Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Having a timely and appropriate knowledge has been key to the different political and military leaders of different societies through the ages. In this sense, since ancient times until today, intelligence has played an important role in decision-making

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: International organizations have intervened extensively in the transformation process of the countries in (South) Eastern Europe, in particular for the sake of democratization. Especially the European Union (EU) has heavily drawn on strict conditionality in order to make these countries comply with its political, democratic accession criteria. However, as demonstrated by Schimmelfennig and others (2005) in particular, EU political conditionality has proven rather irrelevant in autocratically ruled states. Furthermore, in unstable democracies where EU conditionality has been apparently successful by strengthening liberal politics immediately and fast, its long-term outcome might be much more shallow and also reversible (Goetz 2005). This paper aims to explain these discrepancies by bringing the factor ‘national identity’ back into focus.Constructivist approaches show that national identity can hinder successful external democratization. This is particularly true for nationalistic identities whose fundament contradicts liberal democratic norms and values. The reasons for the importance of identity can be twofold. Conditionality as an incentive-based democratization strategy aims at influencing the cost-benefit-calculation of the target state’s government. However, albeit the huge incentive of membership, (semi-) autocratic leaders were often not responsive to the sticks & carrots in fields considered as crucial for national identification processes at that time. Secondly, conditionality proved to be successful in transferring rules in countries where an initial change towards democracy had already taken place. However, transitologists argue that ‘deep’ democratization, i.e. democratic consolidation in the sense of cultural adaptation of democratic norms and practices in the medium and long run, requires substantial change of preferences which cannot be achieved by strict conditionality. If the underlying nationalistic identity resists the initial democratization efforts, it will hamper further political-cultural consolidation of democracy in the respective country. The region of South Eastern Europe shows exemplarily how nationalistic identities limit the impact of external actors’ engagement. In this region identity-related issues play a central role in the political arena. The case of Croatia is a particularly suitable example to illustrate the theoretically elaborated arguments. In the 1990s conditionality has proven rather irrelevant in inducing decisive changes since compliance with the EU conditions meant for Tudjman co-operating with countries which were still seen as ethnic rivals. Although the more progressive governments Racan and Sanader quickly transformed their country into a democratic functioning state, they were, however, always reluctant to sustainable reforms as far as cornerstones of the national identity were concerned, such as the integration of the Serb minority.The paper proceeds as follows. In the first part, we briefly outline political conditionality as an instrument of democracy promotion. Secondly, we identify the conditions under which national identity hinders the internalization of democratic norms and principles. This will lead us to the main part of the paper in which we discuss the capacity of political conditionality to bring about democratization beyond superficial compliance with formal political criteria. We illustrate our argument using the example of Croatia with some spotlights on the Former Yugoslavia/Serbia. In sum, we argue that the strong and ‘top-down’ accession conditionality imposed by the EU in (South) Eastern countries could well have the effect of hindering democratic socialization so as to result in only ‘shallow democratization’ at best.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Recent work on democratic processes (elections, parties, etc.) and
foreign policy behavior makes a variety of claims about how those

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I ask whether voters in a nonpartisan campaign environment recast the election in partisan terms. Using an experimental design, I examine whether certain types of voters in a nonpartisan environment behave as if they were in a partisan environment.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This research design proposes the development of a model to determine the conditions and policies under which foreign-imposed democratic regimes are most successful. Successful democratization is defined as increased political freedom combined with increased duration of the imposed democratic regime. Prominent causal variables include level of threat, neighborhood regimes, levels of engagement, multilateralism, institutional replacement, constitutional design, and regional integration. Economic development is assumed to be an intervening variable. The research design employs a dual methodology of medium-n case-comparison and targeted small-n process tracing to test causal as well as correlative relationships. Early findings are presented for the main explanatory variables. Upward trends in democratization in the target’s ‘neighborhood,’ as well as perception of a common threat, are found to correlate with successful imposition of democracy. Existing states make better target than new states. Success weakly correlated with level of engagement, not correlated with constitutional design or multilateralism.