research Service. (2021). Neighbourhood and the world Heading 6 of the 2021–2027 MFF. European Think Tanks Group (ETTG). (2018). The European Union’s next multiannual financial framework: Prospects and challenges for EU development cooperation. Goldsmith, A. A. (2001). Foreign Aid and statehood in Africa. International Orga-Nization, 55(1), 123–148. Grimm, S., & Leininger, J. (2012). Not all good things go together: Conflicting objectives in democracy promotion. Democratization, 19(3), 391–414. Hackenesch, C. (2018). The EU and China in African authoritarian regimes domestic politics and governance reforms. Palgrave. Hackenesch, C., Bergmann, J., & Orbie, J. (2021). Development policy under fire? The politicization of European external relations. Journal of Common Market Studies, 59, 3–19. Holliis, R. (2012). No friend of democratization: Europe’s role in the genesis of the ‘Arab Spring’. International Affairs, 88(1), 81–94. Royal Institute of International Affairs. Hout, W. (2010). Governance and development: Changing EU policies. Third World Quarterly, 31(1), 1–12. Juncos, A. (2017). Resilience as the new EU foreign policy paradigm: A pragmatist turn? European Security, 26(1), 1–18. Käppeli, A., & Gavas, M. (2020, July 27). The EU’s new budget: Europe’s recovery at the expense of its long- term ambitions. Center

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for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/eus-new-budget-eur opes-recovery-expense-its-long-term-ambitions Koch, S. (2015). A typology of political conditionality beyond aid: Conceptual horizons based on lessons from the European Union. World Development, 75, 95–109. Kurlantzick, J., & Link, P. (2009). China: Resilient, sophisticated authoritarianism. In Undermining democracy: 21st century. Freedom House. Lister, M. (1997). The European Union and the south: Relations with developing countries. Routledge. Mareseau, M. (2003). Pre-accession. In M. Cremona (Ed.), The enlargement of the European Union (pp. 9–42). Oxford University Press. Markovic-Khaze, N., & Wang, X. (2021). Is China’s rising influence in the Western Balkans a threat to European integration? Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 29(2), 234–250. Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2020). Europe’s burden: Promoting good governance across borders. Cambridge University Publications. Mungiu-Pippidi, A., & Warkotsch, J. (Eds.). (2017). Beyond the panama papers: The performance of EU good governance promotion. Barbara Budrich Publications. Munoz Galvez, E. (2012). European development aid: How to be more effective without spending more? Notre Europe (Working paper no. 57). OECD. (2020). Official Development Assistance (ODA) development initiatives. Data Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Öni¸s, Z., & Kutlay, M. (2019). Global shifts and the limits of the EU’s transformative power in the European periphery: Comparative perspectives from Hungary and Turkey. Government and Opposition, 54(2), 226–253. Pace, M., & Cavatorta, F. (2012). The Arab Uprisings in theoretical perspective: An introduction. Mediterranean Politics, 17 (2), 125–138. Parandii, K. (2020). Is development aid a victim of the EU budget deal? Centre for European Reform. https://www.cer.eu/insights/development-aid-victimeu-budget-deal Risse, T., & Babayan, N. (2015). Democracy promotion and the challenges of illiberal regional powers: Introduction to the special issue. Democratization, 22(3), 381–399. Schimmelfennig, F., & Scholtz, H. (2008). EU democracy promotion in the European neighbourhood: Political conditionality, economic development and transnational exchange. European Union Politics, 9(2), 187–215. Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (2005). (Eds.). The Europeanization of central and eastern Europe. Cornell University Press Simao, L. (2013). Coming of age: Dilemmas for the EU’s foreign policy in the wider Europe. In T. Cierco (Ed.), The European Union neighbourhood: Challenges and opportunities (pp. 99–121). Ashgate.

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Soyaltin-Colella, D. (2020, May). EU’s conditional incentives, domestic politics, and judiciary capture in Turkey. Newton Advanced Fellowship Project (Working Paper No. 2). https://emergencyturkey.com/2020/05/30/wor king-paper-2/ Soyaltin-Colella, D. (2022). EU accession process, Chinese finance, and rising corruption problem in Western Balkan stabilitocracies: Serbia and Montenegro. Europe Asia Studies. Stollenwerk, E., Börzel, T., & Risse, T. (2021). Theorizing resilience-building in the EU’s neighbourhood: Introduction to the special issue. Democratization, 28(7), 1219–1238. Teti, A., Abbott, P., & Cavatorta, F. (2019). Beyond elections: Perceptions of democracy in four Arab countries. Democratization, 26(4), 645–665. Tocci, N. (2020). Resilience and the role of the European Union in the world. Contemporary Security Policy, 41(2), 176–194. Vachudova, A. M. (2005). Europe undivided: Democracy, leverage, integration after communism. Oxford University Press. van Hüllen, V., & Börzel, T. (2015). Why being democratic is just not enough: The EU’s governance transfer. In V. van Hüllen & T. Börzel (Eds.), Governance transfer by regional organizations (pp. 227–245). Palgrave Macmillan. Wetzel, A., & Orbie, J. (2015). The substance of EU democracy promotion: Concepts and issues. Palgrave Macmillan. Youngs, R., & Zihino˘glu, Ö. (2021). EU aid policy in the Middle East and North Africa: Politicization and its limit. Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery: Incorporating Medical and Surgical Dermatology. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/jcms.13136

PART III

Rethinking the Role of Alternative Governance Exporters

CHAPTER 10

EU Democratic Governance Promotion Towards Central Asia and Illiberal Regional Powers Tugce Yildiz

Introduction The European Union’s (EU’s) engagement with Central Asia had remained shallow until the turn of the twenty-first century, as the EU previously had neither the political interest nor significant resources to otherwise engage with the region. Due to lack of historical ties to Europe and the region’s remoteness and the difficulty in gaining access to it, Central Asia had long been regarded as terra incognita. The EU’s awareness of the region and the need to forge a relationship with Central Asian countries has indeed started at the same time as discussions on the EU’s role as an international actor that outside regions have sparked. Parallel to developments in its institutional structure and enlargement waves through

T. Yildiz (B) Department of International Relations, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Çanakkale, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_10

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deepening and widening processes, the EU started its re-engagement with Central Asian countries in the mid-1990s. Initially, relations were sustained bilaterally within the framework of Partnership and Cooperation agreements and under the TACIS (Technical Assistance to Commonwealth of Independent States) programme, whose main objective was to assist these states in their transition to market economies. Over time, the EU’s engagement with the region, which emerged in terms of providing technical support in few strategic sectors, has deepened, along with new comprehensive policies including not only economic/trade goals but also geostrategic and security priorities with gradually increasing funding. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the growing strategic importance of Central Asia in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the EU’s expansion into Eastern Europe, and a shifting geostrategic landscape featured by a growing Russian and Chinese influence forced Brussels to take a more active stance in the region by developing new policies that followed these new realities and challenges. Coinciding with the same period, transformative power discussions over the EU’s actorness in its neighbourhood also shaped the EU’s policies towards Central Asia by incorporating declared EU values, including democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in the root of relations (Buscaneanu, 2018). Suffice to say that it was not only due to the EU’s internal evolution into a stronger union with common foreign and security policy and external developments, but also the newly emerging statehood in Central Asia intensified bilateral relations and shaped the framework of democratic governance promotion policies (Cornell & Starr, 2019). Central Asia, as a predominantly Muslim region with troubled political systems and economics and neighbouring Afghanistan—with a spill-over risk of extremism and drug trafficking, social instability, intercommunity conflicts, but also with rich energy reserves and a strategic location for the routes of energy resources—possesses both challenges and opportunities for the EU to develop its democratic governance promotion policies. In a region where security and geostrategic considerations prevail over normative commitments, the EU could fall into the “democracystability dilemma” trap.1 For the sake of regional stability, the EU could engage with authoritarian leaders in fighting terrorism and limiting illiberal migration. Therefore, while in some cases the EU applies more concrete and broad democracy promotion policies and tools with a strong

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commitment to promoting democratic governance, in some other cases it might prioritise security and stability over democracy. The EU’s democratic governance promotion approach towards Central Asia also demonstrates such differentiation by regional comparison between the five republics, i.e., Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Even this differentiation seems reasonable as the EU follows “tailor-made” democratic governance promotion agendas towards target states depending on their local needs and conditions, though the domestic resonance thesis fails to explain the variation in the substance of the EU’s democratic governance promotion over time and across countries with similar domestic conditions, as empirically evidenced. One striking example is that the EU pursues a broader democratic governance promotion agenda towards Kyrgyzstan than Tajikistan despite the similarities in their respective domestic conditions. Therefore, this chapter seeks to understand the EU democratic governance promotion policies towards Central Asian republics by focusing on crucial determinants for differentiation. It suggests that the leverage of illiberal regional power(s)—here mainly Russia and China—over Central Asian states shapes the EU’s democratic governance promotion agendas as the increased presence of illiberal regional powers challenge the EU’s actorness in the region. After the introduction, the following section offers theoretical and conceptual debates on the substance of EU democratic governance promotion by focusing on the “embedded liberal democracy” approach. It then addresses the EU’s democratic governance promotion in Central Asia from a historical perspective, highlighting certain turning points, and examines the EU’s differentiated democratic governance promotion approach to each country from an embedded liberal democracy perspective. In the final section, geopolitical, economic, and security dynamics in a broader regional context with other players, who have significant leverage over individual Central Asian states, are evaluated as crucial but underexplored factors shaping the substance of EU democratic governance promotion policies in Central Asia. Finally, this work concludes with a discussion of the current challenges as well as prospects for the future of EU democratic governance promotion in Central Asia.

Theoretical and Conceptual Framework of the EU Democratic Governance Promotion A vast body of academic literature has emerged in line with the development of the EU democratic governance promotion agenda. The literature

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has so far focused on either comparative analysis of democracy promoters’ tools and strategies or the impact of these policies on the target states’ democratisation paths to evaluate possible outcomes (Ayers, 2008; Carothers, 1997; Cooley, 2008; Crawford, 2008; Dave, 2008; Hoffmann, 2010; Risse, 2009; Warkotsch, 2006, 2009). Recently, a number of scholars have examined the implications of authoritarian states’ efforts regarding the success of democratic governance promotion efforts and the democratisation process (Ambrosio, 2009; Babayan, 2015; Chen & Kinzelbach, 2015; Risse & Babayan, 2015; Tolstrup, 2014; Vanderhill, 2017; Yakouchyk, 2015). The latter studies, in particular, consider the role of authoritarian actors in the region with some countervailing measures that impede democratic governance promotion and democratisation paths of target states. However, apart from those studies in the literature focusing on the outcomes of democracy promotion, the substance of EU democracy promotion in Central Asia has also been considered (Kurki, 2010, 2011, 2015; Wetzel & Orbie, 2012, 2015), as have the instruments, strategies, and outcomes of EU democracy promotion in Central Asia (Bossuyt & Kubicek, 2011; Cooley, 2008; Crawford, 2008; Schatz, 2006; Warkotsch, 2006). Examining the substance of EU democratic governance promotion policies necessitates an all-encompassing definition of liberal democracy that includes both core aspects of democracy and good governance features. In that respect, this study takes Wetzel and Orbie’s (2015) “model of embedded liberal democracy” as the point of departure. Wetzel and Orbie (2015) gather essential features of liberal democracy from the models of Linz and Stepan (1996) and Merkel (2004) within a single framework. While maintaining Merkel’s (2004) model of embedded democracy, including the five partial regimes: “a democratic electoral regime, political rights of participation, civil rights, horizontal accountability, and the guarantee that the effective power to govern lies in the hands of democratically elected representatives”, Wetzel and Orbie add four external conditions that shape the environment to both enable and stabilise democratic governance. These conditions are stateness, state administrative capacity, civil society, and socio-economic requisites. According to the varying emphasis on these partial regimes and conditions, Wetzel and Orbie argue that the EU has five different options for its democracy promotion agendas, namely the broad agenda (Type I), full agenda (Type II), narrow agenda (Type III), shallow agenda (Type IV), and empty agenda (Type V), as illustrated in Fig. 10.1.

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Fig. 10.1 EU democracy promotion agendas (Source Wetzel and Orbie, The Substance of EU Democracy Promotion: Concepts and Cases, 9)

Each characterisation of agendas signifies that the EU promotes different components of embedded liberal democracy in its democracy promotion strategies. Here, it should be emphasised that the terms “narrow” or “shallow” do not necessarily imply that these EU agendas are worse than the others; rather, it implies that the EU ignores or does not prefer to focus on partial regimes in democracy promotion agendas. For example, in some countries where democracy or at least partial regimes of democracy are advanced such as in Brazil or Israel, the EU prefers to follow a shallow agenda rather than a broad agenda. Wetzel and Orbie assume that four particular factors, i.e., the differences in power between the EU and a target country, EU internal institutional factors, differences in the target countries’ domestic contexts, and differences in the inter-organisational field in the third country, shape the substance of EU democracy promotion. In addition to these factors, this chapter argues that there is also a new determinant—the illiberal regional power—which directly/indirectly shape the substance of the EU’s democracy promotion. Assuming that EU democracy promotion is an outcome of the clash of the EU’s interdependent strategic interests, target country, and the regional power, this chapter claims that in depending on its leverage over

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target countries, the EU’s incentives or carrots may become meaningful to the authoritarian country, encouraging it to change its authoritarian tendencies for the better. In contrast, the illiberal regional powers’ leverage over the target country can help to preserve the autocratic regime’s status quo and decrease the legitimacy of EU incentives. In such a case, the EU’s insistence on politically sensitive reforms, which are directly intended to induce regime change, can be rejected by autocratic governments if they have the support of illiberal regional powers (Golovko, 2011: 107). Thus, the EU can refrain from pushing the country for direct democratic reforms but rather chooses a cautious longterm promotion of external context conditions for sustainable democracy in a region where authoritarian states are legitimised by illiberal regional actors. This leads us to the following hypothesis: the lower the leverage that an illiberal regional power has on the target country, the more the EU uses a broader democracy promotion agenda, and vice versa (i.e., the EU uses a broader, or more shallow, agenda). Based on the “embedded liberal democracy” framework, the following section gives an overall picture of EU democratic governance promotion agendas towards Central Asian states. Before analysing the substance of EU democratic governance promotion in Central Asia, it is important to evaluate the transformation of these policies in Central Asia over time.

Central Asia as a Region of Increasing Diversity Central Asia is a significant geographical area to analyse the differentiation of the EU democratic governance promotion policies for the following reasons. First, Central Asia is marked by authoritarian regimes, which offers an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the EU’s democratic governance promotion policies in those regions beyond its immediate neighbourhood. According to the latest Freedom House data in 2021, all Central Asian countries, i.e., Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, are identified as consolidated authoritarian regimes, with the exception of Kyrgyzstan which at one time was praised as an “island of democracy” in the region with its experiences of democratic openings i.e., in 2005 the Tulip Revolution, and 2010 the overthrow of Bakiev’s increasingly authoritarian government (Anderson, 1999). While some scholars emphasise specific features of the domestic structure, i.e., patrimonialism, family rule, endemic corruption, and tribal

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structure, others focus on weak political institutions as the reasons for persistent authoritarianism. Second, in addition to similarities, the region displays increasing diversity. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian states faced compelling challenges relating to nation-building, state-building, political and economic reformation, and finding their place in the international system (Sharshenova, 2018: 11). Each followed different paths in terms of their statehood construction, from a quick transition to a market economy with “shock therapy” reforms as happened in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, to a gradual and partial transition to a market economy as in the case of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (Blackmon, 2009: 15–28; Sharshenova, 2018: 12). In addition, despite similarities in regime type, these states have disparate socio-economic structures, as some have significant reserves of natural resources while others lack them. The kind of rentier economy, as in Kazakhstan, offers authoritarian leaders the opportunity to secure their regimes through patronage networks. In contrast, others such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, without such resources, may be politically vulnerable and have a strong reliance on foreign assistance. This has a number of implications for differentiated EU democratic governance promotion, which will be discussed further in the following sections. Third, the EU has very few “carrots and sticks” in its democratic governance promotion in Central Asia. Compared to the countries in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and in the accession framework, the EU lacks a “ golden carrot”—the most influential positive conditionality mechanism—namely the prospect of EU membership to Central Asian countries as an incentive to enact reforms. In terms of available “carrots”, the EU can offer development aid, trade privileges, and closer cooperation, though these are not as effective as EU membership. As “sticks”, the EU can rely on negative conditionality instruments such as sanctions and critical statements, which have been used very rarely since the beginning of relations with the exception of the clear example of the EU sanctions enacted against Uzbekistan after the events in Andijan in 2005. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of this instrument has been widely questioned by scholars after the EU decided to lift the sanctions, even though there had been no concrete progress in the human rights situation in Uzbekistan (Axyonova, 2015). The last point—the main focus of this chapter—is that Central Asia is very much open to the impacts of external illiberal regional powers,

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including Russia, China, Iran, etc. Surrounded by illiberal regional powers makes it difficult for Central Asia to adopt European democracy and reforms. To describe the situation, one Kazakh official said: “It is like living in a cage with a dragon and a bear” (Sharshenova, 2018: 211). The implications of being surrounded by illiberal powers are twofold: first, since the EU’s economic and political rewards are conditional upon the target state showing progress along the path to democratisation, other regional powers’ offers, such as trade deals, cheap loans, and development aid, etc., without any conditionality for democratic progress, undermine the EU’s leverage on Central Asian countries. Second, the ongoing opposition of illiberal regional powers, i.e., Russia and China, towards Western ideological intervention in their backyard has also changed local political elites’ perceptions of the costs and benefits and, indeed, their willingness to commit to a European-style path of development (Haukkala, 2010). The gradual increase in Russian aggression towards neighbouring countries, as per the Ukrainian crisis, has made explicit that there are costs of non-compliance with Russian demands to consider its interests; a cost that varies depending on the extent of Russian leverage over such countries. Therefore, all Central Asian countries—especially Kazakhstan—choose to follow multi-vector foreign policies, that is, pragmatic and interest-based policies based on maintaining good relations with great powers such as Russia, China, and the West without prioritising one strategic partnership over another (Ipek, 2007: 1183). Democratic governance promotion in Central Asia is a litmus test of the EU’s actorness and effectiveness in the region beyond its immediate neighbourhood. Despite substantial efforts to promote democracy and good governance in Central Asia, only slight improvement has been achieved to date. Regardless of whether the EU successfully promotes democratic governance in these countries, this chapter will attempt to reveal possible determinants of variations between different EU democratic governance promotion agendas for different individual Central Asian states by emphasising the influence of illiberal regional powers on this variation. For brevity and accuracy, this chapter focuses on the impact of Russia and China, which have an unquestionable influence on the region, and analyses how illiberal regional powers impact the substance of EU democratic governance promotion.

