Balkan Academic News Book Review 21/2002

Heinz-Jürgen Axt and Christoph Rohloff (eds.), Frieden und Sicherheit in (Südost-) Europa: EU-Beitritt, Stabilitätspakt und Europäische Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik [(Southeastern) Europe: EU Membership, Stability Pact and European Security and Defense Policy]. München: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, 2001. 436 pp., ISBN 3-92545093-9, EUR 34 (softcover).

Reviewed by Srdjan Vucetic (Free University of Berlin), Email: djine@zedat.fu-berlin.de

This volume--latest publication by the Munich-based Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft--contains proceedings from a conference which took place in November 2000 in Duisburg. In this review, I will evaluate this volume against a publisher’s rule: “most conference proceedings will only appeal to the attendees of the conference”.[1]

The volume is divided into five subsections. In the first, Richard Meyers introduces the themes of stability and security in Europe from the perspective of IR theory. He argues that the main source of conflict is the attrition of political authority, which in turn can be attributed to a number of factors. In the regions with the heritage of authoritarianism, conflict is often about maintaining some kind of political authority or gaining access to it bymore often than notmaking claims based on identity. The warfare that comes out of these conflict can be characterized as “new” for two reasons: the mix of state and non-state and the attempts to control the territory not through direct military engagement, but through violence directed against the civilian population.

Heinz-Jürgen Axt and Christoph Roloff, the editors of the volume, follow in separate chapters by defining the objects of inquiry (e.g. the Balkans are a part of Southeast Europe, which itself includes the usual suspects plus Hungary, Moldova, and Cyprus). Axt distinguishes between the rising intra-state and declining inter-state warfare and moves on to assess security “risks” in the region: ethno-political and minority conflicts, border disputes, and illegal migration and refugees. Roloff does the same, albeit from a more general perspective (e.g. his analysis includes Western Europe and Middle East).

Wim van Meurs asks whether the Balkans should be seen as a “bottomless keg” rather than the “powder keg.” He shows how the (Stabilization and Association Process’) conditionality principle can contradict the (Stability Pact’s) regional principle (pp. 115, 117; see Wittkowsky in this volume). For van Meurs, the Stability Pact’s quality is in its potential to be demand-driven, in contrast to Phare, which can be characterized as program-driven. The challenge, according to van Meurs, is to make wrong those critics who see the Pact as being, essentially, donor-driven (p. 118).

The section two reflects on the EU’s Southeast Europe policy after the Cold War. Roland Schönfeld looks at the history of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and their impact on the harmonization of the foreign and defence policies of the EU member states. On the case of NATO intervention over Kosovo, Lothar Rühl discusses the feasibility of the air campaigns and the use of the threat thereof in diplomatic negotiations. Like for Wellington at Waterloo in 1815, for NATO at Kosovo, the victory was “a near’ run thing”, concludes Rühl (p. 183). 

The Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe features prominently in the text. And while all contributors reflect on it one way or another, it is the sections three and four which are fully dedicated to this institution. Johanna Deimel opens the third section with a comprehensive discussion of the nature and structure of the Stability Pact. She argues that while the Pact is imperfect and sometimes contested (e.g. by Bulgaria, p. 206), it is invaluable for the region. Michael Bohnet’s is the voice of a donor, so to speak. He analyses some of the Pact’s contributions and projects and concludes that its initial results are positive, inasmuch as the war (presumably between the states) is no longer on the daily agenda. Heinz Kramer details the Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAA), which he argues, are built on two sometimes contradicting principles  the order-building in the region (the regional principle) and European integration (the conditionality principle). Andreas Wittkowsky, who first published on the contradictions in the EU’s SEE policy, criticizes the idea and practice of the “membership light” option, which seems to be reserved for (some) states of Southeast Europe. He argues that such option (also known as “virtual” membership) contradicts the principle of regional ownership (p. 264) of the initiatives such as the Stability Pact. He also questions whether investments in infrastructure can bring about growth in the region (p. 257).

The section four contains four “voices” from the region. Srgjan Kerim, Zoran Jašic, and Roussi Ivanov are the (former) diplomats of Macedonia, Croatia and Bulgaria respectively. Branislava Alendar, the vice-president of the European Movement of Serbia, can therefore be seen as the only “non-governmental voice” from the region. In her contribution, she offers some thoughts on the future of the Serbo-Montenegrin federation, rule of law, democracy and free market economy, and concludes that the Stability Pact, even if it serves as the “waiting room” for the EU candidateship/accession (p. 272), is a positive feature for democracy in the region.  

