Unpacking Policy Transfer, Discovering Actors: The French Model of Judicial Education Between Enlargement and Judicial Cooperation in the EU

Abstract

In the process of European enlargement, the EU has set up financial incentives and cognitive resources to foster judicial reforms in the candidate countries and in particular to reshape the systems of judicial education. Since the EU has no ‘European’ models to offer, it has relied upon the models in old member States. The entrepreneurial strategies of such states have been a key factor in the process of policy transfer toward Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). This article provides an actor-centred analysis of the process of transfer. It explains why the French catalogue of courses offered to judges and prosecutors has been imitated in CEECs. Then it shows that for the candidate countries the French model was not only a blueprint to reform their systems of judicial. The partnership with the Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature allowed them to enter into a legitimate ‘transnational network’ to socialize judicial staff. Finally, unpacking policy transfer, we show that a differentiated pattern occurs in CEECs. We analyse the process in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria, showing that even if the French catalogue of courses has been almost entirely imitated, the French organizational model has been imitated only where (1) a domestic actor has been able to set the agenda of the reform and drive the process of transfer and (2) the model did not radically change the system of governance set up in the judiciary during the democratic transition. The comparison among the processes of transfer occurred in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania makes clear the existence of a path dependence effect.