Assem Dandashly

The EU Response to Regime Change in the Wake of the Arab Revolt: Differential Implementation

Abstract Following the Arab Spring, one might expect a paradigm shift in the EU’s attitude towards the MENA — at least with respect to democracy promotion. However, the EU response has been neither consistent nor coherent. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: How did the EU react to the Arab Spring events in North Africa? Is there evidence of any change in the goals and instruments pursued by the EU after the Arab Spring? And, do these goals and instruments change coherently across countries? The paper argues, first, that EU goals remain security and stability driven. While the EU viewed the Arab Spring as a window of opportunity for democracy, as events developed the EU prioritized security concerns as a response to the threat of instability in the MENA. And second, the utilization of instruments varied across time and cases due to the domestic politics of the targeted countries.

Responses to the ‘Arabellions’: The EU in Comparative Perspective — Introduction

Abstract This article introduces the themes of this special issue which is devoted to the reactions by external actors including the EU to the events unfolding in the Arab world beginning in December 2010. In particular, we look at the balancing act by external actors between their desire for stability, on the one hand, and their normative principles toward human rights and democracy, on the other. We compare the action (and inaction) of the European Union (EU) with other international and regional players, including the United States, Russia, Turkey and Israel. The contributions assess the response of these actors to the Arabellions events and analyse changes in their approaches to the Arab region. We ask three questions: (1) How have external actors assessed the ‘Arabellions’ and what role did they see for themselves in this context? (2) Which goals and instruments did external actors pursue toward the MENA region? In particular, how did they deal with conflicting goals, such as support for human rights and democracy, on the one hand, and concerns about security and stability, on the other? (3) How can we explain the varying responses of external actors to the Arabellions?

The EU, External Actors, and the Arabellions: Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing

Abstract This article summarizes the findings from the special issue. The EU, the US, and to some extent Turkey are the only actors considered in this special issue who not only explicitly try to promote human rights and democracy, but also employ specific instruments and resources for this purpose. But all external actors prioritized stability and security over democracy as the events unfolded. Despite all the discussions about EU actorness, we did not find any difference between the EU, on the one hand, and the four states we looked at in this special issue (the US, Russia, Turkey, and Israel), on the other. In fact, the US arguably pursued the most incoherent and inconsistent foreign policy toward the MENA region in response to the Arabellions. Among the three explanations considered in the introduction to this special issue, realism scores worst. ‘Objective’ geostrategic interests cannot account for the variation in policy responses by the external actors. The authors in this special issue point to domestic politics in the various countries and inside the regional organization (the EU) considered here. Self-understandings and collective identities provide a complementary explanation for why external actors have acted against their economic and security goals. As to the effects of the external actors’ policies in the target countries, the main drivers of events during the Arabellions have been domestic so that external actors could only assume subsidiary roles. Tunisia might be the only case in which external democracy promotion—in this case by the EU—played an auxiliary role.

EU democracy promotion and the dominance of the security–stability nexus

Abstract The article analyses the EU’s approach for democracy promotion in Tunisia and Egypt in the wake of the Arab uprisings. Contrary to arguments that focus either on the EU institutions and member states or on the domestic policies of the targeted countries and see the post-2010 EU democracy promotion strategies as a continuation of previous programs, the article follows a more eclectic approach. By considering changes both at the EU and the international level, it argues that the EU appears as a pragmatic yet more flexible and reactive international actor. After 2010, the EU frames for democracy promotion have changed and are differentiated in the two MENA countries. Crucial to this cognitive change is the EU Global Strategy (EUGS) and the role that domestic elites have played in the two case studies.

The Political Impediments to Euro Adoption in Poland

Poland’s road to the euro proved bumpy and its early status as a euro pacesetter developed into one of euro laggard. So why, prior to the sovereign debt crisis, did Poland remain among the group of Central and East European countries that had not yet adopted the euro? What are the political barriers for euro adoption in Poland? This paper argues that domestic factors such as the existence of veto points, public opinion, central bank institutional features, and the role of political elites are key to answering the research questions. With the euro crises, the domestic problems were accompanied by declining public support for euro adoption along with an unfavorable external environment that is pushing euro adoption further away.

The EU Quest for a Security Community with the Southern Neighbours: EU-Tunisia relations

The Arab Spring events and the fall of several dictatorships have created a new reality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region), leading to expectations of change in the European Union (EU)’s approach to security policies as regards its southern neighbours. To what extent has Tunisia become an integrated part of the EU security community? In seeking to answer this question, this chapter argues that the degree of integration with the EU security community depends on two conditions: the level of integration and the level of relative attractiveness of the EU. A high level of integration would mean that the scope of the agreements is relatively extensive and that there is a certain degree of adaptation to EU rules as well as participation in EU policies. The EU, as a liberal integrative actor facing potential competition from other regional actors, works together with domestic actors in partner countries in shaping its relations with neighbouring countries.

