genetically modified organisations? twinning as a case of

CONFERENCE PAPER

GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISATIONS? TWINNING AS A CASE OF TRANSNATIONAL

INTERACTION

Mgr. Lucie Königová

Paper presented at CEEISA/ISA Convention Budapest, CEU, June 26 – 29, 2003

Panel SA O4: The “European” and the “Global”: Exploring the Link between European Integration and Globalisation

This authorial text has not been edited.

Work in Progress - First Draft Only, Please Do Not Quote Without Permission

Mgr. Lucie Königová Budapest 2003 GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISATIONS? TWINNING AS A CASE OF

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TRANSNATIONAL INTERACTION

ÚSTAV MEZINÁRODNÍCH VZTAHŮ

GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISATIONS? TWINNING AS A CASE OF TRANSNATIONAL INTERACTION Paper presented at CEEISA/ISA Convention Budapest, 2003 Abstract The paper takes a look at a largely unexplored phenomenon of twinning from the institutional perspective, focusing on the change of actor identities, interests and behaviour. Twinning is a secondment of experts from EU member states administratives to the candidate countries with the aim of helping the applicant countries with institution building for successful and effective implementation of the acquis communautaire. It has been praised as a largely effective transfer of the “European” know-how and governance modes. Drawing upon a research into Czech twinnings, the paper challenges a putative contention that twinning is a case of forced institutional export of member states’ models into candidate states’ administratives. Instead, the author argues that this instrument brings along a much finer (inspirational) process of structural change depending on administrative identity of candidate countries’ actors involved: voluntary selective domestication of the governance culture–experience, expertise, procedures, and structures–of EU member states. Even though Europeanisation brings about certain similarities in institutions and their practices, changes in the “genetic makeup” of domestic organisations hinge on the degree and intensity of socialisation. The paper explores Wendt's treatment of symbolic interactionism in relation to identity, pattern and institution changes in twinning projects, seeking a model of analysis of processes of policy and institution change under the influence of supranational factors.

INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS


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Introduction1

This paper looks into a largely unexplored phenomenon of twinning from the institutional and actor preference-change points of view. Twinning is a secondment of experts from EU member states administratives to the candidate countries with the aim of helping the applicant countries with institution building for successful and effective implementation of the acquis communautaire. Recently, it has been praised as the most effective transfer of the “European” know-how2 and a prime example of socialisation, potentially bringing about domestic institutional adaptation in response to European integration. Drawing upon research of Czech twinnings, the paper questions the European-domestic dichotomies, replacing them with an image of a continuum or a flux, seeking to analyse how and under which conditions institutions travel – in other words, looking for routes and avenues, formulating scope conditions. The aim is to investigate (the nature of) the relevance of the supranational context for domestic institutional and policy developments. On the look of it, and given the prominence of conditionality in the enlargement process, twinning – one if the key components of the Phare aid programme to candidate countries – may appear to be a case of forced institutional export of member states’ models into candidate states’ administratives.3 But is this really the case? And if so, what institutions or administrative modes and models are imported – are these member states’ institutions, or “European” ones? This paper argues that any attempt to explain and understand this change only in terms of “pressure” from the above (and material side-payments) would be unsatisfactory. The question of the EU’s influence on the development of domestic policy-making/institutional structures should be conceptualised with more attention to the micro-processes and differentiation.4 Twinning brings along a much finer (inspirational) process of structural change, depending on the presence/absence and relative strength of administrative identity of candidate countries’ actors involved as well as a number of externalities and internal institutional pressures allowing only limited autonomous control. My initial research has led me to make a preliminary conclusion that twinning is a voluntary selective domestication by accession administratives of experience, expertise, procedures, and structures of member states. In spite of the hard, ex ante conditionality of acquis communautaire adoption and necessary implementation, the processual and procedural aspects of the implementation lack the strictness and stipulated

1 This paper is a presentation of some parts of a larger research. An earlier version was presented at the 2002 BISA Conference. The author would like to thank the European University Institute Library for a EUSSIRF library grant enabling her to advance her theoretical framework and to Petr Drulák, Theo Farrell and Trine Flockhart for their useful comments. 2 Twinning in Action 2001. 3 For an argument pointing in this way see Schimmelnig and Sedelmeier 2002a:7. 4 Cf Conzelmann 1998 and Johnston 2001.



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commonality, allowing for adaptation to new tasks within the existing structures, which resembles the impact of Europeanisation on domestic policies and structures in the existing member states (Sverdrup 2000: 3, Radaelli 1997: 553). Coming to this conclusion, I proceed in six steps (see below) steps, setting the substantive research on twinning within a larger theoretical framework. Central to the present research is my argument that twinning escapes full comprehension and theorisation through a comprehensive, grand theory. It may be, however, captured by a relatively synthetic approach drawing upon mid-range theories. These, as I believe, allow for a better, more thorough understanding of this complex process without the need for bracketing certain issues or processes while not ruling out either material/self-interests and incentives or norms and argumentative discourse. This may be seen as a reply to Alexander Wendt’s plea for question-, not method-driven research (Wendt 1999:392). In fact, this exploratory research is not only preferable for an area of interest like the EU but also presumably the only possible one in this case. I have thus drawn upon several relevant strands of current IR and European integration scholarship, both enriched by social science theories. First, new institutionalism, or rather sociological neo-institutionalism, and, partly, historical institutionalism are brought into picture, along with some observations from organisational analysis. In light of the insight from sociological, normative and historical institutionalism and the institutional approach to the study of continuity and change social learning – allowing as it does for relational, not individualist understanding of social reality – is then explored for its salience for institutional change. Second, agent-structure debate, Alexander Wendt’s constructivism and, in particular, his treatment of symbolic interactionism in relation to identity, pattern and institution changes in twinning are linked to the previous theoretical parts and introduced in the context of social learning theories. Third, Europeanisation and conditionality literature is linked to the institutionalist and administrative research. In the empirical part of the paper, then, I look into several twinning projects in the Czech Republic.Unfdertaking a documentary analysis and elite interviewing aiming to identify their common strands and compare the assumptions made with the field-work and research findings so far. Finally, some initial observations on the mechanisms and processes of institutional (administrative) adaptation within the framework of twinning are made on the basis of the early research, followed by suggestions for further research with identification of the still many shortcomings of the present project. The main goal is to capture and theorise – not only to explain but first and foremost to understand and think through – the processes and mechanisms of adaptation and changes in domestic administrative institutions, running in parallel to efforts by many researchers of European studies from the “constructivist nest”:



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the exploration of the conditions under which and mechanisms through which institutions in Europe socialise states and the induction of new members into the ways of behaviour that are preferred in a society (Checkel 2001, 2002). My aim is to devise a model for analysing processes of policy and institutional change in a candidate state under the influence of supranational factors. At the same time, I shall like to suggest the relative importance in the domestic institutional adaptation of external developments, domestic leadership and active agency as well as institutional characteristics (Sverdrup 2000: 40). Still, I make no pretence that this paper is but a first charge at the challenge of theorising twinning and the processes and mechanisms of socialisation in administrative transformation within the framework of EU enlargement. Following Jeffrey T. Checkel’s work on social learning – drawing, in turn, upon communications research and social psychology – this paper examines the twinning exercise through the lenses of six scope conditions5 for preference change through deliberation/argumentative persuasion inducing social learning:

1) HYPOTHESIS 1: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when the persuadee is in a novel and uncertain environment – generated by the newness of the issue, a crisis, or serious policy failure – and thus cognitively motivated to analyze new information.

2) HYPOTHESIS 2: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when the persuadee has few prior, ingrained beliefs that are inconsistent with the persuader’s message. Put differently, novice agents with fewer cognitive priors will be relatively open to persuasion.

3) HYPOTHESIS 3: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when persuader does not lecture or demand but, instead, “acts out principles of serious deliberative argument.”

4) HYPOTHESIS 4: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when the persuader-persuadee interaction occurs in less politicised and more insulated, private settings.

5) HYPOTHESIS 5: Argumentative persuasion is more likely when persuadees in domestic administrative institutions are facing ambiguity in the process of necessary adaptation (i.e. unclear goals, difficulties in interpreting histories and experience, unclear organisational boundaries and structure of participation as well as unclear technologies of change.

6) HYPOTHESIS 6: Argumentative persuasion is more likely within a distinct temporal setting providing a) for a considerable length and frequency of exposure allowing gradual accumulation of the experience of co-operation

5 The first four taken over from Jeffrey Checkel and listed also by Alastair I. Johnston (leaving out their fifth hypothesis claiming that “Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when persuader is an authoritative member of the in-group to which the persuadee belongs or wants to belong” which is rather tautological and irrelevant in this research), complemented by another two on the basis of my initial research and drawing upon March and Olsen 1976, Conzelmann 1999, Sverdrup 2000 and Trondal 2002. I would like to thank Petr Drulák for pointing me to the tautology and irrelevance of the above mentioned hypothesis.



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and b) a need to devise and implement pluri-annual programmes necessitating continuous and reasoned discussion.

