thus: “they [EU and transition literatures] not only pass each other as ships in the night,
but they rarely even sail in the same sea” (Dimitrova 2002:174).
This paper will seek to bring the post-communist and EU enlargement literatures
together, by arguing that the “re-invention” of the CEE state can usefully be thought of as
the result of a state-building process, albeit one which takes the form of EU accession and
conditionality rather than the international administrations such as UNMIK or UNTAET.
Of the many issue areas which could substantiate this claim, this paper will focus on the
transformation of policymaking processes in CEE states, namely the role of national
parliaments and political parliaments. The paper will be divided into three sections.
Section one will look at EU enlargement and state-building as two distinct, yet
analytically and historically comparable, examples of outside attempts to refashion
internal politics in the name of good governance. Section two will look in detail at the
impact of EU accession on the policymaking process in CEE states, and on the changing
relationship between the citizen and the state. It will be seen that through accession, and
the EU’s use of conditionality, the political sphere in CEE states has been weakened.
The EU’s attempt to “enforce autonomy” through conditionality only weakens the self-
governing capacities of CEE states, and generates new forms of dependence. However,
rather than argue that the EU accession process has been solely responsible for such
dependence, section two will consider the way in which endogenous factors have
interacted with accession. Of particular importance is the historical legacy, and the
nature of political agency in CEE at the outset of transition. It will be suggested that the
accession process has exacerbated existing trends of political disengagement. Finally, the
parallels with state-building, and the relevance of this conclusion for the EU’s policy in
south eastern Europe (SEE), will be drawn out in section three.
Convention