The EU is many things: a civilization ideal to emulate, an anchor of geopolitical stabilization, a generous donor, and a history lesson on cooperation across nations. A fixer of national governance problems, however, it is not. In this book, Mungiu-Pippidi investigates the efficacy of the European Union’s promotion of good governance through its funding and conditionalities both within the EU proper and in the developing world. The evidence assembled shows that the idea of European power to transform the quality of governance is largely a myth. From Greece to Egypt and from Kosovo to Turkey, EU interventions in favour of good governance and anti-corruption policy have failed so far to trigger the domestic political dynamic needed to ensure sustainable change. Mungiu-Pippidi explores how we can better bridge the gap between the Europe of treaties and the reality of governance in Europe and beyond. This book will interest students and scholars of comparative politics, European politics, and development studies, particularly those examining governance and corruption.
Reviews for this publication
“A blistering and contrarian critique of EU anti-corruption efforts from one of the field’s leading authorities. Based on extensive quantitative data spanning both EU member states and a large number of the union’s external partners, the book’s findings have troubling implications for the future of EU good governance strategies – and deserve to be considered with the utmost seriousness.”
Richard Youngs – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Europe
Greece has adopted many reforms, yet most of its citizens complain in the Eurobarometer that they are seriously affected by corruption in their daily lives. While the administrative burden has been somewhat reduced and transparency increased, judicial independence, in particular regarding corruption prosecution and top courts appointments has regressed. A long list of reforms agreed with the European Union meant to remove legal privileges and open access awaits implementation. The press needs more diverse ownership and civil society does not articulate sufficient demand for general interest public integrity.
Corruption has risen on the European agenda considerably from the last European elections and is
likely to play a prominent role in the 2019 campaign for European Parliament. But while pro-European
parties will advocate for a stronger Europe and populist parties might try to blame all corruption on Brussels
and mainstream parties, a deeper understanding on the linkage EU-national government in curbing
corruption becomes imperative. This paper uses the case of Greece to discuss the impact of Europe about
governance quality in EU Member States and asks if the new European elections find both Greece and
Brussels more prepared to deal with corruption. The conclusion is that EU driven reforms in Greece remain
scattered, fragmented, not locally “owned” or driven by any group whose interest good governance would
serve. Meanwhile, the groups opposing change are well articulated. Greece’s genuine good governance
congregation has yet to coalesce, and the 2019 European and legislative elections are a good opportunity,
especially if civil society would not allow parties to instrumentalize anticorruption but engage them to
promise the still missing good governance reforms during electoral campaign and then monitor them.