These scope conditions, in fact, seem to combine Alexander Wendt’s notion of constitutive explanations (Wendt 1999:165-190), i.e. conditions enabling the occurrence of particular events – the necessary preconditions – and causal (transition) explanations or theories, enabling dynamic and “historical” approach, thus allowing for changes to be conceptualised. Positing that actors who make up social systems are “animals with biologically constituted capacities” (1999: 189) and various capabilities at their disposal and that these actors have certain identities, interests and behaviour, Wendt argues that “interests are constituted largely by ideas, which means that social systems are also structured by distributions of knowledge” (ibid). Wendt goes on to claim that common knowledge and shared ideas/meanings have both causal and constitutive effects. Culture (including institutional – L.K.) not only causes but also constitutes agents, having effect on their identities, interests and also behaviour (1999:166). “The dependence of structure on agency and the social process is both constitutive and causal.” (1999:185) Within an evolving co-operation Wendt conceptualises a process of creating new knowledge through experience over time, affecting not only behaviour but also interests and identities. Interests and identities get formed by socialisation, comprising both a process of “learning to conform one’s behaviour to societal expectations” (simple learning) and “a process of identity- and interest-formation” (complex learning). This approach, moreover, recognises that change driven by persuasion often does not occur, leaving plenty of space for rationalist arguments and/or rhetorical action (Schimmelfennig 2000, 2001, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002a,b). Moreover, this conception openly acknowledges that decoupling may also take place, i.e. the longer a social agent resides in a particular setting/unit, the more he/she learns “to talk the talk” (Checkel 2001a:7) or use certain norms and values strategically in “rhetorical action” (Schimmelfennig 2000, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002b), potentially shielding an actor from the socialising force of group pressures/arguments.6 In line with the substance-, not primarily method-driven focus highlighted earlier on, my approach is rather abductive: initial hypotheses formulated on the basis of initial observations of twinning have been refined in the light of further empirical research, resulting in non-linear but rather spiral research progress. I have often faced a lack of prima facie evidence since simple correlation often does not imply causation. This said, more research is needed in order to provide a robust, though perhaps not a definitive test of my arguments (see Suggestions For Further Research at the end of this paper). 6 These are mid-term effects.



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I. Theoretical framework Looking into the phenomenon of twinning from the theoretical perspective, one cannot but theorise this process of socialisation within the larger process of Europeanisation. EU enlargement as such may be conceptualised as a socialisation process7 whereby the constitutive and regulative norms of the EU are diffused to the applicants via the policy of conditionality aimed at inducing compliance with these norms (Schimmelfennig 2000, 2001 and Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002b). Having searched for an appropriate and effective analytic toolkit for my theoretical research of the processes and mechanisms of administrative change within the twinning exercise I found there was not much to get hold on. Any study of interaction where behaviour results from social learning and deliberation leading to preference change – a non-instrumental choice mechanism – requires focusing more on the environment of social interaction than the actors themselves to capture institutions as “active agents in their own right” (Checkel 2001b:18). In my research of twinning, I chose not to focus on the outcome of political socialisation, i.e. the internalisation of values and norms, but on the intervening processes of social interaction (coercion, sanctions, cost/benefit calculations, persuasion, symbolic interaction, etc.) through which agents reach such an outcome and the motives for their behaviour. I focus on the dynamics of change, not just on the results it entails, though these are important, of course, and bring before our eyes the symptoms of administrative adaptation that twinning has induced as well as some other changes. Important dynamics of change come about through collisions of norms and shifts in the interpretation of their relative importance (Sverdrup 2000:15). Constructivist accounts, as Checkel (2000:11) reminds us, lack theories of process, offering correlative arguments in turn. Neither has sociological (or normative, for that purpose) institutionalism, while geared towards studying socialisation within institutional settings, developed adequate, fine-grained categories for analysing organizational structures, behavioral patterns, substantive results and their interrelations (Olsen 2002:12). The challenge I have faced when starting with my research on twinning has been to capture in controlled interviews and document analyses claims that are intuitively or empirically plausible but elaborated insufficiently to allow for empirical testing and generalizing to other contexts, assertions which are tough to operationalise, empirically measure and develop scope/boundary conditions (Checkel 2001c:557). I have relied very much on the constructivist and 7 Socialisation is a “process by which social interaction leads novices to endorse expected ways of thinking, feeling and acting.” (Johnston 2001:494). It is aimed at “creating membership in a society where the intersubjective understandings of the society become taken for granted” (ibid), the hallmark of which is internalisation of pro-social values through multiple (micro-)processes.



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sociological institutionalist literature. Constructivists are strong on the meta-theoretical level but mid-range theories, coming close to a synthesis of a kind, would, as I believe, be needed for substantive research with a theoretical slant because the work on substantive issues in IR, namely those in enlargement literature, have until recently been marred by “theoretical underspecification and methodological challenges” (Checkel 2001a:3).8 Socialisation processes involve both genuine argumentation and persuasion as well as strategic use of norms and arguments (Schimmelfennig 2000, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002a,b) and Fierke and Wiener 1999) and the manipulative use of persuasive appeals (Payne 2001 quoted in Checkel 2001a:9). Actors do act rationally but their rationality is related to achieving and maintaining a positive self-perception which is achieved by belonging to a group with positive value connotations. The following sections of the theoretical part of my paper are turning to neo-institutionalism; agent-structure debate, social learning and symbolic interactionism; and Europeanisation. 1. Neo-institutionalism and organisational analysis Institutionalism, having arisen in contrast to more dominant actor-centric imageries, has evolved into an integrated theoretical research programme, being both structuralist and phenomenological (Jepperson 2001: 26-34).9 Organisational analysis has been long dominated by realist, functionalist and rationalist pictures portraying organisations as “hardwired decision-making structures, functionally adapted to technical environments or powerful interests” (Jepperson 2001: 26), bringing the dominant cultural model in the world system: an actor/interest one, as if a world was made up of bounded, interest-bearing, intendedly-rational, organisational and individual actors (ibid: 34). Until recently, quite modest clarification of the respective contributions and possible complementarities of institutionalist and rationalist arguments. This consequence of mutual disinterest (ibid 26-7; see also Pollack 2000) although the relative wealth of research projects into socialisation of and within states (and institutions) within the European Union drawing on the constructivist approaches has shown the tremendous difficulty of operationalising mainstream agent-structure theories (especially Wendt 1999) when facing empirical research. There is, I firmly believe

8 This case study, as most case studies do, offers only limited possibilities for theoretical generalisation but seeks to improve our understanding – not just description – and exploration of the dynamics of change in the real-life environment of enlargement. 9 In most theoretical accounts, three distinct branches of institutionalisms are classified: sociological, historical and rational institutionalism (e.g. Hall and Taylor 1996, March and Olsen 1984, March and Olsen 1995, Powel and DiMagio 1993, Schneider and Aspinwall 2001, Sverdrup 2000). Guy Peters (1999), however, recognises seven versions of institutionalism: sociological, normative, rational choice, historical, empirical, international regimes and interest groups.



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a need for it, though. Substantive research asks for synthetic, though not necessarily eclectic approaches.10

While focusing on interactions, my aim is to argue against the often implicit causal imagery of people experiencing political and economic systems individually, “reacting to it largely individually[…], and then through their aggregate reactions eventually producing a large-scale cultural commonality – individualism” (Jepperson 2001: 21) which is central to the basic Western cultural models of society which, in turn, attempt to construct nation states and institutions as citizen-individuals (Bolli cited in Jepperson 2001: 20). Institutions are conceived of as neutral arenas where autonomous actors meet. Unlike rational choice theories relying heavily on this tendency to automatically render societal outcomes in individual-level terms (ibid: 22), sociological (and normative) institutionalism treats actors as rather derivative, for analytical purpose. They are seen as context-bound, i.e. subject to many context effects “ranging from the initial contextual construction of modal actor identities, to the collective scripting of activity from identities, to actor’s ongoing dependence upon consultation with ‘others’ for managing identities and making (already highly scripted) choices” (ibid). What is important in sociological and normative institutionalisms is that the choice processes tend to occur within highly institutionalised frames and identities (Jepperson 2001). Institutionalism unsettles the claim by rational choice proponents, which becomes an in-grained belief and sometimes more pretence than reality, that individuals are making unscripted and autonomous choices. Sociological and normative institutionalists point out that, more usually, people are enacting models and scripts of broad collective construction and reach (Jepperson 2001; March and Olsen 1984).11 In extension of this argument, we may even say that they are not really actors in the sense often imagined since much of their menus of choice are highly scripted and institutionally organised. “[They are] more actor-like in some respects, but arguably less actors (…) in other respects” (Jepperson 2001: 31). In that sense, institutionalisation process involves routinised responses, standardisation and authorisation of codes of meaning, methods of reasoning and accounts (Sverdrup 2000). Institutional changes are then continuous routine processes of adaptation to a confusing and complex environment. In this logic, institutions naturally incline to path-dependency or a search for new solutions to be as close to the existing ones as possible (2000:16).

10 These are sometimes referred to as ‘third generation/third wave approaches’ (see e.g. Sverdrup 2000:14). 11 Institutions may be defined as relatively stable sets of rules, practices and meanings embedded in structures of resources defining appropriate behaviour for groups of actors in specific situations, enabling thus individuals to act in a certain manner and the collective to sanction non-compliance (Sverdrup 2000). Sverdrup points out two distinct sets of aspects in institutions: ‘thin’ institutional factors such as rules, incentives and formal arrangements and ‘thick’ institutional factors such as meanings, norms and identities.



