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The Governance of the European Union in Its Eastern Neighbourhood: the Impact of the Eu on Georgia

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The Governance of the European Union in Its Eastern Neighbourhood: the Impact of the Eu on Georgia THE GOVERNANCE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION IN ITS EASTERN NEIGHBOURHOOD: THE IMPACT OF THE EU ON GEORGIA by ÒSCAR PARDO SIERRA A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Political Science and International Studies School of Government and Society The University of Birmingham October 2010 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) has set itself ambitious objectives in order to transform its neighbourhood. It aims to induce domestic reforms in order to promote democracy, good governance and prosperity. Theoretical-oriented empirical analyses on the impact of the EU‘s attempts to trigger institutional, regulatory and normative changes in domestic policies remain scarce. It is necessary to increase our understanding of the EU‘s potential, limitations, and the conditions under which it may have an impact. This thesis contributes to closing this empirical and theoretical gap by examining the impact of the EU on Georgia, a country included in the Eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). This evaluation is derived from original empirical research of four different modes of EU governance in the context of the ENP: Governance by conditionality (access to the single market regarding economic issues); intergovernmental governance (cooperation in foreign and security policies); external governance (energy security); and cooperative governance (Security Sector Reform). This thesis suggests that we can explain the responses to EU policies in neighbouring countries if we use a synthetic ideational/rationalist analytical framework which takes into account additional variables in the EU–neighbour relations in the domestic and regional context. The findings indicate that the impact of the EU is slowly increasing, even in areas dominated by geopolitics such as energy security. Although the impact has been uneven at policy level, the EU has become an important external influence in Georgia. The thesis argues that, although important, EU incentives and geopolitical pressures are less decisive than the existing literature would predict. In contrast, the role of ideas in bilateral relations has had a crucial role across the case studies, showing in some instances the limitations of the alluring power of the EU as a ‗normative power‘. Thus, EU impact is based on the existence of a coherent institutional framework of relations; embedded in social, political and economic links that are locked into favourable path-dependence processes and where ideational convergence is present. Para mi madre Amalia, mi hermano Gabriel, y a la memoria de mi padre ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Anyone who has written a PhD will be aware that it is an impossible achievement without the help, support and guidance of colleagues, friends and family. My thanks go out to my supervisors, Anand Menon and Cerwyn Moore. Anand has always provided great and rapid feedback throughout the doctoral studies and has contributed to improve the style of the thesis as well as making some arguments sharper. Ces has always showed support and has encouraged me to get my work in the public domain. I am indebted to the Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) at the University of Birmingham for generously funding my PhD studies. I would like to thank my PhD friends in POLSIS who have shared the rollercoaster ride of this process. A big ―thank you‖ goes to Liam Clegg, Laurence Cooley, Andrew Futter, Simon Glaze, Valentina Kostadinova, Dave Norman, and Shaf Zafeer. Special thanks to Onder Cakir for his constant support and tireless encouragement, and to Jari Riiheläinen. Special thanks to Apostolos Agnantopoulos, who I have shared a house with for two years while undertaking our PhD at POLSIS. During that time our experiences have resulted in the development of an everlasting friendship. I would like to thank the staff at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) at Birmingham University, who has always been interested in my research and provided me with support. I am also very grateful to CREES for having provided valuable Russian lessons. I would like to thank Professor Esther Barbé for her constant support and advice all these years since she supervised my MA thesis some years ago. I hope one day I can live up to the standards and professionalism that she always demonstrates. I would also like to thank Professor Jacint Jordana for his support during my early and dubitative steps in the academic world; I cannot even recall the number of reference letters he wrote for me, and which led me to achieving this PhD at Birmingham. Finally, I would like to thank the professors and lecturers that took time for answering all my doubts (endless) and those who created a thrilling intellectual environment during the year I spent at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI) in Barcelona. Special thanks to Pablo Pareja, Dr. Josep Ibáñez, Teresa Seuba and Professor Antón Costas. I was lucky to be part of the first promotion of the Master in International Relations and also met everlasting friends such as Frédéric, Charo and Harpa. I have been lucky enough to have had two institutional visits during my postgraduate studies. The first of these was to the Ohio State University where I found an impressive and fertile intellectual environment. Special thanks to Prof. Alexander Wendt who found time to listen to my nonsense and to Prof. Paul Beck who made the visit possible. My second institutional visit was to the Georgian Foundation of Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi. I spent two fantastic months in Georgia and in the Southern Caucasus where I got to feel in my skin the special character of that land. Special thanks to Kakha Gogolashvili for his help and insights during my stay, Dr. Archil Gegeshidze for making it possible, and Dr. Alex Rondelli for his sharp observations. Special regards and big ―hugs‖ to my Georgian friends: Dato Jijelava, Nino Kemoklidze and her brother Kakha. To all of them: ―Gaumarjos!‖ A big ―hug‖ too to my friend Tigran Mkrtchyan that helped me understanding Armenia and the Caucasus a bit better; despite the distance he has always had a thought for me. Whilst academic support and development is essential in undertaking a PhD, the value of friends and particularly family is priceless. These are the people who share your happiness, but also the people who come to your aid when you encounter difficulties and when things are not going as planned, which is what usually happens. These are the people who provide you with emotional support and encouragement. So therefore, I would like to take this moment to thank my family: to my mother Amalia, who has always been a source of inspiration, love and encouragement in my life; my brother Gabriel, sister-in-law Esperanza and my little niece and nephew Inés and Álvaro, for their unconditional and continuous support and love. I would like to thank my friends in Barcelona for their priceless friendship not only during the long and winding road of doing a PhD away from home, but also during all the (already) countless good (and not as good) moments we have lived together. Special hugs and love to Carles, Òscar, Toni, Siscu, Pablo, Kutu and Raúl. I feel proud of them and blessed in having been friends from such a young age that we cannot even recall the first time we met. They and my family never doubted my ability in doing a PhD (even if I constantly did). I would like to thank Pablo González, who has found paradise on Earth in Gran Canaria, and Gerardo Maldonado for their support, since we started this journey together in Barcelona. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my suffering (and patient) partner, Majka, for her kind love. She has been the one who has had to endure the day-to-day complications and fluctuating moods of a PhD researcher over the last two years. For me she has been the companion who has never doubted of my ability and potential and has always been there to offer me encouragement. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 EXISTING STUDIES ON EU INFLUENCE IN ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD: ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION ..................................................................................................................................... 5 DEVELOPING A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK TO EXPLAIN EU INFLUENCE................... 8 EVIDENCE AND METHODS: RESEARCH DESIGN .................................................................. 12 Evidence and sources ........................................................................................................................ 15 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ...................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 1 – EU GOVERNANCE TOWARDS ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD: IMPLICATIONS FOR CASE SELECTION ....................................................................................................................
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