CHAPTER 13 Still a Good Governance Exporter? Questioning EU’s Transformative Power in the Age of Democratic Decline Senem Aydın-Düzgit Introduction The post-Cold War liberal euphoria of the 1990s which prevailed well into the 2000s led to widespread conceptualisations of the EU as a “transformative power”—a sui generis international actor with the capability to induce substantial political changes in its immediate neighbourhood and beyond (Börzel & Risse, 2009; Grabbe, 2006). This period also witnessed the coining of the phrase “normative power” with regard to Europe, designating it with a certain ability to define and set the “normal” in the international system (Manners, 2002). This was an era in which the EU completed its successful enlargement to Central and Eastern European states, gave an accession perspective to long-standing outsiders such as Turkey, and designed the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) for S. Aydın-Düzgit (B) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: senem.aydinduzgit@sabanciuniv.edu © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Soyaltin-Colella (ed.), EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05781-6_13 283 284 S. AYDIN-DÜZGIT those countries in its wider neighbourhood in the east and the south that did not enjoy any foreseeable prospect of accession to the EU in the near future. Although it has barely been two decades since these debates arose, much has changed in the EU, its neighbourhood, and the global system, to the extent that the EU’s power to promote good governance, whether through normative or more instrumental means, is now heavily contested. Some of this contestation lies within. There is now an increasing consensus that the Central and Eastern European enlargement was rushed, without having properly ascertained the consolidation of democracy in some of the then new member states. Democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland, and the EU’s inability to effectively reverse the turn towards authoritarianism in these member states, continue to hamper the EU’s credibility as a force for democratic change both within and beyond its borders. Contestation of the EU’s promotion of good governance also lies in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood, in particular regarding the state of good governance in candidate states and the EU’s associated role in such. Here, the problem seems to be two-fold. On the one hand, the enlargement process to the Western Balkans is progressing at a very slow pace, where instead of triggering democratic good governance, scholars have recently pointed to the role of the EU’s accession process in the capturing of state institutions by authoritarian leaders among some of the front contenders such as Serbia (Richter & Wunsch, 2020). On the other hand, a major past contender of EU accession, Turkey, is suffering from a severe turn to authoritarianism where the EU has long lost any leverage to influence the political developments within the country (Aydın-Düzgit & Kaliber, 2016). Furthermore, the EU’s failure to establish a common asylum policy, which ultimately led to the externalisation of migration governance, plays a key role in the EU’s appeasement of authoritarian regimes at its borders, most notably that of Turkey. A final source of contestation relates to the changes in the wider international system and its effects on the EU’s capacity to act as an influential actor in the promotion of good governance both within and beyond. This is closely related to the burgeoning debate in both academic and policy circles on the fate of the liberal international order amid the growing assertiveness of illiberal global actors, most notably Russia and China, on the international stage (Ikenberry, 2018; Mearsheimer, 2019). It is frequently argued that the EU now has global contesters who promote 13 STILL A GOOD GOVERNANCE EXPORTER? … 285 alternative models of governance resting on illiberalism and with an active agenda to dethrone the EU’s legitimacy and effectiveness in their shared regions of activity. These illiberal powers do not only contest the EU on the outside, but also from within in the form of providing support to authoritarian governments, populist political parties and, as evidenced in Russia’s support to the Brexit camp in the run up to the Brexit referendum, to disruptive movements, across the Union. It does not help the EU’s transformative power that at a time of heightened contestation on multiple fronts, the EU’s reaction largely rests on pragmatic action oriented inward, as demonstrated in the recent popularity of the concepts of “strategic autonomy”, “resilience” and “differentiated integration” in EU parlance (Bickerton, 2021). Hence, one is left wondering whether we can still refer to the EU as a promoter of good governance under these conditions, and if so, where and how. The contributions to this edited volume have aimed to do precisely that, by undertaking a survey of the EU’s good governance promotion efforts across a wide geography extending from the EU member states and enlargement countries to the EU’s wider neighbourhood and subSaharan Africa, as well as its role in setting global norms in select policy areas including cybersecurity and migration. It acknowledges that good governance can be conceptualised in a narrow sense focusing on the efficiency, transparency, and overall well-functioning of state institutions, and also in a broader sense covering issues regarding democratic governance. The first part of the book focuses on good governance practices within EU member states and candidate countries, with a view to discerning EU influence, with regard to political financing practices (Cihangir-Tetik and Gençkaya) and migration (Saatçioğlu; Sert and Alparslan), as well as the EU’s perceptions as a good governance promoter in Kosovo, a case of contested statehood (Buhari Gulmez and Aydin Dikmen). The second part of the book focuses on the role of the EU in promoting good governance in the wider European neighbourhood, including the South Caucasus (Ünaldılar Kocamaz) and ODA countries, including sub-Saharan Africa (Dipama; Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and Kwayu; SoyaltinColella and Cihangir-Tetik). The third and the final section of the volume turns to contestation of the EU’s actorness by illiberal actors at the global level in the area of cybersecurity (Anagnostakis) and in Central Asia (Yildiz), followed by an exclusive focus on the Chinese challenge to the EU in terms of constituting a rival alternative model (Demiryol). 