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Sociological institutionalism focuses on the fact that people operate as agents of the collectivity (like professionals or state elites or advocates), formulating or carrying broad collective projects (Jepperson 2001). Sociological neoinstitutionalism also appears to give a promising, though not exhaustive, answer to the problematic dichotomy of constitutive and regulative effects of structures upon agents since it allows for a more dynamic/processual/ performative model of agency and, while defocalising agents as individuals, pays more attention to the structure and meaningful practices establishing intersubjective meanings rather than intrinsic agent properties (ibid: 12). The image sociological and normative institutionalisms offer is one of collective-level scripting with individual enactment. Institutions structure decision-making in two ways: 1) they change the behaviour of people by establishing formal rules and creating incentives, and they also 2) change the people and the way they interpret, create meaning and reason through e.g. experiential learning and socialisation (Sverdrup 2000:15). Recently, discussion on European institutional and administrative convergence – running contrary to the above path-dependency propensity – appeared (e.g. Knill 2001, March and Olsen 1995, Mouritzen and Waever 1996, Olsen and Peters 1996, Olsen 2002, Romestch and Wessels 1996). As this strand of research and theorising appears to have much salience for the institutional and administrative transformation underway in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and the twinning exercise in particular, I turned to the question of how much the European forms of individualism, embedding the individual “in more communal social structure of one sort or another”, stimulating thus “less sense of autonomy and less felt social efficacy” (Meyer quoted in Jepperson, p. 24), play a role here, standing in contrast to, say, American individualism or wider, global processes. In other words, to what extent are the current (if any) trends of convergence in domestic administrative institutions12 better explained by “the spreading of new public management ideas and techniques, through ‘harmonising agents’ such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as numerous private consulting firms, rather than by referring to the effects of European integration” [emphasis added] (Sverdrup 2000:5, Olsen 2002).13

The past decade has seen a competition of different administrative convergence hypotheses: a European Administrative Space, a global convergence and an institutional robustness hypotheses (Olsen 2002). Though the term

12 As Olsen (2002) points out “administration” – like many concepts IR is dealing with - has no single and fixed meaning. Basically, it signifies “to carry out, to serve, to implement the law and to take care of the practical details. Yet, ‘administration’ also refers to make decisions, manage, lead, co-ordinate, plan, govern and control.” (Olsen 2002:19). Domestic administrative institutions may be defined as “patterned and stable elements in the governance of the nation-states, affecting and structuring domestic decision-making” (Sverdrup 2000: 8-9). 13 In this respect it will be interesting to watch what – if any at all – challenge will the EU Commission White Paper on Governance be for both the European and national administrations.



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administrative convergence is rather unclear, in general it implies “a reduction of variance and disparities in administrative arrangements. Different administrations develop along the same path in a way that produces homogeneity and coherence among formerly distinct administrations” (Olsen 2002:1; see also Knill 2001). This is sometimes interpreted as a sign of the perceived shift from “government” to “governance” (March and Olsen 1995) and the study of a “transformation of governance” (Sverdrup 2000).14 A European Administrative Space denotes that public administration operates and is managed on the basis of common European principles, rules and regulations uniformly enforced in the relevant territory” (Cardona 1999, OECD/Sigma 1999: 15 cited in Olsen 2002:1). Common, or alike administrative arrangements are alleged to drive out “’local’ principles, organizational forms, rules, standards and practices, pitting any development towards a European Administrative System against “national administrative systems as ‘solid bedrock for nationalism’- idiosyncratic arrangements where the structure of public administration reflects the identity, history and traditions of a specific state and society” (Nizzo 2001: 2 cited in Olsen 2002:1).

The global governance hypothesis, on the other hand, posits a shift from the ‘classical’ weberian public administration (‘Old Public Administration’) to the New Public Management15 (Goetz 2001, Olsen 2002), suggesting that this convergence is nothing particularly European but marks an inevitable turn towards a global convergence (or at least OECD-wide) looking to a more advanced administration (Olsen 2002). Agendas, beliefs, values and objectives are shared more and more across borders (Sverdrup 2000:40). This hypothesis posits the above mentioned shift towards ‘governance’ in the sense of the production of collective goods (Conzelmann 1998:5). It also reflects the difficulty of disentangling these days the idea of management on the one hand and policy-making on the other. Moreover current public administrations the boundaries of what is public and private is never clear cut but rather closely entangled.

The institutional robustness hypothesis – drawing upon historical institutionalism of Hall et al. – claims that both of the above concepts are stretching too far, overestimating the likelihood, scope and speed of convergence. It contends that nation states in Europe and elsewhere in the world will quite surely continue for still a long time with the differentiated picture of various administrative models (March and Olsen 1995, Olsen 2002). This hypothesis treats administrators as “powerful actors in public policy making and administrative 14 Interestingly, there are common strands appearing in various combinations in the current/recent/planned administrative reforms in different West (and some East) European countries. 15 Olsen describes the New Public Management (NPM) primarily as an “instrument for efficient service production, governed by a performance-oriented culture with a focus on results, entrepreneurship and efficiency,” opposed to a centrally organised and rule-bound (legal-bureaucratic) Old Public Administration where formal state structures are endowed with legitimate and unchallenged authority over a territorially defined society. In NPM, the public sector is not distinctive from the private sector. There are “fewer uniform, system-wide rules and procedures and more flexibility and decentralization” (Olsen 2002:3).



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change. Likewise, public administration is a collection of partly autonomous institutions with identities, traditions and dynamics of their own” (Olsen 2002:2), and changing it for the purpose of convergence is a tall task requesting large-scale, complex and dynamic alteration of institutions with pre-existing identities, structures and resources (ibid:4). Institutions are neither static nor smooth adapters and often exhibit traits of loose coupling. Parts of political-administrative systems will thus always remain most strongly influenced by specific national traditions.16 Institutional adaptations are perceived as depending upon a complex match between environmental pressure and institutional characteristics, the “routes and roots of an institution” (Sverdrup 2000:17)

In any of these cases, though, some administrative convergence may happen through attractiveness or imposition. “Attractiveness signifies learning and voluntary imitation of a superior model. [If the approach of a domestic administrative institution is passive, this happens through the mechanisms of model learning or simple copying – L.K.; cf. Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002a,b.] The receivers copy an organizational form because of its perceived functionality, utility or legitimacy. Likewise, a common model can emerge through joint deliberation, or each country facing the same challenges can independently develop similar solutions” (Olsen 2002: 4). Administrative convergence due to imposition, on the other hand, presumes the use of authority or power (ibid). A type of this convergence may be perceived in the conditionality of transposition and implementation of the acquis communautaire by candidate countries, requiring them to accept organizational forms “not for their inherent characteristics but as a condition of membership, legitimacy or side-payments” (ibid:5).

Only a limited number of systematic studies in European administrative convergence have been conducted. In general, studies in administrative law report more convergence than studies by empirical social scientists (Olsen 2002:6; see also Goetz 2001:227). “European signals have been interpreted and modified through domestic institutions in ways that have limited the degree of convergence and homogenization. EU arrangements have been compatible with the maintenance of different national institutional structures and practices. Established national patterns have been resistant but also flexible enough to cope with changes at the European level” (Olsen 2002:8). Neither the European, nor the global convergence hypotheses have been corroborated by empirical studies so far.17 Institutional adaptation at the domestic level within the process of European integration is greater in countries in transition and in need of socio-economic 16 Bureaucracies thrive on the security-maximising environment of standard operating procedures. They are thus less likely to generate reconfigured policy agendas. 17 Ulf Sverdrup (2000) has identified three major mechanisms explaining the lack of administrative convergence: 1) ambiguities at the European level create fragmenting pressure on domestic institutions, leaving a considerable leeway for local/domestic variation in the pattern of adaptation – in short, there is no shared understanding of the “best practice”; 2) adaptation processes are exploiting existing arrangements, i.e. administrative structures and procedures; 3) Europeanisation is not dramatically different from international co-operation and global pressures through established professional networks (2000:41).



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transformation which uncovers the “soft belly” of these nation states and their administrations: transition makes them more open, receptive and vulnerable vis a vis external influences. Conceptions of the “exemplary” administration are challenged, previous models are disposed of, “old expertise is scrapped and new types of knowledge, skills and training are demanded. Trust in institutions disappear or emerge. Organizational structures, roles and cultures are branded illegitimate and new ones are legitimised” (Olsen 2002; for an argument to the contrary in case of domestic administrative institutions in the current member states see e.g. Sverdrup 2000: 5, Knill 2001). This strand of institutionalism takes history (of an institution) as the framework of reference, in sync with Wendt’s own preference (Wendt 1999) of bringing more of structure and history into analysing. To sum up, the greatest institutionalist contribution has been not leaving aside the effect of existing institutional contexts on the key variables in the process of change. 2. Agent-Structure Problem and Symbolic Interactionism: Dominant Social Mechanisms of Interaction The following section will present a short excursion into the famous agent-structure debate occupying IR and European studies researchers. I will briefly introduce the ways in which rational choice and constructivist look at agency and structure and how they theorise change. In this, I will focus mainly on Wendt’s account of structural change which is offered in his Social Theory of International Politics (1999). For remedy of the blind spots I find in his theory18 which is in other respects a tremendous piece of scholarship and a daring, worthy and respectable plunge at “grand-theorising” I will turn to social learning and argumentative persuasion which, as I will argue, has much in common with the notion of symbolic interactionism embedded in Wendt’s framework and suggests to amend the imperfections of Wendt’s theory. Both rationalists and constructivists have been busy theorising how agents and structures are related to each other in the world of IR and “how much freedom do agents have in doing what they do as they are both enabled and constrained by the structures of their society” (Suganami 1999: 366). The latter question is linked directly to social transformation and both the accounts seek to theorise structural change. We can thus note two major approaches to policy change, depending on two different sets of variables: a conflict-based approach with power and preferences as the key variables (rational choice), and a knowledge-/learning-based approach

18 For a recent inspiring critique of these aspects of Went’s theory see Suganami 2002.



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whose variables are knowledge and information (social constructivist/institutionalist).19

