Suchergebnisse

After the EU's Eastern enlargement of 2004, it became clear that some of the reform in the former candidate countries resembled a Potemkin village: behind a gleaming facade lingered a grimmer reality. Party politics in Central Europe proved to be a case in point. The following article argues that party systems in the region only underwent 'Potemkin Europeanisation'-essentially enjoying a 'liberal consensus' thanks to a 'camouflage effect' of the Europeanisation processes-in 1998-2004. Using case studies of party competition in Poland and Hungary in 1998-2004, it draws broader theoretical conclusions about the persistence of traditional cleavages as organizing principles of party systems in Central Europe, as well as the nature of EU influence on the modus operandi of party politics in candidate countries. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright the American Council of Learned Societies.]

After the EU's Eastern enlargement of 2004, it became clear that some of the reform in the former candidate countries resembled a Potemkin village: behind a gleaming façade lingered a grimmer reality. Party politics in Central Europe proved to be a case in point. The following article argues that party systems in the region only underwent "Potemkin Europeanisation"—essentially enjoying a "liberal consensus" thanks to a "camouflage effect" of the Europeanisation processes—in 1998–2004. Using case studies of party competition in Poland and Hungary in 1998–2004, it draws broader theoretical conclusions about the persistence of traditional cleavages as organizing principles of party systems in Central Europe, as well as the nature of EU influence on the modus operandi of party politics in candidate countries.

New democracies are uniquely positioned to promote democratic values and have a competitive advantage in the global democracy assistance industry. This book examines the attempts of one group of young democracies, from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), to channel this pro-democracy agenda into both national and European foreign policy and development support. It looks at how CEE is 'upstream' changing the EU on crucial policy issues as part of the common foreign and security policy. Furthermore, it tracks the process whereby imported ideas and norms are recycled for further export 'downstream', and how these concepts are received in countries outside of the EU including the post-Soviet space, the Western Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa region and Central Asia.--