286 S. AYDIN-DÜZGIT Member States and Candidates: Does EU Conditionality Still Hold? It has been well demonstrated in the literature that the application of credible and consistent EU conditionality on candidate states have generally produced high degrees of compliance with EU governance standards across these countries (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2004, 2005). Yet, a key concern with enlargement in general and Eastern enlargement in particular has always been the fate of conditionality after candidate states become full members. Although EU mechanisms for punishing noncompliance are existent, the cases of Hungary and Poland have already demonstrated the limits of EU action, even in the event of gross violations of democracy and fundamental rights by member states. It has even been argued that membership has actually had the adverse impact of strengthening authoritarians in power, as in the case of Viktor Orban in Hungary (Kelemen, 2020). In this context, the chapter by CihangirTetik and Gençkaya convincingly shows how the EU’s lack of action on this front has not only contributed to a sharper decline in democracy and the rule of law in Hungary and Poland, but also reflects directly on the content of regulations and the implementation of political financing that have become less transparent and less accountable over time. The authors observe a similar case of democratic downfall, accompanied with a deterioration of the rules governing political financing in an official candidate state, Turkey. The chapter by Saatçioğlu unpacks the drivers and mechanisms through which this has been enabled by the EU, despite the fact that Turkey has been officially subject to EU conditionality since 1999 when it was first declared a candidate country, later reinforced by the opening of accession negotiations in 2005. Saatçioğlu shows that the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis and the ensuing 2016 EUTurkey migration deal have played a key role in diminishing any remaining leverage that the EU has enjoyed over the promotion of good governance in Turkey, where despite its rapidly deteriorating standards of democracy and good governance, it was rewarded by the “re-energising of talks” as well as the toning down of EU criticisms on the path to an executive presidency with minimal regard for checks and balances. Hence Saatçioğlu’s contribution vividly demonstrates how membership conditionality can be trumped by realpolitik concerns and enable further autocratisation, even in what is, formally, a candidate state. Furthermore, as the chapter by Sert and Alparslan shows, the EU’s failure to adopt a common asylum 13 STILL A GOOD GOVERNANCE EXPORTER? … 287 policy which has ultimately led to externalisation of migration governance as a policy choice on the part of the EU has not only enabled further backsliding in Turkish democracy, but also exported “bad governance” to Turkey’s migration management in the way of “less transparent and less democratic governance of migration” with a focus on readmission agreements and predeparture controls. Another case of weakening conditionality in the EU’s approach to the promotion of good governance in its enlargement sphere is observed in Buharı Gulmez and Aydin Dikmen’s study of the case of Kosovo. Even though Kosovo’s contested statehood makes it a unique case, which by itself limits the EU’s role and influence in the country, the chapter suggests that there are certain similarities to the Turkish case and beyond regarding the dynamics that weaken EU conditionality, such as the primacy of geopolitics over the promotion of good governance (concerning, in particular, the role of Russia and Serbia) and the double standard rhetoric that is attributed partly to Islamophobia. The case of Kosovo also provides an interesting example of how the EU’s relations with global actors other than the illiberal challengers, namely the US, can also hinder its power to export good governance practices in those cases where their interests clash. Yet as we turn to the second part of the volume to ODA and other countries in the wider European neighbourhood that do not enjoy the prospect of accession, it is the contestation by global illiberal powers to the EU’s actorness, legitimacy, and influence in the promotion of good governance that takes centre stage, and to which we now turn. Beyond Enlargement? Geopolitics, Internal Disunity, and Illiberal Contesters When the EU first launched the ENP in 2003, both the neighbourhood and the global context were in a very different shape. Overt Russian expansionism was not yet in place, China was far from being viewed as a “systemic rival” as it is today, and European unity had not yet been challenged with consecutive economic and migration crises. Ünaldılar Kocamaz’s contribution about the EU’s good governance promotion in the ENP countries in the South Caucasus, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, constitutes a study of how the shifting global dynamics and the EU’s changing priorities since then have considerably weakened its good governance agenda in this region. 