Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 1597:
Accession Incentives for Institutional Change in Post-Socialist Countries – Cross-Section and Country Evidence from NATO Enlargement
Rainer Schweickert, Jonas Kauschke and Hanno Heitmann
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
Keywords: NATO Enlargement, Democratization, Institutions, Transition, Conflict, FYR Macedonia; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: F59,; P30,; O19; (follow links to similar papers)
38 pages, February 2010
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