The underlying ontology of the rational choice perspective is individualist. Preference is given to methodological individualism and consequentialist, cost/benefit choice mechanisms (neo-utilitarian, interest-based). Change is occurring only slowly and as a function of the new incentive structure. Any ‘rational’ change is a change in preferences of single actors or emergence of new actor coalitions – though this distinction is often arbitrary (Conzelmann 1998:7). Emphasis is put on coercion, cost/benefit calculations, and material incentives. Actor’s interests are given and identities fixed throughout strategic interaction where interaction is understood only as “strategic exchange among egoistic, self-interested actors” (Checkel 2001c:556), “collapsed into utility functions of discrete agents” (ibid: 561).20 They posit unilateral calculations which include beliefs of decision-makers who work out the consequences of their beliefs about the world which also includes other decision-makers. This, however, is almost naïve when applied to domestic administrative institutions engaged in international politics in one way or another since extensive organisational and administrative research has shown that the rationality of administratives and organisations is limited and bounded, given the complex, incoherent and non-imperative administrative environments which only seldom render public administration with clear competences, rules, objectives and incentives (e.g. March and Olsen 1995, Mouritzen and Waever 1996, Olsen and Peters 1996, Olsen 2002 and, most famously, Allison 1999). Constructivist accounts, more specifically those combining an ontological stance critical of methodological individualism with a loosely causal epistemology (e.g. Checkel, Trondal, Egeberg) put emphasis on social learning, socialisation, and social norms.21 They are building on the logic of appropriateness, partly based on normative evaluation but also a matter of perception and cognition under the limitation of bounded rationality (Sverdrup 2000:15). By ontologically claiming mutual constitution, i.e. the reproduction of social reality through the interaction of agents and structures, constructivists offer greater theoretical balance between structure and agency. They are seeking to answer the theoretically and empirically important question of how preferences come to be defined in the first place (as suggested in the Introduction). Alexander Wendt’s theory goes into great lengths addressing this issue and he is doing his best to do it justice. However, while very appealing on the metatheoretical and macro-sociological level, it is hard to employ in empirical research. That is also why Wendt (1987: 364-5) makes such an extensive use of the bracketing strategy, although his framework would implicitly 19 For more see Conzelmann 1998:6-14. 20 True, if rationalists allowed interests to “change in the course of strategic interaction, then it becomes virtually impossible to model behaviour” (Lynch quoted in Checkel 2001c: 556). 21 Unlike Checkel’s work displaying theoretical ambition and expertise, Trondal’s and Egeberg’s studies are primarily empirical studies reflecting constructivist theory.



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invoke a theory of social choice and interaction (Checkel 2001c: 553).22 By emphasising the socially constructed bases of compliance with certain cultural norms, the subsequent constructivist argument is that in the process of diffusion of new social norms, calculations in the game of cost/benefit analysis change, influenced by non-instrumental interactions. Inspired very much by these insights, the institutional robustness hypothesis – informed by normative and, in part, sociological institutionalism – mentioned in the previous section of this paper, holds that administrators are primarily the guardians of institutionalized values, interests and beliefs (March and Olsen 1995, Brunsson and Olsen 1993, Olsen 2002), not that the administration is simply one self-interested part of a political struggle among contending interest, building coalitions and alliances (Olsen 2002). Those who propose this theory, warn that “change in reform rhetoric, formal rules and organizational charts, behavioural practices and substantive outcomes can be loosely coupled” (ibid:4; Sverdrup 2000). Drawing upon the above theoretical accounts of structural change, the following dominant social modes of interaction may be identified for the purpose of tracking adaptation processes and mechanisms affecting domestic administrative institutions, each of them operating according to a specific logic and in response to different pressures:

A change by IMPOSITION • EXTERNALLY DRIVEN ADAPTATION (logic of consequences)

1) instrumental adaptation (rational choice rationality, conditionality including

material side-payments, bargaining game - Moravcsik 1998; Schimmelfennig 2000, 2001)

2) coercion (excluded from pre-accession) - because of functional and real dependencies

A change by ATTRACTIVENESS

• INTERNALLY DRIVEN ADAPTATION (logic of appropriateness) 3) imitation/emulation (either simple copying of behaviour – Jacoby 2002 or model learning – Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002a)

22 As Ulf Sverdrup stresses out, only individuals can act, chose and decide, therefore social phenomena should be analysed from the actions and interactions of individuals, through structures they operate within must be taken into account (2000:15).



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4) open-end social interaction a) deliberative/ argumentative discourse and persuasion (Habermasian argumentative rationality) - championed by several constructivists (e.g. Risse 2000, Checkel 2001b,c and 2002), yet the most undertheorised and the least robust of the modes of adaptation presented here; stresses the quality of contacts (interaction), focuses on agency and interaction but struggles with defining principled arguments (for interviewees) especially where third parties were to be and were involved (e.g. in the fields of environment, social affairs or trade issues); persuasion is a microprocess of socialisation resting upon cognition and involving “changing minds, opinions, and attitudes about causality and affect (identity) in the absence of overtly material or mental coercion” (Johnston 2001:496), potentially leading to common knowledge or a homogenisation of interests - rather private settings b) social influence (Johnston 2002, Flockhart 2003) – a socialisation microprocess eliciting pro-norm behaviour through distribution of social rewards (psychological well-being in the shape of, e.g. increased status, sense of belonging, close relationship with a positively valued group) and punishments (public shaming, opprobrium, exclusion, demeaning, withholding of promised rewards) - rather public settings - because of perceived functionality, utility or legitimacy; depending on varying durability of norms

These modes of behaviour are then usually followed by institutionalisation, i.e. rule-governed behaviour (March and Olsen 1995, Olsen 2002). Social Learning and Argumentative Persuasion In today’s Europe, nation states are both competing with and imitating one another. Besides traditional bargaining, the role of argumentative persuasion23 in domestic politics, i.e. in particular, institutional and historical contexts, delimits the causal role of persuasion/social learning (Checkel 2001c: 553) taking place in an increasingly international - broader European and global - context.

23 Argumentative persuasion is to be distinguished from manipulative persuasion. The latter, prominently featuring the work of a number of rational-choice scholars, Andrew Moravscik being the most notable one, is “asocial and lacking in interaction, often concerned with political elites manipulating mass publics, and has a long tradition”, characteristic by its “individualism and emphasis on strategic agency” (Checkel 2001c:262). The former, on the other hand, is a “social process of interaction that involves changing attitudes about cause and effect in the absence of overt coercion. It is thus a mechanism through which preference change may occur”… “an activity or process in which communicator attempts to induce a change in the belief, attitude, or behaviour of another person…through the transmission of a message in a context in which the persuadee has some degree of free choice.” It “is not manipulation but a process of convincing someone through argument and principled debate.” (ibid:562).



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Both constructivists and sociological institutionalists stress the importance of socialisation24. Socialisation is a “process of learning in which norms and ideals are transmitted from one party to another”, resulting in internalisation of norms (Siegel 1965, as quoted in Checkel 2001a:22) and occurring through several different causal mechanisms and in different arenas: macro/public (bringing about social contention – socialisation promoted through a politicised and public process) and micro/private (social learning – depoliticised settings where confidentiality and privacy prevails, Checkel 2001a: 10). The latter acts often but not always as a trigger for the former while the former is necessary to lock in well the latter. Socialisation is an “induction of new members into the ways of behaviour that are preferred in a society” (Risse et al. 1998 cited in Flockhart 2003:5). It presupposes a status of ‘noviceness’ and unequal relationship with the norm entrepreneurs as the wise ‘old masters’ knowing “what constitutes acceptable behaviour within the social group” (Flockhart 2003:5). It is thus different from learning since “it presupposes that what is to be learnt, is already practiced by the norm promoting actors” (ibid). Rationalists offer an account of simple learning or Bayesian updating: after each interaction, actors use new information acquired through strategic interaction to (later) update beliefs about other agents: communication and language conceptualised in thin terms, as “the cheap talk of agents with fixed identities and interests”, bracketing the interaction context through which fundamental agent properties may alter (Checkel: 561; also Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002a), disallowing for genuine changes in beliefs and attitudes. Complex or double-loop learning, standing in contrast to information updates providing a fresh basis for constant rational calculations, is employed by constructivists, though has not been created by them. It has been drawn from cognitive and social psychology and some branches of organisation theory (Checkel 1999, 2000, 2001a,b). Agent interests and identities are shaped through and during interaction but the account is still rather individualist in nature (relying implicitly on notions of bounded rationality, learning by doing, and heuristic cueing).25

Symbolic Interactionism Since socialisation processes involve both genuine argumentation and persuasion as well as strategic use of norms and arguments and the manipulative use of persuasive appeals, as suggested in the introductory part of he present paper, comprehensive handling of institutional dynamics is needed. Though Wendt’s theory is a thorough and mostly appreciable one and despite the fact that his account of change in international politics features a promissing theory (or rather

24 For constructivists, socialisation is a central concept. 25 Not all persuasion and subsequent social learning are good; suboptimal social learning such as “groupthink” is rather undesirable.



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set of approaches – see Stryker 1980), symbolic interactionism26, as a major theoretical pillar, Wendt’s own incorporation of this concept in its entirety into his theoretical framework is not satisfactory. In other words, I venture to claim that he does not make enough of it. Symbolic interactionism in its numerous varieties developed from the work of George Herbert Mead and his understanding of society as a process whereby identities and social structures come into existence, undergo changes, and disappear (Stryker 1980, Hewit 1976). Symbolic interactionist approaches conceptualise identities and social structures (institutions/administrations for our purpose) not as fixed but rather as created and subsequently shaped by social interactions. These social interactions produce social meanings on the basis of which individuals then act and react and which are interpreted and modified by individuals (Stryker 1980). Interactions take place within the framework and always through complex symbolic systems, language being one of them, built out of and through shared meanings allowing for meaningful interactions and practices. It is through symbols that individuals link with social structure by taking their own roles and assigning roles for others (role-taking, role-making and altercasting).27 Within a polity, individuals hold multiple identities and these are context bound: an identity becomes salient or important in a given moment depending on the context in which people act (Risse 2002: 77-82). It is due to multiple identities of agents that interests (and identity) redefinition occurs through the process of social learning. So, while Wendt makes enough effort at conceptualising and highlighting the role of interactions he does not go far enough – as far as to give his full recognition to the mechanism of social learning within institutional settings, though it is explored in quite a promising way by some symbolic interactionsts (e.g. Stryker 1980, Hewit 1976), which is one, though not the only, indispensable mechanism of modification of institutional (and national, for that matter) identities on the basis of preference change and subsequent interest redefinition which then diffuses and locks in. This, at that, documents the truly constitutive impact of institutions and institutional mechanism frameworks. The self-images and identities of social actors are held to be constituted from the institutional forms, images and signs provided by social life (Hall and Taylor 1996). Thus, social context is an important variable in how well information reduces uncertainty in transactions and in which direction this direction is reduced (e.g. friend-or-foe identification mechanisms) (Conzelmann 1998) In my process-tracing effort within the twinning exercise (Part II of this paper), I shall seek to disengage as much as possible preference changes driven by 26 Wendt 1999: 328f. For bringing this dimension of Wendt’s social theory of international politics to the fore and exploiting this topic see Drulák 2002. 27 The tremendous role which symbolic issues and organisational culture play in the set-up and functioning of institutions and organisations was analysed by DiMagio and Powel (1996) in their observations of mimetic isomorphism.



