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2016 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

Democratisating the Eastern Partnership in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities of Political Association Beyond the Language of Official Texts

verfasst von : Yuri Misnikov

Erschienen in: Political and Legal Perspectives of the EU Eastern Partnership Policy

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The Eastern Partnership is based on such core democratic values as the rule of law, respect for human rights, good governance, sound civil society and free media. One of the Partnership's key objectives is to increase the level of association with EU policies based on common values - such as the rule of law and respect for human rights - and eventually make the entire region more democratic and stable. The Association Agreement is seen as a special democratisation instrument for deeper association, however, without promising the EU membership. The question is whether or not the Partnership’s democratisation agenda has any impact on the actual state of democracy in this region. To answer this and other questions, the paper examines the language of the Partnership’s key official documents, along with the EU’s relevant development cooperation programmes. The goal is to find out (a) how friendly they are in terms of democratic rhetoric, (b) whether the democratisation potential of digital ICTs is taken into account and (c) whether there is a correlation between being a partner country and being democratic. The paper concludes that, overall, being merely a partner country is not sufficient for making democratic progress. It is the Association Agreement that prompts deeper democratisation. The current scope of the ongoing democratisation programmes is rather traditional and does not include the benefits of digital democracy to engage with ordinary citizens as key beneficiaries of democracy promotion initiatives. The field of democratic citizenship and political participation, where such benefits can be most strongly felt, is recommended for inclusion into such initiatives.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Information Society Goes East: ICT Policy in the EU’s Eastern Partnership Cooperation Framework

Nächstes Kapitel Exporting Good Governance Via e-Governance: Estonian e-Governance Support to Eastern Partnership Countries

Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, plus Palestine.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine.

See more at http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/about-us/index_en.htm; the ENP projects’ budgets reached some 12 billion euros in 2007–2013 against the background of over 200 billion euros of trade with ENP partners.

Belarus, Libya and Syria have not formalised their full participation in the ENP, while Algeria is currently negotiating its ENP action plan.

As worded, for example, in the Joint Declaration of the Eastern Partnership Summit held in Riga, Latvia during 21–22 May 2015; see more at http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/documents/progress-reports/index_en.htm, as well as in other EU official documents.

That replaced Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs).

Council decisions of 2014 (for Moldova, see eeas.europa.eu/moldova/pdf/eu-md_aa-dcfta_en.pdf; for Georgia—eeas.europa.eu/georgia/pdf/eu-ge_aa-dcfta_en.pdf; for Ukraine—eeas.europa.eu/ukraine/docs/association_agreement_ukraine_2014_en.pdf).

The status can vary from “official candidate” to “potential candidate” and “negotiating candidate”; the eventual membership requires that the candidate country has stable governing institutions guaranteeing functioning democracy (e.g., the rule of law and respect for human rights) and market economy (e.g., being able to compete economically within the EU).

To a large degree, the EU membership was the main driving force, alongside the importance of international security issues, behind the successful democratisation of the Baltic States within a relatively short span of time.

The term “rhetoric” does not have in this context any negative connotation; it is simply applied here to mean the language of official documents.

This section draws on the author’s (unpublished) doctoral dissertation submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds, Institute of Communications Studies, UK (admitted to the degree on 12 September 2011).

Dahl (1989).

Baker (2002), p. 143.

Held (2006).

Held (2006), pp. ix–x.

Dahl (1989), pp. 108–129; Crick (2002), pp. 106–109.

Pateman (1970), pp. 46, 103–104.

Held (1987), p. 259.

See, for example, Arterton (1987) and McLean (1989); on e-Democracy see a useful overview in OECD (2003).

McLean (1989), p. 2.

Rheingold (1993).

See, for example, Baym (1996, 1998); Malina (1999).

Castells (2000), Castells (2004), p. 7.

Benkler (2006), Orgad (2007).

In addition to traditional print and broadcast media that before the Internet were the sole players in defining the tone and content of public discourses (television was harshly criticised, for example, by Neil Postman in his Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business).

See, for example, Macintosh et al. (2002) and Macintosh (2006).

Johnson and Bimber (2004).

See, for example, Coleman (2003).

Coleman and Blumler (2009).

Coleman and Blumler (2009), pp. 111–116.

Coleman and Blumler (2009), p. 117.

See more at the web page of the OECD’s DAC Evaluation Resource Centre www.oecd.org/derec/guidelines.htm and www.oecd.org/development/evaluation/dcdndep/38686953.pdf.

