Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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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 -