TY - JOUR

T1 - Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe: The ambivalent legacy of accession

AU - Kutter, Amelie

AU - Trappmann, Vera

PY - 2010/4

Y1 - 2010/4

N2 - Civil society organisations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have remained weak players compared to their counterparts in established democracies. Given the particular incentives that the EU offered for the empowerment of non-state actors during pre-accession, it has often been assumed that EU intervention improved this situation. We argue that, instead, the EU's impact was highly ambivalent. Although the EU aid and EU-induced policy reform levelled the way for established actors' involvement in multilevel politics, it reinforced some of the barriers to development that the civil society organisations face in CEE. In particular, EU measures have failed to address the lack of sustainable income, of formalised interactions with the state and of grassroot support. Drawing on the experiences of trade unions and environmental groups, we show that this ambivalent 'legacy of accession' is due to an unfortunate interrelation between various, often implicit mechanisms of the EU's enlargement regime on one hand, and particular problems inherited from state socialism and transition on the other. Acta Politica (2010) 45, 41-69. doi: 10.1057/ap.2009.18

AB - Civil society organisations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have remained weak players compared to their counterparts in established democracies. Given the particular incentives that the EU offered for the empowerment of non-state actors during pre-accession, it has often been assumed that EU intervention improved this situation. We argue that, instead, the EU's impact was highly ambivalent. Although the EU aid and EU-induced policy reform levelled the way for established actors' involvement in multilevel politics, it reinforced some of the barriers to development that the civil society organisations face in CEE. In particular, EU measures have failed to address the lack of sustainable income, of formalised interactions with the state and of grassroot support. Drawing on the experiences of trade unions and environmental groups, we show that this ambivalent 'legacy of accession' is due to an unfortunate interrelation between various, often implicit mechanisms of the EU's enlargement regime on one hand, and particular problems inherited from state socialism and transition on the other. Acta Politica (2010) 45, 41-69. doi: 10.1057/ap.2009.18

KW - Europeanisation

KW - EU enlargement

KW - civil society

KW - trade unions

KW - environmental NGOs

KW - Central and Eastern Europe

KW - CANDIDATE COUNTRIES

KW - WORKS COUNCILS

KW - ENLARGEMENT

KW - DEMOCRACY

KW - POLAND

KW - UNION

KW - PARTICIPATION

KW - INSTITUTIONS

KW - INTEGRATION

KW - TRANSITION

U2 - 10.1057/ap.2009.18

DO - 10.1057/ap.2009.18

M3 - Journal article

VL - 45

SP - 41

EP - 69

JO - Acta Politica

JF - Acta Politica

SN - 0001-6810

IS - 1-2

ER -