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The Historical Evolution of the EU’s Democratic Governance Promotion Policies in Central Asia The EU democratic governance promotion in Central Asia can be examined in terms of three distinct time periods: between the years 1992–2006, when the relations were constructed within the framework of technical support under a specific TACIS programme; between the years 2007–2013, with the EU’s increased engagement in the region during the German presidency of the EU Council; and since 2014, with the balancing of normative commitments and strategic interests. Relations with Central Asian countries started immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (European Commission, 1994). The TACIS programme, which was introduced in 1991, was a vital tool during this period to help former Soviet Union countries—known as Newly Independent States (NIS)—including Central Asian countries, on their way to integration into the world market economy.2 Initially, it was designed as a form of technical assistance, but later its scope was expanded to include political cooperation. As of 2007, TACIS was replaced by the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI). Education, poverty reduction, and good governance were determined to constitute primary areas of assistance. Since TACIS covered very diverse countries, specific objectives for each country were determined in indicative programmes and annual action plans negotiated bilaterally by the EU and the individual states between 1992 and 2003 (Plottka, 2015: 127). In 2002, these bilateral indicative programmes were turned into regional ones, and the EU issued its first regional policy framework entitled the “Central Asia Strategy Paper 20022006” (European Commission: DG External Relations, 2002). Three priority areas were emphasised in this strategy paper: (i) support for institutional, legal, and administrative reform; (ii) management of natural resources and development of infrastructure networks; and (iii) support in addressing the social consequences of a transition. As a response to the international developments at the beginning of the 2000s, security concerns regarding the energy and military constitute the main underlying rationale for increased cooperation with the region. Indeed, threats of terrorism and organised crime have been identified as the main problems and challenges in the region. Relations gained a new impetus with the 2007 Strategy Paper towards Central Asia adopted at the end of the German Presidency (Spaiser, 2012). This 2007 regional strategy paper defined “promotion of Central

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Asian regional cooperation and good neighbourly relations” as the priority area of funding, while two other priority areas were “poverty reduction and increasing living standards” and “support for good governance and economic reform”, which were addressed on a bilateral basis according to on the needs of the individual countries in question. This strategy paper is important in the sense that it was the first comprehensive strategy towards Central Asia, which prioritises democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and good governance, and for ascribing a new and leading role for democratic governance promotion in the region to the EU. In addition to novelties such as the introduction of “High-Level Security Dialogue” with Central Asian states reflecting the regional security concerns, the EU launched the Rule of Law under the leadership of Germany and France as one of three flagship EU regional projects in Central Asia,3 intended “to support on-going modernisation of the legal sector, as part of a more comprehensive strategy to foster and consolidate stability, prosperity and respect for human rights in Central Asian countries”.4 Two issues are significant in the 2007 Strategy Paper. First, it emphasised the potential impacts of developments and instability in Central Asia on European security architecture. To promote stability in the region, various aid programmes were designed. Second, it underlined the importance of the energy sector in the EU-Central Asia relations. For the EU, Central Asia, as a region rich in oil and gas reserves, is critically important in terms of offering energy diversification and reduced dependence on Russian supplies and pipelines (Kassenova, 2008). The Strategy Paper of 2007 brought a number of innovations regarding new approaches to relations. First, the strategy underlined more tailor-made policies and programmes as the main objectives for the 2007– 2013 period. Second, the budget for 2007–2013, was doubled compared to the early years of the relationship. In the budget the poverty reduction programmes constituted 40–45% of the total budget, while 20–25% of the budget was allocated to good governance programmes mainly for state administrative capacity and management (Bossuyt & Kubicek, 2011: 178). This indicates that the EU placed a much greater emphasis on the external conditions than on the partial regimes of liberal democracy, with the exception of that small emphasis placed on civil rights and horizontal accountability. Figure 10.2 indicates the main components of the EU’s assistance to Central Asia under the “Government and Civil Society” section between

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Fig. 10.2 Main components of the EU’s assistance to Central Asia under the “Government and Civil Society” section (Source Data collected from the EU Aid Explorer website: https://euaidexplorer.ec.europa.eu)

2007 and 2021 (European Union, 2021b). The change in funding allocations illustrated in Fig. 10.2 reveals the transformation of the EU’s democratic governance promotion policies towards Central Asia. The EU’s support for public sector policy and administrative management has decreased since 2010, while support for legal and judicial development has increased considerably. As one of two focal points for assistance determined in the Regional Multiannual Indicative Programme for Central Asia (RIP) for 2014–2020,5 the rule of law and judiciary reforms received the highest level of funding in 2014 under Government and Civil Society, again as illustrated in Fig. 10.2. The EU has various initiatives and thematic instruments to promote democracy, good governance, and civil society that form the basis on which this funding is allocated. Many of these programmes are run through either the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), which aims to support civil society from the bottom up through democracy and human rights-oriented projects, or the Non-State Actors and Local Authorities in Development (NSA-LA), which aims to strengthen civil society and municipal governments. Yet, the funding allocated to the EIDHR instrument is minimal compared to other initiatives and projects. It is also apparent from Fig. 10.2 that the proportion of

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funding allocated for “democratic participation and civil society” is very small compared to other components. In 2019, the Council adopted a new strategy for Central Asia (European Union, 2021a). In this, the EU reaffirmed once more its multi-layered engagement in Central Asia. First, in the economic field, cooperation to improve the investment environment, supporting regional trade, and strengthening the private sector are targeted. Second, in the political field, similar to the previous strategy, the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, as well as the importance of civil society, were acknowledged. Finally, in the security field, cooperation on border management, migration, mobility and countering terrorism and extremism, as well as cooperation in dealing with common challenges such as environmental degradation and climate change, are underlined as strategic goals (Putz, 2019). The gradual intensification of EU-Central Asia relations can be observed not only in the series of EU documents on the region over time but also in the increased number of areas of cooperation areas and amount of funding allocated. However, despite enhanced bilateral ties and cooperation in several areas, the EU’s democracy promotion policies and instruments remained weak in terms of reforming these countries. Although there is lofty rhetoric in EU policy documents and statements regarding the significance of democracy and good governance for the sustainability of relations with Central Asia, democratic governance promotion in practice appeared to be limited in scope and only of secondary importance in the EU’s policies, which focused primarily on trade, security and (economic) regulatory issues. (Bossuyt & Kubicek, 2011; Crawford, 2008). Yet, the EU considers other dynamics, along with the domestic situation and political will of the target states, in developing its democratic governance promotion agendas. Therefore, the EU developed a differentiated approach depending on the domestic conditions of Central Asian countries.

Examining the Substance of EU Democratic Governance Promotion in Central Asia As mentioned above, Central Asia is a very difficult landscape from which to advance democracy due to domestic factors, including economic and political conditions in the region such as persistence of corruption, high

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levels of poverty, “clan politics”, a relatively weak civil society, and problems regarding stateness and nation-building (Bossuyt & Kubicek, 2011). Despite their commonalities, Central Asian republics vary widely in geography, population, human development, natural resources, and political and economic situations (Niklasson, 2008: 12). Some countries, such as Kyrgyzstan, have had the best prospects for democratisation because of its political pluralism and vibrant civil society, yet remain an unstable developing country. Others, such as Kazakhstan, because of its level of economic development stemming from oil and gas exports, opted for political liberalisation, as exemplified by President Nazarbayev’s “Path to Europe” and the country’s Chairmanship of the OSCE, even though these attempts were regarded as securing the country’s image in the international arena and polishing his legacy (Boonstra, 2012). In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, on the other hand, political and economic power is concentrated among narrow political elites. Both countries were labelled by Freedom House as being among the nine “worst of the worst” countries in the world in terms of democracy. Uzbekistan has problematic relations with its neighbours and has preserved its murderous image since the Andijan events in 2005, in which hundreds of protestors were killed. Turkmenistan maintains its place as one of the most isolated and repressive countries in the world without an independent civil society or political opposition. Tajikistan, similar to Kyrgyzstan, lacks natural resources, which impedes the building of a rentier-state or an effective police state. Differences in terms of the domestic situation of target states have an impact in shaping the EU democratic governance promotion agendas, as declared as the need to follow “tailor-made” agendas.6 Examining the determinants of the EU’s differentiated democratic governance promotion agendas in Central Asia, Bossuyt and Kubicek (2011) reveal that the substance of EU democratic governance promotion depends not only on the EU’s self-interest but also the domestic resonance of target states with the EU’s normative values. Thus, where target states are more politically open, and elites are more willing to adapt these norms, the EU follows a broader democratic governance promotion agenda, as happened in Kyrgyzstan. On the other hand, in states that are more closed, such as the authoritarian and more repressive Turkmenistan, the EU refrains from pressing its democratisation agenda but rather promotes a narrow agenda with only limited aspects of democracy. Their findings are compatible with the hypothesis that domestic resonance shapes the substance of EU democratic governance promotion agendas. Nevertheless, this has

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certain shortcomings in terms of explaining the variation in the substance of the EU democratic governance promotion over time and across countries with similar domestic conditions. This is why this chapter critically questions the role of illiberal regional powers on the change in EU policies over time and across Central Asian countries with similar domestic conditions. Table 10.1 above summarises the substance of the EU’s democratic governance promotion policies in Central Asian states. By evaluating the EU documents, policy papers and decisions related to democratic governance promotion activities between 2007 and 2021, this study has reached the conclusion that the EU’s democratic governance promotion agendas differ from broad to shallow as indicated in the framework of the embedded liberal democracy approach. Kazakhstan, as the largest state in the region in terms of surface area and which is far wealthier than the other Central Asian countries, has a different nature of relations with other actors in the region. As an oil exporter, it has more extensive ties with the EU. Evaluating the projects and disbursements to Kazakhstan for the “Government and Civil Society” sector, public sector policy and administrative management receive the greatest amount of assistance, while legal and judicial development is second in this regard. The distribution of assistance among projects indicates that the EU pays attention to certain elements of the partial regime Table 10.1 The substance of the EU democratic governance promotion agenda to Central Asian states Kazakhstan EU interests: Energy—Security EU leverage Leverage of illiberal regional powers (Russia & China) EU’s democratic governance promotion agenda

++

Kyrgyzstan −+

Uzbekistan ++

Turkmenistan ++

Tajikistan −+

Medium Medium

High Medium

Medium High

Low High

Medium Medium

Some elements of broad agenda

Broad agenda

Shallow agenda

Some elements of shallow agenda

Some elements of broad agenda

Source Author compilation. Adapted from Bossuyt and Kubicek (2011)

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but places less emphasis on external conditions. Thus, the EU tends to promote only certain elements of its broad democratic governance promotion agenda in Kazakhstan. On the other hand, in Tajikistan and in Kyrgyzstan, as the poorest countries in the region, the EU prioritises socio-economic development for democracy consolidation. Therefore, poverty reduction policies, particularly through the Food Security Programme, have been important to the EU’s institutional capacity-building activities. Yet, the EU’s approaches to these countries differ in terms of the amount of aid and in terms of focused areas for assistance. First, Kyrgyzstan is the only country in Central Asia in which the EU has applied a broader democratic governance promotion agenda with a special focus on both partial regimes and external conditions. The EU has given the most significant amount of assistance—more than e84 million—to Kyrgyzstan under “Government and Civil Society” between 2007 and 2021. Second, the EU provided the greatest amount of support to Kyrgyzstan for its genuine free and fair elections, amounting to more than e13 million, while other Central Asian states, with the exception of Turkmenistan, have been given a total amount of e1 million. Despite similarities in terms of the domestic conditions of both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the EU’s democratic governance promotion approach differs towards these countries as public finance management and human rights were given much more importance in Tajikistan than in Kyrgyzstan. In Uzbekistan, the EU tends to promote shallow democracy. It focuses mainly on the context conditions of liberal democracy with the development assistance and programmes related to employment, education and facilitating access to world trade. Public finance management receives the most considerable amount of assistance among the sectors under “Government and Civil Society”. As a strategically located and resourcerich country, the EU has security and energy interests in Uzbekistan, which shapes its democratic governance promotion agendas. For example, Germany, with its military base operating until 2015 at Termez near the northern part of Afghanistan, was the leading EU member state prioritising its security concerns over human rights abuses in the country. In Turkmenistan, on the other hand, as one of the most isolated and repressive countries in Central Asia, yet with vast gas reserves, the EU faces the classical dilemma of whether to pursue a normative approach prioritising the values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, etc., or

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a strategic approach, sustaining cooperation for the sake of energy interests. Indeed, the EU’s policies in Turkmenistan show that the EU is least assertive in its promotion of a broader democratic governance promotion approach, while placing only superficial emphasis on certain components of democracy (Bossuyt & Kubicek, 2011).

The Missing Link: The Role of Illiberal Regional Powers in the Differentiated EU Democratic Governance Promotion Agendas External actors always play a crucial role in defining the contours of change in Central Asia. The landlocked geography, political instability, and economic difficulties inherited from its Soviet legacy have left Central Asian countries heavily dependent on their immediate neighbours and the international community. In addition to this dependency, Central Asia, as a region neighbouring the most troubled parts of the world— that is, Afghanistan and the Middle East—dynamic emerging market economies—China and Russia—and having energy resources of global significance, attracts considerable international attention. Leaving aside Western powers’ roles in the region, one can talk about two main actors with a wider dominance over Central Asia, Russia, and China, which offer a set of alternatives including authoritarian values, regime survival for local autocratic governments, and sources of investment, development aid, and other material gains without political conditionality. In such an emerging regional environment, featured by “a club of authoritarian regimes”, any inclination towards liberal democracy is regarded as dangerous for Central Asian states, which can explain the underlying reason for the multi-vector policies adopted by the countries in the region. The relations between Central Asian states on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, have been discussed for two decades. Along with the traditional Russian influence since the collapse of the USSR, China’s growing influence has been felt since the middle of the 2000s. The establishment of the Shanghai Five (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) in 1996, and the transformation into SCO with the accession of Uzbekistan in 2001, can be considered the first step in breaking Russian political monopoly over the region, with strengthening economic and energy cooperation with China. Even though Russia has been considered an accepted legitimate actor and one of the most important partners

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in cooperation by Central Asian countries (Niklasson, 2008: 11), China’s growing influence through capital investment in Central Asia’s energy sector, as well as offering low-interest credit with no strings attached and easy conditions to increase trade relations, can be regarded as attempts to counteract Moscow’s dominance. The implications of Chinese loans with low interest and ambitious investment and infrastructure projects through non-transparent government-to-government agreements are twofold. On the one hand, incumbent regimes can consolidate by presenting these projects as proof of their economic growth, while on the other, the positive Chinese image challenges, to some extent, the EU’s attractiveness in the region as a partner (Soyaltin-Colella, 2022). Yet, even though China, as a generous donor and pragmatic partner whose interests and policies are clear and reciprocal, has strengthened its presence in the region, Russia has maintained its predominance by reinserting its influence through economic, military, and cultural means. (Sharshenova, 2018: 216) Thus, Central Asia has been witnessing the interplay between Russia and China for geopolitical dominance, which manifests itself either through bilateral linkages or, sometimes, in multilateral fora as the creation of regional institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Collective Security Organisation (CSO), Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and Silk Road Belt Initiative (SRBI) (see Chapter 13 in this book). In other words, economic linkages, soft-power mechanisms, autocratic socialisation through multilateral and bilateral channels allow illiberal regional powers to hold sway over the region. In terms of economy and trade, Russia and China have been among the top five trade partners of each Central Asian country, as shown in Table 10.2. The share of trade volume in GDP presents one side of the picture of economic leverage over countries. Aid dependency is another factor, which shows us the country’s dependence on outside resources and actors. In 2019, while Net ODA received 20.6% of central government expenses in Kyrgyzstan, this corresponded to 0.2% of central government expenses in Kazakhstan and 11.4% in Uzbekistan.7 Although Kazakhstan is less dependent on aid from outside donors than other countries in the region, as an export-oriented economy, Kazakhstan is financially dependent on the oil sector and markets for export. In terms of energy leverage, Russia held a monopoly on gas and oil pipelines in the region until three decades ago, which has restricted

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Table 10.2 Top five trade partners of Central Asian states (2019) Kazakhstan

Market for exports Italy

Partner share 14.51

China Russian Federation Netherlands France Market for exports UK Kazakhstan

13.55 9.71 7.61 6.32 Partner share 41.95 17.47

Russian Federation Uzbekistan Turkey Market for exports Turkey Switzerland

14.16 6.99 4.52 Partner share 23.5 21.6

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan Kazakhstan China Market for exports China Uzbekistan Turkey

16.4 11.6 10.2 Partner share 82 4 3.53

Uzbekistan

Azerbaijan Georgia Market for exports Switzerland UK

1.98 1.19 Partner share 18.5 17

Russia China Kazakhstan

14.5 13.6 8.6

Kyrgyzstan

Tajikistan

Imports from Russian Federation China South Korea Italy Germany Imports from China Russian Federation Kazakhstan Turkey Uzbekistan Imports from China Russian Federation Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Turkey Imports from Turkey China United Arab Emirates Kazakhstan Georgia Imports from China Russian Federation South Korea Kazakhstan Turkey

Partner share 36.67 17.12 8.92 4.12 3.89 Partner share 34.78 28.15 13.02 4.47 4.03 Partner share 40.1 23.7 16.2 4.73 3.89 Partner share 24.7 14.3 8.85 3.85 1.96 Partner share 23.3 17.9 11.4 9.22 5.79

China’s ability to maintain stable energy relationships with Central Asian states (Blank, 2006: 53). However, China has become a new energy hegemon in the region with the promise of cheap loans, upgraded energy and transport infrastructure, and freedom from energy shortages and energy-related pollution (Skalamera, 2018). In this equation, the EU is

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at a relative disadvantage, making it even more difficult for it to promote a broad democratisation agenda. One clear example of the illiberal regional powers’ role on the EU’s democratic governance promotion agenda can be seen in the example of when serious human rights violations took place in Andijan in 2005. In their immediate aftermath, Western countries, the EU, and the UN strongly condemned these events and asked for an international investigation. Yet, the SCO took a very different stance in its 2005 summit with its support for the Uzbek leader, Karimov. New political and economic ties were formed very quickly. More critically, Russia took sides with Uzbekistan and improved its relations via new trade agreements. Uzbekistan’s strategic reorientation towards Russia in the aftermath of the Andijan events has undermined the EU’s leverage on the country. More critically, these events coincided with Russia’s gas conflict with Ukraine and Belarus when there was the question of energy security and the diversification of suppliers in the EU agenda. All these developments tied the EU into the knot. In 2009, even though there had been no progress with regard to human rights in Uzbekistan, the EU lifted its sanctions without any gain. The EU’s normative policy in Central Asia demonstrated its ineffectiveness in the case of the Andijan uprising. This example is also critical to indicating how the presence of illiberal regional powers and their attitudes have impacted the substance of EU democratic governance promotion.

