2.2 Conditions for the EU’s impact: mediating factors

Explanatory studies usually do not only ask whether and what kind of influence the EU has on the candidate countries, but also how the EU exercises such influence. The conditions and factors that determine the effectiveness of the EU’s influence form the independent variable in this research area. For the sake of analytical clarity, we can broadly distinguish five different types of questions that focus on different sets of independent (or intervening) variables, even if in practice many studies include more than one set of factors. One set of alternative independent variables is located at the international level. The key question in this respect is which of the strategies and instruments that the EU uses are most effective. One key difference between the Europeanisation of members and candidate countries concerns the instruments through which the EU generates adjustment pressures. A prominent strategy of the EU to influence candidate countries is the use of conditionality: the use of conditional positive incentives (ultimately EU membership) as reward for states who adopt certain rules that the EU specifies. However, the strategy of conditionality is far from uniform and homogenous, and the EU’s application of conditionality varies across issue areas, target countries, and over time. Thus, some studies primarily identify factors (at the level of the EU) that account for effectiveness of conditionality (see e.g. Grabbe 2001

, 2006

; Pridham 2005

; Smith 1998 , 2003 ; Vachudová 2003 ).

Moreover, the EU also uses other strategies than conditionality to affect domestic change, such as persuasion and socialisation of elites. Some studies therefore explicitly contrast the relative effectiveness of conditionality and alternative strategies (see e.g. Kelley 2004 ; Kubicek 2003b ; Schimmelfennig et al. 2003 ; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005b ). To the extent that these alternative strategies – conditionality and ‘learning’ – also draw on explanatory factors favoured by different theoretical approaches (as the following section elaborates), these then lead to a distinction between alternative (but not necessarily mutually exclusive) mechanisms of Europeanisation.

Another set of studies focuses primarily on the domestic level, and ask which factors mediate the EU’s influence (see e.g. Brusis 2005 ; Schimmelfennig 2005 ; Vachudová 2005 ). To the extent that such studies hold factors at the international level more or less constant, they sometimes resemble more closely the analytical framework of Europeanisation in member states.

In addition to studies that focus on mediating factors at the international or domestic level or both, a few studies also ask explicitly about the channels through which the EU exercises its influence. Such studies distinguish between two different channels – intergovernmental and societal – and analyse their relative importance for the EU’s domestic impact (Schimmelfennig et al. 2003 ; Vachudová 2005 ). Through the intergovernmental channel, the EU directly influences governments and policy-makers in candidate countries. In the societal channel, where the EU’s influence is indirect, it achieves this through the pressures that domestic groups bring to bear on their governments.

Finally, some studies frame the question in terms of the relative importance of EU conditionality and domestic politics in shaping domestic political change (e.g. Hughes et al. 2004a ,b ), and hence take into account that such changes might not be induced by the EU. Other studies consider explicitly that there need not be a causal link with EU conditionality if domestic change in the candidate countries meets the EU’s demands. For example, Jacoby (2004 ) distinguishes between different ways in which post-communist institutions might emulate EU rules. Such emulation might be voluntary, rather than the result of EU pressures, either in the form of faithful ‘copies’ (which were rare) or more approximate ‘templates’ (e.g. in health care). The contributions in Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005b ) consider ‘lesson-drawing’ as an alternative explanation for the adoption of EU rules by candidate countries, where such rules might be used to address domestic policy failure, regardless of possible EU rewards for doing so. Andonova (2003 ) focuses on the economic incentives for internationalised sectors of the economy to adjust rapidly to EU environmental standards – to some extent independently of the requirements of EU membership.