288 S. AYDIN-DÜZGIT As also expressed by Soyaltin-Colella and Cihangir-Tetik in their contribution to the volume on EU official development assistance, the ENP has always been a relatively a weaker policy than enlargement with regard to promotion of good governance due to the absence of a credible accession perspective for the countries that are included in its remit (see also Sasse, 2008). Yet, despite its inherent problems, it enabled the EU to push for a—albeit limited—pro-European agenda in Georgia, if not in Armenia or Azerbaijan, in its earlier years. As the chapter shows, however, even this limited progress soon came to a halt. A key part of the explanation has to do with the rising Russian assertiveness in this neighbourhood. Russia has capitalised on intra-regional conflicts to destabilise pro-Western governments in the region and expand its military presence, first with the 2008 war in Georgia, and then more recently with the 2020 war in Nagorno Karabagh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hence the rise of geopolitical conflicts in the region created opportunities for Russia to assert itself further while damaging the EU’s credibility and halting its good governance agenda in this region. Other related factors, such as Armenia’s economic dependency on Russia, and Russia’s launch of competing regional organisations and free trade agreements with the region’s countries also played a role in impeding the EU’s influence over governance reform. Nonetheless, the chapter also shows how the EU has responded to these developments by downscaling its governance agenda in the region to economic and technical cooperation. It can be argued that this is closely related to the divisions between the member states on how to respond to the Russian challenge as well as a lack of united and principled foreign policy action on the EU front in the face of geopolitical conflicts in its wider neighbourhood. Internal divisions between the member states also seem to play a central role in the EU’s narrow good governance agenda in sub-Saharan Africa, as demonstrated in the contributions by Dipama and Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and Kuwayu. Instead of promoting democratic governance and effectively responding to blatant violations of democracy and the rule of law in this region, the EU chooses to focus on institutional aspects of good governance, such as building state capacity. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, and similar to the Eastern neighbourhood, as aptly described by Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and Kuwayu in their contribution with the Tanzanian case, in those cases where the EU’s security interests clash with the promotion of a broader democracy agenda, the former prevails. Secondly, 13 STILL A GOOD GOVERNANCE EXPORTER? … 289 while Russia constitutes its main contender in the Eastern neighbourhood, China constitutes the biggest illiberal challenger in sub-Saharan Africa, whereby authoritarian leaders use Chinese funds with no political strings attached to leverage against the EU and negotiate its aid conditionality. The chapter by Soyaltin-Colella and Cihangir-Tetik demonstrate that in employing its ODA in sub-Saharan Africa, the EU also finds itself in a position where it also has to compete with other rising donors such as Turkey and India, which similarly do not employ a policy of conditionality in the delivery of development assistance. The chapters by Yildiz and Anagnostakis illustrate that the illiberal challenge to the EU’s promotion of good governance is arguably most acute in Central Asia and at the global level, where norm contestation is intense. Central Asia constitutes a key case in showing how the EU only pursues a broader, albeit still limited, democratic good governance agenda with those countries where illiberal regional powers, most notably Russia, enjoys a relatively lower leverage. Yildiz’s analysis demonstrates that it is not only the no-political-strings-attached assistance of illiberal powers that undermine the EU’s potential to promote good governance in this region, but also the fear of non-compliance with, in particular, Russian demands, given the precedents in the Eastern neighbourhood with Georgia and Ukraine. Given the fact that norm promotion in key areas pertaining to global governance is also a central part of the EU’s good governance agenda, Anagnostakis’ chapter moves the analyses to the global level and focuses on norm contestation by global illiberal actors through the specific case of cybersecurity. It observes how the EU faces a twin challenge in promoting good governance through the establishment of global norms governing cybersecurity—an external and an internal one. The external one comes from its usual global illiberal challengers, China and Russia, which are both pushing for alternative norms in cybersecurity that are less politicaland more sovereignty-oriented, giving primacy to the rights of the state over the individual. The EU is also squeezed from the inside by its very own illiberals, Poland and Hungary, which abuse the EU’s own norms regarding individual rights in cyberspace, in turn limiting its capacity to promote good cybersecurity governance abroad. The end result is the EU’s downscaling of the content of the norms that it globally promotes in this area from a thicker version, focusing on individual rights, to a thinner content, centred on administration and efficiency. In turn, reactions grow 290 S. AYDIN-DÜZGIT within from those who are concerned with privacy issues and the respect for human rights in cyberspace. The chapter on cybersecurity norms, as the ones preceding before it, point at a number of means through which illiberal global powers can attempt to exert their own vision of governance, often in contrast with that of the EU. As this can take the shape of norm contestation and alternative norm promotion (Anagnostakis), it can also be built through economic linkages, autocratic socialisation, and other soft power mechanisms (Yildiz). Yet, whether what is being promoted by these illiberal actors amounts to a specific model of governance that can be emulated by the rest is an open question. In his contribution, which constitutes the final chapter of the volume, Demiryol engages with this question through the case of China. He identifies the key elements of the Chinese experience