Business, Government, and EU Accession: Strategic Partnership and Conflict

by Elena A. Iankova

Overview

Business, Government, and EU Accession is a detailed study of how EU accession impacts the relationship between business and government in the acceding country. Iankova identifies three major mechanisms by which the EU has affected business-government interactions: first, the legal conditionalities and harmonization efforts for EU entry; second, the pre-accession and anticipated postaccession financial assistance with its specific priorities and requirements; and third, the capacity building and learning that arises from efforts to adapt to the EU conditionalities of membership.

Through addressing the question of EU influence on in-country institutional relationships, Iankova is able to highlight patterns of Europeanization that develop in those relationships a result of the adaptational pressures of EU accession, and to trace the effectiveness of these adaptive relationship in facilitating the preparedness of an EU-acceding country for EU entry Using Bulgaria as a case study, she examines the mechanisms of these interactions and interrogates the effectiveness of existing models in facilitating national goals of EU accession, revealing difficulties with and resistances to applying an EU-designed model of institutional change in postcommunist regions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739130551
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/16/2009
Series:	The New International Relations of Europe
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Elena A. Iankova is lecturer in international business at The Johnson School at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Dynamics of the Business-Government Consensus on EU Accession in Bulgaria
Chapter 3 Trends in the Business-Government Relationship in Bulgaria: Post-Communist Reform and EU Accession
Chapter 4 Adjusting to the Legal Conditionalities of Accession
Chapter 5 Cooperation and Conflict on the Sensitive Issues of Legal Approximation
Chapter 6 The Challenge of Financial Aid
Chapter 7 The Capacity-Building Imperative: Partnerships for Learning
Chapter 8 Europeanization of Business-Government Relations at the Regional Level
Chapter 9 Conclusions

What People are Saying About This

Tanja A. Borzel

Business, Government and EU Accession is the first comprehensive study that meticulously explores how accession to the EU has affected the relationship between business and government in post-communist countries. It is a must read for anybody interested in Europeanization and domestic change, both in old and prospective member states.

Stephan Haggard

The consequences of EU accession have been a strongly contested theme in the literature on post-Communist Eastern Europe. In this excellent volume, Elena Iankova uses the lens of changing business-government relations to show how accession has its effects. Professor Iankova traces how legal conditionality, financial aid, and pressures for capacity building served to fundamentally change—and even constitute—the political relationship between the state and the private sector. An important contribution on an important issue.

Editorial Reviews

Business, Government and EU Accession is the first comprehensive study that meticulously explores how accession to the EU has affected the relationship between business and government in post-communist countries. It is a must read for anybody interested in Europeanization and domestic change, both in old and prospective member states.

Tanja A. Börzel

The consequences of EU accession have been a strongly contested theme in the literature on post-Communist Eastern Europe. In this excellent volume, Elena Iankova uses the lens of changing business-government relations to show how accession has its effects. Professor Iankova traces how legal conditionality, financial aid, and pressures for capacity building served to fundamentally change—and even constitute—the political relationship between the state and the private sector. An important contribution on an important issue.

Stephan Haggard

Business, Government and EU Accession is the first comprehensive study that meticulously explores how accession to the EU has affected the relationship between business and government in post-communist countries. It is a must read for anybody interested in Europeanization and domestic change, both in old and prospective member states.

Tanja A. Börzel

The consequences of EU accession have been a strongly contested theme in the literature on post-Communist Eastern Europe. In this excellent volume, Elena Iankova uses the lens of changing business-government relations to show how accession has its effects. Professor Iankova traces how legal conditionality, financial aid, and pressures for capacity building served to fundamentally change--and even constitute--the political relationship between the state and the private sector. An important contribution on an important issue.--Stephan Haggard, Professor in the Graduate School of International Relations, University of California, San Diego

Business, Government and EU Accession is the first comprehensive study that meticulously explores how accession to the EU has affected the relationship between business and government in post-communist countries. It is a must read for anybody interested in Europeanization and domestic change, both in old and prospective member states.--Tanja A. Börzel, Professor of Political Science; Director of the Center for European Integration, Freie Universität Berlin

From the Publisher