Designing democracy. EU enlargement and regime change in post-communist Europe

Designing Democracy is a systematic and in-depth study of the effects of the EU's democratic conditionality, originally set out in the Copenhagen conditions of 1993, on the new political systems of Central and Eastern Europe. It examines this development up to the accession of new Member States in 2004.

Using new material drawn from extensive elite interviews in several of these countries as well as in Brussels, the book throws much light on how far the EU enlargement process has really strengthened these new post-Communist democracies following their transitions in the 1990s. Applying an interactive approach to the relationship between Europeanisation and democratisation, the book discusses both the EU's evolving policy of conditionality and the domestic arenas of the candidate countries in a three-dimensional analysis of governance, intermediary actors and the socio-economic arena.

Contents

Theoretical Perspectives on European Enlargement and Democratisation;
The EU's Conditionality Strategy: Its Development Before and After the Fall of Communism;
EU Enlargement, Democratisation and Domestic Politics in Post-Communist Europe: Patterns and Problems of Motivation;
Post-Communist Accession Governments: Policy Orientation,
Institutional Adaptation and Implementing Democratic Conditionality;
The Political Arena and Intermediary Actors in Candidate Countries: Political Parties, Opinion Makers and Public Impacts;
The Socio-Economic Arena and Deepening Democracy: Economic Transformation, Civil Society and Ethnic Minorities in Candidate Countries;
Conclusion: Europeanisation and Democratisation - Convergent, Parallel or Conflicting Processes?