Conclusion Within the current geostrategic environment, Central Asia is one of the regions where the EU realised the need to pursue a normative but at the same time more pragmatic approach to not only enhancing cooperation but also promoting normative values in the region. As seen in the Global Strategy of 2016 (EUGS, 2016), the EU prioritises cooperation with Central Asian states on matters of counterterrorism, migration, energy, trade, and transport over democratic governance promotion. Indeed, there is no mention in the Strategy (EUGS, 2016) of democratic governance challenges in the region, yet the emphasis is on the resilience of states and societies across the world as the main goal for the EU’s future foreign policy. The increased emphasis on the humanitarian aspect of the new global strategy can also be seen in the EU’s spending priorities such as climate change, migration, border control, and security, as well as a slightly increased budget in the new multiannual financial framework for

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the 2021–2027 period (EPRS, 2021). It seems that the EU has realised the fact that in a region where Russia, as an aggressive neighbour, poses an immediate threat to the stateness of these countries through escalating “frozen conflict” and its ways of “hybrid war”, as well as rooted linkages with Central Asian states, and with China as a giant economic power, it is highly unlikely that the EU’s democratic governance promotion policies will be successful in terms of transforming governance on the ground. In fact, the EU has faced two dilemmas in its engagement with Central Asia. First, as mentioned in this chapter, due to the lack of credible “carrots” and sufficient leverage, as well as intensive “sticks”, the EU has not achieved even moderate success in its policies of promotion of human rights, the rule of law, democracy, and good governance in Central Asia, as located in the authoritarian neighbourhood. Despite the introduction of new and ambitious policies such as launching the Rule of Law initiative, training regional legal experts, and holding regular political dialogue with its partners on human rights and good governance, the commitment to reform a country in a way that the EU supports is greatly dependent on the political will of the elites in the target country, but, in fact, mostly on the EU’s leverage in a complex geopolitical environment in which other regional powers’ influences—mostly Russia and China—is growing steadily (see Chapter 6 in this book). In such a complex environment, Central Asian states, especially Kazakhstan, follow multi-vector foreign policies as a balancing act between these competitors in the region. The presence of alternative sources from illiberal regional powers with larger “no-strings-attached carrots”, such as the trade and investment opportunities offered by China and the political/military support by Russia, decreases the EU’s leverage over the region considerably. Second, the EU has great difficulty in balancing the normative goals of the promotion of democracy and human rights and material interests of securing access to the region’s energy reserves and preserving stability. For the sake of perpetuating the engagement with the region and protecting the strategic and energy interests of certain EU member states, the EU shows a kind of partial reluctance to push authoritarian leaders to enact democratic reforms. This challenge makes the EU overlook certain human rights violations, which have been criticised strongly as double standards on the part of the EU. The EU’s recognition of the dilemma has paved the way for adjusting its democratic governance promotion in Central Asia by following the realities on ground. As a way of overcoming this dilemma, the EU has chosen a cautious long-term promotion

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of the prerequisites for sustainable democratic governance rather than an aggressive promotion of immediate political change. In this regard, we see that the EU’s efforts centre around humanitarian issues such as promoting poverty reduction, education, and good governance, which are critical to long-term democratic development. Yet, the effectiveness of this slow-paced approach will be seen in near future.

Notes 1. Democracy-stability dilemma means that if the objective of security and stability clashes with the objective of democracy, research has shown that the EU generally prioritises security and stability over democracy even if this may damage the EU’s credibility as a democracy promoter. This is clearly seen from EU democracy promotion actions in European Neighborhood Policy countries. (See also Emerson & Youngs, 2009; Tocci et al., 2008; Youngs, 2004). 2. European Union: European Commission, EC Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States and Georgia: The TACIS Programme, (1992), available at: https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_M EMO-92-54_en.htm. 3. The other two regional projects are Water/Environment and Education. 4. “EU Rule of Law Initiative in Central Asia”, concept paper presented at EU-Central Asia ministerial Troika in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, 9–10 April 2008. 5. Regional Multiannual Indicative Programme for Central Asia (RIP) for 2014–2020 with increased assistance by 56% compared to previous period has been a great step for strengthening the relations. Two sectors, i.e., sustainable development (energy, environment, water, and socio-economic development) and regional security (border management, fight against drugs and crime, rule of law, and judiciary reforms) are determined as focal points for assistance. 6. European Union: Council of the European Union, Council Conclusions on Democracy Support in the EU’s External Relations, Brussels, 17 November 2009, available at: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/ docs/pressdata/en/gena/111250.pdf. 7. World Bank, Development Indicators, https://databank.worldbank.org/ reports.aspx?source=2&series=DT.ODA.ODAT.MP.ZS&country=#.

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CHAPTER 11

The External Face of the EU’s Cybersecurity Policies: Promoting Good Cybersecurity Governance Abroad? Dimitrios Anagnostakis

Introduction During the last ten years, the European Union has developed an impressive portfolio of initiatives and policies in the field of cybersecurity. This development has stemmed from the realisation that the digital arena and cyberspace are not only economic enablers and catalysts for the transformation of the single market but also potential sources of vulnerabilities. Therefore, the EU has sought to produce a common set of policies, guidelines, and regulations so that member states can better protect themselves from cyberthreats. The first EU cybersecurity strategy, as published in 2013, and the directive on the security of network and information systems (NIS Directive) which came into force in 2016 were among

D. Anagnostakis (B) Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_11

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the key documents that have shaped the emergence of the EU as a cybersecurity actor. Almost from the beginning of this process of EU cybersecurity integration, the external aspects of the EU policies in this field took a prominent role. This swift internationalisation of the EU’s cybersecurity policies was not unlike other internal security policies (e.g., counterterrorism), where developments within the EU and the process of EU integration went hand in hand with building the EU’s international actorness (Anagnostakis, 2017). For example, the first EU cybersecurity strategy stressed that one of the Union’s key aims was to build international alliances and partnerships with those countries that shared the same values as the EU on cyber-issues and the promotion, in general, of the EU’s vision of cybersecurity abroad. In other words, from the start the EU pursued a norms-exporter role in that field. However, a number of other countries have also declared their aim to shape the rules and norms in this very same field. The regulation of cyberspace has emerged as an arena for contrasting visions, fragmented regulations, and contesting norms. For example, as this chapter explains, while the EU promotes the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention) as the most effective and transparent international legal tool against cybercrime, alternative governance providers such as Russia and China support initiating negotiations for a new treaty using the bodies and mechanisms of the United Nations. While the EU initiatives in the field of cybersecurity have only emerged over the last ten years, the rapid development of these initiatives and policies means that we are now able to ascertain and identify what good cybersecurity governance means for the EU and how the EU tries to promote good cybersecurity governance on its periphery. This chapter looks first at the content of good cybersecurity governance according to the EU. It then examines the channels and mechanisms for the promotion of good cybersecurity governance abroad. The chapter finally assesses the role and impact of alternative illiberal governance providers on the EU’s good cybersecurity governance, showing how this policy field has become a new arena where liberal and illiberal visions compete. Moreover, this chapter also examines how a number of developments within the EU regarding the balance between security and fundamental rights and freedoms have also affected the EU’s cybersecurity governance.

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The Content of Good Cybersecurity Governance Neither the first EU cybersecurity strategy nor the second, the latter being published in 2020, explicitly define the term cybersecurity.1 In particular, the 2020 cybersecurity strategy refers to three core areas of EU action: ‘(1) resilience, technological sovereignty and leadership, (2) building operational capacity to prevent, deter and respond, and (3) advancing a global and open cyberspace’ (European Commission, 2020). In other words, cybersecurity and cybersecurity governance are defined broadly, including not only issues related to network and information security but also those related to fundamental rights (e.g., the right to privacy and data protection) and foreign policy and diplomacy (e.g., negotiations for global cybersecurity standards or capacity building) (European Commission, 2018a). Regarding the concept of good governance, this chapter employs the framework presented in the first chapter of this book, according to which good governance can be conceptualised as having two dimensions: an administrative dimension, and a political dimension. The administrative dimension of good governance has a focus on regulation, and whose key principles can be summarised as effectiveness, efficiency, and transparency (see Chapter 1 in this book). With regard to the administrative dimension of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance, these principles are reflected in three cornerstone pieces of legislation in the EU: (1) the NIS Directive; (2) the EU’s data protection regime (with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) at the forefront); (3) the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), which, though not an EU treaty, is fully supported and promoted by the EU. These core rules and regulations provide the blueprint that the EU is promoting internationally as the most effective, efficient, and transparent way for states to build resilience against cyberthreats. For example, a number of key policy suggestions and legislative reforms that the EU promotes in third countries through its cyber capacity-building programmes are: (1) drafting and publishing a cybersecurity strategy; (2) establishing Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs); (3) promoting a general culture of cybersecurity; (4) adopting data protection legislation modelled on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation; and (5) joining the Budapest Convention and adopting the necessary legislation for its implementation (European Commission, 2018a: 54).

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The second dimension of good governance is the political dimension, which refers to liberal democratic principles (e.g., respect for fundamental rights and freedoms, rule of law, and accountability) (Chapter 1). Regarding the political dimension of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance, the guiding principle that permeates this policy area is the principle that human rights apply both offline and online (European Commission, 2014). The EU’s first cybersecurity strategy of 2013 stressed that ‘the same laws and norms that apply in other areas of our day-to-day lives apply also in the cyber domain’ (European Commission, 2013). In 2014, the Council of the EU adopted the ‘EU Human Rights Guidelines on Freedom of Expression Online and Offline’, which, among others, highlighted that ‘all human rights that exist offline must also be protected online, in particular the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to privacy, which also includes the protection of personal data’ and that ‘any restriction that prevents the flow of information offline or online must be in line with permissible limitations as set out in international human rights law’ (Council of the EU, 2014). Similarly, the 2015 Conclusions on Cyber Diplomacy by the Council of the EU stressed ‘that individuals’ human rights and fundamental freedoms as enshrined in the relevant international instruments must be respected and upheld equally online and offline’ (Council of the EU, 2015). These human rights and freedoms include freedom of expression online, the right to access information online, and the right to privacy online. Additionally, a key element in the political dimension of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance is the support for the multistakeholder model of internet governance and the support for an open cyberspace and internet. According to the latest EU cybersecurity strategy, the EU will promote ‘a political model and vision of cyberspace grounded in the rule of law, human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic values’ and will cooperate with international partners and allies to keep cyberspace ‘global, open, stable and secure’ (European Commission, 2020). Regarding relations with third countries, the EU’s operational documents, guides, and playbooks on capacity building and external cooperation stress the importance of human rights mainstreaming and the rightsbased approach (European Commission, 2014: 13) and they provide practical guidelines for EU officials. The EU’s operational ‘Playbook’ for international cooperation on cyber capacity building suggests the use of a ‘Values-Interests-Principles’ checklist before considering a cyber capacity-building intervention, making sure, for example, that the EU’s

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actions ‘meet at least the minimum threshold of respecting, protecting, upholding, and enabling human rights as well as promoting peaceful coexistence in cyberspace’ (European Commission, 2018b). In practice, this means paying attention to issues such as transparency and accountability in cyberspace, the oversight of cybersecurity agencies, and the use of surveillance technologies (European Commission, 2018a).

Channels and Mechanisms of Promotion The EU’s cooperation with third countries in the field of cybersecurity has predominantly taken three forms. The first is the cyber dialogues that the EU has initiated with a number of key partners.2 These intergovernmental dialogues take the form of biannual or annual meetings between EU officials and representatives of third countries. In terms of the content and mechanisms of good cybersecurity governance in the case of the dialogues, the EU aims less at directly exporting its rules and regulations and more at operational cooperation on issues such as terrorist content online, at exchanging best practices, and at discussing future trends and developments. In other words, in these dialogues the EU relies on argumentation, persuasion, and consistent socialisation with third countries, hoping that they will voluntarily imitate the EU’s models and norms. However, most of these initiatives have not produced any concrete results to date. For example, given the significant differences between Russia and China on the one hand and the EU on the other, the dialogues with these two countries have, perhaps unsurprisingly, not been fruitful or productive. Similarly, despite the initiation of a strategic cyber dialogue with India in 2015, this country has not joined the Budapest Convention and has recently supported Russia’s initiative for a new treaty on cybercrime. So far, the most advanced dialogue has been that with the United States; the US is even mentioned in the EU cybersecurity strategy as the EU’s most important ally in the field of cybersecurity (Anagnostakis, 2020; Taylor & Hoffmann, 2019). The second form that the EU cybersecurity cooperation with third countries takes is cyber capacity building, which is a key mechanism for the promotion of good cybersecurity governance. According to the Council of the EU’s ‘EU External Cyber Capacity Building Guidelines’, cyber capacity building should ‘prioritise addressing cybercrime and increasing cybersecurity in partner countries and regions, with a focus on reforms across the main pillars of cyber resilience’ (Council of the EU

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2018). The administrative dimension of good cybersecurity governance is exported through the promotion of legislative reforms that use the EU’s rules as blueprints: according to the Council’s guidelines, the EU and the member states will ‘use elements of the Directive on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive) on national capabilities and critical sectors as inspiration for the development of cybersecurity legislation in partner countries’. At the same time, the political dimension of good cybersecurity governance is also prioritised through the support for ‘a global, open, free, stable and secure cyberspace in line with the EU’s core values and principles, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms’. In other words, the main mechanism of good cybersecurity governance promotion in cyber capacity building is some form of conditionality: the EU provides funding, technical expertise, training, and access to EU networks, expecting in return the adoption of legislative and administrative reforms that resemble the EU’s rules and regulations and that are aligned with the EU’s democratic norms and with the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. The EU’s good cybersecurity governance promotion to date has focused on its neighbourhood and, in particular, on the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership countries, and the Southern Neighbourhood countries (states in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean), with the general aim being the building of cyber-resilience in these countries. In this regard, there are three key ongoing projects at the time of writing: (1) Cyber East (funded jointly with the Council of Europe); (2) EU4Digital: Cybersecurity East3 ; and (3) Cyber South4 (funded jointly with the Council of Europe).5 Cyber East and Cyber South have a focus on cybercrime, aiming mainly towards the adoption of ‘legislative and policy frameworks compliant to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and related instruments’ (Council of Europe, n.d.) by the participating countries. ‘EU4Digital: Cybersecurity East’ focuses on a different aspect of cybersecurity, namely the protection of critical information infrastructure and the general improvement of cyber-resilience in the target countries through ‘the approximation of all Eastern partner countries to the EU basic pillars on cybersecurity’ (EU4Digital, n.d.) and ‘in line with the EU’s relevant policy and legal frameworks’, including the NIS Directive. For example, concerning the Cyber East project, a series of two-day workshops started in March 2020 which ‘brought together cybercrime

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investigators, financial investigators, financial intelligence officers, financial regulators, as well as private sector entities/business associations in order to discuss the matters of detecting and combating online crime proceeds, ensuring proper work of reporting mechanisms and interagency/public–private cooperation’ (Council of Europe, 2021a). Similar workshops started in January 2021 on data protection issues when sharing electronic evidence (Council of Europe, 2021b). Special emphasis was placed on the Budapest Convention and, in particular, Article 15; this article aims to safeguard the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms by mandating that each party to the Convention should establish in its domestic law certain conditions and safeguards for the use of electronic evidence by criminal justice authorities (Council of Europe, 2021b). The workshops were followed by three-day training courses that trained investigators, prosecutors, and judges on the use of the tools and mechanisms provided by the Budapest Convention for international cooperation (Council of Europe, 2021c). Future courses that are planned for 2022 will focus on computer and mobile forensics, investigations of the Dark Web, and advanced case studies on e-evidence sharing. Regarding the approximation of domestic laws with the Budapest Convention, all the countries involved in the project with the exception of Belarus have signed this treaty. However, these countries’ legislations have not yet been fully amended to comply with the Convention, and this has been one of the justifications for initiating the Cyber East project. Finally, outside its immediate neighbourhood and beyond the strategic dialogues mentioned above, the EU uses a ‘thinner’ mechanism of good cybersecurity governance promotion, relying more on diplomacy and building alliances with like-minded countries. Rather than providing funding to specific countries for cyber capacity-building programmes and in exchange for domestic reforms, the EU works through international organisations and institutions which have emerged as diplomatic arenas (European Commission, 2018a: 18) in the field of cybersecurity. These organisations include the United Nations, the Internet Governance Forum, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). For example, the EU and the US have coordinated their actions in ICANN and managed to push through a number of law enforcement recommendations related to the misuse of internet domain names and IP addresses for illegal purposes (Anagnostakis, 2020). Similar efforts have

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been made in the UN General Assembly, where the EU has consistently promoted and defended the Budapest Convention (Anagnostakis, 2020; Taylor & Hoffmann, 2019).

Alternative Providers of Governance and Internal Developments Within the EU: A Democratic Decline? The EU’s good cybersecurity governance promotion does not operate in a vacuum; the current landscape of global cybersecurity norms is still fluid and, therefore, there is an ongoing process of state positioning, negotiation, and friction regarding these norms. Under these circumstances, the EU and its allies are not the only exporters of cybersecurity governance; alternative models, which are often antithetical to the EU’s, have emerged, with China and Russia being at the forefront of this challenge. This rise of illiberal governance providers has mostly affected the mechanisms that the EU employs to promote good governance abroad; the EU, faced with these alternative governance providers, which have started to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of countries in the Global South (Segal, 2020), is shifting its tactics and mechanisms, preferring, for instance, diplomatic campaigns in international fora rather than the use of direct, bilateral funding in exchange for reforms. At the same time, the EU’s good cybersecurity governance is challenged from within; for instance, a number of new initiatives supported by the EU and promoted abroad (e.g., reforming the rules on the sharing of electronic evidence to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to access data stored in servers abroad) have been repeatedly criticised by civil society organisations and data protection authorities for ‘diluting’ the protection of human rights and for not fully including the perspectives of civil society. In other words, these internal challenges are starting to have an impact on the content of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance promotion; increasingly, this promotion is placing a reduced emphasis on the ‘thick’ political dimension of good governance (promotion of transparency, accountability, and human rights) and an increasing one on the ‘thin’ administrative dimension, such as, for example, securityfocused regulations with a narrow emphasis on protecting a state from cyberthreats.