Guidelines for Geographic and Thematic Evaluations (Volume 2) and Guidelines for Project and Programme Evaluations (Volume 3). European Commission, 2006; accessed 2 August 2015 at www.oecd.org/development/evaluation/dcdndep/47469176.pdf and www.oecd.org/development/evaluation/dcdndep/47469201.pdf.

DG DEVCO; see more at http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/general_en.

See at http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sectors/human-rights-and-governance/democracy-and-human-rights_en.

Instructions for the Programming of the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) and the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI)—2014–2020 European Commission, Brussels, May 2012; accessed on 2 August 2015 at http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sites/devco/files/14_05_11_progr_instructions_cover_page_clean.pdf.

The EaP region is not mentioned in the document.

The author is also aware that the scholarship on the topic of democratic impacts is vast and its comprehensive review has not been among this paper’s goals. In the context of the paper, the prime intention has been to study the European Union’s official documents relevant to the Eastern Partnership region and find out to which extent they are democracy friendly in general terms and whether they take account of the democratisation potential of digital ICTs.

See more at http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/regions/eu-neighbourhood-region-and-russia/introduction-0_en.

Platform 2 is about Economic Integration and Convergence with EU Policies (includes transport, SMEs, environment and climate change, taxation, trade, labour and social policies, professional skills, macroeconomic and financial stability, Information Society, including electronic communications and related regulatory activities aligned with the Digital Agenda for Europe 2020—DAE; it is remarkable that Moldova’s National Strategy for Information Society Development “Digital Moldova 2020” is modelled on the DAE—see more at http://www.mtic.gov.md/en/transparency/hotarire-nr-857-din-31102013-cu-privire-la-strategia-nationala-de-dezvoltare-societatii.

Quoted from the Work Programme for 2014–2017, see more at http://eeas.europa.eu/eastern/platforms/docs/work_programme_2014_2017_platform1_en.pdf (accessed on 15 July 2015).

See, for example, Preamble of the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Ukraine, of the other part (page 4, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 29.5.2014).

See at http://eeas.europa.eu/georgia/docs/index_en.htm.

That is in the electronic communication sector.

See at http://eeas.europa.eu/ukraine/docs/index_en.htm.

A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe was announced on 6 May 2015 by the European Commission; see the Strategy here: http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/digital-single-market/docs/dsm-communication_en.pdf.

See more: https://www.democracyendowment.eu/about-eed/.

See more at http://www.eidhr.eu.

The author is well aware that some of the citizenship-related issues that are discussed below may be part of particular initiatives, programmes and projects implemented in the EaP region with the EU’s support; however, the point being made here is to argue that democratic citizenship is too important for a viable democracy and needs to be included into the democratisation agenda in the EaP region more explicitly so that the attention of the EaP partners is brought to it as well.

See, for example, in Almond and Verba (1989).

Bellamy (2008), p. 2.

Implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy in 2014. Joint Staff Working Document. Implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy Statistics. European Commission, Brussels, 2015; accessed on 15 July 2015 at http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/pdf/2015/enp-statistics-report-2014_en.pdf.

Munck and Verkuilen (2002), p. 9.

Coleman and Blumler (2009).

Bellamy (2008), p. 6.

Bellamy (2008), p. 3.

See, for example, Compendium. Participatory Democracy: a retrospective overview of the story written by the EESC. European Economic and Social Committee. Brussels, 2011 www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/compendium-web.pdf; the Roadmap for Participatory Democracy and. Results of Extraordinary Group III Meeting on 22 March 2011; for checking out the importance of democratic discourses and dialogues, see, for example, Mouffe (2000), Habermas (1996), Pichler and Balthasar (2013).

Including within the projects funded by the ICT S&T/R&D component of the 6th and 7th Framework Programmes and now a successor Horizon2020 programme.

For example, the Centre of Eastern Partnership, the ICT Demonstration Centre, e-Governance Academy (the latter participated in organising in 2014 an e-Democracy and e-Participation course for Master students of the Tallinn University of Technology).

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Titel: Democratisating the Eastern Partnership in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities of Political Association Beyond the Language of Official Texts
verfasst von: Yuri Misnikov
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Political and Legal Perspectives of the EU Eastern Partnership Policy
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27381-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-27383-9

Copyright-Jahr: 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27383-9_5

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