IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkwp/1597.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Accession incentives for institutional change in post-socialist countries: cross-section and country evidence from NATO enlargement

Author

Listed:
  • Schweickert, Rainer
  • Melnykovska, Inna
  • Heitmann, Hanno

Abstract

This paper analyses the transformative power of NATO accession that gains in importance due to the enlargement fatigue of the EU, the EU’s rather weak neighbourhood incentives and the increasing importance of regional security as an incentive for compliance with the institutional standards of democracy and market economy. Econometric cross-country evidence from a hazard model reveals that the entry into NATO’s accession process is mainly driven by neighbourhood and strategic effects rather than foregoing institutional reforms in a candidate-country. While strategic interests also dominated the accession process of Macedonia initially, the case study results reveal the central role of the switch in NATO’s strategy from strategic interest only to a more balanced consideration of institutional reforms, which ‘turned Macedonia around’ in terms of institutional development. Clearly, after this turning point marked by the Ohrid agreement, the effectiveness of NATO’s accession conditionality could be revealed. The switch in NATO’s strategy, rather enforced externally than the result of a well structured debate among NATO members, is of special relevance for the peaceful transition of other post-socialist countries, e.g. Ukraine and Georgia.

Suggested Citation

  • Schweickert, Rainer & Melnykovska, Inna & Heitmann, Hanno, 2010. "Accession incentives for institutional change in post-socialist countries: cross-section and country evidence from NATO enlargement," Kiel Working Papers 1597, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:1597
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/30050/1/619887508.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandler,Todd & Hartley,Keith, 1999. "The Political Economy of NATO," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521630931, October.
    2. Douglas M. Gibler & Jamil A. Sewell, 2006. "External Threat and Democracy: The Role of NATO Revisited," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 43(4), pages 413-431, July.
    3. Rainer Schweickert & Inna Melnykovska & Ansgar Belke & Ingo Bordon, 2011. "Prospective NATO or EU membership and institutional change in transition countries," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 19(4), pages 667-692, October.
    4. Maria L. Di Tommaso & Martin Raiser & Melvyn Weeks, 2007. "Home Grown or Imported? Initial Conditions, External Anchors and the Determinants of Institutional Reform in the Transition Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 858-881, April.
    5. Belke, Ansgar & Bordon, Ingo G. & Melnykovska, Inna & Schweickert, Rainer, 2009. "Prospective membership and institutional change in transition countries," Kiel Working Papers 1562, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Vachudova, Milada Anna, 2005. "Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration After Communism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199241194.
    7. repec:zbw:rwirep:0131 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Uwe Böwer & Alessandro Turrini, 2009. "EU accession: A road to fast-track convergence?," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 393, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    2. Andrea Gawrich & Inna Melnykovska & Rainer Schweickert, 2010. "Neighbourhood Europeanization through ENP: The Case of Ukraine," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 1209-1235, November.
    3. Rainer Schweickert & Inna Melnykovska & Ansgar Belke & Ingo Bordon, 2011. "Prospective NATO or EU membership and institutional change in transition countries," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 19(4), pages 667-692, October.
    4. Eydam, Ulrich & Gabriadze, Irakli, 2018. "Institutional development in Transition Economies - The role of institutional experience," MPRA Paper 87395, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Danko Tarabar & Andrew T. Young, 2017. "Liberalizing Reforms and the European Union: Accession, Membership, and Convergence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(4), pages 932-951, April.
    6. Drautzburg, Thorsten & Melnykovska, Inna & Schweickert, Rainer, 2008. "Which membership matters? External vs. internal determinants of institutional change in transition countries," Kiel Working Papers 1421, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    7. Ansgar Belke & Ingo Bordon & Inna Melnykovska & Rainer Schweickert, 2009. "Prospective NATO or EU Membership and Institutional Change in Transition Countries," Ruhr Economic Papers 0131, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    8. Schweickert, Rainer & Melnykovska, Inna & Heitmann, Hanno, 2012. "Beyond security, towards institution building: The case of NATO-Macedonia relations," Kiel Working Papers 1757, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Franke, Anja & Gawrich, Andrea & Melnykovska, Inna & Schweickert, Rainer, 2009. "Resource-based reluctance, reversed asymmetry, and non-trade integration incentives: theory and evidence from European neighbourhood," Kiel Working Papers 1551, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Belke, Ansgar & Bordon, Ingo G. & Melnykovska, Inna & Schweickert, Rainer, 2009. "Prospective membership and institutional change in transition countries," Kiel Working Papers 1562, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    11. Kishor, Narayan K. & Neanidis, Kyriakos C., 2015. "What Is Driving Financial Dollarization In Transition Economies? A Dynamic Factor Analysis," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 816-835, June.
    12. Schönfelder, Nina & Wagner, Helmut, 2015. "The impact of European integration on institutional development," MPRA Paper 63392, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Matuszak Piotr, 2020. "What determines the scale of state ownership in enterprises? Some evidence from post-socialist countries," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 6(4), pages 95-117, December.
    14. repec:zbw:rwirep:0131 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Balsmeier, Benjamin & Czarnitzki, Dirk, 2014. "How important is industry-specific managerial experience for innovative firm performance?," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-011, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Eicher, Theo S. & Schreiber, Till, 2010. "Structural policies and growth: Time series evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 169-179, January.
    17. Thomas Plümper & Eric Neumayer, 2015. "Free-riding in alliances: Testing an old theory with a new method," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(3), pages 247-268, July.
    18. Richard Connolly, 2012. "The Determinants of the Economic Crisis in Post-Socialist Europe," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(1), pages 35-67.
    19. Loukas Tsoukalis, 2006. "The JCMS Lecture: Managing Diversity and Change in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 1-15, March.
    20. Danne, Christian, 2009. "Commitment devices, opportunity windows, and institution building in Central Asia," MPRA Paper 16597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Michail Ploumis, 2018. "A New Way Forward: Rebalancing the U.S. Security Cooperation with Greece in a Fast Changing Geostrategic Environment," Applied Finance and Accounting, Redfame publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 95-111, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    NATO Enlargement; Democratization; Institutions; Transition; Conflict; FYR Macedonia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F59 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - Other
    • P30 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - General
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:1597. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.