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persuasion and social learning from those driven by calculating, self-interested strategic adaptation or one driven by passive, cognitively simplifying imitation – emulation (Checkel 2001c:566), though finding indicators of a genuinely persuasive interaction is very difficult (see Part II, the methodological section). 3. Europeanisation In this section, I would like to come back to the question raised in the first part of my “theoretical frameworking”: is twinning an indication of the “enlargement” of the concept of Europeanisation – a process, not the outcome, of domestic cognitive, institutional and political change resulting from greater interaction with the EU’s institutions as well as with member states (Radaelli 2000, Schimmelfennig 2000, 2001 and Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002a,b)28 or is it rather a mark of modern polities being increasingly organised around distinct variants of a common – Western – cultural model with growing isomorphism among nation-states? Originally confined to current member states, along with the enlargement preparation, the concept of Europeanisation has incrementally been applied to the applicants too, the core argument being that the EU has become capable of expanding its governance – i.e. politics, policies and polity – beyond its boundaries (Friis and Murphy 1999, Papadimitriou 2002), impacting thus on applicant countries (CEECs) even before they join in. From the domestic policy-making impact, Europeanisation was aptly defined by Tanja Börzel (1999: 574) as a “process by which domestic policy areas become increasingly subject to European policy-making.”29 In the vast and much differentiated literature on Europeanisation linked with EU enlargement, a crucial role is given to conditionality. Conditionality is a basic strategy through which international institutions promote compliance by national governments by offering them incentives. As such, conditionality induces a growing intrusion into the core socio-political attributes of nation states (Checkel 2000: 2). Three key aspects or modalities of conditionality have been identified: 1) pre-conditions; 2) trigger actions; 3) policy provisions as additional commitments30. By compliance we understand the “extent to which agents act in accordance with and in fulfilment of the conditions prescribed by international institutions” (Checkel 2000:2). As non-members, candidate states have been experiencing higher levels of uncertainty with regard to access to EU structures. 28 As Ulf Sverdrup puts it: the shadow of the future is more important and relevant than the practice of the present (2000:22) 29 Though the literature on Europeanisation reveals considerable variation in the extent and character of adaptation between different spheres and issue areas (Sverdrup 2000:25) 30 For detailed accounts see Checkel 2000: 3, Schimmelfennig 2000, Schwellnus 2002a, Grabbe 2001, Fierke and Wiener 1999.



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This helps to explain the extensive adaptation to increase legitimacy and reduce uncertainty (Sverdrup 2000:37) One of the issues specific to a set of new adaptational pressures, quite unsimilar to the pressures exerted on existing members, is a pressure for sufficient and sustainable administrative capacity, thus impacting upon domestic administrative institutions. Following the fate of Member States and their domestic administrations, institutions with a traditionally high level of autonomy were put under pressure to obey an increasing number of instructions and guidelines (Sverdrup 2000). On the whole, however, we could say that the EU has opted out for rather passive, “reactive reinforcement” (Schimmelfennig 2000, 2001 and Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002a) than for active intervention into the domestic structures of the applicants. What makes compliance problematic, is the question of ownership of reforms, brought along by adaptations, at home (Checkel 2000: 3). When speaking of norms, the issue is relatively clear: compliance depends on whether the adaptational pressures are high, i.e. in cases of institutional/policy misfit between domestic structures and EU regulation structures, or low, i.e. in cases where EU rules easily accommodated (Schwellnus 2002a:2). The extent of domestic adaptation is dependent upon external demand for change and on how this external pressure – both formal and informal, normative and functional, entailing sanctions and/or incentives – fits with the interests and structure of the affected domestic administrative institution (Sverdrup 2000:25).31 With implementation practices and procedures and the related structural (institutional) changes, things suddenly become more complicated and fuzzy due to varying and not prescribed (normative) character of adaptation. An important role is assigned to “practices entrepreneurs” (see “norm entrepreneurs” in Börzel and Risse 2000). These moral entrepreneurs, i.e. “individuals open to learning from norms and willing to promote them” (Checkel 2001c:574), exhibit features of “epistemic community members” (Adler and Haas 1992).32 This process of modal and procedural adaptation involving changes in practices and decision-making paths is in some way similar to the “negative” integration paradigm: when the EU does not prescribe a specific model, Europeanisation induces domestic change by altering – through not necessarily – the opportunity structure, thus redistributing powers and resources of domestic actors (Checkel 2001c), backing reformers with the necessary arguments for continuing transformation while making losers of others. Here, only models and templates for mimetic adaptation are provided, allowing for divergent implementation (as seen in the case of privatisation etc.), e.g. potential emulation of models provided by different member states (Jacoby 2002) which is fully dependent on the salience of EU membership and compliance by institutional decision-makers (moral 31 A pressure for change must be set against the importance of pre-established institutional (interest) networks and structures. For more see Sverdrup 2000. 32 The same information is interpreted differently depending on whether it comes from “people like us” or from a “devalued other” (Johnston 2001:491).



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entrepreneurs) as well as on the particular country’s and institution’s “reform fit”, i.e. the extent to which Europeanisation in the administrative sphere is in line or interfering with the processes of modernisation and overall reform (Radaelli 2000a: 18). So, although conditionality applies to norm adoption, the change in (normative) environment – a constitutive change – does not necessarily entail an equally strong and identical change (adaptation) in the domestic administrative institutions of the nation state (Sverdrup 2000, Olsen 1996 and 2002, Rometch and Wessels 1996, Knill 2001, Risse et al. 2000, Grabbe 2001, Fierke and Wiener 1999). “The most standard institutional response to novelty is to find a routine in the existing repertoire of routines that can be used. External change and reform initiatives are interpreted and responded to through existing institutional frameworks. Convergence consistent with the identities and dynamics of institutions will be fairly smooth. Convergence in conflict with such factors will create conflict” (Olsen 2002; see also Olsen 1995). So, in spite of an constitutive adaptation through new experience forming the context for what is appropriate, right or wrong behaviour, rules and norms, adaptation to an altered environment, political choice and institutional identities may – and usually does – take a long time, often limited by path-dependency (Sverdrup 2000:62).33 Needless to say that generational turnover plays an important role as well, especially with respect to public administration reforms in transition countries. II. The Twilight of Twinning 1. Institutional and Procedural „Xerox“, or Rather Collegial Inspiration? In 1997, the European Commission came up with Agenda 2000. Here, the suggestion was to provide the candidate countries with assistance, within the Accession Partnerships framework, with their preparation to join the European Union (EU) through institution building. As a key element in the revised pre-accession strategy, the European Commission decided to assist the candidate countries in their adoption of the acquis communautaire and its subsequent implementation and enforcement by the public administration and relevant institutions to the same standards as the current members.34 The Commission came 33 In most rational choice concepts public administration is viewed as an “instrument for realising the sitting government’s goals and priorities” and “institutional solutions are therefore a result of design” where “changes will be a result of changes in goals by the political leaders or shift in political leaders” – assuming that political leaders have “insight, have willingness, and are able to realise their goals” (Sverdrup 2000:61). This model perceives administration as subject to a conscious political design and control. For an argument in the opposite direction see The Theoretical Framework of this paper. 34 The alternative, i.e. the executives searching to influence their external environment rather than adapting their domestic institutions and policies to it, could not be the option here, due to non-membership in the EU where



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up with a brand new instrument: twinning. The goal of twinning is a direct provision of expertise and transfer of experience with the functioning of public administrations implementing the acquis in different member states to public servants in candidate countries. This move by the Commission came in recognition of the varied institutional histories, patterns and trajectories in Europe35. Traditionally, though involved in and organising many debates on public administration reform, the EU, as Olsen (2002:5) reminds, has not been particularly attentive to and focused on administrative issues. It was much rather policy making and substantive results than administrative arrangements that ranked top in Brussels, no less for the limited legitimacy of the Commission and its modest administrative capacities for this task. In spite of the Commission keeping an intentionally low profile, the EU has paid great attention to the institutional capacities of applicant states and has exerted a strong pressure on the candidates to modernise their administrations (Grabbe 2001; Lippert, Umbach, Wessels 2001). Agenda 2000, in general, was a helpful move in removing much of the ambiguity over the conditionality of CEEC’s membership (Grabbe 2001). Also, this came in response to the growing frustration in Brussels over the growing and disconcerting gap between word and deed among applicant countries (ibid).36 There is clear adaptational pressure for norm and, more generally, acquis adoption37 but no pressure for a specific procedural change. This leaves a leeway for national institution traditions and character to shape different and unique solutions to the same pressure, possibilities and challenges. Europeanisation in this sense is not dichotomous (Sverdrup 2000:41). There is no well-developed encompassing public administration within the EU, no “institutional blueprint” for domestic administrations to adapt to, no shared understanding(s) of a distinct “best practice” in terms of structure and procedures (Sverdrup 2000:18), though the White Book on European Governance seeks to set standards for the performance. The lack of a clear overarching public administration model and the relatively weak European powers for imposition of specific changes in domestic administrations might be also considered as a factor for facilitating European integration (Sverdrup 2000:44). “Adapting to European integration through the dynamic of exploiting existing institutional arrangements can therefore be seen as one way of smoothening the adaptation process. A tighter coupling in processes of Europeanisation might therefore…lead to decreased legitimacy and effectiveness.”

member states are the masters of the treaties (showing that the ultimate competence in the integration process is in the hands of member states), the conditionality of the acquis, and to the Copenhagen criteria. 35 “[Twinning] brings the candidate countries into wider contact with the diversity of practice inside the EU.” (Twinning in Action:5). See also Grabbe 2001: 1023. Diverse diffusion of norms and standards as well as varied adaptation and only limited convergence in member states was also reported by Olsen and Peters (1996) 36 The issue of an implementation deficit, however, has become both a matter of academic debate and serious concern to the Commissioners already in connection with the existing member states’ failures to implement what they have obliged to do. 37 For more on the specific nature, effects, and implication of the acquis see Joergensen 1999.



