Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas: Perspectives from the UN Regional Commissions by Yves s> Berthelot (review)

Abstract

I82 SEER, 84, I, 2006 laws were passed quicklywith little debate often borrowing nakedlyfrom the EU. The law of child-resistantfittingsin Hungary, for example, 'readsalmost word forword like the EU directiveit emulates'(p. 74). The great merit of 7heEnlargement oftheEuropean UnionandNATOis that it demonstratesand explains in detailwhen the internationalorganizationhave been influentialand when their impact has been limited.Jacoby achieves this goal by exploring a series of policy areas:health care, consumer protection, regional policy, agriculture, civilian control of the military and military professionalization.He points out thatin healthcareand consumerprotection the EU acquisdensity is low, providing much more scope for choosing or ignoring 'prevailing Western models' (p. I6), whereas in agriculture and regional development not least thanks to the financial incentives for faithful emulation therewas a largelyfaithfulreplicationof EU models. A few criticisms, however, deserve to be levelled at the book. Although Jacoby has interviewed many senior figuresfrom both countries, the lack of sources in Czech and Hungarian is striking. Motivations and justifications outlined in English by politicians from the region are often differentto those stressedin native languages. Nobody better illustratesthis phenomenon than former Czech Prime Minister VaiclavKlaus whose Thatcherite Eurosceptic messages to the international audience were often significantly different in tone and content to the homilies he delivered in Czech. Secondly, although I would not want to criticizeambition, the inclusionof both NATO and the EU lessened the book's punch. Jacoby's monograph might have been better if he had focusedjust on the EU and included another case studyfrom the region such as Poland. NATO could then have been used, alongside his brief foray into Poland,Bulgariaand Ukraine, as a comparatorin the concluding chapter alongside other international organizations which encouraged degrees of emulation such as the OECD. Nonetheless, these criticisms should not detract attention away from the significant contribution made by TheEnlargement of theEuropean Unionand NATO.As the book argues the 'key to explaining membership preparations forboth NATO and the EU lies not in seeingtheprocessasentirelyexternallydriven , but as a fusion of internationaland domestic factors(p. 235). Mixing thoughtful analysis and detail with great aplomb the publication of Jacoby's book isvery much to be welcomed. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies T. HAUGHTON European Research Institute University ofBirmingham Berthelot, Yves (ed.). UnityandDiversity inDevelopment Ideas.Perspectivesfrom the UN RegionalCommissions. United Nations Intellectual History Project. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2004. xxii + 445 pp. Boxes. Tables.Appendix. Notes. Index. $74.95. THE United Nations Intellectual History Project was launched in i999 to conduct and publish independent research into the economic and social development work of the United Nations: fourteen volumes are planned and REVIEWS I83 three more are envisaged on the UN's parallelpeace and securityoperations iffundingbecomes available.The volume underreviewisofparticularinterest to readersof thisjournal forits chapter 'The ECE:A Bridgebetween Eastand West', because during the Cold War membership of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) embraced the rival blocs otherwise divided into the WarsawPact and Comecon on the East and NATO and OECD on the West.The firstvolume of the Project,Ahead oftheCurve? UNIdeasandGlobal Challenges (Bloomington, IN, 2001), edited by Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly and Thomas Weisswith a Forewordby Kofi Annan, pointed to the legacy of Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal, ECE's founding Executive Secretary, as 'independence, long-establishedcontact with governments across ideological divides, sensitivityto differentvalues, and staffexpertise.As such, thisregional commission developed an open and eclectic style that permitted some of the only East-Westeconomic cooperation duringthe Cold War.In short,itplayed an importantbridgingrole' (pp. 154-55). Berthelot,a successorto Myrdal as ECE Executive Secretary, edits the volume under review and co-authors the chapter on the ECE with Paul Rayment, who was Director of the ECE's Economic AnalysisDivision for sevenyearsuntil his retirementin 2001. Instead of ECE's membership at its establishmentin I947 being confined to the seventeen European states (plus the United States) who were UN members at the time (among them the Belorusianand Ukrainian SSRs, with seats additional to that of the USSR), active participation was assured for most others, with consultation also from the Allied Zones of Occupation in Germany through the Control Authorities.This 'made ECE an all-European organization rightfrom the start,at a time when the question of admissionto membership of the United Nations of a...