Timm Beichelt

Autocracy and democracy in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine

This article discusses and applies the concept of ‘embedded democracy’ to the Community of Independent States (CIS), with a focus on Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The cases are rather similar: the electoral regime, the public arena, the regime of civic freedoms and the vertical power structure are defective in all three countries. Because of notable defects in the electoral regime, Belarus is an autocratic regime with strong parallels to the defective democracies in Russia and Ukraine. The communist legacy is partially responsible for the similarity of the cases. Other variables identified for the development of democratic defects are the conflicting regime change, the economic crisis, the unequal distribution of power resources, the ‘dark side’ of civil society, the identity crisis in nation-building and societal fragmentation. Altogether the model of ‘embedded democracy’ is very useful for analysing post-Soviet regimes. However, some recent developments in the region indicate that countries like Russia and Ukraine are heading towards autocracy, with a growing divergence from the root concept of electoral democracy.

Demokratie und Konsolidierung im postsozialistischen Europa

Mit der „Transitions to Democracy“-Studie aus dem Jahre 1986 wurde die analytische Unterteilung von Systemwechselprozessen in eine Liberalisierungs-, eine Demokratisierungs- und eine Konsolidierungsphase vorgenommen. Obwohl deren Autoren die Ungewisheit der vorwiegend lateinamerikanischen Systemwechsel betonten, gab es letztlich kaum Zweifel am telos der Transitionen; man denke nur an Alfred Stepans „Pfade der Redemokratisierung“ (Stepan 1986). Die zeitliche Ausdehnung der Konsolidierungsphase in vielen Staaten des postsozialistischen Europa haben in den letzten Jahren die Gultigkeit dieses Paradigmas aufgeweicht. Bei den entstandenen Gebilden handelt es sich nicht mehr um vollwertige Demokratien, sondern um defizitare Untertypen dieser Staatsform (O’Donnell 1994; Collier 1997; Zakaria 1997; Merkel 1999; Merkel/ Croissant 2000).

Recovering Space Lost? The German Bundestag's New Potential in European Politics

Various recent developments have highlighted the role of the German parliament in European integration. During the 2005–9 election period, several legislative acts strengthened the Bundestag within the institutional balance of the political system. Also, a Bundestag office was opened in Brussels and now functions as a national parliamentary platform in a transnational setting. In 2009, the Constitutional Court further boosted parliaments role in European affairs. This article aims at describing, systematising and evaluating these developments. The evaluation refers to three different dimensions of legitimation and shows that a more active role of the Bundestag in the future depends on norms beyond the legal framework. Although there is only limited evidence as yet, it is suggested that the Bundestag has the potential to play a bigger role in German EU affairs than is currently the case.

Shifting patterns and reactions - migration policy in the new EU member states

This article presents an analysis of patterns of migration and related policy reactions in the new EU member states. The empiric findings that combine both similarities and dissimilarities between cases are interpreted against two major context factors: (1) democratic and economic transition as well as (2) Europeanization. As it turns out, late socialism and the first stage of transition are more relevant for understanding migration flows, whereas impacts from the EU level help us to make sense of the character of reactions. As expected by Europeanization research, the migration policies of Central European countries do not amount to homogeneous profiles of migration policy. In order to understand differences, we can again refer to different transition paths prevalent in specific cases.

Civil society and democracy promotion

1. Introduction Irene Hahn-Fuhr and Susann Worschech 2. External Democracy Promotion and Divided Civil Society: The Missing Link Irene Hahn-Fuhr and Susann Worschech 3. External Democracy Promotion and Civil Society in Non-Democratic Regimes - Modes and Effects Timm Beichelt and Wolfgang Merkel 4. From the Unity of Goodness to Conflicting Objectives: The Inherent Tensions in the External Promotion of Democracy and Civil Society Jonas Wolff 5. The Changing Nature of EU Support to Civil Society Natalia Shapovalova and Richard Youngs 6. On the Tradeoffs of Assisting Civil Society Development Abroad: The Case of the Eastern EU Civic Democracy Promoters Tsveta Petrova 7. Democratization from Below: Civil Society Versus Social Movements? Donatella Della Porta 8. Engineered Civil Society: the impact of 20 years of Democracy Promotion on Civil society Development in the Former Soviet Countries Armine Ishkanian 9. Who is Supported by Western Civil Society Promotion? The Russian Case Stepanka Busuleanu 10. Participation in Civil Society Organizations and Political Parties in Post-Communist Europe: The Impact of Political Divides Franziska Blomberg and Edina Szocsik 11. Democracy promotion and civil society in Eastern Europe: Conclusions Frank Schimmelfennig

Over-efficiency in German EU Policy Coordination

The article refers to the controversial debate on the efficiency of German EU policy coordination. On the basis of a five-month participant observation in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the hypothesis of the over-efficiency of EU coordination is developed. Over-efficiency is characterised by a functionally organised but purely technocratic preparation of EU policy without the participation of the general public, political parties, and national parliament. By having considerably increased the efficiency of EU policy coordination in recent years, German policy makers have therefore potentially undermined the acceptance of European integration as a whole.