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(2000:45). Europeanisation processes are rather loosely coupled than carefully planned and conceptualised (ibid). This also means that to study twinning one cannot adhere to or create any general theories of adaptation, i.e. of how European integration in certain fields and areas triggers adaptation in certain domestic administrative institutions. Twinning projects have been launched in all sectors where the transposition of the acquis communautaire started. The major aim is to “assist candidate countries in acquiring the independent capacity to adopt, implement and enforce the full acquis … before accession to the European Union” (A Reference Manual on “Twinning” Projects 2001:11). Following this initial phase of institution building where CEEC’s public servants and institutional decision-makers may draw upon the assistance and advice from their “experienced” colleagues from the same resorts holding equivalent posts, they shall be able to build and/or to reinforce sufficient institutional capacities, structures, systems, procedures, human resources and management skills for successful EU law enforcement.38 This was perceived both as a threat and opportunity by domestic institutional actors. The ultimate goal of twinning is to assist the Czech Republic in becoming, after some time, capable of autonomous fulfilment of EC law-related tasks, effective implementation of the transposed acquis and further sustainable development of its own structures. This new instrument is a clear evidence of the EU capable of adopt new managerial techniques and strategies while exercising flexibility and rehearsing the concept of a “learning institution”. Twinning operates on the basis of concrete projects whose “suppliers” are chosen in a selection procedure much similar to standard tenders, and the project is then pre-arranged in quite a detail through a contract or a twinning covenant. A twinning covenant, drafted entirely by the two twinning parties/partners, includes specific goals to be met through agreed guaranteed results, reached via a series of pre-defined procedures and steps taken within an agreed time-frame, supplemented with a precise division of tasks between the partners and a detailed breakdown of costs. Thou having all the properties of a business contract, twinning covenant lacks any penalisation clause – there are no mechanisms of material or social sanctioning in twinning. The assumption is that this exercise, after all, is an expression of free will, voluntary assisted adaptation and true effort on the part of the candidate country to meet its pre-accession obligations and join the EU as soon as possible. Neither is potential “non-performace” by the supplier, i.e. the member state, provided for in the covenant. Both the covenant and twinning as such are ultimately contingent on the fulfilment of obligations by both partners. The member state makes an obligation 38 Pre-Accession Advisors’s task is to assist with standards and rather technical issues instead of direct involvement in overall institutional models or policy directions. Their expertise and advice is not controlled centrally by the EU - though monitored to a certain extent – and their impact is rather diffuse, as Heather Grabbe suggested (Grabbe 2001: 1024).



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to do all it can to arrive at the guaranteed result – providing such basic “pres” are in place, such as timely amendments of relevant legislation or sufficient domestic institution’s staff to make the twinning work.39 The candidate country, on the other hand, undertakes to provide the “Chief Twin“, i.e. the Pre-Accession Advisor (PAA), with maximum support, earmarking enough financial and, most importantly, human resources of the domestic institution.40 Key to twinning is political will – not only of the receiving institution but of the whole executive and the Parliament. Twinning has been built on the premise that a candidate country selects, on the basis of its short- and mid-term priorities set out in the country’s Accession Partnership focusing on specific parts of the acquis transposed, a certain type of an administrative model or system which it would see as a good inspiration, not a model to be “transplanted”.41 Following the early phase of EU aid provided to CEECs, the Commission set out to make clear to all the receiving institutions that twinning is not a one-way street, a unidirectional provision of technical assistance but that it is a thoroughly bilateral concept built on the principle of partnership. Not only that twinning, unlike the adoption of the acquis, allows for feedback mechanisms (the exercise was partly redesigned in 1999-2000, based on the first-round projects and responses made by participants). This more participatory and consultative approach refraining from material inducements and coercion which would invoke the economic model of human/state behaviour inducing compliance through material incentives and coercion and suggesting continuous cost/benefits calculations within the framework of consequentialist logic of means-end calculations where interests and preferences are assumed to be fixed (Checkel 2000:4) is also a sign of the political sensitivity of defining specific administrative models, recognised by the Commission. The Commission has clearly stayed clear of the taskmaster role here to the role of knowledge banks with the emphasis on the production and dissemination of knowledge, i.e. the transfer of expertise. “Compliance [policy transfer/implementation – L.K.] is induced not so much by the incentives and coercion as through education and teaching by the international institutions [the EU here – L.K.] and learning at the national level.” This assumption and supplementation of conditionality is based on a more sociological model of human/state behaviour (Checkel 2000:5-6). Implanting a “model” system with its working procedures surely is not desirable. Inspiration by the experience of 39 This has worked where deadlines have been perceived with the same importance by both the twinners and the beneficiaries. For use of deadlines as an organising principle see Sverdrup 2000:71. 40 Pre-Accession Advisors are backed by Project Leaders, remaining in the home administration to ensure continuity and select short- and mid-term experts. 41 For the purpose of my research inspiration is defined as a suggestion from an influential source taken by the receiving institution as a starting point of the skeleton/part of its own, locally-adapted solution. Transplantation, on the other hand, is an uncritical taking over (copying) of a concept without any regard to the original context and its potential misfit with the target context. Examples of inspiration and transplantation would include, among others, the Social Insurance Agency and the initial PPP (public-private partnership) model, respectively.



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the member state with, either a similar administrative tradition/structure or with progressive conceptions receiving positive domestic reaction, organically introduced and integrated then into the domestic context, on the contrary, is. The objective of twinning is to make the applicant country’s organisation fully functioning, effective, financially self-sufficient, sustainable and dynamic after the series of twinning projects end. This is a distinct shift in the conception and implementation of EU aid. Twinning is conceived as no direct and immediate “delivery without the demand” but a as “tailor-made project” with allowing for slight changes in cut and design right on the client42. Clearly, the Commission has not opted here for a “single best way of organising administration” while recognising that the definitions of “good administration” always hinge upon specific, time- and place-bound ends, purposes and values (Olsen 2002). What is new here is the idea of permanent co-operation of the partner administration. The aim is to build long-term relationships between existing and candidate states, their public administrations, agencies and bodies on national, regional and local levels and in a cross-section of sectors, foregrounding a favourable environment for future interactions within the enlarged EU framework for smooth governance.43 This, again, is an evidence of supplementation of conditionality by a policy-dialogue approach (Checkel 2000:5) which helps to build political support and consensus for reforms through consultation of a spectrum of stakeholders even outside the institution in sectors and policies where conditions and the very nature of the issues allow so.44 Once more, we see a reflection of a sociological model. The goal is not to change the calculations of domestic actors but their ways of thinking if they chose so, i.e. if they are persuaded in argumentative and deliberative interactions. In other words, “making hesitant reformers enthusiastic adapters” (Sverdrup 2000:75) 2. Czeching the Hypotheses Out This section is a summary of the initial findings from the first phase of the empirical research of Czech twinning projects. Following a short account of the methodological approach taken, a brief narrative gives an overview of the findings from the early stages of research. These are then set within the matrix of five hypotheses outlined in the introductory part of this paper. Research Design The empirical part of my research builds upon qualitative methods: 42 Projects may be adjusted to the course of events and unforeseen changes during the implementation phase. 43 For an “EU-isation” of European executive elites see e.g. Grabbe 2001. 44 E.g. not in the case of implementing co-ordination rules on the export of social benefits by member states or in planning money-laundering measures to be implemented by central banks.



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* First, interviews were conducted with a) Pre-Accession Advisors, b) Czech public servants involved directly in twinnings c) Czech twinning co-ordinators, d) representatives of the Delegation of the European Commission in Prague.45

* Second, qualitative content analysis of open sources and internal or grey literature a) conceptual documents by the Commission, b) evaluative surveys done the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, c) Twinning Evaluation Report by the Commission d) quarterly twinning project reports provided to the Commission e) minutes of the meetings and internal communications (only by Czech administrators and in several instances however) was carried out.46

* Third, obstacles and constraints have been identified and grouped as a) legal (lack of necessary legislation), b) institutional (e.g. historically constructed norms embedded in organisations acting as barriers), c) personal (language incompetence, prejudices, lack of ‘pacta sunt servanda’ conviction, level of prior information, etc.) * Fourth, indicators of domestication/internalisation of procedures on a) collective level (programmatic documents and internal regulations), b) individual levels (minutes, internal reports and communications, interviews). Having uncovered the setting before the projects, I have sought to reconstruct of preference change in actors involved in twinning projects under investigation. The key persuasion variables for this purpose were the historical context and institutional setting as twinning deals with deeply institutionalised matters: changing of procedures and policy implementation often involves a change of in-grained beliefs. There are, of course, several setbacks and deficiencies in this research. First, I was unable to provide any rigorous tests and prima facie evidence. Second, the limited number of twinning projects covered (12)47 prevents me from making any authoritative conclusions. Third, examination of Czech twinnings only is unlikely to give a more representative picture of the mechanisms and processes of socialisation and administrative adaptation within the framework of this instrument in CEECs, suffering from the typical weaknesses of single-case studies. Fourth, the time-frame is rather restricted, allowing for a tighter, more comprehensive research control but limiting the chance to follow more substantial and consistent

45 The main fieldwork was done between September 2001 and May 2003. 46 The time span was the same as above. 47 These twelve projects have been chosen out of the 31 completed, 41 under implementation, and 20 in preparation (as at 4 June 2003). The sectors covered included the Ministry of Regional Development, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Finance as the most involved ones in institution building and pre-accession preparation in general.



