Assessing the impact of European integration on the foreign policy-making in Central and Eastern Europe: the cases of Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia

Denca, Sorin Stefan (2009) Assessing the impact of European integration on the foreign policy-making in Central and Eastern Europe: the cases of Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

This paper discusses how the European integration influences the domestic structures and processes of foreign policy-making in the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe, namely in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Previous studies on Europeanization of foreign policy provide for mixed evidences with regard to the real domestic impact of the EU. The research questions addressed in this paper are: 1) to what extent does Europeanization cause institutional convergence in the new member states? 2) what role does domestic politics play as regard institutional adaptation? 3) what is the extent of internalization of EU’s norms by national officials dealing with European affairs? 4) what is the role of national representatives dealing with European affairs in disseminating EU’s norms within the political-administrative structures at national level? and e) does the manner in which the elite from the new member states perceives the exercise and distribution of power within the EU alter the outcomes of the Europeanization process? The main argument here is that even if the European integration has been the catalyst for institutional adaptation, the structural domestic changes have been shaped less by the Europeanization pressures than by domestic factors, such as governmental / coalition politics or bureaucratic politics. Three main factors justify the selection of Hungary, Romania and Slovakia as the three case studies. Firstly, they have different integration records. Secondly, they have different types of political regimes. The type of political regimes is assumed to have an impact on the organization of the policy-making systems. Thirdly, all three are connected by the ethnic factor, reflected in the content and conduct of their foreign policies. The data is based mainly on primary sources, specifically official documents, media reports, indepth interviews conducted in Brussels, Bratislava, Bucharest, and Budapest, as well as participant observation of EU Council’s meetings.

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