Democracy Promotion and Civil Society: Regime Types, Transitions Modes and Effects

The literature on external democratization or democracy promotion1 has gone through different phases. During the heyday of Huntington’s famous ‘third wave of democratization’ (Huntington, 1991), external influence on regime transformation was not dealt with as a major factor. There were a few exceptions (see, for example, Whitehead, 1986), but in general regime transition was conceptualized predominantly as a domestic affair. By the mid 1990s, when the European Union (EU) and other international organizations made it clear that they would link the membership ambitions of new democracies to the real existence of certain democratic institutions, the perspective changed. The external dimension of democratization and democratic consolidation, and in particular the influence by Western dominated organizations, attracted more attention from political actors and scholars. Governments and, for example, the European Commission started to design programs to enhance the capacity of transition regimes for democratic governance and implemented tools to export institutions and values thought compatible with sustainable democratization (Carothers, 1999; Burnell, 2000).

Einleitung: Was heißt und zu welchem Ende studiert man Europastudien?

Der Begriff „Europa-Studien“ bezeichnet Vorgange von Forschung und Lehre im Hinblick auf den geographisch eingegrenzten Gegenstand „Europa“. Mit einem analogen Fokus existieren etwa Afrika- oder Lateinamerikastudien. Verwendet wird der Begriff der „Europa-Studien“ indes meistens dann, wenn es um Prozesse der europaischen Integration in politischer, rechtlicher und wirtschaftlicher Hinsicht geht.

Europa-Studien zwischen Affirmation und EU-Kritik

Die Vielfalt europawissenschaftlicher Forschungsund Lehransatze spiegelt einerseits die kontinuierlich wachsende Relevanz europawissenschaftlicher Wissensbestande vor dem Hintergrund tiefgreifender Transformationsprozesse in Europa wider. Andererseits entfalten sich im Rahmen der Debatte uber Namen und Leistung der Forschungsrichtung wissenschafts-geschichtliche Entwicklungsstufen, die weit mehr als nur den Aufbruch monodisziplinarer Wissensorganisation symbolisieren. Kernpunkte des Aufsatzes bilden die nominelle und konzeptionelle Herausbildung des Lehrund Forschungsfeldes, das sich mit kulturwissenschaftlichen Europa-Studien und sozialwissenschaftlichen EU-Studien in zwei unterschiedliche Richtungen entwickelt. Weiterhin wird diskutiert, dass den EU-Studien sowohl affirmative als auch kritische Tendenzen innewohnen, die beide in den letzten Jahren gescharft wurden. Considering the pluralism one finds regarding approaches of European Studies it seems that their body of knowledge is essentially affected by European transformation processes. Besides this, debates on naming or the performance of the field of research reveal developments in science which imply a lot more than the departure from disciplinary knowledge organization. The purpose of this article is to outline the nominal and conceptual development of European Studies. The research field is characterized by a distinction between European Studies as an area studies approach and EU Studies which bear a social science orientation. Within EU Studies, we can further distinguish between affirmative and critical EU Studies.

Kultur und Kontext — Strategien zur Einbeziehung komplexer Umwelten in die Vergleichende Methode

Vergleichend zu arbeiten bedeutet in der Politikwissenschaft in der Regel, entweder mit grosen Fallzahlen — mindestens mit zwanzig — oder aber anhand von Fallstudien mit zwei, manchmal drei beteiligten Fallen zu operieren.1 Die Vergleichende Methode2 mit den fur sie typischen „qualitativen“ Studien nimmt dabei einen eher beschrankten Raum ein (Berg-Schlosser 1997: 67). Viele ihrer grundlegenden Parameter sind seit den spaten sechziger Jahren ahnlich geblieben. Sie betreffen die Erstellung von Forschungsdesigns, die Reichweite von Konzepten und den Charakter der von der vergleichenden Methode zu verarbeitenden Daten. In der Fortfuhrung der bekannten Unterscheidung von John St. Mill zwischen Konkordanz- und Differenzmethode wird uber die Vor- und Nachteile von most similar oder most dissimilar cases designs diskutiert (Przeworski/ Teune 1970b). Ebenfalls von bleibender Relevanz erweist sich das von der Komparatistin abzuwagende Spannungsverhaltnis zwischen der Reichweite eines Konzepts und der Differenziertheit der zu erwartenden Ergebnisse nach der „Abstraktionsleiter“ von Giovanni Sartori (1970). Die wichtigste Neuerung der Vergleichenden Methode besteht wohl in der Entwicklung eines „makroqualitativen“ Ansatzes, der — trotz einer hohen Fallzahl — durch die strikte Dichotomisierung von Variablen Forschungsergebnisse ermoglicht, die der individuellen Lagerung einzelner Falle besser gerecht wird (Ragin 1987; Berg-Schlosser/ DeMeur 1994).