1. Introduction1

1 2012 SISP Annual Conference (Rome 13-15 September) Panel: The International Role of the European Parliament: An innovation in/for world politics? The European Parliament in the International Election Observation Regime – An Innovation for International Democracy Promotion? Author: PD Dr. Andrea Gawrich: Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Olshausenstraße 40, 24098-Kiel, Germany; e-mail: [email protected] Please don’t quote without permission Table of Content 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 2. On inter-organizational cooperation ............................................................................................... 3 3. Chances and Risks of Election Observation as a Democracy Promotion Tool ................................ 4 4. Not Innovative, but more Professional - Election Observation as the EP’s Foreign Policy Pool ..... 7 4.1 Institutional Setting and Empirical Development of EP Election Observation Activities .............. 9 4.2 In the Shade of the EU-Commission and the EEAS - Non-European EOMs as part of EU EOMs 15 4.2.1 The EU’s Retreat from European Observations and the EP’s Cooperation with the OSCE as a European Observer ..................................................................................................................... 15 4.2.2 Mutual benefits – The EP in EU EOMs .................................................................................. 17 4.3 Under the Aegis of the OSCE/ODIHR – EP as part of IEOM ......................................................... 19 4.4 Flying the Flag for Parliamentary Observations – the EP and Elections in Kosovo ..................... 25 5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 26 6. References ..................................................................................................................................... 28 1. Introduction1 Election observation is regarded as an instrument of increased importance in international democracy promotion. According to Thomas Carothers, it might be qualified as some kind of “democracy promotion industry”. Despite the fact that election observation is a core democracy promotion tool, it nevertheless bears a lot of challenges with respect to the proper use of instruments, neutral- ity, knowledge and various further skills. 1 I would like to thank Christian Patz, M.A. for helping me with data collection. 2 The European Parliament (EP) has been an election observing institution in third countries since 1994. In fact, the EP shared its election observation activities, on the one hand, with the EU’s Election Observation Missions (EU EOM) in non-European territories. On the other hand, Euro- pean parliamentary election observation became an instrument of inter-organizational cooperation between the EP, the parliamentary assemblies of the OSCE and the Council of Europe as well as the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in the OSCE area. This cooperation arrangement is officially referred to as the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM). The following paper is organized as follows: After discussing present scientific research on inter- organizational cooperation, it introduces current academic debates on election observation. This is followed in the next section by an analysis of the EPs election observation activities. After analyzing the EPs institutional setting and development with regard to election observation, I analyze the EP’s cooperation within the EU in the EU EOM. This is followed by an analysis of the EP’s cooperation with the OSCE-lead IEOMs, before coming to a conclusion. When referring to the core term of the panel topic, innovation, one might at first state that innovation is not evidently connected with political science concepts. For example, political science dictionaries often do not mention “innovation”. In comparison Oxford Dictionaries (http://oxforddictionaries.com/) define this expression as “the action or process of innovating: innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any organization”. Innovations occur in the form of “a new method, idea, product, etc.” Based on this, we can understand innovation as progress in a certain field of activity which should generate success for the activities of the EP. This raises the question how progress leading to success should be defined and which benchmark this should have. Success with respect to the effects of election observation is generally difficult to measure, as many external and internal influences are relevant. Furthermore, the EP is always only one among a number of other actors. In contrast, it is an interesting point of analysis to de- termine how the contribution of the EP generally improved European election observation strate- gies of the various actors. Thus, it is worth searching for new ideas and methods in the sense of progress in the field of EP election observations. For the purpose of this paper, I will therefore refer to the term innovation in various directions, which ultimately leads to two levels of analysis: At first, inside the EP and the EU, it is worth asking, whether election observation as a part of EP foreign policy has been an innovation for EP activities. Which relevance does election observation have within the tableau of EP foreign policy instruments? How have observations evolved and have there been institutional innovations in order to establish, maintain, and develop EP activi- 3 ties? How are EP election observations situated within the general institutional setting of the EU and how important are they for this part of EU foreign policy? Secondly, on an international level this paper questions, whether the EP acted in an innovative fashion in comparison with the international scene of election observers. How did the EP contrib- ute to international cooperation and the division of labor in election observation procedures? Has it remained in the shadow of other international election observation institutions or has the EP substantially contributed to standards of inter-organizational cooperation and improved international norms, techniques, and procedures of election observation? In sum, which role does the EP play in the international scene of election observers? Related to these research questions, a hypothesis can be posed as follows: Ad (1): As the EU is not, like the OSCE and the Council of Europe, a traditional democratic norm promoter it is assumed that the EP, as the EU itself, lagged behind other international organizations with respect to election observation. Yet, in the context of its weak role in EU foreign policy, following e.g. Crum in his broader analysis on the EP’s attempts “to exploit the loopholes that are left” (Crum 2006, 384) in the field of the EU’s CFSP, it is assumed that the EP tried to con- stantly improve and increase election observation activities in order to compensate its weak foreign policy role. Ad (2): Based on the first hypothesis of being comparably slow in establishing election observation procedures and due to the fact that only short term election observations can be realized by an international parliament, it is assumed that the EP did not improve European election observation in an innovative fashion. 2. On inter-organizational cooperation The EP’s activities in the field of election observation have two different institutional settings. On the one hand, the EP acts inside the EU in cooperation with the Commission’s Election Observa- tion Missions, on the other hand, it acts in cooperation with the OSCE/ODIHR, the OSCE Parlia- mentary Assembly (OSCE-PA) and the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE). In order to analyse inter-organizational variation of EP election observations, it is worth looking at concepts of analyzing and theorizing inter-organizational cooperation, currently of an increased interest in international relations research (see e.g. Biermann 2008). “Most concepts applied to organisational interplay…are rational in orientation. IOs are assumed to make individual deci- sions based on cost benefit calculations or perceptions of these” (Brosig 2011, 154). By following 4 e.g. a basic categorization by Oliver, who understands cooperation according to necessity, asymmetry, reciprocity, efficiency, stability and legitimacy (Oliver 1990), election observation cooperation might be analyzed through checking the relevance of reciprocity, as all partners pursue com- mon objectives, as well as with respect to the enhancement of the legitimacy of the activities of IOs. Furthermore, efficiency could also be examined, which Oliver understands as Intra-IO efficiency, referring to cost-effective goal attainment through resource-pooling in election observation. This in fact bridges the two levels of analysis in this paper. In contrast, election observation can neither fruitfully be explained through necessity, which is related to legal requirements under- lying the interactions of international organizations, nor can it be explained through asymmetry, as the EP (in contrast to the EU as a whole) itself is not an asymmetric actor with respect to other participants of IEOMs. The same is valid for stability, as election observation is a very soft too, which might not have enough potential to really

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