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preference/administrative change over time. Institutional changes are always easily traceable and analysable over a long course. Moreover, as Sverdrup (2000) points out, there is a risk of observing stage(s) of transition rather than permanently new states. An expanded time-frame and sample would most certainly lead to less prudent and more authoritative conclusions on a more general level. And finally, different independent variables might lead to the same result and effect on the dependent variable. It is difficult to isolate effects of Europeanisation from other external and internal dynamics, especially the larger process of globalisation (see Conclusion) though careful process-tracking may mitigate the damage (Sverdrup 2000:35). These shortages are openly acknowledged and addressed in brief in the last section of this paper. My final remark on the research design is that the research questions neither are nor shall be treated as mutually exclusive – either/or questions. They are, instead, empirical investigations seeking to reveal the mixture and combination of these different dynamics when examining processes of Europeanisation in domestic administrative institutions (Sverdrup 2000:32) Overview of Findings In the year of its launch (1998), twinning brought eight projects to the Czech Republic in five areas highlighted as priority ones. In 1999, fourteen new projects were initiated, some of them extending quite substantially to social and business development areas. In the following years, the material scope has expanded even further, increasingly involving non-ministerial bodies and agencies tasked with some aspects of acquis implementation.48

An analysis of the interviews with Pre-accession Advisors, Czech administrators directly involved in twinnings, Czech twinning co-ordinators, and officers of the Delegation of the European Commission in Prague and examination of surveys done by Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Twinning Evaluation Report by the Commission, quarterly reports provided to the Commission, minutes of twinning-related meetings and internal communications reveal that in its early days, twinning largely met with distrust and lack of interest on both sides. First tenders49 in the Czech Republic but also elsewhere were not exactly perfect50. Like other candidate countries, neither did the Czech Republic have realistic

48 Twinnings (Twinning 2003 projects) have recently been scheduled to wind up by 2005/2006 (An interview with a National Contact Point officer on 4 June 2003). 49 Candidate countries’ “receiving institutions” identify their needs, requirements and expectations through project fiches which are circulated simultaneously to all member states (MS), inviting them to submit proposals if interested in tendering for the implementation of particular projects. Consortia of several MS are welcome. 50 For example, receiving institution’s officials were not invited to selection interviews in a few cases. Similarly, receiving institutions were not able to formulate their twinning covenant requirements. (Interviews with an EC official in July 2002, Prague, and with EU member states’ twinners between March 2002 and May 2003, Prague).



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expectations of the possible and feasible results.51 On several occasions, administrators from the receiving institutions were missing at the meeting of the selection committees. Up until now, delays in funds transfer from Brussels make matters more (or very) complicated. All three sides involved in twinning generally agree that the first round of twinning projects signed in 1998 suffered much from lack of experience with this new instrument demanding flexibility, creativity and a generous helping of sensitivity from all of them. These were rather vague, pilot indeed projects with little realism and real commitment. Over time, however, Czech public administration has learned that twinning is not here to provide them with instant solutions but open the door for them into the kitchen of institutions across Europe tasked with the implementation of the same portion of acquis. The initial lack of trust from Czech administrators often stemmed from feeling threatened in their own administrative environment, changing way too much already, by a foreign culture and external actors – “administrative competition” and “violators of the set hierarchy”. The fact that it was the Commission that came up with this concept did not help matters too much either, both member and candidate countries perceiving twinning as an “initiative from the above” at first. While member states were not particularly happy to send their experts abroad as they needed them where they were doing good job of implementing the acquis in their home institutions, Czech public servants, in turn, took them as “Brussels ambassadors”, identifying them in their heads with the infamous bureaucracy and imperative mores. Some ministries were able and willing to commit only the absolute minimum co-operation needed. Co-ordination and continuity were rare commodities indeed: loose coupling was the norm. When opinions differed, little effort at seeking consensus often bewitched the first twinning projects; discussion and arguing about different opinions was many a time replaced by ignoring of foreign experts. Over time, however, member states have found out how to balance out their experts at home and those on twinning missions. Their choices of experts have also grown better. In most cases, the familiarity of short-term experts with the needs of Czech receiving institutions – strangely underspecified in calls for bids, too – and the Czech sectoral background has improved. The Czech administrative, on the other hand, has learned how to earmark human and financial resources on its side and get the backing of the general political will. Also, feedbacks have started working in many cases, although not as a rule. In due course, the selection procedure got also better. All the three sides knew what to expect and demand. The less ambitious have projects grown, the more care is given to their design and drafting. In short, this new instrument has become well established which is a crucial thing for public administration, building

51 For example, one of the guaranteed results required by Czech Ministry of Agriculture within its first twining projects was a complete design and implementation of the first phase of restructuring of the whole ministry allowing for future implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy.



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in large part on routine, while still retaining a substantial degree of flexibility and new insight. Empirical Findings vs. Research Hypotheses: A Perfect Match or an Awkward Fit? In this section, initial research findings are examined in the light of the five hypothesis devised by J.T. Checkel in his work on social learning and argumentative persuasion. These have been chosen for combining conclusions of previous findings in research on social interaction within institutional settings while offering a most promising blend of discursive and behavioural indicators.

1) HYPOTHESIS 1: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when the persuadee is in a novel and uncertain environment – generated by the newness of the issue, a crisis, or serious policy failure – and thus cognitively motivated to analyze new information. The first phase of empirical research has revealed substantial cognitive uncertainty. Both the member states’ and candidate state’s public officers (twinning agents) were finding themselves in unfamiliar positions and uncertain environment where no previous co-operation existed – with Czech administrators sometimes lacking feelings of deeper national embeddedness but that was not a rule. Czech public officers mostly acknowledged a lack of positive definitions of their new institutional identities and programmatic efforts (i.e. own unclear preferences), sometimes working under the conditions of deep crises in performance/legitimacy and external shocks, effectively proving more receptive to external influences and allowing for more radical and extensive institutional adaptations. On the other hand, the chances of gains for some opportunity structures within and outside the institutions have been high.52 This sometimes prevented argumentative persuasion or open exchanges. But these opportunity structures ultimately benefited not from the novel and uncertain environment but from the transformational mixture of gaps and overlaps as well as a lack of clear political and managerial control typical for a post-communist country and institutions.53

Besides the evidence that at some institutions (ministries) institutional legacies clearly worked against social learning and argumentative

52 Integration challenged and altered relationships between different units within governmental bodies and public administration institutions. 53 An absolute majority of PAAs constantly pointed out in their quarterly and final reports that the administrative structure and distribution of work was unclear and ineffective and that, most importantly, political and civil service levels have not been separated in the Czech public administration. (“Out of the five faces I was supposed to deal with as my ministerial counterparts four have gone since we started our twinning project a year ago” – an interview with a Finnish PAA on 19 June 2003.)



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persuasion, frustrating the plans of some institutional agents to push trough adaptative measures (involuntary defection dynamics highlighted by rational-choice theorists), several other structural obstacles such as unhospitable financial and sometimes wider political environment hindered faster/more profound/any at all changes.

However, on the whole, this hypothesis has been corroborated by my initial research.

2) HYPOTHESIS 2: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective

when the persuadee has few prior, ingrained beliefs that are inconsistent with the persuader’s message. Put differently, novice agents with fewer cognitive priors will be relatively open to persuasion.

Both parties, i.e. twinners and domestic institutional actors, have been novices with few ingrained conceptions of their work which promoted preference and, in turn, procedural, sometimes wider institutional changes through persuasion and learning. These may be labelled as changes in normative structures in line with sociological and constructivist accounts of structural change.

The incipient research findings suggest that in projects, and especially in the core twinning actor groups where novices – both in terms of age and seniority – and where, moreover own agenda/strategy was missing and daily agendas of Czech administrators was overloaded, with the twinning projects side-lined, copying and emulation was observed since domestic actors were in a “receiving” mode (Checkel 2001b:13), emulating “good/best practice” as they often believed.

In some instances, domestic actors have proved very cautious of open interaction (Czech public servants, in turn, took them as “Brussels ambassadors”) – institutional historical legacy being rather ambiguous in such cases – due to previous minimum exposure to both such intensive and extensive international co-operation. The role of language competence also had a big impact. But where objective interests were not always clear, invocation of pan-European values usually helped in opening the interaction and allowing for argumentative persuasion.

3) HYPOTHESIS 3: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when persuader does not lecture or demand but, instead, “acts out principles of serious deliberative argument.” The empirical research in the first phase of this project has clearly indicated that where exploration and arguing, not lecturing and social/material sanctions were at play, preference change and interest redefinition seemed to occur (i.e. were reported or admitted by interviewees



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and, in some cases, got translated into programmatic institutional documents). What proved extremely helpful on the part of PAAs was their admittance of their own problems (in their briefs on own compliance and success record), following the strategy of sharing both success and failure, as a means of warning and strong persuasion ammunition. The dominant mode of interaction in Czech twinnings in general was not criticism and finger-pointing but argumentation and deliberation. Only then, also was the whole twinning exercise, besides the practices suggested by PAAs perceived as legitimate.

4) HYPOTHESIS 4: Argumentative persuasion is more likely to be effective when the persuader-persuadee interaction occurs in less politicised and more insulated, private settings.