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Alternative Providers—China and Russia Three core elements in the EU’s model good cybersecurity governance are currently contested in the global arena: (1) the Budapest Convention on cybercrime; (2) the multistakeholder model of internet governance; and (3) the application of human rights and fundamental freedoms online (especially the freedom of expression and access to information). As the regulatory and normative landscape regarding cybersecurity and cyberspace is still partially fluid, there is a global competition regarding the shaping of this landscape and for the form and content that the emerging rules and regulations will take. In other words, the EU is challenged in its role as a provider of good cybersecurity governance by alternative governance providers, the most prominent of which are currently Russia and China. One of the key issues is which actors should be involved in managing, governing, and regulating the internet and cyberspace. A crucial component in the EU’s blueprint of good cybersecurity governance is the support for the multistakeholder model of internet governance. According to this model, the technical rules for the management of the internet (e.g., allocation of web addresses, the management of internet domain registries, etc.) should be established and negotiated by both public and private actors, including government representatives, representatives from information and communication technologies (ICT) companies, officials from international organisations, and civil society groups. These actors work together in institutional settings such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) or the Internet Governance Forum. According to the EU, this governance model has so far proved to be both effective and transparent, especially after the recent reforms to the ICANN governing board. This model has been challenged by Russia and China who insist that states should have a much tighter control of the rules and regulations surrounding internet governance (Wood et al., 2020). In particular, the Russian and Chinese alternatives to the multistakeholder model supported by the EU is a model based on the concept of ‘cyber-sovereignty’ (or ‘digital sovereignty’) and on a state-centric multilateralism (Hoffmann et al., 2020). The increased involvement of the private sector and civil society in the existing internet governance institutions and mechanisms is perceived by these two states as an unwanted foreign interference and as a violation of cyber-state sovereignty. In 2011, for instance, the members of

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the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation6 submitted a document entitled the ‘International code of conduct for information security’ to the UN, in which they stressed that ‘policy authority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of States’ (United Nations General Assembly, 2011). This document was revised in 2015 with several new entries being added to the original. Compared to the EU’s policy documents, this document stressed states’ ‘sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence’ and emphasised that states should cooperate to curb the use of information technologies that facilitate domestic ‘terrorism, separatism or extremism’ and destabilise states’ ‘political, economic, and social security’. Given the human rights situation in Russia and China, this document appears to represent an attempt by the two countries to legitimise the extensive use of censorship for political purposes. While the 2015 revised document stated that individual rights should be protected both online and offline, this included a qualification that noted that these rights might be subject to restrictions for the purposes of protecting national security, the public order, or public morals (United Nations General Assembly, 2015). Another example is the case of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. While ICANN was initially under the oversight of the US Department of Commerce, since 2016 it has been run by a non-profit board which is tasked with taking into consideration the views of private companies and corporations, experts and professionals, states, and civil society organisations. Reducing the oversight role of the US was a positive step for China which, however, is pushing for further reforms to ICANN, including transferring some of its powers to the International Telecommunications Union or to another body of the United Nations. Such a move would reduce the role of civil society and the private sector, while increasing the influence of ‘authoritarian states such as China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia (…)’ (Voelsen, 2019); these states would be able, for example, to take advantage of the majorities that they can often muster in the UN General Assembly. Worryingly for the EU, these views are increasingly shared by some of the countries which participate in the EU’s cyber dialogues, such as, for example, India, which joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2017. An additional challenge to the EU’s promotion of good cybersecurity governance is related to the Budapest Convention and, in particular, Article 32 of the treaty, which refers to the trans-border access of stored computer data. According to this article, a party to the Convention may,

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without the authorisation of another party, ‘a. access publicly available (open source) stored computer data, regardless of where the data is located geographically; or b. access or receive, through a computer system in its territory, stored computer data located in another Party, if the Party obtains the lawful and voluntary consent of the person who has the lawful authority to disclose the data to the Party through that computer system’ (Council of Europe, 2001). For Russia and China, this provision violates the principle of state sovereignty, and these two countries have raised concerns that third countries may engage in intelligence collection activities under the guise of cross-border investigations. The Council of Europe itself explicitly mentions in its explanatory note to this article that ‘Article 32b is an exception to the principle of territoriality and permits unilateral transborder access without the need for mutual assistance under limited circumstances’. (Council of Europe, 2014). The framing of this treaty as a regional treaty and as a tool of Western interventionism by Russia and China has been part of these two countries’ overall campaign to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of countries in the Global South in the field of cybersecurity. Their key argument is that the Budapest Convention has been negotiated by only a handful of countries and thus reflects only certain regional interests and standards (those of the Western world); therefore, a new international treaty on cybercrime should be negotiated at the United Nations level, where more states would be able to participate in the negotiations. This argument is shared, for example, by India, which still refuses to sign the Budapest Convention despite the diplomatic efforts of the EU and the Council of Europe, indicating a failure in the outcome of EU’s good cybersecurity governance promotion. Tellingly, a paper by the Council of Europe’s Executive Secretary Cybercrime Convention Committee admits that ‘so far, general foreign policy considerations may have prevented accession to the Budapest Convention by India’ (Seger, 2016). To promote their vision of cyber sovereignty and in order to neutralise the Budapest Convention and the multistakeholder model of internet governance, China and Russia have promoted alternative models of governance, which threaten fundamental freedoms, human rights, and democracy (European Political Strategy Centre, 2017; Pritzker, 2016). Regarding the Budapest Convention, Russia has made several attempts in the past to push for alternatives to this treaty. In 2017, it submitted a ‘Draft United Nations Convention on Cooperation in Combating Cybercrime’ to the General Assembly (United Nations General Assembly,

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2017). In December 2019, Russia made another such attempt, proposing the establishment of an ad hoc intergovernmental committee of experts ‘to elaborate a comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes’ (United Nations General Assembly, 2019). This resolution was approved by the UN General Assembly with 79 states voting Yes, 60 states voting No, and 33 Abstentions. The quote of an anonymous EU official was telling: ‘The big picture is that Russia and China are seeking to establish a set of global norms that support their view of how the Internet and information should be controlled (…). They’re using every means they can in the U.N. and elsewhere to promote that. This is not about cybercrime. This is about who controls the Internet’ (Nakashima, 2019). The approval of the Russian alternative treaty by the UN General Assembly for the first time means that the EU’s diplomatic campaigns and efforts to export its own vision of good cybersecurity governance in the world have not been entirely successful. More than forty civil society and human rights organisations have expressed their concerns regarding Russia’s proposed treaty which has a number of problematic aspects. First, the definitions of key concepts are vague and there is a conflation between cybersecurity and cybercrime, which broadens the scope of the treaty: this ‘opens the door to criminalising ordinary online behaviour that is protected under international human rights law’ (Nakashima, 2019). Second, while the treaty echoes to some extent the Budapest Convention it does not make any references to accountability, proportionality, and balancing security with the respect for fundamental rights and freedoms; this is concerning, especially if one takes into account the relevant domestic Russian legislation, such as the 2019 ‘sovereign internet’ law which makes it easier for Russian authorities to block access to certain web sites or to completely switch off any connections within the country. Third, the Russian proposal gives very little role to stakeholders from civil society, the private sector, and academia, focusing instead only on the interests of the states involved; this allows for the possibility of authoritarian regimes abusing the negotiation process and the committee, and sidelines the beneficial input and contributions that human rights organisations could make to the drafting of the treaty. The EU’s model of good cybersecurity governance is challenged not only at the level of international institutions but also at the level of bilateral relations, where China has emerged as an alternative governance

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provider. In particular, China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ often includes funding for building and expanding a country’s digital infrastructure, policy suggestions for cyber-related legislative reforms that echo China’s own laws and training for state officials, and the selling of digital surveillance technology (see Chapter 12 in this book). These governance-export initiatives mirror, in other words, the EU’s cyber capacity-building efforts mentioned above. However, the norms and rules promoted by China differ radically from those of the EU: China’s blueprint includes extreme internet censorship rules (e.g., The Golden Shield Project also known as ‘The Great Firewall of China’), severe restrictions to online freedom of expression, and extensive use of internet surveillance (Segal, 2020). From the perspective of authoritarian regimes, siding with China on cyber-issues often offers the same financial benefits but without the additional ‘baggage’ of implementing and complying with legislation for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Given the above, the EU faces a double challenge from alternative governance providers which are increasingly trying to subvert both the content and the mechanisms of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance promotion. First, these providers, and especially China and Russia, have started working intensively at the level of international organisations and institutions, undermining the EU’s preferred models and promoting alternative norms and regulations. Second, and regarding the bilateral level, China has expanded its Belt and Road Initiative to include the field of cybersecurity, providing funding and investment to third countries which are accompanied by domestic reforms aligned with China’s preferences. In other words, the EU is facing a scenario where an increasing number of states has started shifting its preferences towards these alternative providers when it comes to cybersecurity rules and norms. An additional challenge though comes from within the EU itself. Developments Within the EU Several recent developments and initiatives within the EU could potentially undermine the content of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance model and especially the rights-related dimension of that model, thus eroding the attractiveness of the EU as an exporter of good cybersecurity governance. One of these developments has been the proposals for a new regulation and a new directive on electronic evidence (e-evidence), which were put forward by the European Commission in 2018; the aim

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was to facilitate the cross-border access of law enforcement agencies to electronic data. However—and even though the Commission followed a process of public consultation as part of the directive’s impact assessment—these proposals have faced criticism from the European Parliament as well as from human rights NGOs and civil society groups. For example, a group of twenty-five civil society groups, NGOs, and media and journalist organisations have warned that the regulation does not contain any significant safeguards for the protection of human rights, especially with regard to the protection of journalists (Bertuzzi, 2021). One provision that could potentially be problematic is the provision that allows law enforcement agencies to directly access the data hosted by service providers located abroad without requiring ‘the notification and confirmation of the country where the company is located and/or where the data subject resides’. (Statewatch, 2021). This was an issue that was also raised by the European Data Protection Supervisor, who has stressed that the judicial authorities in the executing states ‘should be systematically involved as early as possible in this process, have the possibility to review compliance of orders with the Charter [of Fundamental Rights of the EU] and have the obligation to raise grounds for refusal on that basis’ (European Data Protection Supervisor, 2019). A second development concerns the negotiations for the Second Protocol to the Budapest Convention, which is very similar to the EU’s e-evidence regulation and directive, and which aims to facilitate and speed up law enforcement authorities’ access to digital data stored abroad (e.g., in cloud servers). Both the content of the Protocol and its negotiation process have been criticised by civil society organisations, NGOs, and data protection authorities. For example, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is the leading NGO advocating for digital civil liberties, stressed that this Protocol ‘is a blow for global human rights in the digital age’, given that it could endanger the lives of journalists and activists living in countries which do not have adequate protections for the right to privacy and freedom of expression (Rodriguez & Israel, 2021). Moreover, civil society groups could not engage fully with these negotiations, leading EFF to conclude that ‘the final Protocol places law enforcement concerns first while human rights protections and privacy safeguards remain largely an afterthought’. Finally, there are a number of additional developments and issues that could affect the substantive content of cybersecurity governance that the EU is adopting internally and, indeed, trying to promote externally. One

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of these issues is software encryption and the challenges that encryption poses to law enforcement (Koomen, 2021). On the one hand, the law enforcement agencies of member states and Europol officials often stress that software companies and businesses should include some form of ‘backdoor’ access to their products (e.g., access to encrypted mobile devices) (BBC, 2015). This would allow, for example, police agencies to access encrypted digital evidence quickly and would assist crime prosecution. On the other hand, human rights and data protection advocates and data protection authorities highlight that it is encryption that allows political dissidents and journalists to exercise their right to express opinions without fear of persecution. In other words, encryption is key to unimpeded access to information and freedom of expression online, which are at the core of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance model. A recent resolution adopted by the Council of the EU (Statewatch, 2020) has been criticised by several companies (providers of encryption services) who have stressed that the Council’s proposals ‘might begin a slippery slope towards greater violations of personal privacy’ (Keane, 2021). Additionally, there are worrying developments within the EU member states themselves where governments have used, for example, laws against disinformation and fake news as well as pandemic-related emergency measures to silence opposition figures and journalists. According to Freedom House, Hungary’s state of emergency legislation, which was initiated at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been used ‘to detain ordinary internet users critical of the government’ (Freedom House, 2021). Similarly, the NGO Reporters Without Borders and the Council of Europe have repeatedly raised warnings about the situation in Poland, where there has been an increasing number of cases of internet censorship and online harassment of journalists (Council of Europe, 2020; Reporters Without Borders, 2021). In addition to the above, in July 2021, a consortium of seventeen media outlets revealed that the Israeli surveillance company NSO had sold a piece of espionage software called Pegasus to a number of governments around the world that they could use to intercept and track the mobile devices of journalists and members of the opposition (The Guardian, 2021). Among the countries using this software was EU member Hungary, while the Israeli company in question had corporate offices in two other EU member states (Bulgaria and Cyprus). The Pegasus case has also caused tension in the relations between France and Morocco which, according to the leaked documents, has used such software to spy not only on domestic figures but also on French journalists.

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Given that one of the key elements in the EU model of good cybersecurity governance is the application of human rights online (including freedom of expression), it is problematic that this element is challenged within the EU itself. Similarly, Morocco’s alleged use of the Pegasus surveillance software puts into doubt the effectiveness of the promotion of good cybersecurity governance by the EU; it appears, in other words, that the EU’s Cyber South project, which includes Morocco, has so far prioritised a ‘thin’ approach to good governance, focusing more on the Budapest Convention and the Convention’s rules on data transfer and cross-border judicial investigations and less on the ‘thick’ rights-related issues of transparency and accountability of state agencies. In general, the above developments, namely the relaxation of rules for the cross-border access to electronic data after continuous pressure from law enforcement stakeholders, the continuing discussion on whether backdoors to encryption should be mandated, and the deteriorating human rights situation within several EU member states, reflect an increasing emphasis on the security dimensions of cybersecurity governance by both member states and EU officials. The multilevel governance of the EU means that the EU agenda is partly driven by the concerns of the member states and their law enforcement agencies, leading to a comparative sidelining of issues related to the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. However, this prioritisation of the security dimension is also seen among the EU officials themselves, especially among those working in agencies and departments that have a focus on security (e.g., the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs or Europol); these officials often clash with their EU colleagues from other directorates or agencies, such as the Fundamental Rights Agency or the Office of the European Data Protection Officer. These worrying trends towards democratic decline within the EU reduce the Union’s capacity to promote good cybersecurity governance abroad. For instance, when the EU itself is being criticised by civil society organisations and data protection authorities for prioritising security over human rights in its internal and domestic policies, then one might expect that the EU will demonstrate a similar prioritisation in its relationships with third countries. In other words, the developments and trends mentioned above subvert the content of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance promotion; increasingly, this promotion focuses less on the ‘thick’ political dimension of good governance (promotion of transparency, accountability, and human rights) and more on the ‘thin’ administrative dimension.

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Conclusion The EU is a relatively new actor in good cybersecurity governance promotion abroad. At the international level, the EU promotes the multistakeholder model of internet governance, the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, and the application of human rights and fundamental freedoms online. At the bilateral level, the EU has started cyber capacitybuilding programmes with countries in its immediate neighbourhood which are encouraged to emulate and transfer EU models and regulations to a domestic context. While at the international level the EU relies on the ‘soft’ mechanisms of persuasion, argumentation, and socialisation, at the bilateral level the EU provides funding and technical expertise in exchange for reforms that align domestic legislation with the EU’s standards and rules. The EU’s bilateral cyber capacity-building programmes only began in 2018 and were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and therefore it is really too early to judge their effectiveness. However, at the level of the broader international arena, there is evidence that the EU’s model of good cybersecurity governance is increasingly being challenged. Russia and China have emerged as alternative governance providers, promoting rules, regulations, and models antithetical to those of the EU and which thus subvert both the content and the mechanisms of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance promotion. Additionally, the EU model is challenged internally by a general trend towards the prioritisation of security over rights and freedoms, as seen, for example, in the EU’s negotiations for the e-evidence directive and the worrying practises of several EU member states. This ‘thinning’ and ‘dilution’ of the EU’s good cybersecurity governance is even more important now, given that in the next couple of years the EU and the rest of the world will have to tackle a number of similar issues related to the governance of cyberspace: the regulation of artificial intelligence and ‘smart’ algorithms, the use of big data in social policies, and the increasing proliferation of surveillance tools.

Notes 1. The first EU cybersecurity strategy mentions the following: ‘Cybersecurity commonly refers to the safeguards and actions that can be used to protect the cyber domain, both in the civilian and military fields, from those threats

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that are associated with, or that may harm, its interdependent networks and information infrastructure. Cybersecurity strives to preserve the availability and integrity of the networks and infrastructure and the confidentiality of the information contained therein’ (European Commission, 2013). These countries are Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States. See also Renard (2018). The participating countries in both ‘Cyber East’ and ‘EU4Digital: Cybersecurity East’ are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The initial priority countries are Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. These programmes were put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but they are now continuing. Its members are China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan.

References Anagnostakis, D. (2017). EU-US cooperation on internal security: Building a transatlantic regime. Routledge. Anagnostakis, D. (2020). The European Union-United States cybersecurity relationship: A transatlantic functional cooperation. Journal of Cyber Policy, 6(2), 243–261. BBC. (2015). Europol chief warns on computer encryption. Available at: https:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32087919. Accessed 15 June 2021. Bertuzzi, L. (2021). e-Evidence: Controversy continues in trilogue discussions. Available at: https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/e-evi dence-regulation-controversy-continues-in-trilogue-discussions/. Accessed 15 June 2021. Council of Europe (n.d.). CyberEast. Available at: https://www.coe.int/en/ web/cybercrime/cybereast. Accessed 18 June 2021. Council of Europe. (2001). Convention on cybercrim. Available at: https://rm. coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?doc umentId=0900001680081561. Accessed 19 June 2021. Council of Europe. (2014). ‘T-CY Guidance Note # 3 Transborder access to data (Article 32)’. Strasbourg, 3/12/2014, T-CY (2013)7 E. Council of Europe. (2020). Hands off press freedom: Attacks on media in Europe must not become a new normal. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/annual-rep ort-en-final-23-april-2020/16809e39dd. Accessed 13 September 2021.

