The Origins of the European Union’s Policy on Membership and Democracy

On October 12, 2012 in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, Thorbjørn Jagland declared, “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 is to be awarded to the European Union. The Union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.” In awarding the EU the Nobel Prize, the former Prime Minister of Norway invoked a common view about the EU and the promotion of democracy: its policy of promoting democracy throughout Europe has supported the maintenance of regional stability and the protection of human rights. Although membership conditionality is not the only instrument through which the EU promotes democracy in third-states, it is widely viewed as its most effective. It is believed that by connecting the significant material and symbolic benefits of membership to domestic democratic reforms, the EU has played an oversized role in anchoring democracy in those states hoping to join the Union. In this article, I investigate the origins of key ideas that informed the creation of the EU’s policy on democracy and membership conditionality in the early 1990s. Research on the origins of the EU’s policy of promoting democracy through membership conditionality has focused on the motivations of key actors in the immediate policy-making process. While this research undoubtedly captures important parts of the explanation, the short-term focus means that it has been unable to account for broader changes in the ways actors have thought about the goals and effects of the EU’s membership policy. This article seeks to fill this gap by investigating how and why key normative and causal beliefs that were the basis of the Community’s policy on membership and democracy changed over time. To frame the discussion, it focuses on two crucial periods: the early 1960s when the issue of democracy and membership was first raised, and the late 1980s/early 1990s, when the EU’s policy of political conditionality was codified. Based on an analysis of primary source material, I make two basic claims. Whereas in the earlier period, Community actors emphasized the moral desirability of democracy, in the latter period actors emphasized the strategic and economic benefits of democracy. Additionally, it was only in the early 1990s that actors expressed the causal belief that deliberately linking democracy to membership would support reforms in non-member states. In the article, I explain these changes in belief and policy by demonstrating the influence of new normative and causal theories of democracy that arose between these two periods. I attribute the change in normative beliefs to the influence of “securitization theory.” And I attribute the shift in the causal beliefs actors held to the influence of agency-centered theories of democratization. In brief, by taking a long view of the organization’s policy on membership and democracy, this article clarifies the timing and origins of key ideas that have informed its policy on democracy