Kerim, writing before the intensification of the ethnic conflict in his country, is correct to note that the Stability Pact has helped build bridges between the actors in the region, both figuratively and literally (p. 228) and that its real potential remains to be realized. His chapter on Macedonia, written before the ethnic crisis in 2001, testifies to the achievements of the republic in fostering free trade and good neighbourly relations in the region. Indicative is Kerim’s note that, according to the European Council, Macedonia was the region’s model in the provision of minority rights. The representatives of the two countries which were most openly upset about having to “wait” in the Stability Pact also offer their views. Ivanov’s is a strong argument on why Bulgaria does not deserve to be thrown in the regional package (p. 320). Jašiæ begins with explaining why Croatia’s road to Europe should be seen as a “differentia specifica” and why this road should not go through the Western Balkans (pp. 296, 300), but, as President Tudjman wanted, through Mitteleuropa (p. 305). Perhaps typical is his use of the case of Bosnia: first (p. 296), he bemoans the fact that the regional forums, such as the Stability Pact, tend to put the victims (Croatia and Bosnia) together with the perpetrators (FR Yugoslavia). Later, he says that it unfair that Croatia should not wait for the catch-up of countries such as Bosnia and FR Yugoslavia (p. 300). The pragmatic argument contradicts the moral one made earlier.

The last section is about the EU, with a focus on European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the EU enlargement. Jannis Sakellariou looks at the development of ESDP structures after the Kosovo war. Elvin Hülser, in one of the most comprehensive contributions to this volume, introduces the concepts of “security complex”, “security community”, and “security functions” (i.e. “concentric circles of EU security”). One of the “security functions” of the EU, for example, is the stabilization of Central-,East-, and Southeast Europe through the stick-and-carrot scheme of the enlargement process (p. 337). Hülser argues that the nature of the ESDP (and also of the CFSP) remains intergovernmental, which means that there are real “compatibility problems” in the formulation and implementation of such policies. National political cultures of France, Germany and Britain consist of different discursive structures, which sometimes cannot be easily reconciled (e.g. German anti-militarism vs. the EU’s army). In his second contribution to the volume, Axt advances seven theses on the necessity of the EU reform. Claus Giering crisply summarizes the salient questions, problems, and opportunities for the EU reform after the Nice Summit (e.g. introduction of the qualified majority voting into the ESDP/CFSP).

Because there is a paucity of such works, any book combining SEE, on one hand, and the EU’s security and enlargement policies, on the other, will not be read by its contributors (i.e. conference attendees) alone. The plurality of central themes and the diversity of the contributors’ professional backgrounds make the volume incoherent. This, however, can be put to the credit side: the book manages to engage with a broad scholarly community and to contribute policy perspectives to academic discourse. Thus, policy-makers and policy-observers as well as academics and graduate students will find plenty here to deepen their understanding of peace and security in (Southeast) Europe.

The principal weaknesses of the volume fall primarily into the category of 'sins of omission'. Given the broad scope of the volume, it is unfortunate that some important aspects of the EU/European security are missing. For one, while there is a great deal of attention paid to the inherent contradictions of the EU’s SEE policy, no contributor considers the inherent contradiction between the contradiction of the EU’s external and internal security policies. The EU’s external security policy, which aims at the stabilization of a broader Europe (by avoiding the creation of the new “curtains”), in fact unequivocally contradicts the EU’s internal security policy, which is reflected in the widening and deepening of Schengen (e.g. a visa regime between Hungary and Serbia and Montenegro or Romania will not help the practice of regional cooperation championed by the Stability Pact and required by the SAA). 

Second, apart from one or two contributions, the volume avoids asking wider theoretical questions, which arise from the analysis. Theoretically informed readers will wish that the (contributors to the) volume had attempted to develop and advance a more finely differentiated set of causal and constituitive arguments. One of this ‘wide’ theoretical questions would be to ask what the contradiction of the regional vs. conditionality principle says about the construction of the EU and “Europe” more generally.

The volume advances a strong normative agenda: the EU should continue to minimize exclusion. But while such analytical-normative synthesis is both desirable and unavoidable, I believe that one should not advance normative claims without also considering ‘alternative’ possibilities. One can argue that the EU’s SEE policies is in fact deeply pragmatic inasmuch as it disciplines the region without actually offering any real prospect of full membership.[2] In fact, the disciplining thesis may explain why the EU’s policies are so contradictory. Put otherwise, it may be that exclusion is both the cause and the effect of the EU’s policies.

Notes

1. Alison Howson , “Publish or Perish,” European Political Science 1:1 (Autumn 2001), 67.

2. Ole Waever, “Insecurity, Security and Asecurity in the West European Non-War Community,” in Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds.), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 99.

© 2002 Balkan Academic News. This review may be distributed and reproduced electronically, if credit is given to Balkan Academic News and the author. For permission for re-printing, contact Balkan Academic News.