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Council of Europe. (2021a). CyberEast: Series of workshops on crime proceeds online finalized. Available at: https://www.coe.int/en/web/cybercrime/-/ cybereast-series-of-workshops-on-crime-proceeds-online-finalized. Accessed 13 September 2021a. Council of Europe. (2021b). CyberEast: Series of workshops with personal data protection authorities and National Communications regulators on trust and cooperation on cybercrime and e-evidence in the Eastern Partnership countries finalized. Available at: https://www.coe.int/en/web/cybercrime/-/cyb ereast-series-of-workshops-with-personal-data-protection-authorities-and-nat ional-communications-regulators-on-trust-and-cooperation-on-cybercrime. Accessed 20 May 2021b. Council of the EU (2014). EU Human Rights guidelines on freedom of expressionOnline and offline. Available at: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/ media/28348/142549.pdf. Accessed 17 June 2021. Council of the EU. (2015). Council conclusions on cyber diplomacy. Brussels, 11/02/2015, 6122/15. Council of the EU. (2018). EU external cyber capacity building guidelines— Council conclusions (26 June 2018). Brussels, 26/06/2018, 10496/18. EU4Digital. (n.d.). EU4Digital: Cybersecurity east. Available at: https://euford igital.eu/discover-eu/eu4digital-improving-cyber-resilience-in-the-eastern-par tnership-countries/. Accessed: 13 June 2021. European Commission. (2013). Cybersecurity strategy of the European Union: An open, safe and secure cyberspace. Brussels, 07/02/2013, JOIN (2013) 1 final. European Commission. (2014). Operational Human Rights Guidance for EU external cooperation actions addressing Terrorism, Organised Crime and Cybersecurity: Integrating the Rights-Based Approach. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/international-partnerships/system/files/manual-hrguidance-ct-oc-cyber-november-2015_en.pdf. Accessed 20 July 2021. European Commission. (2018a). Operational guidance for the EU’s international cooperation on cyber capacity building. Available at: https://www.iss.europa. eu/content/operational-guidance-eu%E2%80%99s-international-cooperationcyber-capacity-building Accessed 15 July 2021. European Commission. (2018b). Operational guidance for the EU’s international cooperation on cyber capacity building: A playbook. Available at: https://www. iss.europa.eu/sites/default/files/Operational%20Guidance%20for%20the% 20EU%E2%80%99s%20international%20cooperation%20on%20cyber%20capa city%20building%20%E2%80%93%20A%20Playbook.pdf. Accessed 20 July 2021. European Commission. (2020). The EU’s cybersecurity strategy for the digital decade. Brussels, 16/12/2020, JOIN (2020) 18 final.

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European Data Protection Supervisor. (2019). EDPS opinion on proposals regarding European production and preservation orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters. Available at: https://edps.europa.eu/sites/edp/files/ publication/19-11-06_opinion_on_e_evidence_proposals_en.pdf. Accessed 13 September 2021. European Political Strategy Centre. (2017). Building an effective European Cyber Shield: Taking EU cooperation to the next level (p. 24). EPSC Strategic Notes, Issue. Freedom House. (2021). Freedom on the net 2021—Hungary. Available at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/freedom-net/2021. Accessed 13 October 2021. Hoffmann, S., Lazanski, D., & Taylor, E. (2020). Standardising the splinternet: How China’s technical standards could fragment the internet. Journal of Cyber Policy, 5(2), 239–264. Keane, J. (2021). EU warned of ‘slippery slope’ with new encryption plans. Available at: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/encryption-plans-eu-sli ppery-slope. Accessed 10 April 2021. Koomen, M. (2021, March 31). The encryption debate in the European Union: 2021 update. Carneige Endowment, Nakashima, E. (2019, November 16). The U.S. is urging a no vote on a Russianled U.N. resolution calling for a global cybercrime treaty. The Washington Post. Pritzker, P. (2016). ICANN transition protects Internet freedom. Available at: https://2014-2017.commerce.gov/news/opinion-editorials/2016/ 09/op-ed-icann-transition-protects-internet-freedom.html. Accessed 21 July 2021. Renard, T. (2018). EU cyber partnerships: Assessing the EU strategic partnerships with third countries in the cyber domain. European Politics and Society, 19(3), 321–337. Reporters Without Borders. (2021). RSF declares “press freedom state of emergency” in Poland. Available at: https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-declares-press-fre edom-state-emergency-poland (Accessed: 18 October 2021). Rodriguez, K., & Israel, T. (2021). Global law enforcement convention weakens privacy & Human Rights. Available at: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/ 2021/06/global-law-enforcement-convention-weakens-privacy-human-rights. Accessed 15 July 2021. Segal, A. (2020). China’s alternative cyber Governance regime. Available at: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/testimonies/March%2013%20H earing_Panel%203_Adam%20Segal%20CFR.pdf. Accessed 25 July 2021. Seger, A. (2016). India and the Budapest convention: why not?. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/16806a6698. Accessed 21 July 2021.

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Statewatch (2020). EU: Council set to adopt declaration against encryption. Available at: https://www.statewatch.org/news/2020/november/eucouncil-set-to-adopt-declaration-against-encryption/. Accessed 26 July 2021. Statewatch (2021). EU: E-evidence: Media and journalists, civil society groups, professional organisations and technology companies demand fundamental rights protections. Available at: https://www.statewatch.org/news/2021/ may/eu-e-evidence-media-and-journalists-civil-society-groups-professionalorganisations-and-technology-companies-demand-fundamental-rights-protec tions/ (Accessed: 21 July 2021). Taylor, E., & Hoffmann, S. (2019, November 11). EU–US relations on Internet governance. Chatham House The Guardian (2021, July 18). Revealed: leak uncovers global abuse of cybersurveillance weapon. United Nations General Assembly. (2011). Letter dated 12 September 2011 from the permanent representatives of China, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General. 14/09/2011, A/66/359. United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Letter dated 9 January 2015 from the permanent representatives of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General. 13/01/2015, A/69/723. United Nations General Assembly. (2017). Letter dated 11 October 2017 from the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General. 16/10/2017, A/C.3/72/12. United Nations General Assembly. (2019). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 27 December 2019—Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes. 20/01/2020, A/RES/74/247. Voelsen, D. (2019). Cracks in the Internet’s foundation the future of the Internet’s infrastructure and global Internet Governance (SWP Research Paper 14). Berlin. Wood, S., Hoffmann, S., McFadden, M., Kaur, A., Wongsaroj, S., Schoentgen, A., Forsyth, G., and Wilkinson L. (2020). Digital sovereignty: The overlap and conflict between states, enterprises and citizens. Available at: https://oxil. uk/publications/2021-01-20-plum-digital-sovereignty/Plum_Aug_2020_D igital_Sovereignty_states_enterprise_citizens%20%281%29.pdf. Accessed 13 May 2021.

CHAPTER 12

The China Model Debate: China as an Alternative Governance Exporter? Tolga Demiryol

Introduction “Socialism with Chinese characteristics enters a new era,” President Xi Jinping proclaimed during his historic speech at the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), noting that China was “blazing a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernisation” (Xinhua, 2017). This remark was noteworthy as it signalled a potential departure from the CCP’s traditional stance that Beijing has no interest in promoting its model abroad. China, President Xi added, “offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence” (Xinhua, 2017). While the CCP continues to dismiss the claims that it seeks to impose its model onto others, critics remain sceptical of Beijing’s true intentions.

T. Demiryol (B) Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Altınba¸s University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_12

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Since the end of the Cold War market capitalism coupled with liberal democracy has been the predominant paradigm of national economic development. While democratic and market-based governance models have been previously contested by various strings of authoritarian developmentalism, China’s rise has posed by far the most formidable challenge to predominant democratic-developmental paradigm. Not only has China transformed itself from a poor and agrarian country into an industrial powerhouse in mere decades, but it has also managed to withstand the pressure to adopt political liberalisation. While China’s strong economic gravity pulls the developing countries, the evident failure of the Western developmental model constitutes a potent push factor. The post-Soviet market reforms of the 1990s, with ill-conceived interventions like shock therapy, generated disastrous outcomes in many cases. The one-size-fits-all approach of the Washington Consensus failed, only to be replaced by other neoliberal scripts promoted by the IMF and the World Bank. The European Union’s (EU’s) approach to good governance promotion is distinctive in its commitment to democratisation, political liberalisation, and the fight against corruption. The EU’s embrace of conditionality as the cornerstone of governance promotion, however, seems to be struggling against China’s no-strings-attached approach to trade, aid, and investment (see Chapter 9 in this book). China’s economic influence in the Western Balkans, a key region in the EU’s governance promotion efforts, is increasingly visible. The investments made by Chinese companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia were estimated at $14.6 billion in 2019, more than $10 billion of which was in Serbia (Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2021). While China’s investment stocks in the Western Balkans are still dwarfed by those of the EU, the rate at which the capital flows are increasing has made Beijing a major actor in the region. In addition to investments in transport and energy infrastructure, which are often financed by state-guaranteed loans, China’s activities extend to the culture and media sectors (Shopov, 2021), which has allowed Beijing to consolidate its political influence in the region. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia not only joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) but are also members of the 17 + 1 framework. Likewise, China’s economic footprint in Africa has grown considerably. China has been Africa’s top trading partner since 2009 (The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic

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of China, 2021). China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks in Africa increased almost 100-fold from 2003 to 2020 (The Diplomat, 2021). Since the establishment of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2000, China’s official development assistance (ODA) to African countries has increased drastically, displacing traditional aid donors like the EU. While the EU pursued a strategic agenda of EU-China-Africa Trilateral Development Cooperation, China’s comparative advantages in engaging with African countries signal more China-EU competition ahead. Gilpin (2011: 149) wrote, “dominant economies not only influence the world economy, but they are also archetypes for many other economies.” As China marches towards becoming the largest economy in the world, will there also be a diffusion of the China Model? Some contend that the China Model will eventually dominate the twentyfirst century (Halper, 2012). The Western concerns over China’s global economic strategy have grown prominent under Xi Jinping’s rule, whose signature BRI is widely viewed as a vehicle for promoting China’s model of economic and political development (Callahan, 2016; Skidmore, 2021). Despite its popularity in scholarly and public debates, the China Model remains an elusive and contested concept. Some China experts question whether the China Model represents an identifiable and coherent paradigm that accurately reflects China’s developmental experience (Beeson & Li, 2015; Breslin, 2011; Kennedy, 2010). Others note that the Western concepts of the China Model minimise the contentious debates within China regarding how to best describe economic governance (Ferchen, 2013). From the opening of China’s economy in 1978 to the 2008 global financial crisis and the re-centralisation of power under Xi Jinping, the Chinese developmental experience has been evolving, which in turn undermines the efforts to pinpoint a coherent China Model. This chapter aims to contribute to the ongoing search for conceptual clarity by outlining three distinctive ways to think about the China Model. The chapter is organised into three sections, each unpacking a particular conceptualisation of the model and assessing its transmissibility. The first section discusses the China Model with reference to one of its key characteristics, its embrace of pragmatism and gradualism in policymaking. As a pragmatic approach, the China Model of development selectively incorporated market-based elements such as openness to trade and FDI. These elements were introduced gradually and under the watchful eye of the state so as not to disrupt social stability and jeopardise the CCP’s rule.

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Pragmatism and gradualism distinguish the China Model from both the ideological rigidity of the command economy and the big bang approach characteristic of the Washington Consensus. As key principles guiding policymaking, pragmatism, and gradualism are integral aspects of the Chinese experience. Yet, it is contended here that they ultimately give us little if any idea about the policy content or the institutional environment of policymaking. As a result, pragmatism and gradualism provide an insufficient analytical basis for an exportable model of governance. The second section portrays the China Model in terms of the construction of the relationship between the state and the market. The state has played a central role in simultaneously constituting and controlling the market in China, even though the balance of power between the state and the market has constantly shifted. The central and local governments employed various instruments, ranging from monetary policy to the regulation of labour relations, to make and re-make the market. This section focuses on two interrelated features of state capitalism in China: the role of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), and the importance of infrastructure development as a driver of economic growth. Both elements are then assessed in terms of their role in the diffusion of the China Model, particularly within the context of the BRI. The primary finding is that as an infrastructure-driven initiative of interregional connectivity, the BRI exports certain aspects of China’s developmental experience. Yet these exports include not only the virtues but also the vices of the China Model, most notably the debt exposure created by overinvestment in infrastructure. The third section zeroes in on the most widely discussed aspect of the China Model: the resilience of authoritarianism despite economic change. Contrary to some expectations that decades of economic modernisation would eventually bring political liberalisation, China remains a staunchly authoritarian regime where the state deploys a wide range of institutional and technological capabilities to control the civil society. This section discusses the costs and benefits of exporting authoritarianism for China. As a rising power with aspirations of leadership, China would thrive in an international order populated by more like-minded states. However, China’s capacity to export its brand of authoritarianism is limited by several factors, including Beijing’s commitment to the principle of non-interference and the reputational costs of explicit authoritarian promotion. Nonetheless, this section demonstrates that there are some

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mechanisms through which Beijing can export its model without incurring significant direct costs. Three of these mechanisms are discussed : leading by example, capacity building, and technology transfer.

The China Model as Gradualism and Pragmatism in Economic Governance The question of whether there is a unique China Model of economic growth is not a recent one. With an average annual growth rate of nearly 10% between 1978 and 2000 (The World Bank, 2021), China has achieved two decades of uninterrupted growth coupled with significant poverty reduction. The sobering recognition that China managed to industrialise within an unprecedentedly short period of time, and presumably without following the Western economic blueprints, led many observers to ask how China did it and whether there are any lessons to be gleaned from its experience. China’s accession to the WTO led to a surge in Chinese exports and a massive accumulation of foreign exchange reserves (Steinberg, 2014).1 China’s meteoric economic rise coincided with, and arguably contributed to the crisis of the liberal international order. As cracks began to appear in the political and economic foundations of the liberal international order in the early 2000s, China’s developmental model, with its demonstrated capacity to generate economic growth, emerged as a noteworthy alternative. It is within this context that the concept of the Beijing Consensus, coined by Joshua Ramo in 2004, found resonance in academic and policy circles (Ramo, 2004). Ramo noted that the Beijing Consensus signified a departure from the Washington Consensus and its flawed, one-size-fitsall approach to reform. “The Beijing Consensus,” he wrote, “replaces the widely-discredited Washington Consensus theory made famous in the 1990s for its prescriptive, Washington-knows-best approach to telling other nations how to run themselves” (Ramo, 2004: 4). The Beijing Consensus found appeal among those who were increasingly disappointed not only by neoliberal economic policies but also by the emerging unipolar international order (Tang, 2018). In Ramo’s words, “China is marking a path for other nations around the world who are trying to figure out not simply how to develop their countries, but also how to fit into the international order in a way that allows them to be truly independent” (Ramo, 2004: 3). The global financial crisis of 2008 was the turning point for the Beijing Consensus/China Model debates. While

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Western economies struggled, China managed to maintain economic momentum, seemingly escaping the most immediate effects of the global downturn. Despite the political appeal of the Beijing Consensus, as an explanation for China’s economic development, it fell short. To begin with, Ramo got some of the basics of the Chinese developmental experience wrong. For instance, technological innovation was not the basis of China’s economic performance, as Ramo had claimed (Kennedy, 2010). Naughton (2010) questioned whether there was a consensus among Chinese policymakers on a specific set of policies. Other critics of the Beijing Consensus contented that it is the liberalisation of the Chinese economy after 1978 that actually deserves the bulk of the credit for the economic performance in the following decades (Hsu, 2015). In the 1980s, Beijing relaxed state controls over the market, which were characteristic of the traditional command economy. A key part of the reforms of Deng Xiaoping was the devolution of decision-making power to provincial and local officials and selectively opening port cities and special economic zones to foreign investment. The CCP started partially dismantling the SOEs and cautiously encouraged private entrepreneurship. Market-based policies like financial liberalisation significantly contributed to the initial stages of China’s economic drive (Huang, 2010). This brings us to key features of the China model as a distinctive approach to policymaking: gradualism and pragmatism. Beijing’s approach to economic policymaking since 1978 is guided not by ideological dogmatism and rigidity, but rather a certain level of flexibility and incrementalism (Brunnermeier et al., 2017). As such, key policy changes are introduced in a controlled manner, allowing the government to retrace and recalibrate policy choices. This gradualistic approach was in turn informed by a pragmatic outlook, understood as a preference for “whatever works,” regardless of any pre-existing ideological commitments. High economic growth has been the number one priority of the CCP since the 1980s. To find the right policies to induce economic growth, Chinese decision makers had to be pragmatic in their choices. Deng Xiaoping, whose reforms gradually led China away from the Maoist economic policies, was reportedly fond of the old proverb, “it does not matter whether a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice.” It was this pragmatic outlook that allowed the reformers to selectively adopt elements of market economies, fitting them to the conditions and

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objectives of China’s policymaking. While economic growth is important for the CCP, so is social stability. Sharp turns in policy, whether they are pro-market or pro-state in direction, are considered potentially detrimental to the survival of the regime. Therefore, key changes to economic governance would be implemented gradually, often through experimentation. Beijing has experimented with market-based economic solutions which were tried locally before they could be adopted nationally (Gabusi, 2017). In the early 1980s, Beijing undertook reforms that would eventually dismantle socialist rural collectives. The decollectivisation campaign would mark a major step in China’s selective adoption of market economy. Local experimentation and the willingness to allow local differences to inform policy would contribute significantly to economic growth and poverty reduction (Hsu, 2015). Experimentation guided the liberalisation of China’s economy in other areas as well. In the 1990s, Beijing experimented with opening up to FDI in special economic zones and select coastal cities (The World Bank, 2010). The privatisation of SOEs in China was also characterised by a gradual approach. Large-scale privatisation of public enterprises occurred in the late 1990s. Between 1995 and 2005, nearly 100,000 firms were privatised, making it the largest privatisation effort in history (Gan, 2009). Unlike the shock therapy approach that characterised post-Soviet transitions, China adopted an incremental approach to restructuring the SOEs (Gang, 1994). Instead of liberalising markets overnight, China created markets in parallel to the planned economy. This “dual-track system” incentivised private enterprise by lowering barriers to entry. Pragmatism and gradualism are chief elements of the Chinese experience with economic reform, distinguishing it from the sweeping policy packages often prescribed to developing countries. However, the question is whether these two qualities alone constitute a distinctive and coherent China model of development that can be replicated in other contexts. In other words, are pragmatism and gradualism exportable elements of the China Model? Not quite. “China’s success of the last three decades,” as Hsu (2015: 1758) notes, “is more than the mindset or attitude of the Party-state.” Highlighting pragmatism and gradualism of the Chinese economic governance tells us little about the content of the policies or the institutional environment within which they are implemented. The utility of such “content-free” (Naughton, 2010: 149) interpretations is therefore limited in terms of assessing the exportability of the model.

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China is certainly not the only state that follows a pragmatic, nondogmatic, and prudent approach to economic reform. There is nothing special about the China Model understood as such, except for the fact that the pragmatically chosen, and gradually implemented policies happen to be positively correlated with economic growth. “Choose your own path as we did,” seems to be the general message that Beijing is willing to broadcast to the developing world. It might be good advice, but pragmatism and gradualism do not make a robust model of economic governance that can easily travel across cases.

