Beyond Policy Transfer: How the Implementation of Electoral and Judicial Reforms Plays out in Zambia’s Interactions with the European Union

Abstract

This study analyses how and why developing countries internalise and enforce (or not) policies promoted and prescribed through the EU’s governance approach in Zambia. The motivation of this research is the arguments made in the scant literature on policy transfer, which predominantly privileges the policy entrepreneur such as the EU and lack of structured analysis on the EU’s governance approach. First, the limited documentation on developing countries as policy recipients assumes that they accept and implement policies due to fear of consequences or in return for financial incentives. Second, the literature supposes that a policy transfer process is smooth, automatic and uncontested. Third, the EU introduced a ‘new’ governance approach in its development cooperation, which was accompanied by an incentive tranche. The approach assumed that recipients would commit and reform governance areas in return for financial incentives. This tranche faced resistance and partners such as Zambia never implemented most commitments. Despite this, there are limited studies on this approach. This qualitative study goes beyond explaining the spread of the EU’s governance reforms and explores the adoption and implementation process of the changes promoted and prescribed in Zambia. A case study method is employed, and governance-related programmes are examined. In particular, the study analyses the Support to the Electoral Cycle Management project and Access to Justice programme, through which electoral processes and judicial and law reforms, amongst a few, were adopted. In addition to analysing the two cases, this study relied on interviews with Zambian academics, bureaucrats, civil servants, consultants and practitioners as additional first evidence on why Zambian actors would adopt and enforce EU governance reforms domestically or not. These semi-structured interviews also allowed the study to obtain descriptions of the world of the interviewee concerning interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena. While following the core tenets of social constructivism, the study makes use of the policy transfer framework to conceptualise the interactions, implementation and opposition of EU reforms in Zambia from the policy recipient’s perspective. An analysis of these case studies and interviews showed that the policy transfer process is not self-perpetuating as recipients of policy are not passive actors. While the EU transfers reforms of policies, the Zambian Government and national institutions can decide whether to internalise or oppose the reforms. Therefore, the fear of consequence or increased development aid does not necessarily ensure enforcement of policies by the recipients. Instead there are factors within the adoption mechanisms (conditionalities, incentives, policy transfer entrepreneurs, multileveling and lesson drawing) that determine whether the policy recipient will copy and harmonise the transferred policies at the domestic level or not. These factors include inclusion and ownership; social appropriateness; social, financial and trade benefits; political will of domestic actors to reform and the nature of the partnership between the recipient and the entrepreneur. The study makes some empirical and theoretical contributions. The study highlights what the EU’s development cooperation could be doing to ensure efficiency and effectiveness from both partners, amongst other contributions. This study also illustrates that material factors are not the driving force for adopting and implementing policies at the domestic level. The Zambian Government and national institutions are active in deciding the direction and tenor of governance. The adoption and implementation of transferred policies are dependent on the presence of social, economic, political, institutional and policy factors in the adoption pathways. Furthermore, the study finds that policy transfer and a social constructivist approach as conceptual and theoretical worldview offer a plausible explanation for the internalisation process beyond what the conventional International Relations theories on the EU can do.