Routes of Europeanisation and Constraints on EU Influence

Abstract

This chapter analyses the routes that the accession process provided for the EU to exert influence on CEE, in order to establish a structure for the analysis in the two case-studies that follow. The chapter proceeds as follows: Section 4.1 identifies five mechanisms by which the EU exerted influence through the accession process to cause Europeanisation in CEE. Section 4.2 introduces the main intervening variables on each side — the factors which mediated the EU’s impact. Section 4.3 then discusses in detail the two central variables on the EU side — diffuseness and uncertainty — while the following chapter discusses the variables on the CEE side. The intervening variables can mediate the impact of EU policies, so they have the potential to explain the likelihood and direction of Europeanisation in a given policy area. The explanatory power of these intervening variables is tested in the case-studies.