Europeanisation and Democratisation. Institutional Adaptation, Conditionality and Democratisation in European Union's Neighbour Countries.

This book collects various essays presented at the conference "Europeanisation and Democratisation: The Southern European Experience and the Perspective for the New Member States" held in Florence from 16 until 18 June 2005. The editor of this book selected some of the essays discussing the relation between Europeanisation and democratisation in new member states and neighbour countries. He also tried to emphasise the comparative approach and to analyse the interaction between Europeanisation and democratisation. This means the role of Europeanisation in the consolidation and orientation toward the EU model of democracy of newly admitted and neighbour countries. This comparison aims to draft a more coherent explanation for the basic puzzle of this book: why does the EU promote democracy? The starting hypothesis of the editor of this book is that EU pressures for democratisation aim at enlarging the European free market area and at providing stability and security inside and outside the EU borders. The promotion of democracy and the rule of law, as well as the adoption of the acquis communitaire and the respect for human rights, are all functional to EU's aims.The main hypothesis is that external influence does not provide a fuller explanatory model for domestic adaptation to European norms and practices in EU's neighbour countries. In other words, internal factors will shape the impact of EU action and will make it more or less influent. Besides, the editor of this book infers that institutional adaptation for non-member states could be the equivalent of the Europeanisation impact on member states. Thus, democratisation becomes part of the "external Europeanisation" (in its meaning of institutional adaptation) and is dependent upon it.