Twinning projects researched have frequently involved interactions in private settings, in camera meetings and informal exchanges of opinion besides more formal interactions. These have proven highly conductive to argumentative persuasion – not so much social influence - with both sides often reported to have given their ground. Quite interestingly, several Czech senior officials – PAA counterparts, most often from among the European Union section/department staff – proved moral entrepreneurs, i.e. “individuals open to learning from norms and willing to promote them” (Checkel 2001c:574), exhibiting features of “epistemic community members” (Adler and Haas 1992). This development was supported by the frequency, duration and patterns of contacts/exposure (for their role see Egeberg 1999, Trondal 2001) providing for shared models of the world. But whenever the setting was more formalised and involved senior or top-level public officers, meetings/interactions usually became more politicised, promoting thus a shift to a bargaining games.54 Again, language competence (and ease of communication) proved to be a notable obstruction or catalyser in the interactions.

5) HYPOTHESIS 5: Argumentative persuasion is more likely when persuadees

in domestic administrative institutions are facing ambiguity in the process of necessary adaptation (i.e. unclear goals, difficulties in interpreting histories and experience, unclear organisational boundaries and structure of participation as well as unclear technologies of change).

The first phase of twinnigs (Twinning 1998 and 1999), in particular, was

characterised by the above structural conditions. But also the later phases

54 Several PAAs suggested that very often, Czech top civil servants were either not fully or at all aware of “EU issues”. This, along with the Candidate Countries administration funding, raises question marks about the impact and sustainability of twinning.



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were often typified by these ambiguities due to a generational turnover and, chiefly, due to the interlacing of the political and civil service levels (i.e. political turnover). What made adaptation and argumentative persuasion easier in many cases was the fact that the Czech Republic is close to the continental Europe’s group of statist, public law and legalistic regimes, a fact rendering, on the other hand, namely the structural and procedural recommendations by UK experts more difficult to embrace, let alone to understand since the Anglo-Saxon model is based on a different tradition. Also, were the receiving institutions had a clear or relatively clear idea about the intended outcomes of the administrative adaptation instruments were often lacking and the ownership of a “technology of change” by PAAs was frequently the breaking point after which co-operative behaviour took over defensive attitudes.

6) HYPOTHESIS 6: Argumentative persuasion is more likely within a distinct

temporal setting providing a) for a considerable length and frequency of exposure allowing gradual accumulation of the experience of co-operation and b) a need to devise and implement pluri-annual programmes necessitating continuous and reasoned discussion.

On average, twinning projects last between one and two years. Over the time, the relatively high frequency of direct (personal contact) and indirect (e-mails, reports, phone calls etc.) interactions have mostly created in-groups where co-operative behaviour developed and often prevailed, given the high priority of most of the twinning covenants’ goals and guaranteed results. This is related to the fact that the need for drafting and preparing for the implementation of pluri-annual programmes to have a crucial impact on the future functioning of domestic administrative institutions (and programme beneficiaries) gradually eliminated conflicting and non-co-operative behaviour. Debates over such programmatic documents often cleared out the communication channels and time pressure (“deadlines as an operating principle”) made the actors on both sides realise the need to throw off most of their entrenched views in favour of reaching a consensus on the best-functionality model of programming/programme implementation.

The hierarchic and top-down structure in Czech administration allowed for concentrated, not diffused effect of persuasion and new policy/practice introduction. However, one cannot but see also the danger of the general lack of progress in the horizontal level of public administration, i.e. problems of financially poorly motivated administrators struggling with aggravated internal



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environment. These, as a number of other externalities, tend to intervene and rather obfuscate the picture. Conclusion The initial empirical research of twinning in the Czech Republic has shown that, once the exercise has been tuned out within the first two years upon its launch, it has generally become the most effective transfer of the “European” know-how. The research has proven the multi-governance suggestion that “although the locus of decision-making still is the nation state, the politics [and policies and polities] within that policy arena may be heavily influenced by the EC context” (Conzelmann 1998:6). On the basis of the initial research summarised in brief in the previous section, the empirical findings seem to contest the previously suggested forced institutional import hypothesis. Although some of the first twinning projects showed signs of voluntary imports, these were rather reflections of misunderstanding of the instrument and its goals on the side of domestic institutions, intimating their lack of experience and passive receptiveness due to historical baggage or professional cum existential uncertainty. In such exceptional cases, administrative identities of domestic institutional actors involved in twinning were weak or almost missing in the interaction. Administrative identities – dependent variables in my research – are the results of socialisation processes, and in the context of this research are defined as domestic institutional identities. “Institutional identities are defined by rules and values which go beyond the immediate functional tasks of institutions” (Drulák 2003:3). In this case, administrative identities reflect how Czech civil servants relate to their domestic institutions.55

In most cases this mode of transnational interaction has brought about voluntary selective domestication of some aspects of the experience, procedures and structures related by administrators of member states through both rational bargaining and, to a much greater extent, social learning and argumentative persuasion with substantial value transmission effects. The process has been largely controlled by domestic administrators and has been mostly of inspirational nature.56

The research on twinning so far indicates that the main socially constructed “actors” of modern society (organisations, states and individuals) indeed are not “tightly integrated, highly bounded, strictly autonomously-acting entities, hardwired outside of society” but rather as “open entities interpenetrated with

55 For the difference and tensions between domestic and European institutional identities in Czech civil service see Drulák 2003. 56 For a similar observation regarding the EU and German regional politics see Conzelmann 1998.



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institutional environments, and hence loosely coupled and varying in particular construction” (Jepperson 2001: 30).57 They are constantly elaborating and taking up models for organising and acting (ibid). This confirms the essentially contested nature of institutions highlighted by Maja Zehfuss (2001: 339) which Wendt happened to have lost from his social theory of international politics. With interaction and choice as functions of persuasion and learning – social construction being more deliberative than strategic – “fundamental agent properties become endogenous to, and change through, the very process of interaction” (Checkel 2001c:579). This underpins e.g. Checkel’s argument for a decision-making theory which includes in its analysis the ways in which preferences, beliefs, and desires are shaped by participation in the decision-making process itself (ibid). Twinning also seems to highlight the role of intersubjective meaning in the constitution of practices (Kratochwil 1989, Ruggie 1998). Twinning was designed as a tool of making the conditionality clearer and “more palatable”, premised on a much more social ontology, i.e. knowledge and norms and non-consequentialist theory of action – learning and persuasion (Checkel 2000:6), designed to have an effect on the interests and preferences of national decision-makers in the institutions involved; the Commission has learned quite well from its colleagues, experts on modern management and successful legal process (ibid) and my hunch – given several interviews I have had with EU officials responsible for twinning – is that it may have drawn upon the constructivist strand of academic research highlighting the role of persuasion and non-strategic bases of human/state action (Risse 2000, Checkel 1999, 2000, 2001). This, in short, enables to see national agents as both strategic actors and as social beings capable of learning and value change (Checkel 2000:10). Twinning involves both instrumental choice and social learning mechanisms, substantiating the need for synthetic approach where process, operationalisation and scope issues are involved, especially in relation to empirical research (Risse 2001, 2002, Pollack 2000, Checkel 1999, 2001a, 2001c). In the study of these processes and mechanisms of the adaptation of domestic administrative institutions, symbolic interactionism holds a big promise in terms of refinement of substantive theories. What I see as this research’s “added value” in terms of constructivist and institutionalist research programmes is that is seeks to trace and theorise preference change on both/all sides, i.e. the change of identities, interests and behaviour of both the persuaders and persuadees (hypothesis 4), the lack of which perspective Checkel saw as a flaw in his own research. The early findings suggest corroboration of the thesis of historical institutionalism that institutional development and administrative change is contingent not only on efficient functional adaptation to current environmental and political pressures but also on the origin, history and internal dynamics of a 57 Which does not, however, chop off just about any claims and virtues of agency. Agency is structured by and aims to structure, at the same time, the “domestic” norm environment.



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particular institution (March and Olsen 1995) – a valuable contribution by institutionalists to the change mechanism. These act as both the “enablers” and “inhibitors” of the institution, the latter translating into path-dependency. In spite of the fact that conditionality applies to norm adoption, the change in (normative) environment does not necessarily entail an equally strong and identical change in the domestic administrative institutions of the nation state (see above). In extension of this argument, Europeanisation of domestic administrative institutions is negotiated. In sum, this paper argues that twinning brings along a much finer (inspirational) process of structural change depending on administrative identity of candidate countries’ actors involved: voluntary selective domestication of the governance culture–experience, expertise, procedures, and structures–of EU member states. Even though Europeanisation brings about certain similarities in institutions and their practices, changes in the “genetic makeup” of domestic organisations hinge on the degree and intensity of socialisation. In answer to the last remaining question from the Introduction: twinning is indeed an indication of the “enlargement” of the concept of Europeanisation – a process, not the outcome, of domestic cognitive, institutional and political change resulting from greater interaction with the EU’s institutions as well as with Member States. Yet, without having to subscribe to the New Public Management thesis, we cannot overlook the number of cues and empirical findings in the direction of rendering Europeanisation as part of a process underway in today’s global polities increasingly organised around distinct variants of a common – Western – cultural model with growing isomorphism among nation-states. This is proved by the commonality of recent public service solutions and trends within the OECD area, for example. Suggestions for Further Research Besides the almost entirely missing macrohistorical side to the social institutionalist analysis (especially in CEECs) several caveats in my current research invite entering into and suggest areas for further improvement. First, extension of the empirical research would be needed to include both more twinning projects in the Czech Republic and to add up at least one more accession country. Besides the rather obvious choice of Slovakia, Bulgaria or Romania come in to mind as examples of second-wave accession countries which would also allow for an interesting instrument-evolution comparison. Second, greater time-span would enable more insight and bring more robust data. Third, further refinement and expansion of the hypotheses on the basis of the above suggested further empirical research would be likely and necessary to



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genetically modified organisations? twinning as a case of

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