Theoretical Foundations: Reflexive Governance, EU Enlargement Process, and Non-Discrimination

Abstract

Chapter 2 reviews explanatory models of rule adoption of Europeanization, policy transfer, and diffusion literature, and the conditions they identify for a successful transfer of norms and ideas. It argues that the external incentives model might best explain the likelihood of rule adoption but if the ultimate goal is that rules are applied and enforced, learning-based approaches have to be strengthened in the enlargement process. Different approaches to reflexive governance, from collaborative-relational to experimentalist, pragmatist, and genetic approaches, all focusing in different ways on the conditions required for a learning process to be successful, are presented claiming that they offer ideas that merit closer study to establish their potential in improving the performance in the EU enlargement process and beyond. The hypothesis is that reflexive governance is well suited to improve compliance and reduce likelihood of backsliding as it captures all the actors involved in framework regulation as is the case of the transposition of binding directives. To test the plausibility of the hypothesis, a case study on Croatia with a focus on the equality acquis is carried out by means of process tracing. This showed that while the argument could be partly confirmed, there is also a need for more consistent and transparent monitoring, which could be achieved by the use of indicators. Furthermore, pooling of results and the drawing of conclusions from such results, which is decisive for the success of a reflexive governance system, is given too little attention. The subsequent chapters thus set out to make a contribution to these identified lacunae.