The China Model as an Approach to Ordering State-Market Relations The state has played a key role in guiding and managing China’s economy over the past few decades, even though the extent of state involvement varied over time and across sectors. Along with statism, China’s economy displayed extensive entrepreneurial dynamism, nurtured by the pragmatic approach discussed in the previous section. State capitalism emerged as the most widely accepted term to define this relationship between the state and the market in China (Bremmer, 2008; Kurlantzick, 2016). Centralised state planning was at the core of China’s national development from 1949 to 1978. With the launch of economic reforms in 1978, the nature of state planning in China changed in a way that allowed greater room for private enterprise. As the Chinese economy shifted towards labour-intensive manufacturing in the 1990s, the government began to promote export-oriented sectors through the provision of subsidies, creation of Special Economic Zones, and other measures, while selectively restricting access to its domestic market to protect less competitive sectors. The shift in the nature of state-market relations in China paved the way for a heated debate among Chinese scholars and public intellectuals. The main divide has been between two groups: the New Left and the Liberals (Ferchen, 2013; Youyu, 2003). Those who criticised the promarket outlook were commonly known as the New Left. The New Left held that the spread of neoliberal ideas would bring inequality, corruption, and social instability to China. In addition to resisting the further spread of market fundamentalism, the New Left called for comprehensive government reform to reverse the impact of the earlier adoption of neoliberal policies (Ferchen, 2013: 405). On the opposite end of

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the public debate were the Liberals. Chinese liberal public intellectuals were not supportive of neoliberal policies per se, but they were critical of the extensive role of the state in the economy and society. Accordingly, the liberal camp highlighted that the earlier economic gains in China owed much to its market-based policies. The Liberals often opposed the notion of the China Model if it would mean unchecked state authority. While the momentum has shifted towards the followers of the New Left over the last decade, there are still liberal critics in China who continue to voice scepticism about greater state control over the market. The Chinese state uses a variety of instruments to constitute and influence the market. At the macro-level, monetary policy has been a primary tool of the state to shape China’s manufacturing and export capacity. In the 1990s, the CCP valued the currency, the yuan, at artificially low levels, which in turn increased the global competitiveness of China’s exports. This was achieved by pegging the yuan to the US dollar at a daily rate determined by the People’s Bank of China. This permitted Beijing to control the value of the yuan by buying dollars, which would in turn contribute to the massive accumulation of foreign exchange reserves. Under state capitalism, the state also plays a central role in regulating the labour market. Trade unions are not permitted, except for the AllChina Federation of Trade Unions, and a few local and often short-lived attempts to form independent unions. Concerned about the possibility of labour unrest, the CCP maintains a firm grip over labour relations (Zhu et al., 2011). At the heart of Chinese state capitalism are the SOEs. These enterprises not only served as the primary drivers of the national output in the 1980s and 1990s, but also provided the government with a strategic tool to control the economic and social impact of market liberalisation. The proliferation of the SOEs and the expansion of their scale prompted structural reforms to increase both the efficiency and flexibility of the largest SOEs. In the 1990s, China moved to partially privatise the SOEs. The reform process was guided by the principle of “zhuada fangxiao” (catch the big, release the small). Smaller enterprises were restructured, privatised, or shut down, often through the actions of local governments, while the largest SOEs were maintained by the central government. Ownership of many holdings was transferred to the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

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As a result of the dual processes of privatisation and consolidation, the ownership structure of Chinese companies today is uniquely complex. On the one hand, a great deal of economic innovation is generated by privately owned enterprises. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, from 2013 to 2018 the number of private companies increased from 10.01 to 15.61 million. 84% of all enterprises in 2018 were privately owned (China Daily, 2019). On the other hand, the government retains control over the largest enterprises in key industries such as finance, media, and transportation (Ortmann, 2012). SASAC currently overseas 97 holdings in strategic sectors (State-owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission of the State Council, 2021). It is through these SOEs that the central government continues to exert control over the market. Under Xi Jinping, the balance between the state and the market has shifted towards the former. As instruments of the state’s global economic and political power, the SOEs have assumed a more strategic role. China has by far the largest number of SOEs in the world, estimated at over 150,000 (CGTN, 2021). Three Chinese SOEs (State Grid, China National Petroleum, and Sinopec Group) were ranked in the top five of the Fortune Global 500 list (Global 500, 2021). The largest SOEs are in the energy, construction, telecommunication, and finance sectors. Chinese SOEs play a key role in China’s external infrastructure development. Infrastructure development was integral to China’s economic drive, even though there are some important misconceptions as to when and how (more on this later). From massive urban construction projects to transport infrastructure like roads and railways, China’s achievements caught the attention of Western observers, who often complained about the ageing infrastructure at home (The Economist, 2011). The scale and rate of infrastructure delivery in China, often captured by the length of the railroads/highways/bridges as well as the speed of completion, has come to symbolise the “success” of the China Model. It is against this background that the BRI emerged as the most recent cornerstone of the China Model debates. The BRI is an infrastructure-driven programme to enhance interregional connectivity. Since its announcement by Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI has expanded significantly in terms of its financial scale, geographic reach as well as policy content. Over the past few years, various parallel initiatives have also sprung up, including the so-called “Digital Silk Road,” “Arctic Silk Road” and, most recently, the “Health Silk Road.” Nonetheless, at its core,

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the BRI remains a platform of infrastructure development. As China’s state-led lending activities abroad expanded, virtually all infrastructure investment by China has come to be considered under the umbrella of the BRI. Between 2015 and 2019 the BRI was associated with a growing number of investments in ports, roads, railways, airports, as well as energy grids, power plants, urban development schemes, and telecommunication networks in partner countries (Malik et al., 2021, see also Chapter 10 in this book). Despite the decline in Chinese state-led lending since 2019 due both to COVID-19 and the growing concerns over debt exposure, the BRI remains the centrepiece of China’s economic and, according to some critics (Callahan, 2016; Fallon, 2015; Fasslabend, 2015), geopolitical strategy. How does the BRI relate to the diffusion of the China Model? As an infrastructure-driven initiative, the BRI bears a resemblance to China’s developmental experience where state-orchestrated infrastructure spending was presumably at the forefront of economic growth. The developing world would possibly benefit from China’s capital and capacity to deliver physical infrastructure. The lack of sufficient physical infrastructure continues to serve as a developmental bottleneck for many developing countries. According to the Asian Development Bank, there is a massive infrastructure gap in Asia alone, which would require an annual capital investment of $1.7 trillion (Asian Development Bank, 2017). However, there are crucial differences between the role that infrastructure played in China’s growth and the likely impact of infrastructure investment in the BRI countries. In China, the development of physical infrastructure mostly followed, not preceded, the period of sustained economic growth. The role that infrastructure development played in China’s initial waves of economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s was rather limited in comparison to the reforms in the agricultural sector and export-driven manufacturing. It was only after the gains from these sectors generated a sufficient accumulation of capital that Beijing was able to finance the massive infrastructure projects that most observers have come to associate with the China Model today. This takes us to the critical issue of infrastructure financing. In China, the initial stage of investment-led growth was primarily financed by domestic savings and foreign exchange reserves generated by exports (Sahoo et al., 2010; Skidmore, 2021). In contrast to the key role of FDI in the development of manufacturing, the share of FDI inflows into the Chinese construction sector was low (Skidmore, 2021: 331). The ratio

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of external debt to GDP was also modest in China, particularly prior to 2008 when most of the growth-inducing infrastructure development took place. The decline of global demand for Chinese manufacturing in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis changed the dynamics of China’s infrastructure-driven growth. To fend off the impact of the crisis, the government introduced a RMB 4 trillion ($586 billion) financial stimulus package, most of which was spent on infrastructure. Borrowing heavily from stateowned banks, local governments poured the stimulus credit onto real estate development and other physical infrastructure. This investment boom resulted in a rapid build-up of domestic debt (Ansar et al., 2016). The massive construction and infrastructure projects since 2008 are debt-financed. The SOEs that undertook these infrastructure development projects are now the primary sources of corporate debt in China. While the official government debt-to-GDP ratio remains relatively low compared to some advanced industrial countries such as Japan, the liabilities of state-linked corporations as well as the private creditors reveal the vulnerability of China’s growth based on overinvestment in infrastructure. Does the BRI promote the China Model, understood as an infrastructure-driven developmental approach? Yes, but not necessarily in a positive sense. Unlike China where the initial waves of infrastructure were supported by massive domestic capital accumulation, most of the developing countries that are signing up as BRI partners lack the resources to sustainably finance infrastructure projects. Therefore, the BRI countries often turn to China for credit. Chinese overseas lending increased five-fold during the first five years of the BRI implementation, creating significant public debt exposure to China in many BRI countries (Malik et al., 2021). In China overinvesting in infrastructure development with uncertain economic returns has led to a great deal of financial fragility. Similar risks await the BRI countries. The main difference is that China can partially externalise this debt via investment and loans abroad. Smaller economies borrowing from China to finance massive construction projects, in contrast, are not only racking up external debt but also becoming dependent on China. If the BRI does indeed help diffuse the China Model, it does so by replicating the ills as well as strengths of the infrastructure-driven approach.

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China Model as Authoritarian Resilience In many ways, China’s state-led model builds upon the developmental states of East Asia (Beeson & Li, 2015; Onis, 2017). After all, it was Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore that demonstrated the viability of modern state-led economic governance. To the extent that the state played a key role in promoting industrial transformation, the China Model can be considered within the broader tradition of developmentalism. That said, the China Model departs from Asian developmental states in at least one key aspect: the persistence of authoritarian political structures despite economic modernisation. With the exception of Japan, state-led, export-oriented economic growth in Asia occurred under authoritarian regimes. However, following decades of authoritarian growth, South Korea and Taiwan both successfully transitioned into more democratic forms of government; in contrast, in China economic modernisation is yet to bring political liberalisation. Despite widespread expectations that China’s regime would eventually join democratisation’s third wave, the CCP’s rule proved resilient and adaptive (Nathan, 2017). After nearly four decades of industrialisation, China remains an authoritarian country. There have been some limited reforms in cadre management, which some observers label “intra-party democracy” (Brødsgaard & Yongnian, 2006). Yet these limited reforms ultimately aim to boost the performance legitimacy of the party rather than initiate a process of political liberalisation. In many ways, authoritarianism is more entrenched today, thanks to the re-centralisation of power under Xi Jinping’s leadership (E. C. Economy, 2019; Kozima, 2020). The CCP retains a firm grip on all aspects of the state apparatus, civil society, and the flow of information. The use of artificial intelligence and related technologies has further strengthened the CCP’s ability to monitor, control, and oppress civil society in the name of law and order (Lilkov, 2020). The persistence of Chinese authoritarianism runs against the longstanding proposition that economic development will be coupled with democratisation. The expectation that a wealthier China would eventually be a democracy was prevalent in Western circles in the 1990s. A former US government official predicted in 1999, during the heated debates about China’s accession into the WTO, that China would “join the club of nations well along the road to democracy” (Davis, 2018). Contrary to such expectations, however, the CCP not only resisted the pressure to

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adopt Western-style democratisation but also deepened its authoritarian rule. The relationship between economic development and authoritarianism is mutually constitutive in China. Since 1978, the Chinese state has replaced ideology with an unwavering commitment to economic growth. Maintaining high levels of growth is key to the performance legitimacy of the CCP’s regime (Yang & Zhao, 2015). Performance legitimacy indicates that the government relies on achieving key goals such as employment, poverty reduction, and the provision of public goods to retain its legitimacy in the absence of formal mechanisms of accountability at the national level. As the government garners domestic support by monitoring the public’s approval of economic and social policies and making any necessary adjustments, it displays no interest in pursuing political liberalisation. Authoritarian structures and government policies are in turn legitimised on the grounds that they secure political and social stability, which is considered a necessary condition for economic performance. Authoritarianism is integral to China’s developmental experience, but does Beijing seek to export its brand of authoritarianism? What are the likely costs and benefits of doing so? There are several reasons why China would benefit from an international environment populated by a greater number of authoritarian regimes than democracies. First, as more countries share China’s authoritarian practises and values, Beijing would be able to more effectively form coalitions that support its controversial policies. In October 2021, 43 Western countries at the UN signed a statement criticising China’s policies in Xinjiang for human rights violations and the repression of Uyghurs and other minorities. This critical statement was followed immediately by Cuba speaking on behalf of 61 other countries, which noted that Xinjiang is China’s internal affair, and the allegations of human rights violations were all politically motivated and baseless (Lederer, 2021). Second, China finds it easier to invest in countries that share its authoritarian practises. Lower barriers to entry, particularly in terms of transparency and due diligence, are appealing to Chinese SOEs seeking higher returns on and collateralisation of investments. Overall, the diffusion of authoritarian regimes would help China maximise its political and economic influence. Exporting authoritarianism is not without its risks and costs for China, however. First, openly promoting authoritarianism abroad would incur reputational costs for China, undermining its self-proclaimed identity

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as a benevolent, non-hegemonic power (Forges & Xu, 2001; Zhao, 2015). Second, practises geared towards the promotion of certain political institutions, norms, and practises in other countries would contradict the “principle of non-interference,” which has been the cornerstone of China’s foreign policy since 1955. Even though China’s growing economic footprint abroad has made it imperative to rethink and possibly revise this policy (Shih & Huang, 2014; Zheng, 2016), the current CCP leadership formally upholds non-interference. Third, China does not have easy access to conditionality as an instrument of governance promotion, unlike the EU and other Western governance exporters. China’s external economic ties, from trade to development aid, often come with the promise of not having any political preconditions, at least as far as the internal politics of the partner countries are concerned.2 As Xi Jinping noted, “China will continue to offer, as always, necessary assistance to Africa with no political strings attached” (Reuters, 2013). The promise of non-conditionality, along with the principle of non-intervention, are sources of China’s soft power. By continuing to reaffirm its commitment to non-conditionality, Beijing has self-limited its toolkit for promoting its model. Nonetheless, there are various mechanisms through which China indirectly promotes its model. First, China leads by example, acting as a source of legitimacy as well as inspiration for aspirant authoritarians. China’s brand of authoritarianism, which combines a Stalinist party with a strong tradition of bureaucratic culture, cannot be easily replicated in other contexts. Authoritarian regimes may not be able to import the Chinese Model wholesale, but they can construct a version of it that would fit their unique circumstances and needs. As Breslin (2011: 1432) notes, “what China offers is not so much a ‘model’ as an example to others of what can be done, and an example of other ways of doing things.” The China model may not be replicated, yet its variants can travel far. Within this process, the very existence of China—a persistently authoritarian regime that outperforms Western economies—will empower authoritarian leaders around the world, who draw legitimacy for their own values and practises from the “success” of the China Model. Second, China exports its authoritarian model through capacity building in other countries. Capacity building is one of the key channels of governance promotion by the US and the EU, which have sought to strengthen democratic laws, norms, and practises in developing countries. While China has traditionally chosen not to engage in

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formal capacity building abroad, there is growing evidence indicating that this may be changing as Beijing opts for a more proactive stance. One form of capacity building “with Chinese characteristics” involves the education and training of political cadres in key positions in developing countries. In her testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in March 2020, Elizabeth Economy, Senior Advisor for China in the US Department of Commerce, documented how the CCP educates and trains foreign officials “on the nature of the model and how to implement it” (Exporting the China Model: Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on The “China Model,” 2020: 3). These training activities target individual countries and their officials, either during multilateral fora or through bilateral opportunities in Beijing or the host country. Economy notes several such instances where party officials and leaders from African countries have received training on the CCP’s organisational structure, its ideological work and propaganda, and the education of the party cadre. The CCP reportedly offers extensive instruction on how to effectively “monitor, guide, and manage public opinion – including organisation setup, technologies, legislation and relations with the media.” (Exporting the China Model: Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on The “China Model,” 2020: 4). China’s efforts to buttress the authoritarian governance capacity extend to legislation, as other states model their cybersecurity laws after that of China (Sacks, 2018). The third mechanism that helps China market its authoritarianism is technology transfer, particularly the export of digital information technologies. Since the early 1990s, the Chinese government has been developing various initiatives to monitor, intercept, and censor the online activities of its citizens. As the number of internet users increased in China, the government raised the “Great Firewall” to monitor and filter digital communications on national gateways. The advent of AI-based applications significantly increased the CCP’s capacity to monitor its citizens in virtually all domains of life. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, the CCP has deepened and extended digital authoritarianism through censorship, propaganda, and surveillance. Regulation of data flows is handled by a centralised agency, The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). CAC was formed in 2014 and is tied to the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, which is headed by Xi himself (Cyberspace Administration of China, 2021). The CCP leadership considers influence over the

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digital space vital for social and political stability and the survival of the regime (see Chapter 11 in this book). Without extensive control, the CCP is concerned that these technologies could undermine its hold over its citizens (Committee on Foreign Relations, 2020: 24). China’s technological advances hold considerable attraction for authoritarian and hybrid regimes around the world. Chinese companies are pushing the export of surveillance technologies, often packaged as part of “safe” and “smart” cities. Marketed as cost-effective and convenient instruments to help reduce crime, networks of facial recognition cameras, smart sensors, and data platforms allow governments to track, detect, and control the movements of their citizens. While the diffusion of these technologies extends into democratic countries as well, the data from Chinese exports show a clear predominance of authoritarian regimes among China’s customers. According to one study, 41 out of 64 countries that have signed contracts to purchase safe and smart city technologies from Chinese companies are ranked as “not free” and “partly free” by Freedom House (Kynge et al., 2021). The BRI, which seeks to increase interregional connectivity, now constitutes the primary channel through which China’s internet and telecommunication technologies (ICT) are being carried far and away. In addition to conventional infrastructure development projects in BRI partners, Chinese companies are building critical ICT infrastructure to increase and control data connectivity, including cloud data centres, fibre optic cables, smart grids, and 5G networks (Liew, 2018). The Digital Silk Road (DSR), announced in 2015 in a Chinese government white paper, has emerged as the primary platform for the creation of a Chinacentric global digital infrastructure (Hemmings, 2020). By increasing digital connectivity, the DSR lays down the hard and soft infrastructure required for the new digital economy. Critics, however, point that the DSR simultaneously exports the infrastructure capacity that would be needed to spread and/or consolidate digital authoritarianism along the BRI (Triolo, 2020).