European Integration Revisited—From the Founding Fathers to the Normative Power Europe

Dehousse, R. (Ed.) (2011), The Community Method. Obstinate or Obsolete?, London: Palgrave. Dyson, K. and A. Sepos (Eds.) (2010), Which Europe. Politics of Differentiated Integration, London: Palgrave. Guisan, C. (2012), A Political Theory of Identity in European Integration, London: Routledge. Seidel, K. (2010), The Process of Politics in Europe. The Rise of European Elites and Supranational Institutions, London: I.B. Tauris Publishers. Whiteman, R. G. (Eds.) (2011), Normative Power Europe. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives, London: Palgrave.

The European Union's response to the Syrian conflict. Too little, too late …

Syrians were inspired by the Arab uprisings that started in December 2010 in Tunisia. They were not strangers to the spirit of freedom and democracy. In March 2011, the city of Deraa marked the starting point for the Syrian protests that later erupted into a civil war. Several teenagers painted some revolutionary and freedom slogans calling for democratic change. The Syrian regime responded by arresting those teenagers and torturing some of them – a step that led to demonstrations calling for the release of political prisoners. While the Syrian protesters were hoping to see a similar scenario to that of Tunisia, the Syrian regime had a different plan. It responded to the peaceful demonstrations by opening fire at them, killing and injuring some. The regime hoped that by using excessive force, people would get scared and be silenced. However the hopes of the Syrian regime were not fulfilled, with the spread of nationwide protests calling not only for the release of the political prisoners and political reforms, but also for the resignation of President Assad. As the protests became more organized across the country, the Syrian regime’s brutality increased in an attempt to crush the opposition. With the rapid escalation of events, the opposition began to carry arms for protection against the regime’s excessive use of force and later on to fight the regime’s security forces. The intensity of the conflict escalated and the country fell into civil war, with the opposition forming fighting groups to seize control of the cities and villages. With time, many international and regional players, militias and terrorist groups got involved in the war, complicating the situation even further. Over five years have passed since the civil war started in Syria with neither side, neither the regime nor the opposition(s), being able to resolve the conflict and put an end to the atrocities committed in the country. So far the crisis has resulted in almost half a million casualties and missing persons, 13.5 million people in need of humanitarian aid, around five million refugees with the majority in neighbouring countries (in horrible conditions), only 10% escaped to Europe, and 6.5 million displaced in Syria – with half of those being children. And with the escalation of the Syrian refugee crisis, more pressure is put on EU border security – putting the EU and its member states in a conflict of interest between standing by the norms that the EU always preaches or strengthening border control and not allowing refugees to come in. So the question this contribution seeks to ask is: how can we understand the EU’s involvement in Syria and its efforts to influence the outcome? To answer this question,

Boarding the Euro Plane : Euro Adoption in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

What explains euro adoption strategies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia? How have each of these two countries performed under the regime they joined (Czech Republic: flexible exchange rates; Slovakia: in the euro area)? How has that experience affected Czech and Slovak policies towards euro adoption and their performance during the euro crisis? This paper asks these questions and seeks to give an answer to the question of why Slovakia adopted the euro while the Czech Republic did not. We address these questions by taking an eclectic approach that draws on constructivism, domestic politics, and political economy. The paper examines five explanations based on these theoretical approaches: the inferiority-superiority factor; European identity and the “return” to Europe; the symbolic factor of the currency; euroskepticism; and economic structure and trade relations. We find that each of the five explanations enriches our insight into these matters. But if forced to choose, we find that an explanation drawn on a domestic politics approach contributes the most to our overall understanding of euro adoption policies in the two cases. 2 Review of European and Russian Affairs 9 (2), 2015

Institutional Trust and Economic Policy: Lessons from the History of the Euro

its core values under threat. The fourth concerns an IO’s ability to react against the resistance of some countries. The fifth dimension is the IO’s capacity to lock in non-compliant governments by incentives. The final dimension concerns the qualitative assessment of the outcome, which includes both more and less explicit achievement (‘spillover’ is included in the evaluation). However, the book’s claims, despite being very well argued, seem to rely too much on a ‘western’ perspective, sometimes overlooking local processes and realities. In particular, the analysis often treats post-Soviet spaces as a uniform block, with some exceptions concerning the case studies. Overall, post-Soviet countries do not stand out for their peculiarities but more as nuances of the same group. This understanding undermines the capacity to fully assess local dynamics even when dealing with IOs. Moreover, the analysis seems to take for granted the neutrality or the impartiality of IOs, considering the ‘objectors’ as factious or deceitful in their challenges. This standpoint hinders a more comprehensive understanding of the reasons underpinning such challenges, which may point to a broader evolution of norms and values. A final but less relevant flaw is the reference system being placed at the end of the book, which is inconvenient for the reader. To conclude, this book will remain a path-breaking investigation in the analysis of international and domestic interactions. In particular it succeeds in bringing new data and concepts to address the latest topics in democratisation studies, such as the presence of challenges or alternatives to Western norms, which may eventually affect the outcomes of the democratisation process itself. Fawn addresses it from a peculiar perspective, and his conceptualisation of internal conditionality allows a rekindling of IR debates concerning ‘return to norms’, which for the time being are more relegated to legal studies.