as gradualism and pragmatism, the grift relationship between the state and the market, and the resilience of authoritarianism, but argues that China indirectly promotes these elements, at best, mainly via capacity building, technological transfer, and infrastructure-driven development assistance. These, in turn, do not just hinder the EU’s promotion of good governance abroad, but as argued elsewhere (Yu, 2018) and in particular by the use of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also helps to mark divisions between EU member states on how to deal with China. The Main Takeaways and Implications for the Future Overall, the findings of the book suggest that despite the adversaries it faces inside and out, the EU has still not given up on promoting good governance abroad. Promotion of good governance is still central to the EU’s ODA instruments (Soyaltin-Colella and Cihangir-Tetik) and continues to be a core element of EU conditionality for accession. Nonetheless, what is also evident is that the EU’s good governance agenda has been thinning over the recent years, thanks to a variety of internal and external challenges that often interact with one another in reducing the EU’s capacity for action on this front. A major problem in this regard concerns the difficulties that the EU faces in putting its own house in order. As multiple contributions to this volume attest, democratic backsliding on the EU’s own territory is weakening its international credibility as a promoter of democratic good governance in target states while also making the norms that it espouses 13 STILL A GOOD GOVERNANCE EXPORTER? … 291 at the regional and the global level more susceptible to contestation by external illiberal actors. In a similar vein, as the chapter on Kosovo specifically shows, rising populism and Islamophobia in certain member states is also strengthening perceptions of the EU as an imposer of “double standards” rather than a fair reformer in those countries with Muslim majority populations (Buhari Gulmez and Aydin Dikmen). The volume clearly shows us that a second internal source hindering good governance-promotion efforts by the EU concerns its difficulty in agreeing on common policies on key issue areas, which in turn damages its leverage vis-à-vis the target states and strengthens its preference for stability over democracy in target countries. Migration and foreign policy seem to be the two key policies that represent cause for concern in this area. The EU’s push for externalisation of migration governance upon its failure to adopt a common asylum policy after the Syrian civil war has increased its reliance on the cooperation of authoritarian governments in some target states, even to the extent that it has enabled their further autocratisation, as the contribution on Turkey (Saatçioğlu) clearly attests. Other studies have also drawn attention to the similar prioritisation of migration by the EU at the expense of democratic good governance in the case of the Southern neighbourhood, particularly in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings (Dandashly, 2015). On the foreign policy front, the impact of the EU’s inability to forge an effective common and security policy on the promotion of good governance has manifested itself in two ways. First, the EU’s failure to take joint effective action in the face of geopolitical conflicts in the Eastern and the Southern neighbourhood has facilitated the expansion of illiberal global actors, most notably Russia, in these regions. Secondly, and in relation to the first, member state divisions on foreign policy interests and priorities have meant that where there is divergence on key member state foreign policy interests in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where the EU can only agree on less ambitious and narrower goals of good governance promotion focused on state building and administration. The challenges to the EU’s good governance promotion are not only internal. The prevalence of the external illiberal challenge in every target state and region where the EU is active are clearly apparent from the contributions to this book. Contestation from Russia and China, and to a lesser extent Turkey and India, come in different shapes. They can take the form of direct military intervention, as with Russia in the Eastern and the Southern neighbourhood; indirect means, such as ODA 292 S. AYDIN-DÜZGIT with no political conditionality attached, Chinese technology transfer, capacity building, infrastructure-driven development promoted by BRI in Europe and beyond (Demiryol); and even normative contestation by Russia, China, and India over the regulation of cybersecurity (Anagnostakis), among other matters of global governance. Yet, what the analyses in these chapters are telling us is that it is precisely the EU’s own internal shortcomings that are enabling these challengers to disrupt good governance within member states, as well as the EU’s ability to promote good governance beyond its borders. Hence, the future of the EU’s governance capacity largely hinges on whether it will be able to sustain democracy, rule of law, and fundamental freedoms within, while at the same time design common policies with the willing and able in those areas where the current internal divisions favour the authoritarian governing elites of the target states and global illiberal challengers. A key external factor that will play an important role in the future shape and potential success of the EU’s good governance efforts will be the state of its relations with its potential partners and allies, most notably the US. In this context, the future commitment of the US to the liberal international order and how this will impact on its relations with the EU, as well as on its relations with other global actors such as China and Russia, will need to be considered in subsequent analyses of EU good governance promotion. References Aydın-Düzgit, S., & Kaliber, A. (2016). 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