Conclusion The notion of an economic model understood as the abstraction of infinitely complex economic decision-making processes into a few essential elements is inherently simplistic. The expectation that these essential models can then be readily exported to and replicated in other contexts

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is also contestable. The concept of a China Model that can be exported is doubly puzzling due to the arguably unique circumstances surrounding China’s economic development. If the speed and scale of China’s growth over the past four decades is historically unprecedented, then the case of China is unique and, therefore, not suitable for replication. Yet the idea of a China Model continues to hold our imagination. Developing countries looking for alternatives to Western economic scripts turn to China. China is not only a source of inspiration but also capital, know-how, and technology for the developing world. And, as the BRI indicates, Beijing is willing to provide these benefits to its partners, seemingly with no strings attached. This allows China to effectively compete with other governance exporters like the EU that remain committed to political conditionality. The China Model is also one of the key tenets of the US-China strategic competition. Despite its growing military capabilities, China is not yet ready to directly confront the US. The promotion of China’s institutions and values is one of the chief ways in which Beijing can shape the international order in its own image. Taking the conceptual ambiguities regarding the China Model as a point of departure, this chapter sketched out three ways to conceptualise the China Model. First, the China Model can be understood as a particular approach to policymaking, one that is pragmatic and gradualistic. These qualities, it is argued here, did facilitate market reforms in China and thus contributed to economic growth. Yet, as elements of a potentially exportable model, pragmatism and gradualism are less helpful as they do not tell us much about the content of policies or their institutional environment. Second, the China Model can be interpreted as a particular approach to organising the relationship between the state and the market. The balance of state and market is ever-shifting in China, even though in the most recent iteration of state capitalism under Xi Jinping, the needle is pointing towards the state. The article highlighted two aspects of Chinese state capitalism: the centrality of SOEs, and the role infrastructure development has played in promoting economic growth. China’s SOEs, which are products of complex privatisation and restructuring processes, are the primary vehicles for the state to construct and control markets. The SOEs also are the key players in China’s infrastructure development, which has emerged as the primary platform for the country to expand its economic

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governance. Yet, as seen in the financing of the BRI projects, the promotion of debt-fuelled infrastructure investment abroad is a potential source of vulnerability for developing countries. Third, the China Model can be conceptualised by its authoritarian elements, which proved resilient in the face of continued economic modernisation. Dismissing Western electoral democracies for their alleged inability to tackle social and economic issues like inequality and corruption, the CCP emphasises the capacity and the responsiveness of the Chinese state as the basis of its legitimacy. In addition, the state uses a variety of institutional and technological tools at its disposal to monitor and control society, seeking to prevent the emergence of any viable opposition to the CCP’s rule. Having briefly reviewed the workings of authoritarianism at home, the chapter focused on the costs and benefits of exporting authoritarianism for Beijing. China has much to gain from propping up authoritarian regimes. For one thing, lacking formal alliances, China could use a greater number of like-minded states as partners in international platforms. Also, authoritarian regimes are potential recipients of Chinese capital. Nonetheless, China’s active agenda of authoritarian promotion runs the risk of undermining the principle of non-interference and China’s self-ascribed image as a benevolent great power. Thus, Beijing’s regime-boosting activities rely on less conspicuous mechanisms. China leads as an example, acting not only as a source of inspiration but also legitimacy for authoritarian hopefuls. Recent capacitybuilding activities by Beijing indicate that China is offering training and education to political cadres and leaders from around the developing world, and even helps them model their legislation after China’s own authoritarian scripts. Lastly, Beijing not only instructs external actors in China’s brand of authoritarianism but also provides them with the infrastructure needed to implement it more effectively. The transfer of cutting-edge surveillance and control technologies is designed to help diffuse digital authoritarianism abroad.

Notes 1. Beneath this rosy picture there were creeping structural issues such as the growing dependence on global manufacturing demand, which would result in a decline in growth rates in the post-2009 period and the search for a “new normal” in economic growth (Amighini, 2015).

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2. China does, however, employ conditionality when it comes to its selfdefined core interests. To receive aid and loans, for instance, the recipient country is expected to adhere to the one-China principle. States that establish ties with Taiwan often receive retaliation.

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CHAPTER 13

Still a Good Governance Exporter? Questioning EU’s Transformative Power in the Age of Democratic Decline Senem Aydın-Düzgit

Introduction The post-Cold War liberal euphoria of the 1990s which prevailed well into the 2000s led to widespread conceptualisations of the EU as a “transformative power”—a sui generis international actor with the capability to induce substantial political changes in its immediate neighbourhood and beyond (Börzel & Risse, 2009; Grabbe, 2006). This period also witnessed the coining of the phrase “normative power” with regard to Europe, designating it with a certain ability to define and set the “normal” in the international system (Manners, 2002). This was an era in which the EU completed its successful enlargement to Central and Eastern European states, gave an accession perspective to long-standing outsiders such as Turkey, and designed the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) for

S. Aydın-Düzgit (B) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_13

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those countries in its wider neighbourhood in the east and the south that did not enjoy any foreseeable prospect of accession to the EU in the near future. Although it has barely been two decades since these debates arose, much has changed in the EU, its neighbourhood, and the global system, to the extent that the EU’s power to promote good governance, whether through normative or more instrumental means, is now heavily contested. Some of this contestation lies within. There is now an increasing consensus that the Central and Eastern European enlargement was rushed, without having properly ascertained the consolidation of democracy in some of the then new member states. Democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland, and the EU’s inability to effectively reverse the turn towards authoritarianism in these member states, continue to hamper the EU’s credibility as a force for democratic change both within and beyond its borders. Contestation of the EU’s promotion of good governance also lies in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood, in particular regarding the state of good governance in candidate states and the EU’s associated role in such. Here, the problem seems to be two-fold. On the one hand, the enlargement process to the Western Balkans is progressing at a very slow pace, where instead of triggering democratic good governance, scholars have recently pointed to the role of the EU’s accession process in the capturing of state institutions by authoritarian leaders among some of the front contenders such as Serbia (Richter & Wunsch, 2020). On the other hand, a major past contender of EU accession, Turkey, is suffering from a severe turn to authoritarianism where the EU has long lost any leverage to influence the political developments within the country (Aydın-Düzgit & Kaliber, 2016). Furthermore, the EU’s failure to establish a common asylum policy, which ultimately led to the externalisation of migration governance, plays a key role in the EU’s appeasement of authoritarian regimes at its borders, most notably that of Turkey. A final source of contestation relates to the changes in the wider international system and its effects on the EU’s capacity to act as an influential actor in the promotion of good governance both within and beyond. This is closely related to the burgeoning debate in both academic and policy circles on the fate of the liberal international order amid the growing assertiveness of illiberal global actors, most notably Russia and China, on the international stage (Ikenberry, 2018; Mearsheimer, 2019). It is frequently argued that the EU now has global contesters who promote

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alternative models of governance resting on illiberalism and with an active agenda to dethrone the EU’s legitimacy and effectiveness in their shared regions of activity. These illiberal powers do not only contest the EU on the outside, but also from within in the form of providing support to authoritarian governments, populist political parties and, as evidenced in Russia’s support to the Brexit camp in the run up to the Brexit referendum, to disruptive movements, across the Union. It does not help the EU’s transformative power that at a time of heightened contestation on multiple fronts, the EU’s reaction largely rests on pragmatic action oriented inward, as demonstrated in the recent popularity of the concepts of “strategic autonomy”, “resilience” and “differentiated integration” in EU parlance (Bickerton, 2021). Hence, one is left wondering whether we can still refer to the EU as a promoter of good governance under these conditions, and if so, where and how. The contributions to this edited volume have aimed to do precisely that, by undertaking a survey of the EU’s good governance promotion efforts across a wide geography extending from the EU member states and enlargement countries to the EU’s wider neighbourhood and subSaharan Africa, as well as its role in setting global norms in select policy areas including cybersecurity and migration. It acknowledges that good governance can be conceptualised in a narrow sense focusing on the efficiency, transparency, and overall well-functioning of state institutions, and also in a broader sense covering issues regarding democratic governance. The first part of the book focuses on good governance practices within EU member states and candidate countries, with a view to discerning EU influence, with regard to political financing practices (Cihangir-Tetik and Gençkaya) and migration (Saatçio˘glu; Sert and Alparslan), as well as the EU’s perceptions as a good governance promoter in Kosovo, a case of contested statehood (Buhari Gulmez and Aydin Dikmen). The second part of the book focuses on the role of the EU in promoting good governance in the wider European neighbourhood, including the South Caucasus (Ünaldılar Kocamaz) and ODA countries, including sub-Saharan Africa (Dipama; Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm and Kwayu; SoyaltinColella and Cihangir-Tetik). The third and the final section of the volume turns to contestation of the EU’s actorness by illiberal actors at the global level in the area of cybersecurity (Anagnostakis) and in Central Asia (Yildiz), followed by an exclusive focus on the Chinese challenge to the EU in terms of constituting a rival alternative model (Demiryol).

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Member States and Candidates: Does EU Conditionality Still Hold? It has been well demonstrated in the literature that the application of credible and consistent EU conditionality on candidate states have generally produced high degrees of compliance with EU governance standards across these countries (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2004, 2005). Yet, a key concern with enlargement in general and Eastern enlargement in particular has always been the fate of conditionality after candidate states become full members. Although EU mechanisms for punishing noncompliance are existent, the cases of Hungary and Poland have already demonstrated the limits of EU action, even in the event of gross violations of democracy and fundamental rights by member states. It has even been argued that membership has actually had the adverse impact of strengthening authoritarians in power, as in the case of Viktor Orban in Hungary (Kelemen, 2020). In this context, the chapter by CihangirTetik and Gençkaya convincingly shows how the EU’s lack of action on this front has not only contributed to a sharper decline in democracy and the rule of law in Hungary and Poland, but also reflects directly on the content of regulations and the implementation of political financing that have become less transparent and less accountable over time. The authors observe a similar case of democratic downfall, accompanied with a deterioration of the rules governing political financing in an official candidate state, Turkey. The chapter by Saatçio˘glu unpacks the drivers and mechanisms through which this has been enabled by the EU, despite the fact that Turkey has been officially subject to EU conditionality since 1999 when it was first declared a candidate country, later reinforced by the opening of accession negotiations in 2005. Saatçio˘glu shows that the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis and the ensuing 2016 EUTurkey migration deal have played a key role in diminishing any remaining leverage that the EU has enjoyed over the promotion of good governance in Turkey, where despite its rapidly deteriorating standards of democracy and good governance, it was rewarded by the “re-energising of talks” as well as the toning down of EU criticisms on the path to an executive presidency with minimal regard for checks and balances. Hence Saatçio˘glu’s contribution vividly demonstrates how membership conditionality can be trumped by realpolitik concerns and enable further autocratisation, even in what is, formally, a candidate state. Furthermore, as the chapter by Sert and Alparslan shows, the EU’s failure to adopt a common asylum

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policy which has ultimately led to externalisation of migration governance as a policy choice on the part of the EU has not only enabled further backsliding in Turkish democracy, but also exported “bad governance” to Turkey’s migration management in the way of “less transparent and less democratic governance of migration” with a focus on readmission agreements and predeparture controls. Another case of weakening conditionality in the EU’s approach to the promotion of good governance in its enlargement sphere is observed in Buharı Gulmez and Aydin Dikmen’s study of the case of Kosovo. Even though Kosovo’s contested statehood makes it a unique case, which by itself limits the EU’s role and influence in the country, the chapter suggests that there are certain similarities to the Turkish case and beyond regarding the dynamics that weaken EU conditionality, such as the primacy of geopolitics over the promotion of good governance (concerning, in particular, the role of Russia and Serbia) and the double standard rhetoric that is attributed partly to Islamophobia. The case of Kosovo also provides an interesting example of how the EU’s relations with global actors other than the illiberal challengers, namely the US, can also hinder its power to export good governance practices in those cases where their interests clash. Yet as we turn to the second part of the volume to ODA and other countries in the wider European neighbourhood that do not enjoy the prospect of accession, it is the contestation by global illiberal powers to the EU’s actorness, legitimacy, and influence in the promotion of good governance that takes centre stage, and to which we now turn.

Beyond Enlargement? Geopolitics, Internal Disunity, and Illiberal Contesters When the EU first launched the ENP in 2003, both the neighbourhood and the global context were in a very different shape. Overt Russian expansionism was not yet in place, China was far from being viewed as a “systemic rival” as it is today, and European unity had not yet been challenged with consecutive economic and migration crises. Ünaldılar Kocamaz’s contribution about the EU’s good governance promotion in the ENP countries in the South Caucasus, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, constitutes a study of how the shifting global dynamics and the EU’s changing priorities since then have considerably weakened its good governance agenda in this region.

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As also expressed by Soyaltin-Colella and Cihangir-Tetik in their contribution to the volume on EU official development assistance, the ENP has always been a relatively a weaker policy than enlargement with regard to promotion of good governance due to the absence of a credible accession perspective for the countries that are included in its remit (see also Sasse, 2008). Yet, despite its inherent problems, it enabled the EU to push for a—albeit limited—pro-European agenda in Georgia, if not in Armenia or Azerbaijan, in its earlier years. As the chapter shows, however, even this limited progress soon came to a halt. A key part of the explanation has to do with the rising Russian assertiveness in this neighbourhood. Russia has capitalised on intra-regional conflicts to destabilise pro-Western governments in the region and expand its military presence, first with the 2008 war in Georgia, and then more recently with the 2020 war in Nagorno Karabagh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hence the rise of geopolitical conflicts in the region created opportunities for Russia to assert itself further while damaging the EU’s credibility and halting its good governance agenda in this region. Other related factors, such as Armenia’s economic dependency on Russia, and Russia’s launch of competing regional organisations and free trade agreements with the region’s countries also played a role in impeding the EU’s influence over governance reform. Nonetheless, the chapter also shows how the EU has responded to these developments by downscaling its governance agenda in the region to economic and technical cooperation. It can be argued that this is closely related to the divisions between the member states on how to respond to the Russian challenge as well as a lack of united and principled foreign policy action on the EU front in the face of geopolitical conflicts in its wider neighbourhood. Internal divisions between the member states also seem to play a central role in the EU’s narrow good governance agenda in sub-Saharan Africa, as demonstrated in the contributions by Dipama and Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm and Kuwayu. Instead of promoting democratic governance and effectively responding to blatant violations of democracy and the rule of law in this region, the EU chooses to focus on institutional aspects of good governance, such as building state capacity. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, and similar to the Eastern neighbourhood, as aptly described by Süleymano˘glu-Kürüm and Kuwayu in their contribution with the Tanzanian case, in those cases where the EU’s security interests clash with the promotion of a broader democracy agenda, the former prevails. Secondly,

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while Russia constitutes its main contender in the Eastern neighbourhood, China constitutes the biggest illiberal challenger in sub-Saharan Africa, whereby authoritarian leaders use Chinese funds with no political strings attached to leverage against the EU and negotiate its aid conditionality. The chapter by Soyaltin-Colella and Cihangir-Tetik demonstrate that in employing its ODA in sub-Saharan Africa, the EU also finds itself in a position where it also has to compete with other rising donors such as Turkey and India, which similarly do not employ a policy of conditionality in the delivery of development assistance. The chapters by Yildiz and Anagnostakis illustrate that the illiberal challenge to the EU’s promotion of good governance is arguably most acute in Central Asia and at the global level, where norm contestation is intense. Central Asia constitutes a key case in showing how the EU only pursues a broader, albeit still limited, democratic good governance agenda with those countries where illiberal regional powers, most notably Russia, enjoys a relatively lower leverage. Yildiz’s analysis demonstrates that it is not only the no-political-strings-attached assistance of illiberal powers that undermine the EU’s potential to promote good governance in this region, but also the fear of non-compliance with, in particular, Russian demands, given the precedents in the Eastern neighbourhood with Georgia and Ukraine. Given the fact that norm promotion in key areas pertaining to global governance is also a central part of the EU’s good governance agenda, Anagnostakis’ chapter moves the analyses to the global level and focuses on norm contestation by global illiberal actors through the specific case of cybersecurity. It observes how the EU faces a twin challenge in promoting good governance through the establishment of global norms governing cybersecurity—an external and an internal one. The external one comes from its usual global illiberal challengers, China and Russia, which are both pushing for alternative norms in cybersecurity that are less politicaland more sovereignty-oriented, giving primacy to the rights of the state over the individual. The EU is also squeezed from the inside by its very own illiberals, Poland and Hungary, which abuse the EU’s own norms regarding individual rights in cyberspace, in turn limiting its capacity to promote good cybersecurity governance abroad. The end result is the EU’s downscaling of the content of the norms that it globally promotes in this area from a thicker version, focusing on individual rights, to a thinner content, centred on administration and efficiency. In turn, reactions grow

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within from those who are concerned with privacy issues and the respect for human rights in cyberspace. The chapter on cybersecurity norms, as the ones preceding before it, point at a number of means through which illiberal global powers can attempt to exert their own vision of governance, often in contrast with that of the EU. As this can take the shape of norm contestation and alternative norm promotion (Anagnostakis), it can also be built through economic linkages, autocratic socialisation, and other soft power mechanisms (Yildiz). Yet, whether what is being promoted by these illiberal actors amounts to a specific model of governance that can be emulated by the rest is an open question. In his contribution, which constitutes the final chapter of the volume, Demiryol engages with this question through the case of China. He identifies the key elements of the Chinese experience as gradualism and pragmatism, the grift relationship between the state and the market, and the resilience of authoritarianism, but argues that China indirectly promotes these elements, at best, mainly via capacity building, technological transfer, and infrastructure-driven development assistance. These, in turn, do not just hinder the EU’s promotion of good governance abroad, but as argued elsewhere (Yu, 2018) and in particular by the use of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also helps to mark divisions between EU member states on how to deal with China.

The Main Takeaways and Implications for the Future Overall, the findings of the book suggest that despite the adversaries it faces inside and out, the EU has still not given up on promoting good governance abroad. Promotion of good governance is still central to the EU’s ODA instruments (Soyaltin-Colella and Cihangir-Tetik) and continues to be a core element of EU conditionality for accession. Nonetheless, what is also evident is that the EU’s good governance agenda has been thinning over the recent years, thanks to a variety of internal and external challenges that often interact with one another in reducing the EU’s capacity for action on this front. A major problem in this regard concerns the difficulties that the EU faces in putting its own house in order. As multiple contributions to this volume attest, democratic backsliding on the EU’s own territory is weakening its international credibility as a promoter of democratic good governance in target states while also making the norms that it espouses

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at the regional and the global level more susceptible to contestation by external illiberal actors. In a similar vein, as the chapter on Kosovo specifically shows, rising populism and Islamophobia in certain member states is also strengthening perceptions of the EU as an imposer of “double standards” rather than a fair reformer in those countries with Muslim majority populations (Buhari Gulmez and Aydin Dikmen). The volume clearly shows us that a second internal source hindering good governance-promotion efforts by the EU concerns its difficulty in agreeing on common policies on key issue areas, which in turn damages its leverage vis-à-vis the target states and strengthens its preference for stability over democracy in target countries. Migration and foreign policy seem to be the two key policies that represent cause for concern in this area. The EU’s push for externalisation of migration governance upon its failure to adopt a common asylum policy after the Syrian civil war has increased its reliance on the cooperation of authoritarian governments in some target states, even to the extent that it has enabled their further autocratisation, as the contribution on Turkey (Saatçio˘glu) clearly attests. Other studies have also drawn attention to the similar prioritisation of migration by the EU at the expense of democratic good governance in the case of the Southern neighbourhood, particularly in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings (Dandashly, 2015). On the foreign policy front, the impact of the EU’s inability to forge an effective common and security policy on the promotion of good governance has manifested itself in two ways. First, the EU’s failure to take joint effective action in the face of geopolitical conflicts in the Eastern and the Southern neighbourhood has facilitated the expansion of illiberal global actors, most notably Russia, in these regions. Secondly, and in relation to the first, member state divisions on foreign policy interests and priorities have meant that where there is divergence on key member state foreign policy interests in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where the EU can only agree on less ambitious and narrower goals of good governance promotion focused on state building and administration. The challenges to the EU’s good governance promotion are not only internal. The prevalence of the external illiberal challenge in every target state and region where the EU is active are clearly apparent from the contributions to this book. Contestation from Russia and China, and to a lesser extent Turkey and India, come in different shapes. They can take the form of direct military intervention, as with Russia in the Eastern and the Southern neighbourhood; indirect means, such as ODA

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with no political conditionality attached, Chinese technology transfer, capacity building, infrastructure-driven development promoted by BRI in Europe and beyond (Demiryol); and even normative contestation by Russia, China, and India over the regulation of cybersecurity (Anagnostakis), among other matters of global governance. Yet, what the analyses in these chapters are telling us is that it is precisely the EU’s own internal shortcomings that are enabling these challengers to disrupt good governance within member states, as well as the EU’s ability to promote good governance beyond its borders. Hence, the future of the EU’s governance capacity largely hinges on whether it will be able to sustain democracy, rule of law, and fundamental freedoms within, while at the same time design common policies with the willing and able in those areas where the current internal divisions favour the authoritarian governing elites of the target states and global illiberal challengers. A key external factor that will play an important role in the future shape and potential success of the EU’s good governance efforts will be the state of its relations with its potential partners and allies, most notably the US. In this context, the future commitment of the US to the liberal international order and how this will impact on its relations with the EU, as well as on its relations with other global actors such as China and Russia, will need to be considered in subsequent analyses of EU good governance promotion.

