Kjell Engelbrekt

EU Enlargement and the Emboldening of Institutional Integrity in Central and Eastern Europe : The ‘Tough Test’ of Public Procurement

EU enlargement and the incorporation of the acquis communautaire are widely seen as successful and emboldening the integrity of political, administrative and legal institutions in Central and Easte ...

What Carl Schmitt Picked Up in Weber’s Seminar: A Historical Controversy Revisited

The intellectual relationship between Carl Schmitt and Max Weber has been a point of controversy for at least half a century. At the 1964 convention of the German Sociological Association, in honor of Webers centenary, Schmitt was famously referred to as Webers “legitimate student.” This article uses the chapter Schmitt specifically wrote for an edited volume in Webers memory, published in 1923, as the starting point for juxtaposing the two scholars, and then expands the analysis to encompass a range of sources and commentaries. The comparison focuses on the approach of each of the two scholars to methodology and didactics, theory and conceptual use, as well as to the society/social science nexus. The article concludes by arguing that Schmitt performed a double rhetorical move: while styling himself as Webers student, he then drew on that authority to assault Webers liberalism and concept of scientific integrity.

The Impact of Enlargement on Institutional Integrity in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract This article represents an attempt to synthesise the results of existing work on European Union enlargement in scholarly journals and other publications, and to theorise those insights via the concept of institutional integrity. The basic question asked here refers to the impact of the incorporation of the acquis communautaire, roughly 100,000 pages of legal text originally developed for West European countries, on the reconstruction of political, economic and legal institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Two dimensions of institutional integrity are examined, namely the relationships between: (1) institutional subjects, meaning the distinctiveness of key units of the system of government; and (2) institutional spheres, pertaining to boundaries between the realms of politics, economics and law. The article ends by predicting that institutional integrity will only come about at a moderate pace, through social change reflecting the long-term stabilisation of newly established political and economic structures, but also affirming that this process by virtue of pre-accession enlargement is well advanced throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

The Missing Link in the EU's Nascent Strategic Approach toward Asia: Military Diplomacy

The Lisbon Treaty enacted in 2009 allows the European Union (EU) to adopt a foreign, security, and defense policy with a higher profile. In particular, the High Representative and the European External Action Service are now in a position to conduct a continuous conversation with China, India, Japan, and ASEAN beyond trade-oriented dialogues. But a genuine strategic approach toward Asia requires military expertise so as to adequately assess how to best contribute to stability in this part of the world. Military diplomacy involving individual member states already takes place, yet virtually no information is shared at the EU level. The adoption of a full-fledged strategic approach toward Asia would not only be politically astute and make excellent economic sense; it can also consolidate EU institutions in the realm of foreign, security and defense policy.

Bulgaria's EU Accession and the Issue of Accountability: An End to Buck-Passing?

The European Union conditioned Bulgaria’s membership on promises to improve government accountability.

A brief intellectual history of geopolitical thought and its relevance to the Baltic Sea region

ABSTRACT This article outlines a general history of the intellectual origins and development of geopolitical thought. It provides categories for assessing contemporary expressions of this phenomenon, and then discusses the applicability of these tools to the Baltic Sea region. The article focuses on eliciting and juxtaposing contrasts between the three classical bodies of literature that evolved largely in parallel, and ends up briefly commenting on a fourth, partly “critical” approach. The main takeaway is that considering all four geopolitical approaches before applying any of them to the Baltic Sea realm encourages analysts to embrace a more holistic and dynamic viewpoint than each of the alternatives individually can offer. Such a conceptualization promises to forge analytical linkages between a series of relevant, geographically contingent circumstances including resources, arenas and communities that represent prerequisites and opportunities in crisis, conflict, or war.

Brothers in Arms, Yet Again? : Twenty-first Century Sino-Russian Strategic Collaboration in the Realm of Defence and Security

Abstract 2014–2015 were years of turmoil for strategic relations, with Sino-Russian relations emerging as a particularly interesting set of ties to observe. This article asks whether recurrent Sino-Russian exhortations of friendship are mirrored by their strategic alignment in the defence and security realm, half a century after the end of the Sino-Soviet pact during the communist era. We examine the arms trade between the two countries and with regional partners, but also the recent pattern of bilateral and multilateral military exercises, as a combined test of the security and defence relationship. We are able to show that the image of friendship that both Moscow and Beijing like to promote, while apparent at the UN Security Council and within the BRICS group, remains constrained by rivalry in high-tech segments of the arms industry and by lingering concerns about the prospects of peer interference in their shared regional vicinity.

Minilateralism matters more? Exploring opportunities to end climate negotiations gridlock

Multilateral negotiations to reach a universal, binding international agreement on measures that curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have repeatedly failed since a scientific consensus on global warming formed in the late 1970s. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was famously never ratified by the United States, the biggest emitter, and the 2009 Copenhagen conference only produced a narrow deal between the USA, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Numerous attempts to involve international financial institutions or the G7/G8 have also been unsuccessful. Given the present crisis of multilateralism it can be argued that the time is ripe to engage fully in minilateral climate diplomacy, conferring ownership of the process to the main stakeholders. An informally orchestrated, minilateral diplomacy based on rationalist insights from conventional game and negotiation theory would then sway polluters to press ahead with measures that mitigate and adapt to the anticipated repercussions of climate change. Only after a political deal has been struck between major stakeholders may opportunities arise for ex post authorization and agenda control mechanisms involving the wider international community.

International Aid and the Process of Legalization: The Extreme Case of the European Union’s Eastward Enlargement

This chapter analyzes the pre-accession process created to prepare Central and East European (CEE) countries for membership in the European Union (EU) as a set of evolving donor-recipient relations. CEE-EU ties constitute a highly unusual example of donor-recipient relations for three main reasons, namely its enormous scope, its ambitious short-term objectives, and its highly legalized character. By March 2006 the European Commission reported that 99 per cent of the acquis communautaire, including the crucial internal market regulations, had been transposed into domestic legislation of the new members states. Whereas many commentators on international aid have emphasized the detrimental effects of ‘donor congestion,’ this phenomenon is inherently problematic only insofar as donors promote different objectives or set up institutions that will not co-exist easily with structures established by others. In fact, ‘donor saturation’ may be an important explanation behind the substantial progress achieved in fifteen years of enlarging the EU to encompass CEE countries, through what began as traditional aid and in the pre-accession stage was transformed into a more symmetric relationship, one that eventually made the very concept of aid obsolete.

Back to Basics? : International Engagement and Recurring Conflict in Southeastern Europe

With the Ottoman and Habsburg empires caught up in a process of disintegration, the newly independent states of Southeastern Europe embarked on an uphill battle to solidify their territorial integrity, to forge robust political institutions and enhance the cohesiveness of society at large. In the late 19 century and especially the early 20, problems associated with state building were aggravated by the fact that governments of independent Southeast European countries began perceiving their national projects as competitive to those of their neighbors. The powerful dynamic of relationships between majority and minority populations, within and across state borders, was another factor that prolonged the process of creating viable and sovereign states.