References Aydın-Düzgit, S., & Kaliber, A. (2016). Encounters with Europe in an era of domestic and international turmoil: Is Turkey a de-europeanising country? South European Society and Politics, 21(1), 1–14. Bickerton, C. (2021). The future of the EU: A retrospective. https://www.realin stitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/the-future-of-the-eu-a-retrospective/ Börzel, T., & Risse, T. (2009). The transformative power Europe: The European Union and the diffusion of ideas (KFG Working Paper Series, No. 1). https:// www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/36473. Dandashly, A. (2015). The EU response to regime change in the wake of the Arab revolt: Differential implementation. Journal of European Integration, 37 (1), 37–56. Grabbe, H. (2006). The EU’s transformative power: Europeanization through conditionality in central and eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. Ikenberry, G. J. (2018). The end of the liberal international order? International Affairs, 94(1), 7–23.

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Kelemen, D. (2020). The European Union’s authoritarian equilibrium. Journal of European Public Policy, 27 (3), 481–499. Manners, I. (2002). Normative power Europe: A contradiction in terms? Journal of Common Market Studies, 40(2), 235–258. Mearsheimer, J. J. (2019). Bound to fail: The rise and fall of the liberal international order. International Security, 43(4), 7–50. Richter, S., & Wunsch, N. (2020). Money, power, glory: The linkages between EU conditionality and state capture in the Western Balkans. Journal of European Public Policy, 27 (1), 41–62. Sasse, G. (2008). The European neighbourhood policy: Conditionality revisited for the EU’s Eastern neighbours. Europe-Asia Studies, 60(2), 295–316. Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (2004). Governance by conditionality: EU rule transfer to the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe. Journal of European Public Policy, 11(4), 661–679. Schimmelfennig, F., & Sedelmeier, U. (Eds.). (2005). The Europeanization of central and eastern Europe. Cornell University Press. Yu, J. (2018). The belt and road initiative: Domestic interests, bureaucratic politics, and the EU-China relations. Asia-Europe Journal, 16, 223–236.

Index

A Accountability, 2, 6, 7, 10, 21–25, 32, 40, 43, 74, 75, 140, 157, 158, 174, 185, 214, 220, 240, 241, 244, 248, 252, 272 Action Plans, 55, 79, 94, 118, 121, 219 African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, 135–137, 160, 168, 182, 184–187, 195, 197, 198, 201 Agriconnect, 160, 168, 170, 171, 173–175 Alternative models of governance, 247, 285 Alternative providers of governance, 244 Areas of limited statehood, 90 Armenia, 11, 114, 117, 119, 120, 125–129, 186, 192, 287, 288 Authoritarianism, 4, 13, 50, 161, 204, 217, 262, 271–274, 277, 284, 290 Authoritarian resilience, 271

Azerbaijan, 11, 64, 114, 115, 117, 119, 120, 123–126, 128, 186, 192, 228, 287, 288

B Beijing Consensus, 263, 264 Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), 158, 167 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 249, 260–262, 268–270, 275–277, 290, 292 Budapest Convention, 238, 239, 241–248, 250, 252, 253

C Capacity building, 239, 240, 263, 273, 274, 290, 292 Capitalism, 4, 260 Central Asia, 124, 195, 211–214, 216–223, 225–227, 229–231, 285, 289 Central Asian countries, 13, 211, 212, 216–220, 222, 224, 226, 227

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6

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INDEX

China, 4–6, 12, 13, 73, 90, 104, 149–152, 159, 166, 175, 176, 184, 191, 202, 203, 213, 218, 224, 226–228, 230, 238, 241, 244–249, 253, 254, 259–278, 284, 287, 289–292 China Model, 13, 261–271, 273, 274, 276, 277 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 259, 261, 264, 265, 267, 271–275, 277 Civil liberties, 23, 36, 37, 41, 43, 185, 250 Civil rights, 24, 30, 37, 38, 214, 220 Civil society, 6, 23, 25, 91, 93, 99–101, 105, 118, 119, 122, 124, 127, 139, 159, 168, 182, 183, 186, 188–191, 193–196, 198, 199, 203, 214, 221–223, 244–246, 248, 250, 262, 271 Civil Society Organisations (CSO), 22, 32, 77, 96, 99, 128, 134, 140, 143, 146, 202, 244, 246, 250, 252 Coal power plant, 11, 90, 91, 96–99, 102, 106 Collective Security Treaty (the CSTO), 126 Common European asylum policy, 54 Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), 128 Conditionality, 1, 6, 7, 9, 10, 23, 50–54, 58, 60–65, 73, 92, 93, 95, 97, 105, 115–117, 123, 133, 137, 144, 147, 148, 161, 165, 166, 168, 170, 185, 202, 217, 218, 242, 260, 273, 278, 286, 287, 289, 292 Connectivity, 117, 262, 268, 275 Corruption, 2, 5, 7, 11, 12, 22, 23, 25, 27, 32, 35, 36, 38, 40–43,

90, 94, 101–103, 106, 120, 124, 128, 130, 140, 148, 158, 185, 186, 216, 222, 260, 266, 277 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), 24, 30, 32, 35–38, 40, 148 Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA), 137, 147, 148, 152 Council of Europe’s Convention in Cybercrime, 238, 239 Cyber capacity building, 240–242 Cyber dialogues, 241, 246 Cyber East, 242, 243, 254 Cyber resilience, 241, 242 Cybersecurity, 13, 237–245, 247–249, 254, 274, 285, 289, 290, 292 Cybersecurity governance, 13, 238, 239, 244, 250, 252 Cyber sovereignty, 247 D Deep and Comprehensive Free-Trade Areas (DCFTAs), 117, 118, 126, 129 Deep democracy, 117 Democracy, 1, 3–8, 11–13, 22–25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35–43, 49, 50, 53, 57–59, 62–64, 73, 74, 76, 78, 90, 106, 113, 114, 116, 119–122, 125, 128–130, 134, 135, 137, 146, 148–150, 152, 159, 164, 165, 168, 176, 183, 185, 191, 192, 196, 200, 203, 212–216, 218, 220–226, 230, 231, 247, 260, 271, 272, 277, 284, 286–288, 291, 292 Democratic backsliding, 3, 7, 9, 23, 24, 49, 63, 95, 96, 114, 121, 135, 148, 192, 284, 290 Democratisation, 2, 22, 24, 29, 30, 35, 42, 43, 91, 116–118, 126, 134, 137, 163, 184, 190, 191,

INDEX

195, 197, 200, 203, 214, 218, 223, 228, 260, 271, 272 Development, 6, 11, 13, 22, 30, 35, 41, 50, 54, 57, 61–63, 65, 81–83, 90, 104, 114, 117, 121, 122, 124, 126, 133, 134, 136, 137, 143, 145–147, 149, 150, 152, 158–161, 163–166, 174, 185, 186, 190, 192, 195–198, 200, 202, 203, 211–213, 218–221, 223, 225, 226, 231, 237, 238, 241, 242, 249–252, 259–262, 264, 266, 268–270, 272, 273, 276, 288, 289, 292 Developmentalism, 260, 271 Development and cooperation policy, 198 Development Assistance Committee (DAC), 170, 181 Development cooperation, 11, 133, 134, 136–138, 143, 145, 147, 149, 150, 165, 166, 197, 261 Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI), 135, 146, 151, 182, 184, 186–188, 191, 194–197, 199–201, 219 Digital authoritarianism, 274, 275, 277 Digital sovereignty, 245 Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM), 80–83 Donor-recipient relations, 165 Donor, the EU as a, 159 E Economic governance, 13, 66, 202, 261, 263, 265, 266, 271, 277 Economic growth, 124, 151, 163, 202, 227, 262–266, 269, 271, 272, 276, 277 Economic Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, 24

297

Economic reforms, 94, 184, 195, 217, 220 E-evidence, 243, 249, 250, 253 Encryption, 251, 252 Energy security, 97, 104, 229 Enlargement policy, 50, 53, 54 Epistemic injustice, 162 EU candidate states, 50, 65 EU conditionality, 2, 10, 52, 53, 60, 161, 286, 287, 290 EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), 10, 72 EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRIT), 72, 79, 80 EU foreign policy, 53 EU Global Strategy (EUGS), 4, 10, 50, 74, 183, 200, 203, 229 EU member states, 3, 9, 10, 23, 24, 35, 37, 43, 62, 78, 90, 91, 95, 100, 105, 121, 135, 143–145, 167, 170, 182, 187, 193, 197, 198, 200, 225, 230, 251–253, 285, 290 European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders (FRONTEX), 77 European Development Fund (EDF), 136, 137, 140, 143–146, 151, 152, 168, 170, 182, 184–188, 191, 194, 197–203 European identity, 162 European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), 146, 151, 221 Europeanisation, 2, 52, 127, 162 European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI), 182, 184–188, 191–195, 199–201 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), 4, 7, 11, 50, 53, 65, 74, 78, 113–118, 120, 121,

298

INDEX

126–130, 186, 187, 192–195, 203, 217, 231, 283, 287, 288 European politics, 12 European Union cybersecurity, 237–241, 253 European Union (EU), 1–14, 23, 29, 30, 42, 49–66, 71–79, 83, 84, 89–96, 98–107, 113–130, 134–140, 143–152, 158–176, 181–204, 211–225, 227–231, 237–253, 260, 261, 273, 276, 283–292 EU Rule of Law mission (EULEX), 94, 101–103 EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP), 113, 116–118, 120–124, 126, 129 EU-Tanzanian relation/EU-Tanzania relations/EU-Tanzanian partnership, 165 EU-Turkey Statement, 54, 55, 57, 61, 62, 64, 72, 79 Externalisation, 11, 51, 72–81, 83, 84 Externalisation of migration, 56, 58, 284, 287, 291 F Fair sharing of responsibility, 55, 66 Foreign aid, 188, 197, 198 Freedom House, 23–25, 27, 30, 32, 36–38, 40, 41, 50, 128, 148, 160, 216, 223, 251, 275 Freedoms, 6, 22, 27, 30, 32, 36, 38, 40–43, 49, 59, 103, 116, 122–124, 140, 186, 228, 240, 242, 243, 245, 247–250, 252, 253, 292 G Gender Action Plan/EU Gender Action Plan, 163 Gender equality classification, 170

Gender mainstreaming, 158, 159, 164, 170, 175 Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB), 167, 168, 170 Georgia, 7, 11, 50, 114, 115, 117–125, 186, 192, 193, 228, 254, 287–289 Good cybersecurity governance, 13, 238–249, 251–253, 289 Good governance, 1–9, 11–14, 22, 23, 43, 72–74, 83, 89–95, 98, 100–102, 105, 106, 113–123, 129, 130, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 142–152, 157–161, 163, 164, 166, 174–176, 182–186, 189, 193, 195–197, 200, 202, 203, 214, 218–222, 230, 231, 239, 240, 244, 252, 260, 284–292 Governance exporters, 5, 11, 12, 204, 273, 276 Governance facility, 185 Gradualism, 13, 261, 262, 264–266, 276, 290

H Hungary, 3, 7, 10, 23, 26, 29, 30, 35–40, 42, 49, 55, 95, 114, 130, 135, 148, 158, 161, 165, 183, 251, 284, 286, 289 Hybrid regimes, 4, 37, 38, 275

I Illiberal donors, 150, 159, 175, 176, 200 Illiberal global actors, 284, 291 Illiberal governance outcomes, 13, 61, 63, 65, 83, 238, 244 Illiberalism, 49, 51, 58, 161, 166, 174, 285

INDEX

Infrastructure, 7, 93, 124, 127, 219, 227, 228, 242, 249, 254, 260, 262, 268–270, 275–277 Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA), 95, 100, 182, 184–192, 194, 199–202 Intergovernmental channel, 6 International recognition, 90, 97, 100 Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), 243, 245, 246 Investment, 58, 90, 95, 96, 102, 124, 126, 150, 168, 222, 226, 227, 230, 249, 260, 264, 269, 270, 272, 277

K Kazakhstan, 13, 124, 213, 216–218, 223–228, 230, 254 Kosovo, 11, 37, 38, 40, 41, 81, 89–107, 191, 285, 287, 291 Kosovo e Re power plant project, 96–100, 102, 106 Kyrgyzstan, 13, 81, 213, 216, 217, 223–228, 254

L Legitimacy, 30, 59, 90, 95, 128, 151, 152, 158, 159, 161, 162, 166, 216, 271–273, 277, 285, 287 Liberal democratic principles, 6, 240 Liberal governance export, 50, 58 Liberalisation, 2, 55, 56, 95, 100, 101, 105, 117, 223, 260, 262, 264, 265, 267, 271, 272

M Migration, 3, 9, 11, 56–58, 62, 63, 65, 72–84, 139, 163, 183, 195,

299

212, 222, 229, 252, 285–287, 291 Migration cooperation, 58, 61, 63, 64 Modernisation, 55, 62, 66, 220, 259, 262, 271, 277 Monitoring of political finance, 22 “more for more” approach, 192, 195 Multi-financial framework (MFF), 12, 143, 182–184, 186, 189, 198, 200, 202–204 multistakeholder model of internet governance, 240, 245

N Neighbourhood Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), 145, 146, 151, 152, 163, 200–203 Neoliberal, 157, 260, 263, 266, 267 NIS Directive, 237, 239, 242 Non-state actors, 6, 77, 146, 158, 160, 221 Normative concession, 51, 59, 64 Normative contestation, 292 Normative power, 2, 23, 135, 283 Norm contestation, 161, 162, 166, 289, 290

O Official Development Assistance (ODA), 7, 11, 12, 138, 150, 182–188, 190, 191, 193–196, 198–201, 204, 227, 261, 285, 287–291 Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 22, 23, 25, 35, 91, 99, 223, 243 OSCE Minsk Group, 125

300

INDEX

P Poland, 3, 5, 7, 10, 23, 30, 37, 39, 40, 42, 49, 114, 130, 135, 148, 158, 161, 165, 183, 251, 284, 286, 289 Political conditionality, 10, 51, 59, 64, 65, 83, 90, 92, 100, 105, 126, 134, 146, 147, 150, 152, 188, 192, 226, 276 Political dialogue, 91, 102, 121, 122, 128, 134, 137, 146–148, 152, 164, 230 Political finance, 9, 10, 22, 24, 25, 27, 36, 37, 41, 42 Political party finance, 22, 24 Positive agenda, 62, 63 Pristina, 90, 91, 93, 95, 98, 102 R Refugee deal, 55, 56, 58–60, 63, 65 Regulations of political finance, 27 Regulatory understanding, 5 Reinforcement by reward, 51, 58 Resettlement, 55, 56 Resilience, 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 50, 65, 73, 74, 78, 129, 183, 200, 203, 229, 239, 262, 285, 290 Rising donors, 289 Rule of Law conditionality, 149 Russia, 4, 6, 11–13, 73, 89, 101, 104, 106, 114–116, 118–120, 122, 124, 126–130, 213, 218, 224, 226–230, 238, 241, 244–249, 253, 254, 284, 285, 287–289, 291, 292 S Samaritan’s dilemma, 185 Serbia, 23, 26, 29, 36, 37, 40, 49, 91, 94–98, 100–102, 104–106, 186, 190, 191, 260, 284, 287

Solidarity, 55, 66 South Caucasus, 11, 114–117, 119, 123, 285, 287 Stability-democracy dilemma, 53 State capitalism, 262, 266, 267, 276 Strategic Modernisation Partnership (SMP), 123 Strategic partnership, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 64, 218 Strategic Partnership Agreement (SAP), 123 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 7, 8, 11, 12, 134–136, 138–140, 142–152, 163, 165, 169, 182, 184, 186, 199–203, 285, 288, 289, 291 Syrian refugee crisis, 51, 54, 64, 286

T Tajikistan, 13, 213, 216, 217, 223–226, 228, 254 Tanzanian agriculture sector, 168, 174, 175 Tanzanian Ministry of Finance, 168, 175 Tanzania/Tanzanian government, 12, 140, 142, 157, 160, 161, 163–171, 173–175 Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS), 193, 201, 212, 219 The Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index (BTI), 24, 30, 32, 38, 39, 41 The Cotonou Agreement, 137, 144, 146, 168, 185 The Migration Partnership Framework, 10, 72 The South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), 124

INDEX

The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), 124 Transactionalism, 61, 64 Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP), 124 Transatlantic partnership, 11, 94, 106 Transnational approach, 6 Transparency, 2, 5, 10, 11, 21–26, 28–30, 32, 40, 42, 43, 74, 99, 116, 119, 122, 123, 129, 148, 157, 168, 174, 175, 185, 203, 239, 241, 244, 252, 272, 285 Transparency International (TI), 21, 24, 30, 32, 35, 38, 40, 148 Turkey, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 23, 26, 29, 30, 35–40, 42, 50–52, 54–66, 71, 72, 74, 78–84, 89, 90, 93, 124, 127, 129, 149, 184, 186, 189–192, 201, 228, 283, 284, 286, 287, 289, 291 Turkmenistan, 13, 124, 213, 216, 217, 223–225, 228, 231

301

U United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 91, 99, 102 United States (US), 4, 5, 75, 91–97, 101, 102, 104–106, 182, 196, 197, 241, 243, 246, 254, 267, 271, 273, 274, 276, 287, 292 Uzbekistan, 13, 213, 216, 217, 223–229, 254

V Varieties of Democracy Project (V-DEM), 4, 23, 24, 30, 32, 39, 40, 50, 149 Visegrad Group, 3

W Women farmers in Africa, 169